The old sheik and his followers then betook themselves to their camels; and the kafila was hurried up the dry bed of the river, leaving the wreckers to continue their toilsome and unprofitable task. CHAPTER SIXTY FIVE. SAILOR BILL'S BROTHER. After leaving the coast, the travellers kept at a quick pace, and Sailor Bill and his brother had but little opportunity of holding converse together. When the _douar_ had been pitched for the night, the old salt and the "young gentlemen", his companions, gathered around the man whose experience in the miseries of Saaran slavery so far exceeded their own. "Now, Jim," began the old man-o'-war's-man, "you must spin us the yarn of all your cruising since you've been here. We've seen somethin' o' the elephant since we've been cast ashore, and that's not long. I don't wonder at you sayin' you 'ave been aboard this craft forty-three years." "Yes, that is the correct time according to my reckoning," interrupted Jim; "but, Bill, you don't look much older than when I saw you last. How long ago was it?" "About eleven years." "Eleven years! I tell you that I've been here over forty." "'Ow can that be?" asked Bill. "Dang it, man, you'll not be forty years old till the fourteenth o' next month. You 'ave lost yer senses, an' in troth, it ain't no wonder!" "That is true, for there is nothing in the Saara to help a man keep his reckoning. There are no seasons; and every day is as like another as two seconds in the same minute. But surely I must have been here for more than eleven years?" "No," answered Bill, "ye 'ave no been here only a wee bit langer than tin; but afther all ye must 'ave suffered in that time it is quare that ye should a know'd me at all, at all." "I did not know you until you spoke," rejoined Jim. "Then I couldn't doubt that it was you who stood before me, when I heard our father's broad Scotch, our mother's Irish brogue, and the talk of the cockneys amongst whom your earliest days were passed, all mingled together." "You see, Master Colly," said Bill, turning to the young Scotchman, "my brother Jim has had the advantage of being twelve years younger than I; and when he was old enough to go to school, I was doing something to help kape him there, and for all that I believe he is plased to see me." "Pleased to see you!" exclaimed Jim. "Of course I am." "I'm sure av it," said Bill. "Well, then, brother, go ahead, an' spin us your yarn."