The morning meal was eaten as soon as prepared. Its scantiness surprised our adventurers. Even the more distinguished individuals of the horde partook of only a very small quantity of milk, or sangleh. The two sheiks alone got anything like what might have been deemed an ordinary breakfast; while the more common class, as the half-breeds, _hassanes_; and the negro slaves had to content themselves with less than a pint of sour milk to each, half of which was water, the mixture denominated _cheni_. Could this meal be meant for breakfast? Harry Blount and Terence thought not. But Colin corrected them, by alleging that it was. He had read of the wonderful abstemiousness of these children of the desert; how they can live on a single meal a day, and this scarce sufficient to sustain life in a child of six years old; that is, an English child. Often will they go for several successive days without eating; and when they do eat regularly, a drink of milk is all they require to satisfy hunger. Colin was right. It was their ordinary breakfast. He might have added, their dinner too; for they would not likely obtain another morsel of food before sundown. But where was the breakfast of Colin and his fellow-captives? This was the question that interested them far more than the dietary of the Bedouins. They were all hungering like hyenas, and yet no one seemed to think of them, no one offered them either bite or sup. Filthy as was the mess made by the Arab women, and filthily as they prepared it, boiling it in pots, and serving it up in wooden dishes, that did not appear to have had a washing for weeks, the sight of it increased the hungry cravings of the captives; and they would fain have been permitted to share the scanty _dejeuner_. They made signs of their desire; piteous appeals for food, by looks and gestures, but all in vain; not a morsel was bestowed on them. Their brutal captors only laughed at them, as though they intended that all four should go without eating. It soon became clear that they were not to starve in idleness. As soon as they had been started to their feet each of them was set to a task; one to collect camel's dung for the cooking-fires; another to fetch water from the brackish muddy pool which had caused the oasis to become a place of encampment; while the third was called upon to assist in the loading of the tent equipage, along with the salvage of the wreck, an operation entered upon as soon as the sangleh had been swallowed.