Page:In Desert and Wilderness (Sienkiewicz, tr. Drezmal).djvu/141

 Rh such a threatening attitude that Idris was compelled to reply to their questions in the greatest haste in order to avoid attack.

Stas, who had imagined that the inhabitants of the Sudân differed from other Arabs residing in Egypt only in this, that they believed in the Mahdi and did not want to acknowledge the authority of the Khedive, perceived that he was totally mistaken. The greater part of those who every little while stopped the caravan had skins darker than even Idris and Gebhr, and in comparison with the two Bedouins were almost black. The negro blood in them predominated over the Arabian. Their faces and breasts were tattooed and the prickings represented various designs, or inscriptions from the Koran. Some were almost naked; others wore "jubhas" or wrappers of cotton texture sewed out of patches of various colors. A great many had twigs of coral or pieces of ivory in their pierced nostrils, lips and ears. The heads of the leaders were covered with caps of the same texture as the wrappers, and the heads of common warriors were bare, but not shaven like those of the Arabs in Egypt. On the contrary, they were covered with enormous twisted locks, often singed red with lime, with which they rubbed their tufts of hair for protection against vermin. Their weapons were mainly spears, terrible in their hands; but they did not lack Remington carbines which they had captured in their victorious battles with the Egyptian army and after the fall of Khartûm. The sight of them was terrifying and their behavior toward the caravan was hostile, for they suspected that it consisted of Egyptian traders, whom the Mahdi, in the first moments after the victory, prohibited from entering the Sudân.

Having surrounded the caravan, they pointed the spears with tumult and menace at the breasts of the