Page:Paine--Lost ships and lonely seas.djvu/177

Rh death when he sang Irish songs and danced jigs for the Arab women, and so delighted them that they fed him on porridge, or "stirabout," as he called it, until he swelled like a balloon.

That astute chieftain, Ahamed, reappeared on some important errand of tribal conference, and again held discourse with Captain Paddock concerning the ethics of the slave-trade. In his stately fashion he declaimed:

It was this same masterful Bedouin, lord of the desert wastes, who enlightened Captain Paddock as to what had befallen the frigate which drove ashore where the Oswego's crew had discovered the sea-washed timbers, the roofless huts of stone, and the heap of human bones. It was a very large war-