Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 4.djvu/607

Rh der in cold blood; and therefore my determination is to spare the life even of this man, and will oppose his being put to death by every means in my power."

was easy to see, that fear of their own lives only, and not cruelty, was the reason they sought that of the Arab. They answered me, two or three of them at once, "That it was all very well; what should they do? should they give themselves up to the Bishareen, and be murdered like Mahomet Towash? was there any other way of escaping?" "I will tell you, then, since you ask me what you should do: You shall follow the duty of self-defence and self-preservation, as far as you can do it without a crime. You shall leave the women and the child where they are, and with them the camels, to give them and their child milk; you shall chain the husband's right hand to the left of some of yours, and you shall each of you take him by turns till we shall carry him into Egypt. Perhaps he knows the desert and the wells better than Idris; and if he should not, still we have two Hybeers instead of one; and who can foretell what may happen to Idris more than to any other of us? But as he knows the stations of his people, and their courses at particular seasons, that day we meet one Bishareen, the man that is chained with him, and conducts him, shall instantly stab him to the heart, so that he shall not see, much less triumph in, the success of his treachery. On the contrary, if he is faithful, and informs Idris where the danger is, and where we are to avoid it, keeping us rather by scanty wells than abundant ones, on the day I arrive safely in Egypt I will cloath him anew, as also his women, give him a good camel for himself, and a load of dora for them all. As for