The fight was over, but the Arabs had come out of it with a badly
crippled force.

Of the twenty-five men who had attacked the adventurers' camp ten
had been killed outright and half a dozen others so badly wounded
that they could not move. Hardly one of them had not received some
minor injury, and the very fact that they had made such a poor
showing against two American boys and a Krooman armed only with an
axe, filled Muley-Hassan with savage rage.

Furiously the slave-dealer ordered the two boys brought before him.
A huge fire had been lighted by his followers and in the glare cast
by this he received them. It was a wild scene and the two boys
hardly knew whether they were awake or dreaming, as they were
roughly hustled into the presence of their captor.

Diego de Barros, his cruel, thin lips curled in a sneer that showed
his yellow teeth, stood by the side of Muley-Hassan, the latter a
tall determined-looking man with a crisp, curly black beard and a
sinister cast of features. A long burnoose of white, worn after the
Arab style, hung from his head and framed his dark features, which
were just then overspread by a frown as black as thunder.

Outside the circle of firelight lay the bodies of the victims of the
Krooman's axe and the boys' bullets. All who could do so of
Muley-Hassan's followers were gathered about him, as the two young
Americans were brought face to face with the man they had such good
reason to fear.

"So these are the young Americans?" he asked as Billy and Lathrop