directions to ascertain the fact, previously to taking their ultimate
measures; for the sheik himself had some pretty just notions of the force
of a vessel of war, and of the danger of contending with one. The result
of his policy, therefore, will better appear in the course of the
narrative.

The reception of the two envoys of Captain Truck was masked by that
smiling and courteous politeness which seems to diminish as one travels
west, and to increase as he goes eastward; though it was certainly less
elaborate than would have been found in the palace of an Indian rajah. The
sheik was not properly a sheik, nor was the party composed of genuine
Arabs, though we have thus styled them from usage. The first, however, was
a man in authority, and he and his followers possessed enough of the
origin and characteristics of the tribes east of the Red Sea, to be
sufficiently described by the appellation we have adopted.

Mr. Monday and Mr. Dodge were invited by signs to be seated, and
refreshments were offered. As the last were not particularly inviting, Mr.
Monday was not slow in producing his own offering, and in recommending its
quality, by setting an example of the way in which it ought to be treated.
Although Mussulmans, the hosts did not scruple about tasting the cup, and
ten minutes of pantomime, potations, and grimaces, brought about a species
of intimacy between the parties.

The man who had been so unceremoniously captured the previous night by
Captain Truck, was now introduced, and much curiosity was manifested to
know whether his account of the disposition in the strangers to eat their
fellow creatures was true. The inhabitants of the desert, in the course of
ages, had gleaned certain accounts of mariners eating their shipmates,
from their different captives, and vague traditions to that effect