Arthur fell asleep at last, and did not waken till after sunrise, nor did Ulysse, who must have been exhausted with crying and struggling.  When they did awaken, Arthur thinking with heavy heart that the moment of parting was come, he saw indeed the other three slaves busied in making bales of the merchandise; but the master, as well as the Abyssinian, Fareek, and the little negro were all missing.  Bekir, who was a kind of foreman, and looked on the new white slave with some jealousy, roughly pointed to some coarse food, and in reply to the question whether the merchant was taking leave of the sheyk, intimated that it was no business of theirs, and assumed authority to make his new fellow-slave assist in the hardest of the packing.

Arthur had no heart to resist, much as it galled him to be ordered about by this rude fellow.  It was only a taste, as he well knew, of what he had embraced, and he was touched by poor little Ulysse’s persistency in keeping as close as possible, though his playfellows came down and tried first to lure, then to drag him away, and finally remained to watch the process of packing up.  Though Bekir was too disdainful to reply to his fellow-slave’s questions, Arthur picked up from answers to the Moors who came down that Yusuf had recollected that he had not finished his transactions with a little village of Cabyle coral and sponge-fishers on the coast, and had gone down thither, taking the little negro, to whom the headman seemed to have taken a fancy, so as to become a possible purchaser, and with the Abyssinian to attend to the mules.

A little before sundown Yusuf returned.  Fareek lifted down a pannier covered by a crimson and yellow kerchief, and Yusuf declared, with much apparent annoyance, that the child was sick, and that this had frustrated the sale.  He was asleep, must be carried into the tent, and not disturbed:  for though the Cabyles had not purchased him, there was no affording to loose anything of so much value.  Moreover, observing Ulysse still hovering round the Scot, he said, ’You may bide here the night, laddie, I ha tell’t the sheyk;’ and he repeated the same to the slaves in Arabic, dismissing them to hold a parting feast on a lamb stuffed with pistachio nuts, together with their village friends.

Then drawing near to Arthur, he said, ’Can ye gar yon wean keep a quiet sough, if we make him pass for the little black?’

Arthur started with joy, and stammered some words of intense relief and gratitude.

‘The deed’s no dune yet,’ said Yusuf, ’and it is ower like to end in our leaving a’ our banes on the sands!  But a wilfu’ man maun have his way,’ he repeated; ’so, sir, if it be your wull, ye’d better speak to the bairn, for we must make a blackamoor of him while there is licht to do it, or Bekir, whom I dinna lippen to, comes back frae the feast.’