16 
TWO MADMEN. 
fellows, determined to follow us — perhaps to show 
" by one satiric touch " what kind of madcap enter- 
prise was ours. The first was a jN^eapolitan, who 
had dogged me all the while I was at Tripoli, pes- 
tering me to make a contract with him as servant. 
To humour his madness, I never said I would not ; 
and the poor fellow, taking my silence for consent, 
had come out asking for his master. They tried to 
send him away, but he would take orders from 
none but me. I gave him two loaves of bread and 
a Tunisian piastre, and also made him a profound 
bow, politely requesting him to go about his busi- 
ness. He did so in a very dejected manner. During 
the time he was with the caravan he worked as hard 
as any one else in his tattered clothes, and, per- 
haps, he would have been of more use than many a 
sane person. 
The other was a madman indeed, a Muslim, 
with an unpleasant habit of threatening to cut every- 
body's throat. Hearing that we were going to Sou- 
dan, he followed us, bringing with him a quantity " 
of old metal, principally copper, with which he pro- 
posed to trade. He gave himself out as a shereef. 
or descendant of the Prophet. No sooner had he 
arrived than he began to quarrel on all sides, and, 
of course, talked very freely of cutting throats, stab- 
bing, shooting, and other humorous things. Every 
one was afraid of him. He fawned, however, on us 
Europeans, whilst he had a large knife concealed 
under his clothes ready to strike. They were obliged 
