human
Those who are cowards and find the greatness of thy adventures too great for them, now they have tasted hardship, mutter in secret against thee, Ahmara said.
gpt
There are some who mean to band together and refuse to follow thee past the last-known oasis which is marked on thy maps. They say, that from what they have heard, thou art indeed mad to think that a caravan can live in unknown deserts where there is no water. Once they believed in thee so firmly if thou hadst told them thou couldst cause water to spout from dry sand they would have taken thy word for truth. But now the white girl, who is too proud to be thy wife because thy faithful one followed thee into the desert, has bewitched the men. They think she is a _marabouta_, a saint endowed with magic power, and that her spirit is stronger than thine. They will offer themselves to _her_ man, when we come to the place where the known way ends, if he will promise to lead them straight to Egypt, without wandering across the open desert to seek thy Lost Oasis.
human
Her man! echoed Stanton, the blood suffusing his already bloodshot eyes as in an instant it reddens those of an angry St. Bernard.
gpt
What do you mean?
human
Thou knowest without my telling, my Chief. The man whose idol she is. There is but one man--the man who watches over her by day and night, and makes himself her slave.
gpt
You're a fool, Ahmara, Stanton said roughly.
human
Don't you suppose I've got sense enough to see why you want to put such ideas into my head? You're jealous of my wife. St. George and she are nothing to each other. As for the men, like as not they growl in your hearing because they hope you'll repeat their nonsense to me and give me a fright. That's all there is in it.
gpt
I know thou art a lion and fearest nothing,