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Roy Glashan's Library
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Captain Kettle, K.C.B., 1903,
with "Limited Free Trade"
THERE are no makers of artificial limbs in Southern Morocco, though if one were to set up, he would drive a flourishing trade. But Mr. N. A. McTodd was a man of quick resource. Within an hour of seeing Captain Kettle ride in maimed on his camel, and hobble into his Casadir house with the help of a crutch, he had measured his patient, and had drawn a plan of projected improvements in charcoal on a white-washed wall. Within a day he had rigged a lathe, and turned a wooden leg out of a piece of ash, smart enough (as he said himself) for royalty.
It was collared white for the sake of cool appearance, and was shod with a heavy cast-brass toe, expressly guaranteed to resist wear. "For Saturday nights and Sundays," said McTodd, "I'm going to turn ye a leg of mahogany, which I'll get a gun-maker in the bazaar to inlay with ivory and mother-o'-pearl. But that'll no' be a piece of furniture to knock about carelessly. So I'll trouble ye to learn your steps on this less meretricious instrument which Eve designed for everyday wear. What's it you've done to Fenner? The boy's lost half his flush and all his cough, and his nose has grown bigger than ever. He gives his orders right and left like an admiral, and the humorous thing is I find myself taking them with never a question; and ye'll note when ye watch, that so do others."
Captain Kettle chose and lit a fresh cigar. "That boy's grown, Mac, in a way that makes me proud. He's no strength, he's the poorest kind of shot, he's no command of language as either you or I understand it; but there's something about him that makes men prick their ears when he talks, and then go right off and do what's been said. It's a funny thing, too, to see how fond he is of kids. If he can get two or three youngsters round him to play with, and laugh with, and give presents to, he's as happy as a girl with a new hat. But the rum thing is," the little man added thoughtfully, "that directly he's gone from them, he seems to turn savage against his luck, and just tears into his work as though that kept him from thinking of other things."
"I've noticed," said McTodd, scratching his nose with a black finger nail, "I've noticed, Skipper, that there are men whose great idea in life is marriage and a family. I've had few ambeetions in that direction mysel'. There have been one or two ladies that kept apartments, who, I'll own, have attracted me; but not for long. Besides, between ourselves (and there's few that will have guessed it), I've always had the whiskey to contend with."
"It's a great pity," said Kettle thoughtfully, "that there are so many drunkards and teetotallers in the world. Intemperate men like those are the curse of whiskey Hullo, here's the boy. Boy, you shouldn't go about at that pace with your sore lung."
Fenner swung into the room panting, tipped himself on to a divan, and mopped his bony forehead and his hectic cheeks. "Confound you, Skipper, let my ailment alone! I'm not dead yet by a long chalk, and I honestly believe my chest is mending. I've only had one go of coughing the whole of this morning in spite of the sand storm that's blowing."
"That," said Kettle, "is the result of that Chest Reviver patent medicine which I recommended, and which you were so scornful about. I think you ought to write to the inventor, and very likely he may publish your letter on his next wrappers."
"Well, well, the result's the thing, and the process doesn't matter. As for the letter, I'll get you to do that, and turn it into poetry if you like. Composition's not my strong point. But I just must have health and strength now. There's trouble on ahead with the Kaid."
"Kaid Who?" said Kettle bristling. "I left Sheik Hadj Mohammed Bergash in command here in Casadir, and if he's made any one Kaid and put that man above himself, it's been done without my permission."
"Hadj Mohammed has made himself Kaid. He made the announcement a week ago, and had a powder play and a big sheep killing to honour it. He's a fine horseman, is our Mr. Bergash, and a bit of theatrical powder play is just the thing to show off his points. It seems a rumour soaked down to the coast here about ten days ago that there had been another scuffle up-country, and that neither you nor I would ever turn up again. I can imagine he bore the prospective loss with equanimity. He's a shifty devil, our Mr. Bergash. While we've been away, there's been one French steamer in and two German, and he's been flirting with all three."
Captain Kettle started up on the divan, and held out a hand. "Here, Mac, help me to ship this wooden leg. I've got business at the Sheik's house. I guess I'll bring that man down to main deck level before he's an hour older. A Kaid is he, by James? Here's promotion."
"Hold on," said Fenner. "Let's hear exactly what you're going to do first. Our dear friend Bergash is not quite a fool. He's guessed there might be ructions this morning, and he's ready for them."
"How do you know that?"
"He's doubled his own private guard since last night. My man told me his house is just bristling with soldiers, and they aren't armed with seven-foot gas pipes, either. The excellent Bergash has had a taste for collecting Winchesters lately, and I guess he's quite enough to go around, and won't be afraid to use them. No need to put your head into another wasp's nest."
The little sailor flushed. "Mr. Fenner," he said stiffly, "I don't see there was any occasion to bring that up against me. I got caught by Ayoob Bushaib, I know, and it cost me a leg. I'm a bally tripod now, if you like to put it that way. But I've got through most kinds of tight places in the past, and I don't know I'm any more nervous than I used to be. So I'll trouble you to shut your mouth about my bit of misfortune."
"Now look here, Skipper, drop it. I'm not going to quarrel with you on any terms whatever. I admire you far too much. If you'd like an apology, you can have one. But I do want badly to know what you intend to do."
"Shove Hadj Mohammed off his perch, and take his place."
"That is, Casadir is going to be governed by Kaid Kettle."
"Well," said the little man stiffly, "and please why not? Hadj Mohammed's not straight, and I am; I speak the language quite well enough; and when it comes to handling men, why, there I back myself against any one at present in Africa."
"Man Kettle," said McTodd warmly, "I think ye'd make a fine Kaid. Ye're sound on the whiskey question, and ye've other points as well. If you care to sign on this afternoon, I'll be there to hold the inkbottle, and see no one interferes."
"Ye-es," coughed Fenner, "it's all very nice, and I've no doubt, Skipper, that if you make up your mind to a coup d'etat, you'd bring one off. I can promise that in the event of trying it you should have my help. But it isn't only a case of grabbing Casadir and holding it in the teeth of a pack of fighting Moors. Once you set up as Kaid of Casadir, and that means King of the Sus country as well, you'll have Europe down about our ears without any delay. Now you can't fight Europe."
"I've had most of Europe against me before," said the sailor truculently, "and I took my steamboat where she was ordered in spite of the lot of them."
"Quite so. But with a steamer you can dodge about. Unfortunately Casadir is at moorings, and any one knows where to find it when it's wanted."
McTodd rubbed a pair of large, discoloured hands. "Let 'em come. To quote a vairse o' the Skipper's poetry, 'Let 'em all come.' For what have we got two steamers of war, and a four-point-seven gun fixed here in position, not to mention other articles of offence? I want to see those earning their living."
Fenner mopped at his face with a wet pocket handkerchief. "Dash it all, let's be practical! The two steamers of war are merely old tramps that no British surveyor would pass; the four-point-seven has all its rifling rusted away, and from the look of the breech-block, I don't believe it's safe to fire at all; and the other guns are equally footling. The outfit was intended to scare off the Sultan of Morocco, and it served that purpose well enough. But don't let's humbug ourselves that we could stand for ten minutes against a civilized power. One fourth-rate gunboat could settle our hash here in less than twenty-five minutes, and we couldn't so much as splinter her paint."
"I hate to give in," said Kettle reluctantly. "But you're right. I suppose you've got one of your usual schemes to offer us now?"
"I have and I haven't. I can give you the theory of a practical scheme, but as usual you'll have to be the man to carry it out. Here's the case: you and I and Mac came to Casadir at a tight time, and helped its boss to make himself independent of the Sultan of Morocco. As a reward for that we got from him a concession in writing that all the export trade was to pass through our hands."
"I told you at the time, boy, it wasn't worth the paper it was written on."
"It was only intended to wave in the faces of the Great Powers when international complications begin to arise. That's the only thing you see that gives us locus standi. But Hadj Mohammed Bergash doesn't see as far as that, and, as regards the value, presently we're going to prove to him where his mistake comes in. But he's not acted quickly enough. In the meantime we've got the trade and all the trade connections fast enough in our own hands, we haven't been skinning any one unduly, and all the solid men in the country are on our side. We've brought 'em prosperity. I don't say they are grateful. A Moor is too good a Mohammedan to be ever grateful to an Englishman."
"Man, I'd like to tell ye in confidence I'm no' exactly English. D'ye see, Ballindrochater, where I come from, is —"
"Say Britisher, if it pleases you, Mac, and that takes in all three of us. Anyway, we've as much liking from these people as any men of our breed could get, and that's a very comfortable asset. Now, what we've got to do is to make Hadj Mohammed see this, and rub into him the great truth that if we give the word he's to be pulled off his perch, pulled he'll be. At the same time we must studiously avoid an open outbreak. Kaid he's made himself, and Kaid—in name—he may continue to be. So far as I am concerned he may call himself Prince, or Sultan, or Emperor, if a title tickles him. But he's got to clearly understand that the real man at the head of affairs is King Owen the First."
"I see," said Kettle. "And he must hand over to these German and French agents, who have landed here, sharp orders to move on again, and we won't appear in the matter."
"No, no, man. That would give them a cause of action against us at once, and it's probably the very thing their Governments were trying for."
"What, do you mean to say they were sent here as a sort of bait, and not for business at all?"
"It's quite likely. But in the meanwhile we're not going to march into that sort of trap. We deport no Europeans, and furthermore we do not allow Hadj Mohammed to deport them. On the contrary, we've opened the port, and we welcome French, Germans, Italians, Austrians, yes, even Belgians. But—we must see to it they do no trade. The export trade, as vide concession, is ours and indivisible. On that point, I guess, we're all quite sound, eh, Mac?"
"It's awful how the taste for money grows on men, even Scotchmen. I'm quite the financier now in London"—the engineer preened himself—"I've a fur coat. I've a tall hat rubbed round with an oily rag, and spit-leather boots. It's a very humorous costume if you come to think of it. There was one Jew wanted me to ship a diamond ring. But I can no' see that outlay is needful, even for a financier. Eh, Fenner, if you could see me sitting in a first-class hotel, drinking whiskey at ninepence the glass, that I could get equally good for threepence elsewhere, ye'd never fling it in my teeth again that I'm no' adaptable. But, man, if you only knew how I sigh sometimes for pajamas, and just the feel of a fistful of cotton waste, ye'd pity me. By gosh, what's yon?"
From below came the sudden bang of shots, and the high scream of a hurt man, and in an instant the house buzzed with the noise of shouts and threats, and the rustle of weapons. Captain Kettle had pulled out a revolver with the quickness of a conjuror, and McTodd produced a heavy three-quarter inch spanner from his jacket pocket.
"That," said Fenner, "is Hadj Mohammed paying a call on us before we can call on him. He's a sharp man, our Kaid Bergash."
"I'll twist the tail of that treacherous swine in a way he won't like," snapped Kettle. "Put down that rifle, boy. You couldn't hit a haystack with it. Take that shotgun and plenty of cartridges. You take a shotgun, too, Mac. Now come out, the pair of you. All we've got to do is to murder the lot of them down in the courtyard. They can't get up. Our own men are holding the stair."
Bang! Bang! Crash! came the shots, and a bullet flicked into the room where they sat and shelled down a great flake of plaster.
"Hold on," said Fenner. "I don't see why we should play the Raid's game. Why not try one of our own?"
"There's a fight going on just outside this door," said McTodd, "and that's good enough game for me."
"What's the alternative?" asked Kettle.
"Try the offensive, and leave the defensive to the other people. It's not new strategy. All the text books have it. And I think it's sound."
Bang! bang! bang! went the shots. The courtyard and its galleries were a pandemonium of noise. The thin acrid reek of black smoke drifted into the room where they stood.
"Now, quick," said Kettle, "and let's hear what's up your sleeve, boy. I wouldn't have waited as long as this outside a scrap for any other man living."
"Let's leave this house to our own fellows. They may hold it or they may not. Anyway, Hadj Mohammed's men are engaged here, and he isn't expecting us. It strikes me that if we pay him a call at his own residence just now, we may find him alone and disengaged."
"But how?"
"Over the roofs. It's a solid block of houses between this and the Kaid's. The only thing I hesitate about is, can you climb, Skipper, now that you are crippled?"
"I could climb," retorted Captain Kettle unpleasantly, "a dashed sight better with both legs off than you ever could with all you've got, and a tail thrown in. Come on."
A staircase led upward out of the next room, and they were very quickly up on the roof. Before them were spread out the roofs of the city, a place of rectangular walled-in allotments, sliced up into strips by the deep dykes of the streets. The acrid reek of the powder followed them, and overhead, in the hot cobalt of the sky, carrion birds collected; but the noise of the fight had already become more dim.
The path was not an easy one. The Moslem takes the evening air on the roof with his womenkind, and sees to it that he is neither overlooked nor raided. He has a fine taste in white precipitous walls, and imports glass bottles to decorate their crests; and occasionally his ideas run to iron chevaux de frise of many points. But the travellers picked up a pole to help them in the worst escalades, and found a rope which eased the more lengthy of the descents.
McTodd led. Fenner came second, panting and sweating. Kettle brought up the rear. The other two would have helped the little sailor if he would have let them, but at each offer of assistance his vinegary tongue lashed out with such acidity that they not only let him alone, but pressed along at their quickest pace by way of showing to him if possible the extent of their own abilities.
In this way, then, Fenner and the engineer were two roofs ahead when an accident happened. On the brink of a spike-fringed wall Captain Kettle slipped; an iron prong ripped into his raiment and dived through the leather waist-belt that held the thigh-piece of his wooden leg, and there he dangled like some absurd jumping-jack, using language that emulated the sky, both in warmth and colour.
Promptly emerged from the roof-door a furious householder, raging with the idea that here was some Lothario in the act and article of coming to pay surreptitious court to his women-kind. The man lifted up his angry voice, and in those poetically coarse phrases to which Arabic so readily adapts itself, gave his opinion of Kettle's ancestry, his moral character, his lack of physical powers, and his probable future fate.
"Your wives be sugared, you trigamous son of a dog," Kettle shouted at him. "I wouldn't touch one of them with a ten-foot pole. You just wait till I get down, and I'll alter your face till your women will think it's a foot. Do you know who I am, you spawn of a sand storm? By James, I'm a man that has respect from every soul here in Casadir, and it doesn't do for them to forget, it." This, also, was in classical Arabic, and of necessity loses much of its fragrant beauty in translation.
The Moor on the subject of his women is a man of the touchiest humour, and this householder was no exception to the rule. He pulled the curved dagger from the sheath which hung from his neck, and made a rush.
At that precise moment Kettle had contrived to squirm round and reach the buckle of his belt, and pull it adrift. The iron spike on the wall of course held stubbornly, but his thin, white, tropical clothes tore like so much paper. Worst misfortune of all, the white drill jacket pocket which held his revolver ripped completely out, and remained aloft on the spike, as securely out of immediate reach as though it had lodged in the moon.
Captain Kettle did not waste the impetus of his fall. He pushed himself out from the wall as the Moor rushed, and landed with his knees on that worthy man's shoulders. They both toppled to the floor together, the white wooden leg trundling after them, and it was this uncouth weapon that the little sailor seized. McTodd had turned it heavy and solid; an everyday leg, as he said; and the lower end was shod with a massive cap of brass.
The Moor's turban had come off in the tumble, and they rolled apart after the impact. But Kettle was up on his solitary foot as soon as the Moor had scrambled to his two; the wooden leg whirled aloft, and came down whack on the shaven skull; the man went over as if he had been poleaxed.
The wooden leg whirled aloft, and
came down whack on the shaven skull.
"I'll have you," said Kettle, "if you aren't too stunned, to understand that I'm a respectable man, and don't get over the garden wall to see any ladies whatever. You may thank your stars that Mrs. Kettle is not likely to hear your remarks, or it's something worse than a broken comb I'd have given you for your impertinence."
He strapped the wooden leg once more in place, and as by this time Fenner and McTodd had come back to the rescue, he allowed them to dislodge the hung-up revolver with their pole.
"I thank you, Mac," he said humbly, "but it's a fact, I do feel naked without that gun. I wish I could raise a new coat. I hate going about in untidy rags like this."
"We'll charge all repairs to the Kaid," said Fenner. "The great thing is not to cause needless delay in handing him the bill."
"Ho, ho, ho!" laughed the engineer. "Delay! Very humorous."
"By James," snapped Kettle, "don't you dare to he-haw at me, you dissolute mechanic. I'll thank you both to get on with the business in hand, and waste no more time with your cackle. We're only two roofs off Hadj Mohammed's house now."
Once more the straining run and climb recommenced, and the sun glared upon them, and their tiny dark blue shadows danced in the heat.
Behind them the noise of the fight had died away; ahead of them the Kaid's house seemed wrapped in dignified siesta.
Presently they came to it, and achieved the hardest of their climbs. Hadj Mohammed Bergash was rich, and he was cautious. The outer wall of his palace was high, so that his women-kind could overlook and not be overlooked. The pole would not reach. But the brawny Scot lifted it, and placed the heel on his head, and Kettle climbed to his shoulders, then up the pole, and so the crest of the wall, with the end of the rope over his arm. McTodd climbed up the rope. Fenner, who could not climb, was hauled up by the other two, and had his great beak of a nose badly scraped in the process. A minute later they had ushered themselves into the presence of the Kaid.
Now, in South Morocco, a man lives in the midst of alarms, and in this respect the highest of the land are more harassed than those of more lowly station. A man carries his weapons all day long and every day, eats with them, sleeps with them, and has them quite handy even when he is in the bath. As a consequence, Hadj Mohammed Bergash was quick enough on the draw to even excite the admiration of such a connoisseur in the matter as Captain Owen Kettle.
But the winning points in the exercise are adjudicated in decimals of a second, and Hadj Mohammed was expert enough to know when he was beaten.
He dropped his half-raised weapon, and stared placidly down the barrel of Captain Kettle's revolver.
He dropped his half-raised weapon, and stared
placidly down the barrel of Captain Kettle's revolver.
"Allah is great," he remarked, "and He has but one prophet. I will hear what you have to say."
"Boy," said Kettle, "just take away his gun and cutlery."
Fenner did so.
"You might go through him again and see if he has any more."
Fenner did this, and produced another revolver and a curious knife.
"That," said Kettle, "is a Touareg back-thrust dagger, a very interesting piece. That's for jabbing a man who comes at you behind, and it's used by agriculturists in the slave-raiding districts. Hand it across. We haven't got one in our collection at home. I'll send that to Wharfedale to the Missis. I know she'll be pleased with it."
"Will you take green tea with mint in it," asked the Kaid, "or cooled sherbet?"
"I wonder," said Kettle acidly, "you don't offer us cooled cheek. That seems the brand you've most got on tap at present. It's Kaid they tell me that you call yourself now. I wonder you didn't make it Sultan while you were on at the job."
"I did think of it."
"The pit you did! By James, there's education wanted here. Gratitude one did not look for, but I thought you'd know a better man than yourself when you saw one. You gave your word once that I was to be practical boss here."
"I gave you deference as such while you were here. But you departed from Casadir, and news came from the Sus country that you would not return. I cannot see," added Hadj Mohammed with a bland glance toward Kettle's wooden leg, "that you have altogether returned even yet."
The sailor started as if he had been stung, and his red torpedo beard bristled. "Now, understand clearly," he snapped, "that you've got on a subject about which I take sauce from no man living. If you dare to mention my leg again, I'll have off your turban, and smack you on the bald head, and then I'll clean the pipeclay off my shoes on to your whiskers. By James, if you've any doubt as to who's the read Kaid of Casadir, I'll set to work and teach you in a way you won't forget. I want respect from every Moor in this town, and don't you run away and fancy yourself a giddy exception."
Hadj Mohammed lowered his head to the carpet. "Reis Keetle, I bow to your wisdom."
"You couldn't do a wiser thing. Now I'd like to know what you meant by sending your scum of troops to raid our house?"
"It was unauthorized. It was a mistake, for which presently I will send you the heads of any offenders who survive for you to set above your gate."
"I'm not going to have them punished for merely carrying out your orders. No, Hadj Mohammed, you'll have to foot the bill yourself. Savvy that?"
"Allah is very great, and He only is merciful."
"Quite right. Mercy from me would be wasted on you just now. As you've chosen to make hay of our house, we'll just take over yours till you have repaired the damage."
The Moor's dark, strong face showed no change.
"To the powerful the victory comes, so the poet writes. The others shall be trodden upon, and if well advised they will not writhe, and so shall escape unnecessary hurt."
"I don't see where the poetry of that comes in," said Kettle doubtfully, "but the sentiment is all right."
"If I have your high permission, I will show you the rooms of the house which are now yours."
"Walk on," said Captain Kettle, and they all rose.
But here the Moor did a surprising thing. He got up, bowed meekly, went to the door, and opened it. He passed through it himself, turned with the agility of a monkey, and slammed it with such quickness, that Kettle's ready bullet merely ripped a row of white splinters from the wood. The bolts shot into their sockets as they threw themselves against the barrier, and the door did not even quiver to their weight. It was a fine thick door.
They raged, all three of them, with furious wrath, but instinctively they all looked round the room.
It was a perfect trap. It was a bare white cube of a place, with one door, and three small windows set in high embrasures, so deep and so narrow that even the Southern Moroccan sun could only fill the room with a twilight. Heavy iron bars guarded these windows, and even while they made their inspection, shutters were clapped-to outside. Hadj Mohammed was a man who wasted no time.
The bolts shot into their sockets as
they threw themselves against the barrier.
But Captain Owen Kettle also was a fellow of infinite resource. To use his own phrase he was savage enough to have bitten into a cold chisel at the idea of being caught in such a trap, and he went step-stumping round the room, with every faculty strained to the uttermost.
"That old buck will keep us here to die of thirst," said McTodd. "It's a death," he added thoughtfully, "I've never contemplated since coming to my present degree of affluence."
"Much more likely," said Fenner, "to blow charcoal fumes in from somewhere, and cook us that way."
"Dying be sugared," snapped Kettle. "I'm going to get out and twist Hadj Mohammed's tail. Look here. The floor's soft down here. My peg sinks into it, and the plaster shells away. Find something to quarry with, and we'll be through to the room below."
Each had a pocket knife, and they were promptly down on their knees, picking at the crumbling mortar. There was a six-inch layer of it, and then came the usual row of argan sticks, laid upon thicker baulks. These took longer to cut through, but once an opening was made, McTodd's large hands were soon able to tear the whole fabric away piecemeal. Then one by one they dropped through a store-room at the courtyard level.
Kettle was all for an immediate attack. He wished to find the man who had played this trick on them, and take prompt vengeance on him. But Fenner saw further ahead.
"Confound this lime dust," he coughed, "how it does make one choke! Look here, Skipper, we've gone through this once already. It would be awfully inconvenient if we had to kill Hadj Mohammed. It would be almost as bad if we were forced to shove him off his perch. But at the same time we want to stop him from playing tricks on us once and for always."
"Yes, by James. That man seems to think he can keep his end up against me, and he's going to be shown where his error comes in."
"Well, wait a bit, and Ell show you a way it can be done effectively, and without a fuss. The method's one I dislike, but there appears no other way for it. Look out over that bale, through the doorway, and into the garden. Who's there?"
"Hadj Mohammed's little boy."
"He's the nicest kid in Casadir, and he's very fond of me, and I'm very fond of him. I've played with him many an hour. You know how jolly kids are?"
"Mine are girls," said the little sailor with a sigh. "But I can fancy that a man would be just as fond of his youngsters if they are boys."
"That one is all Hadj Mohammed's got, since his other son died, and he's just as proud of him as he can stick. Well, Skipper, we must take the boy as a hostage."
"Of course we shouldn't hurt him under any circumstances."
"Of course not; do you think I'm a cannibal? But the mere having him would ensure present good behaviour on behalf of the Kaid. To keep his Excellency on the paths of virtue in the future, we must pack the youngster off to England, and send him to a good sound school there."
"I don't like getting at a man's feelings through his children. You see, boy, I've kids of my own, and I'm more fond of them than you're likely to guess."
"Do you think," said Fenner with some temper, "that you are the only man in the world with natural affections? I hate doing it, as I said before, but there doesn't seem any other way of pinning the Kaid. Besides, it will be for the boy's good. He will be brought up as an English gentleman, instead of as a Moorish savage."
"Very well," said Kettle reluctantly, "have it your own way, but you're breaking out into a line I don't quite like."
"And spoiling what promised to be a very neat scrap," said McTodd.
"Oh! the deuce take the pair of you!" said Fenner disgustedly. But he called in the child, who came to him delightedly, with his plaited scalp-lock flowing out behind him. When Martin Fenner had decided on a policy he always carried it through, and left his own private tastes outside the bargain.
With the child in their possession, they waited placidly till a slave came into the garden courtyard, watering the flowers. Him they sent to fetch the Kaid, who came with promptness.
Now Hadj Mohammed Bergash was no fool, and moreover, he loved his son—who was now his only child—more than all his other possessions, including his own life. He came down hurriedly, and stood in the doorway of the store-room. In a glance he saw how matters had rearranged themselves, and in a moment he made a decision as to what should be his action. Without a word the Sheik went on his knees, and with lowered head placed Captain Kettle's one foot on his turban. Kettle smoked, but made no movement or comment. But there was satisfaction in the cock of his beard.
Without a word the Sheik went on his knees, and with
lowered head placed Captain Kettle's one foot on his turban.
"If the father breaks faith," said Fenner, "the son must pay."
"Then," said the Kaid, "for the future, my son's life is safe."
"The Excellency McTodd sails to-morrow for England with a loaded steamer. The boy goes with him, and there shall be well tended, and shall gain the learning and skill of the English. So when it comes his turn to rule, he shall be well equipped."
"If he is there taught to forget that Allah is Allah, and that He has but one prophet, then would I rather my son should die before he left Casadir."
"He shall remain Muslim."
"Ahem," interrupted Kettle. "Unless the claims of the Wharfedale Particular Methodists-"
"I give you my word of honour, Kaid, the boy shall not have his faith interfered with, so long as you remain true to us."
"Oh," snarled Kettle, "let the brat remain damned if you prefer it. Arrange the matter to suit yourselves. I was only offering him a sound, sure thing."
"Remains to settle the matter of these French and Germans," said Fenner.
"You shall have their heads delivered on your carpet," protested the Kaid eagerly, "this very afternoon."
"Not so. The action would cause too much grief to their friends at home, and more warships would come than we could conveniently argue with. But your subjects here in Casadir must do no trade with them, and then presently they will depart."
"From every Moorish trader, O Excellency-with-the-great-nose, who sells to these men as much as a skin of oil, I will lop the hands, and nail them above his door as a warning. And if a Jehudi tries it, I will take the hide off him and stuff it with straw."
"Well," said Fenner thoughtfully, "we will arrange the proper form repressive measures ought to take afterward. But I see you have got hold of the right idea. You have my permission to depart."
Hadj Mohammed Bergash went out into the garden then, but Captain Owen Kettle sat where he was on a bale, and pulled at his pointed red beard with some annoyance. "Dash!" he said. "You've had your own way, boy, but I don't think I altogether like it. I don't see what's wrong with Kaid Kettle as a title. It goes well, and, by James, I could have filled the ticket as well as any man living."
"But think," said McTodd, "once you've learnt your steps, you'll be able to wear your handsomely inlaid leg every day with perfect security. We that are now so wealthy ought to get rid of the desire for scrapping, and cultivate more taste for ornament. I think myself I shall get the diamond ring that Jew recommended, if I can pick up an imitation one, cheap."
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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