I,” said Spence with a shrug, “because my fortune drifts that way, Mr. Holden. I am curious about that astrologer of Arzew; and I like this Moor! He is a real man.”
The consul laughed shortly. “Have your own way. Pray heaven you bear luck with you—this Ripperda will menace all Europe if he be not pulled down!”
Spence, remembering that dark and tormented man, could well agree with such an assertion.
The situation seethed with intrigue. Ripperda was the actual ruler of Morocco. The Dey of Algiers, now allied with him, was furtively helping Mulai Ali. The dey was a sly fox. The Spaniards were tightly besieged in Oran. At sea, the Moorish fleet was supreme, under Admiral Perez. This renegade Carthusian, Ripperda’s one actual friend in the world, was a great seaman.
It was typical of Ripperda that he should first intrigue to put Mulai Ali on the throne, then should turn against his puppet. Such madness had already ruined Ripperda in two countries.
With morning the three men went into the city. Holden and Shaw set off to interview the dey. Patrick Spence and a consulate guard went to the market to buy native garments.
Not far from the slave mart Spence halted before an open-fronted shop where an old Moor sat smoking a water pipe. Down the narrow street surged natives, soldiers, arrogant Spahis and Janissaries, horses and camels, shouting and disputing. The clamor was deafening. Spence let the Negro bargain for the clothes he wanted.
Suddenly he became aware of a man in a black burnoose watching him. Remembering the warning of Mulai Ali, he turned; but the man was gone. Spence had a memory of a twisted face that was marked by a purplish birthmark about the right eye.
“Devil take it!” muttered Spence. “I’ll suspect every black burnoose, unless I get myself in hand! That fellow was only staring at a Christian.”
Upon returning to the consulate he had come within a few hundred feet of his destination; he was passing a low-arched doorway carved with the hand which spells the name of Allah. From the shadowed depths two figures darted out, plunged bodily upon him. Spence fell backward, the two men on top of him; as he fell, he glimpsed that twisted face with the birthmark.
He crashed down. A knife clashed on the stone beside his ear, but already his long arms were busy. He jerked one man over his head, heaved, twisted himself. He pulled clear, rolled over, and leaped to his feet in time to meet the rush of the man in the black burnoose. Spence drove his fist into the misshapen features, and the man reeled away.
At this instant the consulate Negro dashed up, scimitar bared. A dozen other men converged on the scene. The two assassins paused not, but took to their heels, with a crowd streaming after them. Two minutes later, Patrick Spence was safe in the consulate.
He told Dr. Shaw of the incident, but the worthy divine related it to Holden in the light of an attempted robbery. Shaw feared lest the consul forbid the journey as too dangerous, and was taking no chances. So the matter was passed off without great comment.
That night, the safe conduct having been provided, Dr. Shaw and Patrick Spence packed up. The consul provided them with letters of credit upon a Jew of Mequinez, while Shaw lingered lovingly over his rapier, maps and instruments—particularly the latter.
“This brass quadrant,” he discoursed, “I had from Mr. Professor Bradley at Wanstead. It is so well graduated that I can even distinguish the division upon the limb to at least one-twelfth part of a degree. And this compass hath the needle well touched—”
The good divine seemed quite oblivious to the fact that he was entering an almost unknown land, measuring wits against the most unscrupulous man of the age. Yet Dr. Shaw, as Spence knew well, was a shrewd comrade, reliable to the full, and quite able to use his sword as effectively as his instruments.
At dawn Spence wakened to the shrill cries of muezzins, lifting into the gray morning, calling the faithful to prayer. From all around they came; from the grand mosque, El Khebir, from the Mosque of Hassan, from the Zaouia, from the palace mosque, and others.
And in the courtyard the escort of twenty Spahis knelt at prayer, their gorgeous uniforms glittering in the new sunlight.
CHAPTER III
“He cheats the stars, and they him, and both cheat fools, ’tis all one to me!”
Spence, with the leather box sewn in canvas and lashed at his saddle, rode westward with his friend and their escort. He was agreeably amazed by the ease and comfort of their journey, which followed the Chelif Valley road to Arzew.
Under the auspices of the swaggering Spahis, the guest house in each town was commandeered. In order to avoid the war zone about Oran, the route lay from Arzew to Tlemcen, thence to Fez by the ancient route of caravans and armies.
On the morning of the day they neared Arzew, Mulai Ali joined them. He rode toward their party, superbly mounted on a white Arab bearing the circle-bar brand of the Beni Rashid tribe. He was dressed in the richest of pale green and pink silks. From the gold-twisted fillet at his brow to the red Moroccan boots, he looked the chieftain. He was alone.
“Well met, Señores!”
He greeted Spence and Dr. Shaw in Spanish.
“All is safe?”
“All is safe,” said Spence, knowing that the query referred to the leather box.
“You ride like a king,” said the divine, perplexed, “yet we thought to find you in danger and disguised! What means it, Mulai Ali?”
“A good omen!” The Moor laughed. “Ripperda has not yet rejoined the army before Oran. Hassan Bey has made me welcome at Arzew. Before Ripperda learns I am there, I shall be gone. After leaving Arzew we must push hard for the south.”
“Then,” said Dr. Shaw, “you aim to enter Morocco by the back door and seize the throne while Ripperda and the army lie before Oran?”
“Exactly.” Mulai Ali lifted his hand and pointed. “Here comes Hassan Bey to meet you!”
Arzew opened before them, with its extensive groves, its rocky precipices, its ruins. A dust cloud upon the road resolved itself into a hundred horsemen headed by Hassan Bey—a hard-fighting old Turk whose wine-frosted nose showed small regard for religious precepts.
With a great firing of guns and clamor, the parties met. Escorted by this guard of honor, Spence and Dr. Shaw entered the town. The bey had made ready quarters for them in the kasbah, or citadel, and received them with an entertainment that was lavish. The feast lasted far into the night.
In the morning Spence wakened to find Mulai Ali present. The Moor and Dr. Shaw were engaged in a discussion of religious points, which ended when the worthy divine sallied forth to inspect the ruins and make notes. Mulai Ali remained while Spence broke his fast.
“Well,” asked the Moor, “and did you see the man in the black burnoose?”
Spence looked up sharply and described the attempted murder. “Who is the man, then?”
“His name is Gholam Mahmoud. He was once a Janissary; he is now one of Ripperda’s bodyguard of renegades. We shall probably find him ahead of us on the road.”
“H-m! You seem little concerned,” said Spence with a shrewd glance.
“The
