It was not the muleteer's shove, slight but significant though it was, which produced John Aylmer's shrug of irritation. His resentment was directed at himself. He realized that he had been guilty of a gaucherie. For thirty seconds he had been standing halted in the main street of Tangier, a rock of obstruction to all the rabble traffic which passes between the Bab al Marsa and the Bab al SÔk, staring at—what?

At a pretty woman.

He reddened under his tan. The muleteer's shoulder had displaced him for purely practical reasons, for, indeed, almost benevolent ones, for the mules would have been capable of obtaining with their teeth what their guardian had obtained by mere weight of his body. But Aylmer felt that by accepted social standards a kick would not have been more than his due. Had he not been behaving like some cub of a cockney clerk at an Earl's Court Exhibition? His lips moved. He was muttering excuses of himself to himself, and knew that they were valid, but that an onlooker would have had no clue to them.

For it was not her prettiness which had drawn his attention to the girl. It took no second glance to assure him that she was no countrywoman of his, but an American. Her features had the clean regularity, her complexion the pale, unfurrowed smoothness which is kept intact on the western side of the Atlantic and there alone. The Moroccan sunlight was proving in a dozen places the mistake the shadows made when they dulled the gold of her hair to brown. Her eyes matched the waters of the unrippled bay.

Though he recognized these things, they had not, in the first place, attracted Aylmer's attention. American girls—pretty American girls—are no rarity in Tangier since Mr. Cook threw over Moghreb-al-Aksa the Ægis of his protection. Under ordinary circumstances he would have looked, approved, and, without altering his stride, passed on. But here was something which appealed to the inherited instincts of a gentleman. What was it?

Apprehension.

He felt no reasonable doubt on the subject. Among this girl's natural attributes, he told himself, were placidity, content, self-reliance. The first two were wanting. The third was strained. There was almost a sense of furtiveness in the glances which she turned to throw not only about but, occasionally, behind her. Frankly, she was afraid.

His interest fed upon observation. He glanced at her more narrowly, he observed her surroundings. He drew aside out of the mid-street traffic, and under pretence of lighting a cigarette, halted again in the shadow of an awning.

She was not alone. She held by the hand a small, alert-looking child—a boy, who watched the passers-by with the happy, unconcentrated interest of childhood. His eyes reviewed his surroundings without any of the surprise of unaccustomedness; obviously the scene was not strange to him. He smiled at Jew and Moslem, Christian and Infidel, with a pleasant patronage which one or two itinerant pedlars and shop touts returned with obsequious affability. One man, indeed,—a bronzed, hawk-nosed specimen of the desert Arab clad in a ragged djelab of brown,—laughed gaily, plucked a carnation from behind his ear, and flung it to his small admirer as he passed.

The child gave a little cackle of delight as he picked it up. The girl looked down as he did so and frowned.

"Who was that, Selim?" she asked quickly, and Aylmer saw that the question was addressed to a stout, muscular Moor who was in attendance.

The man lifted his shoulders in deprecation and darted a suspicious glance towards the crowd which had already closed upon the djelab of brown.

"Some desert dog," he answered sullenly. "But indeed Sidi Jan encourages all the rabble of the SÔk to take these liberties. He smiles, and the jackals think they have license to smile back."

The object of these reproaches thrust the carnation carelessly behind his own small ear.

"I have seen him before—once, twice, many times," he explained. "He laughs; he is not gray and dull like Selim. I would like to have him for my kavass."

"I drown in perspiration three shirts a day while I wait on thee," affirmed the fat man reproachfully. "Is this thy gratitude?"

"I do not wish to be waited on; I wish to be played with," said the child. "I should like to go to the sands where the Kaid's horses are galloped, and play with the brown man. We would paddle and I would throw the water over him. He has promised me this."

The girl started and gave a convulsive little grip of the fingers which lay in hers.

"He has spoken to you?" she cried. "When—where?"

The boy nodded his yellow mop of hair importantly.

"Yesterday as I rode through the SÔk," he answered. "He walked beside my donkey and told me that I was a horseman already made, and should be on the back of a black barb like Sid' Abdullah's. Then I, too, could race upon the sands."

The girl looked stonily at the Moor.

"How was this, Selim?" she asked coldly. "Where was your watchfulness?"

The man spread out his hands.

"Am I a prophet—am I Allah Himself?" he cried aggrievedly. "There was a crowd—a press—in the SÔk yesterday, wherein one had scarcely room to take breath. And you have seen for yourself. Sidi Jan snatches at familiarities from such as that one; the nearer the gutter he finds his friends the better is he pleased."

She looked down at the delinquent, who, without being disconcerted, grinned back.

"John," she admonished him gravely, "you are never to speak or listen to strangers in the SÔk, or anywhere else."

John wriggled and pouted.

"I love the brown man," he answered defiantly.

"He's probably a wicked, wicked man," said his monitress. "Instead of playing with you on the sands, he'd very likely bite you—like a camel."

The eyes beneath the yellow mop grew round with interest.

"Would he?" he asked breathlessly. "That would—would be fun!"

Do what he could to restrain it, a smile broadened across Aylmer's face, and in that moment the girl, looking up, met his eye. He reddened slightly again, hastily struck and put a match to his still unlit cigarette. But in that instant he had read surprise first in her glance, then the knowledge that she had been overheard, and lastly—yes, there was no doubt about it—fear. Not the apprehension of the unknown and unexpected this time, but the thrill of distrust experienced by one seeing peril looming unveiled before her. She was afraid of him, John Aylmer! Her apprehension was no longer vague; he had become the target of it.

She dropped her eyes, made a sign to the Moor, and swung quickly towards the nearest shop. And Aylmer, in the midst of the mental disturbance caused by the incident, barely repressed a smile. For the booth, it was little more, was stored with the coarse calicoes and prints which appeal to the dwellers in the desert; there was certainly nothing there to please the tourist or hunter of curios. No—hunted, she had turned instinctively to the nearest shelter. Undoubtedly she had fled from—him.

He wheeled quickly and strode off down the hill towards the Bab-al-Marsa. Explanation eluded him; he felt baffled. At the same time he was conscious of a sense of relief. Instinct had brought him to a halt, the instinct which bids the normal man stop to offer help to the helpless even before that help is claimed. He had discovered, or thought he had discovered, fear in the girl's attitude, and almost inadvertently had stayed to rout it. And now? What fear could have a stable foundation which made him, an absolute stranger, its sudden focus?

He shook his head regretfully. To what could not neurasthenia or some such fashionable derangement of the nerves bring a woman in these days of fashionable stress? And yet? Her bearing had not been that of a neurotic. And she was young, three and twenty at the outside. Her face was unlined, her eyes clear, yet, after a moment's scrutiny, she had fled from him. He could not dismiss the problem; he carried it with him out of the Marsa gate, along the wooden pier. Behind the toll bar he sat upon a timber balk and studied it. It gave him a sense of physical pain to remember the expression in those eyes, of which the sea was one vast reminder.

A minute or two later, with a petulant shrug, he dismissed the matter—or tried to—from his thoughts. After all, mystery though it was, the affair had no real significance for him. He had, inadvertently, frightened a lady. But no real responsibility was his. He had looked at her keenly; too keenly, perhaps, but with no shadow of offence. She had chosen to interpret his scrutiny as menacing. They would probably not meet again—why, indeed, should they? And yet, this decision was mentally addressed to a possibly listening Fate to disarm it. Without defining the desire even to himself, he knew that it was there. He wanted to meet her again; he wanted it badly.

It was with this desire still at the back of his mind that he turned his eyes seaward on the mission which had brought him to the harbor.

The DiomÈde? Was she in? Would her commander, Paul Rattier, be in time to join him in riding out to the Tent Club that evening, or would they have to postpone their expedition to the early hours of daylight? He strained his glance northward where the gray bulk of Gibraltar was hidden by floating clouds of Mediterranean mist.

Two French men-of-war lay far out in the bay. A trail of black smoke showed where another steamed eastward with invalids from Casablanca to Oran. But neither of the three was the DiomÈde; he knew her squat turrets among a thousand. He gave a pessimistic little sigh. Instead of the jovial evening out at Awara under canvas, they would have the hot discomforts of an hotel and a fifteen-mile ride in the dawning to sap their energies before the day's sport began. He looked up with discontent at the westering sun. It appeared to be sinking towards the horizon with almost indecent haste.

He pulled out another cigarette and lounged lazily along the plank, watching the traffic of the pier and shore in blasÉ indifference. Just below him half a dozen barcasses were being filled with stout, squat little cattle, destined for food for the weary troops of Ber Rechid and El Setat. The bullocks were being goaded up an incline of planks and tumbled roughly into the unwieldy lighters, and as these were filled a little tug fussed up and towed them by threes to the waiting steamer of the Compagnie Mixte. And here the sufferings of the bullocks deepened from mere discomfort to the fine edge of tragedy. In twos they were lassoed round the horns. The steam winch aboard the steamer crashed, and with straining necks and starting eyes the unfortunate beasts were rushed up through the air and swung with terrifying speed down into the hold. They were near enough for him to see through his binoculars the strained mute agony of fear in the eyes of each brute as it swung. And there was a dog on board. Each time as the living load passed within reach of its leap, it sprang into the air and made its teeth meet in the helpless flesh. And the stevedores applauded and goaded him to further efforts. Finally the horns of one struggling animal broke. There was a hoarse laugh as it fell, to break other bones, no doubt, in the depths of the hold, or to mutilate some former comrade below. Aylmer turned away with a shrug of sickened disgust. What a land of cruelty it was, of grinding cruelty which spared neither man, woman, nor child, and certainly no beast! He turned his glance shorewards to avoid seeing the tragedy of the bullocks repeat itself.

As he did so he gave a start of suddenly aroused interest. Rapidly nearing him was a man whom he recognized. He was the hawk-nosed, swarthy son of the desert who had flung the carnation at the American child's feet. He was walking rapidly, smiling, talking in a quick undertone to another child, one who trotted at his side happily enough—born of his own people, this—a little Moor, clad in a tiny bournous and a hooded djelab of brown.

They were making for the steps which led down from Aylmer's side to the huddle of rowboats which awaited chance fares below.

Suddenly Aylmer's attention, which had been aroused merely by the fact that the sight of the man led his thoughts back to the interest of an hour before, became concentrated. The Moorish child babbled in English!

"A black stallion!" he said impressively. "One that will arch his neck like the dome of the mosque, and carry me past all the other horses on the sands?"

"It shall be as you desire, little lord," answered the man, easily. "We have but to take a boat from among the many below and row across to the beach. There the horse of thy desires awaits thee. Look carefully. Perchance thou canst see it even now. Thou hast the eyes of a hawk; I know it."

And then Aylmer understood. He saw that below the child's ears and along the line of his hair a dye had been applied. The golden curls had been stuffed back into the hood of the djelab, shoes and stockings flung away, and little dye-stained feet thrust into yellow slippers. The folds of the bournous covered all else. It was the child of the street encounter, the child himself!

Aylmer's instincts, rather than any formed purpose, brought him to his feet and in front of the man, as the latter was about to descend the stairs.

"Where did you gain authority over this?" he asked curtly in Arabic, pointing down at the boy.

The man eyed him with stony imperturbability.

"Is Tangier come to such a pass that we of the Faith have to justify to Nazarenes our authority over our own children?" he asked. "Keep to thine own affairs, Kaffirbillah."

Aylmer did not unbar the road of the steps. He leaned down and spoke directly to the child, who was regarding him with half timid curiosity.

"Is this man your kavass?" he said gently. "Is he in your parents' service?"

The red flush of guilt rose under the brown dye. A bright yellow curl fell from out of the djelab hood as the small head was shaken.

"He promised me a horse," said lips which had begun to have a distinct semblance of trembling. "They have only given me a donkey so far—only a gray donkey."

"Then they do not know that you are with this man; they would not allow it?" pursued Aylmer.

The Moor broke in angrily.

"Do not be questioned, little lord!" he cried. "This is a son of infinite shame and wickedness, who has no rights over thee!"

"As many, at least, I suspect, as thou," returned Aylmer. "This is a matter for investigation. We will come to the post of the Spanish police at the pier head."

"We!" The man's eyes flashed wickedly. "I come not, nor this, my charge."

Aylmer shrugged his shoulders.

"That is a matter within your discretion, for yourself." He laid his hand upon the child's shoulder. "But this one goes with me."

A grin of rage flashed across the Moor's features. With one hand he made a quick clawing snatch at the child's arm; the other he plunged into his bosom. As it reappeared a knife blade flashed in the sun.

Mere instinct made Aylmer throw up his arm in defence. Experience and presence of mind bade him fling himself to one side without removing his knee from the path of his assailant. Matters followed the usual course when this old trick of the desert is put in action. The fellow tripped, plunged forward over the outsprawled limb, and fell crashingly upon his elbows.

Aylmer's first thought was for the knife which gleamed upon the planking half a dozen yards away. He scrambled to his feet and, without troubling to bend, gravely kicked it into the sea. At the same time he was aware of a commotion behind him. The small child's voice was raised in anger.

"I hate you—I hate you!" he declaimed. "Now Selim will get me!"

There was a reason for his wrath. Panting, blowing, and, to be frank, looking uncommonly like an over-driven buffalo, the Moor attendant was speeding down the pier with outstretched arms furiously gesticulating. The flap of his slippers slammed upon the boards, boat boys jeered, hotel touts made comments which no Bowdler could render into reputable English. And a few yards behind him—Aylmer's heart gave a queer little leap at the sight—ran totteringly the white-clad lady, his mistress.

The child made an angry gesture of repulse.

"I won't go back!" he shrilled. "I won't, I won't!"

He looked round towards his new-found friend, who was scrambling to his feet. He ran towards him.

Aylmer stretched out a hand and whirled the child up, facing towards the Moor. The latter hesitated, looked towards the advancing figures, and hesitated no longer. Behind the lady ran a couple of the newly raised Spanish police.

He swerved swiftly aside, dashed down the steps, and passed rapidly from boat to boat across the gunwales till he had gained one on the outskirt of the press. He shouted fiercely to the boy who held the oars, and the latter bent to his work. The tide was with them and they passed rapidly across the harbor mouth towards the yellow sands outside the town.

The child struggled and shouted in Aylmer's arms, stretching out his hands as he saw his friend disappear in the direction of the, to him, still credible black stallion and other promised delights. He struck out passionately at Selim as the latter's hand closed upon him like the grip of an embodied Fate.

"I want my horse, my horse!" he wailed. "I don't want a donkey; I hate it, hate it!"

Aylmer surrendered him, nothing loath, into his attendant's arms and then stood expectant, hat in hand. As she saw Selim again in full command of his responsibilities, the girl dropped from a run into a rapid walk. She panted, she held her hand upon her breast as she joined them. The two khaki-clad police inspected Aylmer with something of mistrust in their gaze.

For a moment her breath failed her; she could only look at the captive with half resentful, half satisfied eyes. Then she shook her finger at him.

"You wicked child!" she cried. "You wicked, wicked child!"

The small sinner laughed defiantly.

"The brown man beckoned me from the door of the mosque," he boasted. "I did see him and ran behind the mule that passed, and in at the door, and the brown man caught me up and smeared brown stuff on my face, and ran with me through the other door and out into the other street and covered me with this." He indicated the djelab with pride. "And Selim did not find me. Ho! Ho! I saw fat Selim jumping like a jerboa as we passed the harbor gate!"

Aylmer inspected him gravely.

"I have a bamboo cane at home which would meet your case, young man," he said quietly. "Would the loan of it be a boon?" he asked suddenly, looking at the girl.

There was no answering smile in her eyes. She shook her head.

"Thank you for—your intervention," she said quickly. "No, we never beat children in America; we—we respect them."

Aylmer nodded.

"In England our plan is to make them respect themselves," he answered. "I dare say both methods have their advantages." He made a gesture towards the town. "Can I have the pleasure of escorting you back?" he asked. "Have you any further—attempts to fear?"

There was an obvious desire for information in the question and in his eyes.

She made no attempt to satisfy it. She shook her head again.

"Thank you, no," she answered. "John will have no further opportunities to escape us; we have had our lesson. I can only thank you again and say good morning."

He raised his cap in answer to her bow. He watched her turn and walk after Selim, who held his prisoner enfolded in an embrace that gave no loophole for a second escape, little, indeed, for any movement at all. Expression gave place to expression on Aylmer's face. Irritation succeeded surprise and that was quickly followed by amusement.

Finally he seemed to dismiss the subject with a shrug which was all bewilderment.

"She thanked me," he reminded himself. "She thanked me, but her manner suggested that she would rather have flung me a sovereign to get decently rid of me." He nodded his head with decision. "She's afraid of me, that's the truth. Why—in the name of all that's sensible—Why?"

Echo supplied no answer.