"I do not like this!" piped a small and dejected voice. "I came to ride a black horse, not to be bumped in this vessel forgotten of God!"

In English these words would have sounded strangely from the lips of a child of six, but little John Aylmer was fluent in the Arab jargon of his grandfather's native household.

He was sitting disconsolate in the cockpit of the lateen Esmeralda. His company was SeÑor Emilio Albaceda, mariner and practical exponent of the tenets of an uncompromising Free Trade. From the uncovered hatch came the sound of wind whistling in the cordage and the swish and thud of the combers breaking past. Upon one of the narrow bunks which flanked the tiny cabin lay Landon, fast asleep. A guttering and extremely odoriferous lamp of vegetable oil was the sole illuminant. The prospects of comfort and entertainment in such surroundings were not those likely to appeal to a child accustomed to luxury and constant attention.

"Pazienza!" grunted the skipper, good-humoredly. "Black horses are not found upon the sea, though a friend of mine who prefers the running of contraband to the priesthood for which his parents destined him, read me once verses from a journal—true poetry in praise of a boot polish the name of which does not stay by me—where the waves of the Atlantic were likened unto stallions white-maned. I confess I thought the notion original."

The child stared at him meditatively.

"If horses are not to be found upon the sea and we seek horses, why do not we forsake the sea for the land?" There was a note of anticipation in the query which seemed to find this argument conclusive.

The smuggler grinned.

"Excellently argued, son of much intelligence," he answered. "Land is what we shall seek when this gale breathed from Jehannum permits us to do so in safety. For the moment we drive before it, there being no harbors on this coast within a thousand miles."

The child moved restlessly.

"Where then can we land?" he demanded.

"Where God and His Mother and the Holy Saints permit," said SeÑor Albaceda, suddenly reverting to lingua franca to clothe a piety of sentiment which the Moslem religion ignores. The One Allah's plans, being laid from the foundation of the world, are not susceptible to the influences of human appeal.

Little John made a grimace of hearty discontent and looked doubtfully at the sleeping form of his father. But for the moment distraction came from another quarter.

Two brown legs appeared in the opening of the hatch. As their owner lowered himself into the cabin, he disclosed the features of the man of the brown djelab—he who on Tangier pier had been sponsor for those fiery but phantom steeds which Fate had not allowed to materialize. The child received him with a shrill little shout of welcome.

"Muhammed!" he cried gladly. "Muhammed!"

The Moor placed his lean finger upon the yellow curls in a light caress, but his look was towards the berth where Landon could be seen stirring, aroused by his son's acclamation.

He slipped into a sitting posture in front of the tiny table and leaned upon it, his chin supported by his elbows, a look of expectancy tinged by humor in his eye.

"Well, my friends," he queried amiably, "our news is, what?"

The Moor gave a pessimistic shrug of the shoulder.

"Bad, Sidi," he said tersely. "We continue to drive westwards as before."

Landon shrugged his shoulders.

"We shall not see Cadiz to-morrow nor the day after," he said. "Well, the future is spacious. We have infinite leisure before us in which to beat back."

The captain grunted.

"Leisure we have in abundance, but not food nor yet water. We must put in somewhere before we attempt a feat which will take, at the best, three days and, if Chance so decides, perhaps a fortnight."

Landon's face was clouded with a sudden scowl.

"Food and water! Why have you not these in sufficiency? Your terms are extortionate enough as it is without the makeweight of starvation!"

"My terms," said SeÑor Albaceda, gruffly, "were all too cheap; what I learned in Tangier after I had come to an agreement with you was proof to me of that. But I am a man of honor; I keep bargains duly made. I contracted to set you ashore in Cadiz harbor—with a favorable wind a one night's work. I did not contract to feed three extra mouths through a voyage of weeks. When the wind moderates, I make for the nearest market, and you will buy your own provisions for our return. That is well understood."

"You mean to land on the African coast, not the European?" cried Landon.

"Where else?" said the skipper, drily. "Do you expect me to carry you on to the Azores?"

Landon looked questioningly at Muhammed. The Moor made a gesture of resignation.

"Mektub, it is written!" he answered fatalistically. "Azemmour, perchance, or Mazagan."

"And opposite each we shall find a French cruiser anchored," growled Landon, "with launches fussing about, and every craft which enters under suspicion of smuggling guns for the Chawia. And ten to one warning about us from Tangier sent down the coast."

"That would be a matter of time," said the Moor. "We have driven faster than horsemen could ride!"

"Horsemen!" Landon smote the table in his irritation. "These ships of war have apparatus by which they can communicate as if a cable linked them. If my father-in-law gets the right side of the commandant of the Tangier guardship—" He broke off with another shrug. "Well, to each day its appointed sorrow. The gale has not blown itself out yet."

"The event is with Allah!" said the Moor, gravely. He thrust his head up through the hatch and shouted to the steersman. A moment later he dropped back into the shelter of the cabin again.

"Your man Ibrahim is of opinion that the wind shows signs of abating. We passed Larache two hours back. The scud hides the shore, but he judges that we are not far from Sallee. If the surf permits, we may get anchorage and make a landing at Azemmour. If not, we must dare Casablanca or continue to Mazagan."

SeÑor Albaceda grunted pessimistically and climbed lumberingly on deck. Landon threw himself back on the berth again. The Moor looked down at the child with a whimsical expression of pity which changed to a benignant smile as the object of it raised his eyes to his.

"The Sidi Jan has not heard the marvellous tale of the Bashaw of Tripoli and the Afreets of El Mut?" he submitted. "If it is the Sidi's will, his servant will now take the opportunity of relating it to him?"

Little John Aylmer answered with an ecstatic chuckle of delight, and wriggled hurriedly into the encirclement of his friend's arm. Thus supported, he was able to defy the unsettling influence of the waves and give the whole of his attention to the taxing of the Moor's memory or, when this occasionally failed, his very competent imagination. The hours of the afternoon were passed agreeably; the difficulties of making a meal without the ordinary appliances of civilization provided a certain amount of diversion when night fell, and afterwards sleep was paramount. When the child woke he found the boat running slowly upon an even keel, and scrambling on deck was met by the view of a glassy swell surrounding her, but only visible to the extent of the few square yards which were enclosed in a veil of fog.

The skipper was at the wheel, and Ibrahim, the deck hand, and Muhammed were seated side by side in the bows. They did not peer into the fog—a hopeless task. They sat in a listening attitude, exchanging a brief word now and again.

"It is certainly the drumming of a ship's screw," decided the sailor, after a moment's silence. "It is going at half speed, behind us."

"Let us hope that Allah has not predestined us to be cut in twain," said his companion. "But from port, and very regularly, I hear the beat of breakers. The swell is rolling against a cliff."

"A shore, not a cliff," corrected the other. "If my dead reckoning is right within a score of miles, we are opposite a beach of sand."

Muhammed shook his head.

"Nay, listen to that thud. The crest of the comber meets something flat. It does not roll, in slowly dying foam, upon a strand."

Ibrahim shrugged his shoulders.

"In a fog we be all blind men," he said pessimistically. "Let us wait for the fulfilment of Allah's plan."

They glanced questioningly upwards. As is common in these west coast fogs, the blanket of vapor was thin. Now and again a faint hint of blue above their heads seemed to presage a lifting of the mist; occasionally, indeed, the sun was to be seen vaguely as a round yellow ball of light, streaked by the slowly drifting scud. But the gray walls on each side of them remained unbroken. At the same time the beat of the breakers was perceptibly near.

SeÑor Albaceda lifted his head from the hatch and invited the maledictions of innumerable Holy Men upon the weather. He was understood to confess that he did not undertake to gauge their position within a hundred miles.

"If Allah's mercy would send us an offshore wind!" aspired the pious Ibrahim, and lo! with the word came its sudden fulfilment. The fog was rent by a gust, to disclose, not a couple of cable lengths distant, what appeared to be a smooth and painted crag of gray.

The two Moors addressed fervent appeals to the One God. The Spaniard, impartially apostrophizing the tormented of Purgatory and the celestially blessed to hasten to his assistance, delivered himself of the opinion that Fate had closed her iron hand upon them. Where else could they be than within a mile of the sea bastions of Casablanca?

That, did they observe, was a cruiser—nay, possibly a battleship by whose watch they had been observed without a shadow of a doubt. As the fog closed in again, he descended to the cabin where he could be heard loudly bewailing the situation to his passenger, whom he appeared to hold responsible for this and for a fairly extensive list of other inconveniences. The captain of the lateen Esmeralda had obviously been warding off the chill influences of the fog by a liberal dose of aguardiente.

Landon lifted himself quickly to the deck. The mist was perceptibly lighter by now. A beam of sunlight pierced it from above and lit the Esmeralda's deck. The gray wall was still unbroken landward, but seaward it thinned, lifted, rolled this way and that, and finally disclosed a shining plain of blue. The central object in this, a couple of miles away, was a white, gleaming yacht.

Landon swore.

"The Morning Star—Van Arlen's boat, by God!" he cried. He made the helmsman a furious gesture. "Into the fog again!" he shouted. "Stick her nose into it, get out of this!"

"To beat out her timbers upon the harbor reef, or be swamped beneath the bows of a warship!" screamed the skipper from the hatch. "Never! Keep her in the light, son of accursed mothers! Do passengers who have been born of leprous parents give orders aboard this vessel, or I, Concepcion Albaceda, to whom the law rightly adjudges powers of life and death?"

He came lurching heavily aft, waving a case bottle by the neck to give emphasis to his commands. The bewildered Ibrahim stared at him owlishly.

The next moment he gave a cry of alarm. Landon had tripped the captain's unsteady feet, and, aided by Muhammed, had taken him forward and flung him into the cockpit. They closed the hatch, secured it, and came aft again. Imperiously Landon repeated his order.

The unfortunate sailor still hesitated. His compatriot took him firmly by the nape of the neck.

"Into the fog, child of indescribable unfaithfulness," he commanded, "or become immediately bait for sharks! Choose!"

The bewildered Ibrahim brought round the tiller with a jerk. Like a rabbit seeking its burrow, the lateen dived fogwards.

As the gray wall surged up to them again, they turned and stared seaward. Landon cursed loudly. The yacht was turning, too, straight towards them. At a word from his master, Muhammed got out the great sweeps and invited Ibrahim imperiously to join him in working them. Landon took the helm.

Two minutes later there was a crashing sound forward and the bowsprit splintered with a shock which made the little vessel shiver throughout its length. A muffled wail of wrath and despair followed from the depths of the cockpit.

The wall of gray was towering above them. Over the bulwarks of the R. F. Cruiser DiomÈde a lieutenant looked down and anathematized them with a versatility only acquired by a true son of the sea. Landon bowed, smiled, and in perfect French, asked the liberty of being permitted to come aboard.

The lieutenant, surprised beyond measure to hear the accents of the Faubourg from the decks of such an unpromising craft, hastened to forget the collision between the Esmeralda's bowsprit and the DiomÈde's paint, and directed his petitioner to find the companion ladder. A minute's groping in the fog, and Landon stood upon the cruiser's deck.

He bowed elaborately. The lieutenant returned the bow and motioned him towards the quarter-deck. The captain came forward to receive him, smiling amiably.

"I must be perfectly frank with you, Monsieur le Commandant," said Landon, returning the smile. "I come to beg assistance. My yacht is in harbor here, as you are possibly aware. No? The fog has hidden us; we came in last night. With my little son, I went ashore early this morning to leave a card on General d'Amade, to whom I have an introduction. I missed my own boat at the landing-place and was foolish enough to be persuaded to embark with these imbeciles below, of whom one is drunk and the other witless. I have already had an hour of monotonous adventure in the gloom; I am a little tired of being very reasonably cursed by master mariners whose vessels we have been ambitious enough to ram. It struck me that perchance you would be sending a boat ashore within the course of an hour or so, and might permit me to wait on deck and be a passenger in it. If so, my gratitude would be beyond words. It is not only for myself. My little son is delicate; I do not wish to expose him longer than is necessary to the chill of these vile vapors."

Commandant Rattier smiled again, expressed his pleasure in being able to offer assistance to any Englishman—he himself was united to that nation by ties of blood. He would order away his launch immediately. In the meantime une limonade Ecossaise would combat the effect of chill and mist. Monsieur would descend to the cabin, would accept some small refreshment?

Monsieur overflowed with thanks. He would dismiss the villains who had led him into such a coil, and then hold himself at M. le Commandant's service.

He leaned over and gave his orders. Muhammed turned to Ibrahim.

"Remove yourself and your master, oh, son of dirt, from these surroundings with the utmost speed, or I have the promise of the captain of this warship that he will send you in chains ashore to answer for your crime in wilfully colliding with his vessel. Your bowsprit? What have I to do with the results of your own vile seamanship? Have haste or Allah alone knows what will betide from the mouth of one of these guns."

He gathered the child up into his arms and stalked with dignity up the companion.

Ten minutes later a launch fussed away from the side of the DiomÈde. The commandant waved his handkerchief gaily in farewell to his small guest, who, from the encirclement of his father's arm, waved as gaily back. Half a hundred matelots grinned affably at him as they paused in their toil at cabin lights and brass-work. Landon saluted punctiliously and Muhammed's brown eyes expressed a grave approval of his entertainment. The launch's prow was thrust into the gloom.

Another gust sang lazily from the shore and the desert and shivered the fog. The patches of blue joined, grew wider, opened a triumphal arch for the descending sunbeams' entrance. A little more than a mile away the walls of the sea bastions shone white. The launch's speed increased.

Before they reached the quayside the last wisp of vapor had disappeared. Land and sea were swathed in sun. Landon gave a little cackle of amusement and pointed behind him.

"My yacht!" he cried gaily. "My over-anxious master has weighed anchor in pursuit of me. Word must have reached him of my having allowed myself to be persuaded into that vile lateen."

The sub-lieutenant in charge swerved the tiller.

"Let me take you straight to her," he said. "Let me signal her!"

Landon appeared to consider.

"Thanks, a thousand times," he said, "but a small matter of victualling which I promised my steward to deal with has just recurred to my mind. I will see to it and then signal for my own boat. After all, too, I might see a little of the town, now we have the sunshine to illuminate it. A couple of hours ago it was London in November, with a few additional smells!"

The lieutenant laughed and turned the prow towards the shore again. He cast another look over his shoulder.

"Is it possible that your master has information of, or suspects, that very lateen? It appears to me that he is chasing it!"

Landon faced seaward and observed the yacht keenly.

He laughed with great enjoyment.

"He is a character, that skipper of mine," he said. "He is as likely as not to sink the unfortunate boat if he does not find me on board or get a reasonable account of me. I shall have to smooth matters down with a dollar or two."

A minute later the launch slowed up against the little quay. The three passengers stepped ashore, Landon full of compliments and thanks. Still waving adieu, he, Muhammed, and the child paced contentedly off into the town. The lieutenant turned seaward again.

A slightly bewildered frown clouded his face as he approached the DiomÈde. The yacht had anchored with the lateen alongside her, and a boat was pulling from her towards the warship. The lieutenant considered that for yachtsmen he had never seen a boat's crew pull faster.