ch as these!"

He stooped and looked deliberately to make sure that Crothers could not
break away, then came closer and spat on him, saving half his spittle
with impartial forethought for the struggling Byng, who looked up
in time to see what was in store for him. Being spat on is even less
exhilarating than it sounds or looks, and Byng waxed speechless after
passing through a many-worded stage of blasphemy.

Crothers, the larger of the two and by six brawny inches more
phlegmatic, bode his time in silence, so that neither of them spoke a
word while they were hustled and cuffed along the street between the
unbaked brick hovels. It was not until the reinforced iron door of
Adra's one stone building slammed on them that either of them said a
word.

Then--

"I'm not a mean man," protested Crothers.

"No?" said Byng, monosyllabic for a start.

"No," repeated Crothers, "I am not, Joe Byng. But--and I says it solemn;
I says it with one 'and above my 'ed, and I'd take my affidavy on it in
a court o' law, if it's the last word I ever does say an' it's my dying
oath--so 'elp me Solomon and all 'is glory; I'm a Dutchman if I wouldn't
like to 'ave a come-back at that Arab."

Byng lay full length on his stomach, and buried his face in his arms. He
was still too full of wrath for words.

"I'd kick his mother, if I couldn't land on him," mused Crothers.
And then he busied himself about conning his new bearings. It was a
four-walled jail--one-doored, one-windowed, iron-barred--ill-smelling,
verminous, too hot for words and too suggestive of the opposite of home,
sweet home to call forth humor, even from a seaman.

"They'll come an' rescue us," moaned Byng. "They'll quarantine the pair
of us for being lousy, and they'll turn the perishing salt-water hose
on us. We're due for the brig for Gawd knows 'ow long; our reppitation's
gone; we've been spat on by a--by a Arab, and we 'aven't hit 'im back;
an' we've lost the pup. We've gone an' lost the pup! Gawd! There ain't
no more good in nothin'!"

Which shows no more than that Joe Byng in his sorrow overlooked a
circumstance or two. For instance, there were rings in the floor that
Crothers eyed with keen curiosity. They were anchored in the solid
blocks of stone.

"It's better than it might be, mate!" he argued optimistically. "They
might 'ave gone and chained us up to those!"

V.

Arabia has some peculiarities, not all of them discreditable, which she
does not share