h with more surprise than at the sight of the
man who stood that morning in their place.

It was Mohammed of Mequinez. He had come to ask for the release of
the followers of Absalam from their prison at Shawan. In defiance
of courtesy his slippers were on his feet. He was clad in a piece of
untanned camel-skin, which reached to his knees and was belted about his
waist. His head, which was bare to the sun and drooped by nature like a
flower, was held proudly up, and his wild eyes were flashing. He was not
supplicating for the deliverance of the people, but demanding it, and
taxing Ben Aboo as a tyrant to his throat.

"Give me them up, Ben Aboo," he was saying as Israel came to the
threshold, "or, if they die in their prison, one thing I promise you."

"And pray what is that?" said Ben Aboo.

"That there will be a bloody inquiry after their murderer."

Ben Aboo's brows were knitted, but he only glanced at Katrina, and made
pretence to laugh, and then said, "And pray, my lord, who shall the
murderer be?"

Then Mohammed of Mequinez stretched out his hand and answered,
"Yourself."

At that word there-was silence for a moment, while Ben Aboo shifted in
his seat, and Katrina quivered beside him.

Ben Aboo glanced up at Mohammed. He was Kaid, he was Basha, he was
master of all men within a circuit of thirty miles, but he was afraid of
this man whom the people called a prophet. And partly out of this fear,
and partly because he had more regard to Mohammed's courageous behaviour
in thus bearding him in his Kasbah and by the walls of his dungeons than
to the anger his hot word had caused him, Ben Aboo would have promised
him at that moment that the prisoners at Shawan should be released.

But suddenly Katrina remembered that she also had cause of indignation
against this man, for it had been rumoured of late that Mohammed had
openly denounced her marriage.

"Wait, Sidi," she said. "Is not this the fellow that has gone up and
down your bashalic, crying out on our marriage that it was against the
law of Mohammed?"

At that Ben Aboo saw clearly that there was no escape for him, so he
made pretence to laugh again, and said, "Allah! so it is! Mohammed the
Third, eh? Son of Mequinez, God will repay you! Thanks! Thanks! You
could never think how long I've waited that I might look face to face
upon the prophet that has denounced a Kaid."

He uttered these big words between bursts of derisive laughter, but
Mohammed struck th