coffed at the idea.

In reply to our order to come to the hotel the first thing the following
morning and see our baggage safely on board the steamer, he said that he
should leave Tangier at daybreak, and that it was quite impossible for
him to attend upon us, evidently expecting that his prepaid wages would
be amicably allowed to slide. But not in the face of this final
desertion. We reiterated the former course--a letter to the Consul at
Tetuan; again he pleaded abject poverty; but meeting only with
inclemency, once more plunged his hand into his bag, and pulled out
dollars amounting exactly to the sum which he had been advanced.

So much for his poverty. We were now, he explained, "quits." "All was
right between us." He "would not like to leave us with a trace of ill
feeling remaining between us and himself."

He _did_ leave us, however, with his tail fairly between his legs, and,
if he had been kicked out of the hotel, could not have gone forth more
sadly.

What motive he had for going back to Tetuan, or what whim seized him in
Tangier, remained a mystery. Impulsive as a child, he had been at first
madly keen, so he said, to go with us to the world's end; then, as the
time approached, in the same ratio his ardour evaporated; until, finally,
he had no more desire left, and on the march over to Tangier grew more
indifferent and morose at every step. While we were in Tangier he was
like a fish out of water. And yet he had been once to Fez and to Morocco
City: he was a travelled man. Possibly he had a more remunerative billet
in view, or was homesick, or jealous about Tahara. After all, whatever
the reason, his line of conduct was only distinctly Moorish, and
characteristic of a race in which, as a whole, no wise man places great
reliance. A Moorish servant will not rob his European master: perquisites
are a _sine qua non_, of course. Probably his lies are no blacker than
those of European servants; but the Moor, in place of that quality of
faithfulness which can ennoble an English rascal, has a cold-blooded
current in his veins. His manners may be charming--he is a plausible
devil; but lean upon him, and he turns out to be as jerry-built as his
own crumbling whitewashed walls.

It is with somewhat of a feeling of banishment into the unknown, that the
passenger by the little coast-steamer takes his departure from Tangier,
and sees first its white houses and yellow sands, and last of all Spartel
lighthouse, disappea