agreed to accept this offer, Mr. Godwin being not less eager for
the venture than we, who had so much more to dread by letting it slip,
though his pass had yet a fortnight to run.

So the next day I repaired to the rock, and meeting Haroun (as he was
called), I closed with him, and put a couple of ducats in his hand for
earnest money.

"'Tis well," says he, pocketing the money, after kissing it and looking
up to heaven with a "Dill an," which means "It is from God." "We will
not meet again till the day of Ramadah at midnight, lest we fall under
suspicion. Farewell."

We parted as we did before, he going his way, and I mine; but, looking
back by accident before I had gone a couple of hundred yards, I
perceived a fellow stealing forth from a thicket of canes that stood in
the marshy ground near the spot where I had lately stood with Haroun,
and turning again presently, I perceived this man following in my steps.
Then, fairly alarmed, I gradually hastened my pace (but not so quick
neither as to seem to fly), making for the town, where I hoped to escape
pursuit in the labyrinth of little, crooked, winding alleys. As I
rounded a corner, I perceived him out of the tail of my eye, still
following, but now within fifty yards of me, he having run to thus
overreach me; and ere I had turned up a couple of alleys he was on my
heels and twitching me by the sleeve.

"Lord love you, Master," says he, in very good English, but gasping for
breath. "Hold hard a moment, for I've a thing or two to say to you as is
worth your hearing."

So I, mightily surprised by these words, stop; and he seeing the alley
quite empty and deserted, sits down on a doorstep, and I do likewise,
both of us being spent with our exertions.

"Was that man you were talking with a little while back named Haroun?"
asks he, when he could fetch his breath. I nodded.

"Did he offer to take you and three others to Elche, aboard a craft
called the White Moon?"

I nodded again, astonished at his information, for we had not discussed
our design to-day, Haroun and I.

"Did he offer to carry you off in a boat to his craft from the rock on
the mouth?"

Once more I nodded.

"Can you guess what will happen if you agree to this?"

Now I shook my head.

"The villain," says he, "will run you on a shoal, and there will he be
overhauled by the janizaries, and you be carried prisoners back to
Alger. Your freedom will be forfeited, and you will be sold for slaves.
An