Page:A Set of Rogues.djvu/342

 "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 door-step, 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?"