Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 4).djvu/122

 "What do you mean?"

"I mean, will you treat a fellow squarely, and not give him away."

"Certainly," he answered, "and secrecy and despatch is our motto."

"Well, I'll think over the matter," I replied, "and come and see you again."

His anger and irritability made themselves manifest. But, without waiting for him to continue the argument, I left the place with an instinctive feeling that I had again struck the trail; for it instantly occurred to me that old Moses Cohen had gone to Morocco in company with Jobson, who had changed his name to Rowland, and if I could establish that fact there could be but one deduction, namely, that they had gone to try and sell the great cat's-eye. I directed my attention now to tracing Rowland, and I found that he and his wife went to Lyons, then doubled back to Marseilles again, and took passage in the French steamer La Pelouse for Algiers, and in that steamer old Cohen also sailed.

The scent was getting hot now, and my surmises were becoming hard facts. In going to Lyons, Rowland had been actuated, no doubt, by the belief that he was making it more difficult for him to be traced; and when he and his wife came back to Marseilles, they had again changed their name, and were then known as Mr. and Mrs. St. John Clair, and in that name they were entered on the passenger list of La Pelouse. That they were the people I wanted there was not the slightest doubt, for the description I received of them tallied exactly with the Rev. Arthur Jobson and his wife, who had been in Colombo.

Perhaps I need scarcely say that as soon as I could possibly get a steamer I was speeding to Algiers after them, and, arrived there, I ascertained they had proceeded to Mogador. This was the place, then, where they hoped to find a market, and to Mogador I resolved to go. But I saw the necessity for taking counsel with the French authorities in Algiers, and I appealed to Colonel Jules Marcet, who was in charge of the garrison. This gentleman promised to aid me in every possible way, and he furnished me with an escort of ten Arab soldiers in charge of two French officers, and an interpreter, and, as I could tolerate no delay, we set off at once.

On reaching Mogador, I learnt that "an old Jew trader," speaking Arabic perfectly, had recently arrived in company with a white man and his wife, and the Jew had brought with him a most wonderful gem, which he was anxious to sell to the Sultan, who was then at his summer palace about twenty miles inland. Accordingly the Jew and the white man and his wife had gone out to him. It was now necessary to take such steps as would render it tolerably certain that I should recover the long missing gem. To do this some subterfuge would have to be resorted to, for the Sultan was a wily monarch, and, had he been so disposed, he might have sent the stone to some safe place of keeping in the heart of his country, and have defied anyone to obtain possession of it. I therefore, with the approval of the officers of my escort, had a message conveyed to him to say that I had come from England to see him on a very urgent matter indeed, and I humbly craved that he would grant me an audience, my business was of such a nature that his interests might suffer if he refused see me.

After waiting a few days his barbaric Majesty's answer came, and it was to the effect that the interview I solicited would be granted, and on the morrow an escort