I went through the crowd with Mustapha belaboring me and shouting:
"Dog of a Nazarene, how dare you risk your body, for which my master paid a great sum, in a fight with a holy man?"
When we reached a place where our talk could not be overheard, I burst out: "The treasure sacks, Mustapha? Do not tell me that the Moors have them!"
"The bags are safe, oh David," he assured me, "but fret not if you are not able to open them till you return to America. After you were captured, I hurried to the waterside. There I saw the cutter of The Morning Star, a vessel of the American navy. I unstrapped the sacks and put them in the boat, pointing out to the sailor in charge the tags you had tied around their necks."
This information dumbfounded me. The fact that I had been careful enough to tie to the necks of the sacks tags from our own naval stores seemed to promise now delivery of the sacks to a safe place—if they were not ripped open and plundered meanwhile. This was not liable to happen in view of the pains I had taken to ward off curiosity. Upon each tag I had written plainly:
ARCHAEOLOGICAL SPECIMENS
to be delivered to
Rev. Ezekiel Eccleston, D.D.,
Rector of Marley Chapel,
Baltimore, Md.
Sender: David Forsyth,
With American Military Expedition
in Libyan Desert.
"If the men who handle the bags respect either the navy or the ministry," I said to Mustapha, "the treasure will be safe. But how can I be sure that the sacks were received on board the ship?"
"I saw the bags lifted over the side, oh, thou of little faith," Mustapha reproved me, "and the boat did not return to the dock. A few hours later The Morning Star sailed for America. Allah favored you—my tribe moved this way when Joseph Bashaw's soldiers took possession of Derne, and thus I came to prevent your blood being spilled in the streets of Tripoli!"
"I want to reward you with the biggest gem in our collection," I said, "but how can I do it when our fortune is at sea?"