Willard’s face brightened. “Ah, that’s little Ahmed—you don’t remember him? Surely—the water-carrier’s boy. Mrs. Blandhorn saved his mother’s life when he was born, and he still comes to prayers. Yes, Ahmed, this is your old friend Mr. Spink.”
Ahmed raised prodigious lashes from seraphic eyes and reverently surveyed the face of his old friend. “Me ’member.”
“Hullo, old chap ... why, of course ... so do I,” the drummer beamed. The missionary laid a brotherly hand on the boy’s shoulder. It was really providential that Ahmed—whom they hadn’t seen at the Mission for more weeks than Willard cared to count—should have “happened by” at that moment: Willard took it as a rebuke to his own doubts.
“You’ll be in this evening for prayers, won’t you, Ahmed?” he said, as if Ahmed never failed them. “Mr. Spink will be with us.”
“Yessir,” said Ahmed with unction. He slipped from under Willard’s hand, and outflanking the drummer approached him from the farther side.
“Show you Souss boys dance? Down to old Jewess’s, Bab-el-Soukh,” he breathed angelically.
Willard saw his companion turn from red to a wrathful purple.
“Get out, you young swine, you—do you hear me?”
Ahmed grinned, wavered and vanished, engulfed in the careless crowd. The young men walked on without speaking.