On this we separated presently, and I, joining my friends at our inn, laid the matter before them. There being still some light, we then went forth on the mole, and there we quickly spied the White Moon, which, though a small craft, looked very clean, and with a fair cabin house, built up in the Moorish fashion upon the stern. And here, sitting down, we all 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?"