"We must use haste, Sidi," he said calmly, avoiding the protests the child was making with his closed fists. "Show wisdom, little lord. Why do you not wish to return to the town, wherein are special delights for the eye in the booths of the market-place?"
Landon hesitated. Then he joined the Moor, running. And the other was covering the ground with huge strides which forced his companion to continue the run to keep pace with him. He panted out a question.
"My plan, Sidi?" returned the Moor. "It lies in the hands of Allah. Here when inquiry begins to be made, we are the mark of a hundred eyes. In Yakoob's hovel a means of escape may be found."
The two reached the dusty road which leads from the drill ground, followed it into the shadows of the town gate, mounted the steep on which the citadel stands, and gained a row of squalid wooden hovels which fringed the rampart above the fort ditch. Into one of these they disappeared.
A man looked up as they entered, a dark-skinned, low-browed Israelite, who greeted them with an obsequiously furtive air. He sat cross-legged upon a turned-up chest and plied his needle upon an exceedingly ragged pair of trousers. A heap of other garments lay at his elbow. His trade was evidently that of mending tailor.
"This deposit for contraband of which you spoke last night?" asked Muhammed, without preamble. "Where is it?"
The look of furtive expectancy in the tailor's eyes became active alarm.
"What do you fear?" he asked shrilly. "A search? There are fifteen thousand cartridges awaiting transport."
"The search will not be for those, but for these," said the Moor, pointing to Landon and his son. "And there is as great a ruin attached to the finding of the one as the other. You must prevent that."
The Jew rose quickly and barred the door. With alert movements he gathered up the smoking ashes from the hearth and emptied them into a shallow pan. He covered his hand with a cloth, seized the pothook which hung from the entrance of the chimney, and moved it laboriously aside. As he did so the hearthstone moved slowly downwards as if on a hinge. A flight of steps led into the darkness.