Simon smiled. "I will use some caution. If the headman breaks the rules, his people must not know. Those who got no wine would be horrified. In this country one uses caution always. Frankness is dangerous."
"Do you know much about the country?"
"I know something," Simon replied. "A Levantine and a Jew may go where an Englishman cannot and a Spaniard would be killed. In Egypt I was an hotel servant, in Algiers a pedlar. I have sold wine to the Legion at the outposts, and in Senegal I was major-domo for a French commandant. A small, fat man, with a theatrical dignity, but the black soldiers loved him. When they drilled well, he gave them sugar. He did not send an orderly; the commandant went along the line with the sugar in his cap. Some French are like that. Your officers are just, but one doubts if the Africans love you much. Well, in Algiers one has adventures, but in Morocco, south of Casablanca, one is lucky if one keeps one's life. If you are not bored——"
Kit said he was not bored. To listen was some relief from his gloomy thoughts, and Simon told a romantic tale. The fellow was obviously a bold and unscrupulous vagabond, but Kit did not know when his narrative stopped. He was very tired and presently his head dropped forward and his shoulders slipped down the broken wall.
When he awoke the stars were shining and it was very cold. Two sailors lay beside him and all was quiet. Kit put his head on another stone and went to sleep again.
CHAPTER IV
KIT NEGOTIATES
In the morning before the sun was high, a Berber took Kit and his party to the headman's tent and signed them to sit in the sand. Their clothes were smeared by dust to which the dew had stuck, and Kit's boots were broken. His fatigue had not worn off much, he felt horribly dirty and dull, but he knew he must brace up. The headman and two or three others occupied the open front of the tent. In the background a row of camels, making strange noises, knelt beside a broken wall, and behind the uncouth animals stones and clumps of tamarisk melted into the widening bottom of the wady. The wind had dropped, it was not yet hot, and thin smoke with a pungent smell floated about the camp.
Kit studied the headman with some curiosity, since he did not know if the fellow was his host or captor, but got no hint from his inscrutable face. He understood the people were Berbers, but at Las Palmas he had borrowed a book that stated the Berbers were short and light-skinned. The tribesmen Kit had met were big and dark, but the chief was lighter in build and colours than the rest. He was obviously not a savage; somehow Kit thought him well-bred.
"Why have you come to my camp?" he asked.