To that host of admirers it will bring grief to learn that Aghmed was most unjustly treated aboard the Gebel Dersa on that blistering thirteenth day of June. Yet facts must be reported. It chanced that the dozen Anglo-Saxons sprawled ungracefully about the after-deck composed, at such times as composure was possible, a single party. As all the world knows, it is for no other purpose than to offer the protection of his name and learning to just such defenseless flocks that the high-born Moroccan gentleman in question has been journeying thrice weekly to the Rock these thirty years. Yet the bellwether of the party, blind to his opportunity, had chosen as guide an ignorant, vile, ugly, utterly unprincipled rascal whose only motive was mercenary. True, Aghmed and the rascal were outwardly as alike as two bogus pesetas. But surely any man worthy the title of personal conductor should be versed in the reading of character, or at least able to distinguish between genuine testimonials from the world's élite and a parcel of bald forgeries! Worst of all, the leader, with that stiff-neckedness congenital to his race, had persisted in his error even after Aghmed had recounted in full detail the rascal's crimes. Small wonder there was dejection in the face of the universally-recommended as he crossed the pitching plank that connected the first-class with the baser world, his skirts threshing in the wind, his turban awry.
At sight of me, however, he brightened visibly. With outstretched hand and a wan smile he minuetted forward and seated himself on the hatch beside me with the unobtrusive greeting:
"Why for you travel third-class?"
The question struck me as superfluous. But it is as impossible to scowl down Aghmed's spirit of investigation as to stare him into believing an American a Spaniard. By the time the valleys of the African coast had begun to take on individuality, I had heard not only the full story of his benevolent life but had refused for the twentieth time his disinterested offer of protection. Nature, however, made Aghmed a guardian of his fellow-man, as she has made other hapless mortals poets; and her commands must be carried out at whatever sacrifice. Gradually, slowly, sadly, the "souvenir" which "americano gentlemen" were accustomed to bestow upon him with their farewell hand-clasp fell from twenty shillings to ten, to five, to three, then to as many pesetas. It was useless to explain that I had trusted to my own guidance in many an Arab land, and been fully satisfied with the service. When every other argument had fallen lifeless at his slippered feet, he sent forth at regular intervals the sole survivor, cheering it on with a cloud of acrid cigarette smoke:
"Si el señor"--for his hamstrung English had not far endured the journey--"if the gentleman has never taken a guide, this will be a new experience."
In the end the sole survivor won. What, after all, is travel but a seeking after new experience? Here, in truth, was one; and I might find out for myself whether a full-grown man tagging through the streets of a foreign city on the heels of a twaddle-spouting native feels as ridiculous as he looks.
We anchored toward noon in the churning harbor of Tangiers and were soon pitched into the pandemonium of all that goes to make up an Oriental mob lying in wait for touring Europeans. In a twinkling, Aghmed had engaged donkeys to carry us to the principal hotel. I paused on the outskirts of the riot to inform him that our sight-seeing would be afoot; and with a scream of astonishment he reeled and would, perhaps, have fallen had not the street been paved in that which would have made such stage-business unpleasant.
"Pero, señor!" he gasped. "You do not--you--why, people will say you have no money!"
"Horrible!" I cried, dodging a slaughtered sheep on the head of a black urchin in scanty night-shirt that dashed suddenly out of a slit between two buildings. Aghmed, myopic with excitement, failed to side-step, and it was some distance beyond that his wail again fell on my ear:
"O señor! Americano gentlemen never go by this street. I cannot guide without donkeys--"