"The visit was of your own seeking, ladies," I said; "if you are not willing to treat Her Highness with deference, better stay outside."
They were not equal to that sacrifice after riding four miles.
"Who'll start the conversation?" said Captain No. 1. "You start it" (to me) "like a good fellow, and I'll take up the running."
Captain No. 2 said he would hang about for us outside.
Mahomet beckoned to us and we ventured into the garden. Coming down a pathway we saw an austere, swarthy, obese man of the middle height. He was white-gloved, and wore a red fez, a sort of Zouave upper garment of blue, with burnous, baggy trousers, white stockings, and Turkish slippers. It was the Shereef. I had agreed to open the interview, but when it came to the trial my Arabic (I had been only studying it for two hours) abandoned me. Mahomet did the needful. I thanked His Highness for his kindness in admitting us to his demesne, and he smiled a modest, solemn smile, and looked greeting from his small eyes. When he discovered that I had been travelling in Spain, he asked me—always through Mahomet—what they were doing there. On having my reply—that they were tasting the miseries of civil war—translated to him, he shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and slowly ejaculated:
"Unhappy Spain! Silly, unfortunate people! That is the way with them always. They are at perpetual strife one with another."
And then Mahomet interposed with a parenthesis of his own depreciatory of the Spaniards, whom he loathed and despised. He had fought against them in the war of 1839-1860, and the Shereef had also headed his countrymen, and had shown great courage and coolness in action. His presence had infused a high spirit of enthusiasm into the undisciplined troops.
"Bismillah!" grunted Mahomet. "The Spaniard is beneath contempt. He was almost licked in one battle. He was four months here, and how far did he get into the interior?"
Mahomet conveniently forgot the defeat of Guad-el-ras, the occupation of Tetuan, and the indemnity of four hundred millions of reals which was exacted as the price of peace; but he was literally correct, the victorious O'Donnell did not flaunt his flag beyond a very exiguous strip of the territory of Sidi-Muley-Mahomet.
We were walking as we talked, and by this time had reached the brow of a wooded rise which commanded an uninterrupted prospect of the ocean. The flowery cistus flourished on the eminence, and cork-trees, chestnuts, and willows shielded us from the fierceness of the sun. Behind and around were a succession of richly-planted gardens. We halted, and the Shereef, scanning the horizon in the direction of the Rock, suddenly put a question to me which almost took my breath away: