“I am rather stiff in the joints,” said Warden, speaking composedly, “but I shall be glad to sit down and talk with the distinguished moullah if that is agreeable to him.”
He squatted on the ground, but two men seized him roughly and tried to force him to his knees. He resisted with a mad fury that was more creditable to his pluck than to his intelligence—yet there are indignities that cannot be borne, and this was one. Though handicapped by a crippled shoulder and the enervating effect of the drug, though he was grappled with before he could rise—and the Moors were men of bone and sinew—he fought so fiercely that both of his assailants were prostrate at the same time as himself. A coward’s blow ended the unequal tussle. A heavy whip cut him ferociously across the eyes, and half–blinded him, and he was flung violently face downward in front of the Blue Man, who muttered:
“Let the Kaffir dog lie there till he learns obedience.”
Thinking he was subdued, the Moors relaxed their grip. Then Warden sprang to his feet. If death were at hand, in dying he would at least rid tortured humanity of an oppressor. But the Nila Moullah seemed to guess his thought, and shrieked to his guards that they should hold fast the Nazarene. They pinioned his arms again, and the French–speaking Moor asked him why he had dared to disturb a place made holy by the presence of the moullah.
Nearly incoherent with pain and anger, Warden managed to answer that he had done harm to none, that he was not even a resident in Rabat, having landed at the port little more than an hour before he visited the Tower.
“Ah, he is not one of the accursed brood at Rabat? So much the better! They will fall like ripe pears at the time of plucking,” snarled the occupant of the litter.
Since the words were Arabic, Warden understood, but the instinct of self–preservation bade him conceal the fact. Nevertheless, he forced his lips to utter a dignified protest.
“I am an Englishman,” he said, “and my disappearance will be reported. Inquiry will be made—it is known that I went to the Hassan Tower—and your large caravan cannot travel without exciting comment. You will certainly be pursued and attacked, whether I am living or dead. Yet I am not vindictive. Set me free, bring me back to Rabat in time to join my ship, and I shall lodge no complaint against you, nor claim my money and other belongings.”
“What sayeth the unbeliever?” demanded the moullah.
He was told, with fair accuracy, and seemed to find humor in Warden’s words.