João and Rahma were very happy. Of an evening, when his work was done, he taught her to read and write Portuguese, and found her quick and intelligent in learning. He explained to her the precepts of the Christian religion, and told her that he hoped the day might come when he could find some excuse to leave the Moorish Court and escape with her to Portugal.
When their first child, a girl, was born, Rahma expressed the wish that her name should be ‘Miriam,’ or Mary, the name of the Mother of the Saviour of all men, and that she should be brought up in the Christian faith.
João was very industrious, and continued in high favour with the Sultan, manufacturing many gun-barrels, upon which, besides his own name in European characters, he engraved the Arabic word ‘Sidi’ (my Lord), to denote that they were made for the Sultan, and such barrels are occasionally to be found at the present day.
The Moorish gunsmiths having lost, since João’s arrival at Court, the Royal custom, took counsel together how they should contrive to discover the Christian’s secret of forging the twisted barrels; for João was careful to allow no Moor, except the Sultan, to enter his forge when he was at work.
The Portuguese was of very cleanly habits, and had his workshop whitewashed every month, for which work Jews are usually employed throughout Morocco. One of the smiths, disguised as a Jew, offered himself to João to whitewash the forge. He was engaged, and returned for the same purpose every month.
The sharp-eyed spy watched the operations, and finally learnt so much of the process as to enable him to imitate it, and he succeeded so well that he presented a twisted barrel to the Sultan, which His Majesty considered to be as good as any of João’s make.
The latter was summoned to the Court and asked how it came to pass that twisted barrels could be made by native gunsmiths. The unfortunate João declared he had been betrayed by some spy watching him when at work.
Other Moorish smiths also acquired the art, and, as good barrels of twisted iron were sold at low prices in Fas, the Sultan discontinued employing João, and ceased sending him ‘mona’ from the palace.
João, however, had laid by a considerable sum of money, and he determined to quit the capital with his wife and try to escape to Tangier. He therefore petitioned the Sultan to be allowed to take his wife to visit her father, the Sheikh at Beni M’suar.
This was granted, and João bought animals to carry away such property as he had not been able to dispose of at Fas, and set out with Rahma and her child for the village of Tsemsalla in the Beni M’suar mountains.