Chapter Twenty.
Concerns the Concession.
Next morning Roddy was compelled to leave Haslemere by the early train, and having met Barclay at Waterloo station, they drove in a taxi to the Ritz, where in a luxurious suite of apartments they found the white-bearded intellectual old Moor, Mohammed ben Mussa. His dark, deep-set eyes sparkled when in French Mr Barclay introduced the young man as “one of the most active and enthusiastic mining engineers in London,” and from beneath his white robe he put forth his hand and grasped Roddy’s.
“I am very pleased, Monsieur Homfray, to think that you contemplate prospecting in the Wad Sus. Our mutual friend Mr Barclay is well known to us in Fez, and at his instigation I am granting you the necessary concession on the same conditions as my predecessor proposed to you, namely, that one-eighth of the profits be paid to me privately.”
“To those terms, Your Excellency, we entirely agree,” Roddy said.
“Good. Then I have the agreement ready for your signature.”
Upon the writing-table stood a small steel dispatch-case, from which His Excellency brought out a document which had been drawn up by a French notary in Tangiers, and, having read it, both Barclay and Homfray appended their signatures. Replacing it in the box, he then drew out a formidable-looking document written in Arabic with a translation in French.
Both Roddy and his friend sat down and together digested the contents of the document by which “Son Majesté Chérifiane,” through “his trusted Minister Mohammed ben Mussa,” granted to Roderick Charles Homfray, of Little Farncombe, in Surrey, the sole right to prospect for and to work the emerald mines in the Wad Sus region of the Sahara on payment of one-eighth of the money obtained from the sale of the gems to the Sultan’s private account at the Crédit Lyonnais in Paris.
It was a long and wordy screed, couched in the quaint and flowery language of the Moors, but the above was the gist of it. The Sultan and his Minister were sharing between themselves a quarter of the spoils, while Morocco itself obtained no benefit whatever.
The two Englishmen having expressed their acceptance, His Excellency, the slow-moving Moorish Minister, bestirred himself again, and taking a large piece of scarlet sealing-wax, produced a huge silver seal—his seal of office as Minister—and with considerable care and with a great show of formality, he heated the wax until he had a round mass about three inches in diameter, into which he pressed the all-important seal. Then, ascertaining that the impression was a good one, he took out a red pen and signed it with long, sprawly Arabic characters, afterwards signing his name in French as Minister of His Majesty the Sultan.