[Illustration:  “ONLY IN THE MIDST OF OUR JOY I PERCEIVED THAT MOHAND OU MOHAND HAD ENTERED THE ROOM.”]

This done, we set out with a team of good mules, and reaching Thadviir about an hour before sundown, we repaired at once to Ali Oukadi’s, who received us with much civility, although ’twas clear to see he was yet loath to give up Moll; but the sight of the gold Mr. Godwin laid before him did smooth the creases from his brow (for these Moors love money before anything on earth), and having told it carefully he writes an acknowledgment and fills up a formal sheet of parchment bearing the Dey’s seal, which attested that Moll was henceforth a free subject and entitled to safe-conduct within the confines of the Dey’s administration.  And having delivered these precious documents into Mr. Godwin’s hands, he leaves us for a little space and then returns leading dear Moll by the hand.  And she, not yet apprised of her circumstances, seeing her husband with us, gives a shrill cry, and like to faint with happiness totters forward and falls in his ready arms.

I will not attempt to tell further of this meeting and our passionate, fond embraces, for ’twas past all description; only in the midst of our joy I perceived that Mohand ou Mohand had entered the room and stood there, a silent spectator of Moll’s tender yielding to her husband’s caresses, his nostrils pinched, and his jaundiced face overcast with a wicked look of mortification and envy.  And Moll seeing him, paled a little, drawing closer to her husband; for, as I learnt later on, and ’twas no more than I had guessed, he had paid her most assiduous attentions from the first moment he saw her, and had gone so far as to swear by Mahomet that death alone should end his burning passion to possess her.  And I observed that when we parted, and Moll in common civility offered him her hand, he muttered some oath as he raised it to his lips.

Declining as civilly as we might Ali Oukadi’s tender of hospitality, we rested that night at the large inn or caravansary, and I do think that the joy of Moll and her husband lying once more within each other’s arms was scarcely less than we felt, Dawson and I, at this happy ending of our long tribulations; but one thing it is safe to say, we slept as sound as they.

And how gay were we when we set forth the next morning for Alger—­Moll’s eyes twinkling like stars for happiness, and her cheeks all pink with blushes like any new bride, her husband with not less pride than passion in his noble countenance, and Dawson and I as blithe and jolly as schoolboys on a holiday.  For now had Moll by this act of heroism and devotion redeemed not only herself, but us also, and there was no further reason for concealment or deceit, but all might be themselves and fear no man.

Thus did joy beguile us into a false sense of security.