‘You are coming! you are coming!’ exclaimed Arthur, clasping the merchant’s hand, almost beside himself with joy.

‘Sma’ hope wad there be of a callant like yersel’ and the wean there winning awa’ by yer lane,’ growled Yusuf.

‘You have given up all for us.’

‘There wasna muckle to gie,’ returned the sponge merchant.  ‘Sin’ the gudewife and her bit bairnies at Bona were gane, I hadna the heart to gang thereawa’, nor quit the sound o’ the bonny Scots tongue.  I wad as soon gang to the bottom as to the toom house.  For dinna ye trow yersells ower sicker e’en the noo.’

‘Is there fear of pursuit?’

‘No mickle o’ that.  The folk here are what they ca’ Cabyles, a douce set, not forgathering with Arabs nor wi’ Moors.  I wad na gang among them till the search was over to-day; but yesterday I saw yon carle, and coft the boatie frae him for the wee blackamoor and the mule.  The Moors at El Aziz are not seafaring; and gin the morn they jalouse what we have done, we have the start of them.  Na, I’m not feared for them; but forbye that, this is no the season for an open boatie wi’ a crew of three and a wean.  Gin we met an Algerian or Tunisian cruiser, as we are maist like to do, a bullet or drooning wad be ower gude in their e’en for us—­for me, that is to say.  They wad spare the bairn, and may think you too likely a lad to hang on the walls like a split corbie on the woodsman’s lodge.’

‘Well, Yusuf, my name is Hope, you know,’ said Arthur.  ’God has brought us so far, and will scarce leave us now.  I feel three times the man that I was when I lay down this evening.  Do we keep to the north, where we are sure to come to a Christian land in time?’

’Easier said than done.  Ye little ken what the currents are in this same sea, or deed ye’ll soon ken when we get into them.’

Arthur satisfied himself that they were making for the north by looking at the Pole Star, so much lower than he was used to see it in Scotland that he hardly recognised his old friend; but, as he watched the studded belt of the Hunter and the glittering Pleiades, the Horatian dread of Nimbosus Orion occurred to him as a thought to be put away.

Meantime there was a breeze from the land, and the sail was hoisted.  Yusuf bade both Arthur and Fareek lie down to sleep, for their exertions would be wanted by and by, since it would not be safe to use the sail by daylight.  It was very cold—­wild blasts coming down from the mountains; but Arthur crept under the woollen mantle that had been laid over Ulysse, and was weary enough to sleep soundly.  Both were awakened by the hauling down of the mast; and the little boy, who had quite slept off the drug, scrambling out from under the covering, was astonished beyond measure at finding himself between the glittering, sparkling expanse of sea and the sky, where the sun had just leapt up in a blaze of gold.

The white summits of Atlas were tipped with rosy light, beautiful to behold, though the voyagers had much rather have been out of sight of them.