would be no derring-do! 
        It’s the siren of to-morrow
        That knows naught of lack or sorrow,
        So you’ll sell your bonds and borrow,
        When temptation beckons you!

Once Fred starts there is no stopping him, short of personal violence, and he ran through his ever lengthening list of songs, not all quite printable, until the very coral walls ached with the concertina’s wailing, and our throats were hoarse from ridiculous choruses.  As Yerkes put it: 

“When pa says sing, the rest of us sing too or go crazy!”

I went to the window and tried to get a view of shipping through the mango branches.  Masts and sails—­lateen spars particularly—­always get me by the throat and make me happy for a while.  But all I could see was a low wall beyond the little compound, and over the top of it headgear of nearly all the kinds there are. (Zanzibar is a wonderful market for second-hand clothes.  There was even a tall silk hat of not very ancient pattern.)

“Come and look, Monty!” said !, and he and Yerkes came and stood beside me.  Seeing his troubadour charm was broken, Fred snapped the catch on the concertina and came too.

“Arabian Nights!” he exclaimed, thumping Monty on the back.

“Didums, you drunkard, we’re dead and in another world!  Juma is the one-eyed Calender!  Look—­fishermen—­houris—­how many houris?—­seen ’em grin!—­soldiers of fortune—­merchants—­sailors—­by gad, there’s Sindbad himself!—­and say!  If that isn’t the Sultan Haroun-al-Raschid in disguise I’m willing to eat beans and pie for breakfast to oblige Yerkes!  Look—­look at the fat ruffian’s stomach and swagger, will you?”

Yerkes sized up the situation quickest.

“Sing him another song, Fred. If we want to strike up acquaintance with half Zanzibar, here’s our chance!”

“Oh, Richard, oh, my king!” hummed Monty.  “It’s Coeur de Lion and Blondell over again with the harp reversed.”

If Zanzibar may be said to possess main thoroughfares, that window of ours commanded as much of one as the tree and wall permitted; and music—­even of a concertina—­is the key to the heart of all people whose hair is crisp and kinky.  Perhaps rather owing to the generosity of their slave law, and Koran teachings, more than to racial depravity, there are not very many Arabs left in that part of the world with true semitic features and straight hair, nor many woolly-headed folk who are quite all-Bantu.  There is enough Arab blood in all of them to make them bold; Bantu enough for syncopated, rag-time music to take them by the toes and stir them.  The crowd in the street grew, and gathered until a policeman in red fez and khaki knickerbockers came and started trouble.  He had a three-cornered fight on his hands, and no sympathy from any one, within two minutes.  Then the man with the stomach and swagger—­he whom Fred called Haroun-al-Raschid—­took a hand in masterly style.  He seized the police-man from behind, flung him out of the crowd, and nobody was troubled any more by that official.