So far, nobody had done anything intended to be wrong—­least of all the dog.  The Arab was defending institutions; Crothers and Joe Byng were bent on holiday, and full of kind regards for anything that lived; and the dog was living dogfully up to well-bred-terrier tradition.  It was as if two harmless chemicals had met and blended into nitroglycerin.

Deprived of his gun, the Arab drew a knife; and no British sailor lives who does not understand the quick-loosed answer to the glint of steel.  Fist and boot both landed on the Arab quicker than his own thought served the knife, and the weight of quick concussions jarred him into all but coma.  This time Byng caught the dog in time and held him back, leaving Curley Crothers to finish matters by making the long knife prize of war.  Once more he helped the Arab on his feet, smiling hugely and gentling the iron sinews with huge paws that could have wrenched them all apart if need be.

“Take my advice, cully, and weigh quick!” he counseled, looking the Arab over and making sure the unfortunate had not been too much hurt.  “Run for shelter where you can cool your bearings!  Run off to the mosque and pray, to make up for all that cussing.  Go and be good!  And next time you meets us, be friendly—­see?”

The Arab was too apoplectically angry to comply, but Crothers took him by both shoulders and shoved him; and finding himself shot forward out of reach, seeing safety ahead and its possible corollary of awful vengeance, he suddenly achieved discretion and scampered through the gap in the wall.

“’E’s gone to fetch his pals.  Look out, mate!” warned Joe Byng.

“Not ’im!” vowed Crothers. “’E’s ’ad enough, that’s all!  We’ve seen the last of ’im!”

And the most amazing thing of all was that Crothers believed just what he said—­Curley Crothers, to whom Red Sea and Persian Gulf ports were as an open book, and to whom the Arab customs and religion and reprehensible tendencies were currently supposed to be first-reader knowledge.  It was he who had proved there were no harems—­he who coined the Navy adage, “Search an Arab first, and sit on him, before you come to terms!”

Yet here he was, advising Byng to disregard a looted Arab’s spittle!  There is no accounting, ever, for the ways of shore-leave sailor-men.

“Come on, Joe,” he said.  “Lead ’the dawg—­he can walk now—­and let’s see what Adra looks like.”

IV.

All might have been well, and both seamen might have reached the Puncher again with dignity and grace, had they not entered Adra, past the only jail in that part of Arabia.  And an Arab jail being rarer and one percent more evil than any other evil thing there is, the two of them quite naturally paused to make its closest possible acquaintance.

“Look out for vermin!” cautioned Curley, standing on tiptoe to peer in through the close-spaced iron bars.