“To the jail with them!” the new arrival almost shrieked, and about a dozen in the crowd took up the cry—­

“To jail with them!”

“Infidels!  Worshipers of dogs!  Wine-drinkers!  Eaters of pig flesh!  Dogs and the sons of dogs—­what mothers gave them birth?  Are your hands, True-believers, fit bonds for them?  To the jail!  To the jail that Abdul Hamid caused his men to build for such as these!”

He stooped and looked deliberately to make sure that Crothers could not break away, then came closer and spat on him, saving half his spittle with impartial forethought for the struggling Byng, who looked up in time to see what was in store for him.  Being spat on is even less exhilarating than it sounds or looks, and Byng waxed speechless after passing through a many-worded stage of blasphemy.

Crothers, the larger of the two and by six brawny inches more phlegmatic, bode his time in silence, so that neither of them spoke a word while they were hustled and cuffed along the street between the unbaked brick hovels.  It was not until the reinforced iron door of Adra’s one stone building slammed on them that either of them said a word.

Then—­

“I’m not a mean man,” protested Crothers.

“No?” said Byng, monosyllabic for a start.

“No,” repeated Crothers, “I am not, Joe Byng.  But—­and I says it solemn; I says it with one ’and above my ’ed, and I’d take my affidavy on it in a court o’ law, if it’s the last word I ever does say an’ it’s my dying oath—­so ’elp me Solomon and all ’is glory; I’m a Dutchman if I wouldn’t like to ’ave a come-back at that Arab.”

Byng lay full length on his stomach, and buried his face in his arms.  He was still too full of wrath for words.

“I’d kick his mother, if I couldn’t land on him,” mused Crothers.  And then he busied himself about conning his new bearings.  It was a four-walled jail—­one-doored, one-windowed, iron-barred—­ill-smelling, verminous, too hot for words and too suggestive of the opposite of home, sweet home to call forth humor, even from a seaman.

“They’ll come an’ rescue us,” moaned Byng.  “They’ll quarantine the pair of us for being lousy, and they’ll turn the perishing salt-water hose on us.  We’re due for the brig for Gawd knows ’ow long; our reppitation’s gone; we’ve been spat on by a—­by a Arab, and we ’aven’t hit ‘im back; an’ we’ve lost the pup.  We’ve gone an’ lost the pup!  Gawd!  There ain’t no more good in nothin’!”

Which shows no more than that Joe Byng in his sorrow overlooked a circumstance or two.  For instance, there were rings in the floor that Crothers eyed with keen curiosity.  They were anchored in the solid blocks of stone.

“It’s better than it might be, mate!” he argued optimistically.  “They might ’ave gone and chained us up to those!”

V.

Arabia has some peculiarities, not all of them discreditable, which she does not share with any other country.  There is, for instance, the kind custom that dictates the setting free of slaves when they have rendered seven years’ good service.