d
received the necessary compliments first, endured a discussion of local
trade prospects, and then by an easy gradation led up to the powers of
the local Kady. He did not speak Arabic himself, and Rad el Moussa had
no English. But they had both served a life apprenticeship to sea
trading, and the curse of the Tower of Babel had very little power over
them. In the memories of each there were garnered scraps from a score of
spoken languages, and when these failed, they could always draw on the
unlimited vocabulary of the gestures and the eyes. And for points that
were really abstruse, or which required definite understanding, there
always remained the charcoal stick and the explanatory drawing on the
face of a whitewashed wall.

When the conversation had lasted some half an hour by the clock, and a
slave brought in a second relay of sweetmeats and thick coffee, the
sailor mentioned, as it were incidentally, that one of his officers had
got into trouble in the town. "It's quite a small thing," he said
lightly, "but I want him back as soon as possible, because there's work
for him to do on the steamer. See what I mean?"

Rad el Moussa nodded gravely. "Savvy plenty," said he.

Now Kettle knew that the machinery of the law in these small Arabian
coast towns was concentrated in the person of the Kady, who, for
practical purposes, must be made to move by that lubricant known as palm
oil; and so he produced some coins from his pocket and lifted his
eyebrows inquiringly.

Rad el Moussa nodded again, and made careful inspection of the coins,
turning them one by one with his long brown fingers, and biting those he
fancied most as a test of their quality. Finally, he selected a gold
twenty-franc piece and two sovereigns, balanced and chinked them
carefully in his hand, and then slipped them into some private
receptacle in his wearing apparel.

"I say," remarked Kettle, "that's not for you personally, old tintacks.
That's for the Kady."

Rad pointed majestically to his own breast. "El Kady," he said.

"Oh, you are his Worship, are you?" said Kettle. "Why didn't you say so
before? I don't think it was quite straight of you, tintacks, but
perhaps that's your gentle Arab way. But I say, Whiskers, don't you try
being too foxy with me, or you'll get hurt. I'm not the most patient man
in the world with inferior nations. Come, now, where's the mate?"

Rad spread his hands helplessly.

"See, here, it's no use your trying that gam