"Now look here, Mister," said Captain Kettle, "I've paid you honestly for justice, and if I don't have it, I'll start in pulling down your old town straight away. Give up the mate, Rad, and let me get back peacefully to my steamboat, or, by James! I'll let loose a wild earthquake here. If you want battle, murder, and sudden death, Mr. Rad el Moussa, just you play monkey tricks with me, and you'll get 'em cheap. Kady, are you? Then, by James! you start in without further talk, and give me the justice that I've bought and paid for." Though this tirade was in an alien tongue, Rad el Moussa caught the drift from Captain Kettle's accompanying gesticulations, which supplied a running translation as he went on. Rad saw that his visitor meant business, and signed that he would go out and fetch the imprisoned mate forthwith. "No, you don't," said Kettle promptly. "If your Worship once left here, I might have trouble in finding you again. I know how easy it is to hide in a-warren like this town of yours. Send one of your hands with a message." Now, to convey this sentence more clearly, Kettle had put his fingers on the Arab's clothing, when out fell a bag of pearls, which came unfastened. The pearls rolled like peas about the floor, and the Arab, with gritting teeth, whipped out a knife. Promptly Kettle drew also, and covered him with a revolver. "See here," he said, "I'm not a thief, though perhaps you think I pulled out that jewelry purse on purpose. It was an accident, Rad, so I'll forgive your hastiness. But your Worship mustn't pull out cutlery on me. I'll not stand that from any man living. That's right, put it up. Back goes the pistol into its pocket, and now we're friends again. Pick up the pearls yourself, and then you'll be certain I haven't grabbed any, and then send one of your men to fetch my mate and do as I want. You're wasting a great deal of my time, Rad el Moussa, over a very simple job." The Arab gathered the pearls again into the pouch and put it back to its place among his clothes. His face had grown savage and lowering, but it was clear that this little spitfire of a sailor, with his handy pistol, daunted him. Kettle, who read these signs, was not insensible to the compliment they implied, but at the same time he grew, if anything, additionally cautious. He watched his man with a cat-like caution, and when Rad called a slave and gave him orders in fluent Arabic, he made him translate his commands forthwith. Rad el Moussa protested that he had ordered nothing more than the carrying out of his visitor's wishes. But it seemed to Kettle that he protested just a trifle too vehemently, and his suspicions deepened.