As soon after our arrival as we had shaken the dust out of our clothes, and washed our faces and our hands and feet, we were ushered by slaves into a hall, at one end of which sat the old Moor, and the captain and the renegade and the interpreter were placed on each side of him, and I sat a little further off, tucking up my legs as I had done before; and then some black slaves in white dresses brought in a little table for each of us, with all sorts of curious things to eat, which I need not describe, for in that country one feast is very much like another. The renegade had also brought a case; but that it contained something besides merchandise he proved by producing, one after the other, several of his favourite bottles of Schiedam, which apparently were no less acceptable to the old Moor than to him. I am not, however, fond of describing such scenes, or of picturing such gross hypocrites as the renegade and the old Moor. I gained an advantage, however, from their drunken habits; for as soon as it was dark I stole out of the house, and tried to find my way to the shed where Lyal told me he was chained at night. I had taken good note of the bearings of the place as we rode along. I knew that if I was found prying about, I should run a great chance of being killed; but still I was resolved to run every risk to try and rescue the poor fellow from captivity. Of course, as the captain afterwards told me, we might have gone home to England, and laid the state of the case before the Government; and after a year or so spent in diplomatising, the poor fellow, if he was still alive, might have been released, or the Emperor of Morocco might have declared that he could not find him, or that he was dead; and thus he would have remained on, like many others, in captivity. There was a little light from the moon, which enabled me to mark the outlines of the house I was leaving, as well as to find my way. Two servants were stationed in the entrance passage, but they had wrapped themselves up in their haiks and gone soundly to sleep, so I stepped over their bodies without waking them. Every person about the house, indeed, seemed to have gone to sleep, but the dogs were more faithful than the human beings, and some of them barked furiously as I walked along. They were either chained or locked up, and finding my footsteps going from them, they were soon silent. At length I reached the shed I was in search of. It was near a cottage, with several other similar sheds in the neighbourhood. As I came to the entrance, a voice said-- "Come in; but speak low." At first I could see no one, but on going further in, I discovered the object of my search sitting in a corner on a heap of straw. He was chained there, and could not move.