"He has a secret that he owes to science," said the Oriental stubbornly. He was a proud, determined man. The black moustache that flowed across his tawny face and the black hair that showed in strings beneath his fez gave an added fierceness to his look. His brilliantly embroidered cloak made him still more commanding in appearance. Commodore Barney, with his stout body and sea legs, cut a poor figure beside him. "Harken, my friend," the commodore said sharply, "I mean what I say. We're not going to have the rector bothered. We don't know your business in America, and we're not inquiring into it. In return, we ask you to let us mind our own affairs. If you know what's good for you, you'll stop hounding the minister for his secret. Science be blowed! Art be hanged!" Alexander and I, David Forsyth, listened with eyes popping. Orphans we were, adopted by Dr. Eccleston, our mother's rector. My father--as brave a sailor as ever drew breath, Commodore Barney often assured us--had been killed on board the commodore's schooner _Hyder Ally_, while protecting the shipping in the Delaware River from British frigates during the Revolutionary War. My mother, while father was at sea, had helped to nurse the sick people of Baltimore, and had herself died of the pestilence. Dr. Eccleston, a widower, assumed the care of Alexander and myself. Alexander, springing up like Jack's bean-vine, yet growing in brawn and manliness as his height increased, was my elder by a number of years. He was much taller than I, yet I was growing too and had hopes of reaching, by the time I was sixteen, the chalk mark on our wall that showed Alexander to be five feet, ten inches high. It was on a dock in Baltimore that this talk took place. The Egyptian Murad had come to our city from Washington. What his business was no one could tell. Some said that he was a Turkish diplomat. Others said that he was a spy for the Barbary rulers. He attended services at the rector's church, and had told someone that he was a native of Alexandria, Egypt. He had embraced the Christian religion, he said, and had been so persecuted by the indignant Moslems that he had left Egypt for America. He appeared to have plenty of means, and, because there was such an air of romance about him, the people of Baltimore accepted him without much questioning, and were, indeed, rather proud that they had a man of mystery among them. Our presence on the pier was due to the arrival of Alexander's ship, _The Three Friends_, from England. Alexander, after begging Dr. Eccleston in vain to permit him to make a sea voyage, had taken French leave. When news reached our house that _The Three Friends_ had come into port, and that Alexander was one of the crew, we hurried down to greet him. The rector was angry and affectionate. The commodore was proud of the boy. As for me, I regarded Alexander as Ulysses was doubtless regarded by the boys of his home town when he returned from his wanderings.