They wandered up to the outskirts of the prison, and saw a fat Jewess being pushed along under arrest for giving false weight. She made some resistance in the narrow entrance, and the guard planted his foot in the small of her back, so that she seemed suddenly to crumple up and fall inside. "Well, I've often said lightly 'what a heathen' or 'there's a young heathen,' but that brings it home to one," said Mrs. Gainsborough, gravely. Sylvia paid no attention to her companion's outraged sympathy. She was in the East where elderly obese Jewesses who gave false weight were well treated thus. She was living with every moment of rapturous reality the dreams of wonder that the _Arabian Nights_ had brought her in youth. Yet Tangier was only a gateway to enchantments a hundredfold more powerful. She turned suddenly to Mrs. Gainsborough and asked her if she could stay here while she rode into the interior. "Stay here alone?" Mrs. Gainsborough exclaimed. "Not if I know it." This plan of Sylvia's to explore the interior of Morocco was narrowed down ultimately into riding to Tetuan, which was apparently just feasible for Mrs. Gainsborough, though likely to be rather fatiguing. A dragoman was found, a certain Don Alfonso reported to be comparatively honest. He was an undersized man rather like the stump of a tallow candle into which the wick has been pressed down by the snuffer, for he was bald and cream-colored, with a thin, uneven black mustache and two nodules on his forehead. His clothes, too, were crinkled like a candlestick. He spoke French well, but preferred to speak English, of which he only knew two words, "all right"; this often made his advice unduly optimistic. In addition to Don Alfonso they were accompanied by a Moorish trooper and a native called Mohammed. "A soldier, is he?" said Mrs. Gainsborough, regarding the grave bearded man to whose care they were intrusted. "He looks more like the outside of an ironmonger's shop. Swords, pistols, guns, spears. It's to be hoped he won't get aggravated with us on the way. I should look very funny lying in the road with a pistol through my heart." They rode out of Tangier before a single star had paled in the east, and when dawn broke they were in a wide valley fertile and bright with flowers; green hills rose to right and left of them and faded far away into blue mountains. "I wish you'd tell that Mahomet not to irritate my poor mule by egging it on all the time," Mrs. Gainsborough said to Don Alfonso, who, realizing by her gestures that she wanted something done to her mount, and supposing by her smile that the elation of adventure had seized her, replied "All right," and said something in Moorish to Mohammed. He at once caught the mule a terrific whack on the crupper, causing the animal to leap forward and leave Mrs. Gainsborough and the saddle in the path.