Summer passed and winter; came spring and with it, to Ortho’s joy, no prospect of a campaign for him. A desert marabout, all rags, filth and fervor, preached a holy war in the Tissant country, gathering a few malcontents about him, and Yakoub Ben Ahmed was dispatched with a small force to put a stop to it. There were the usual rumors of unrest in the south, but nothing definite, merely young bucks talking big. Ortho looked forward to another year of peace. He went in the Sultan’s train to Mogador for a fortnight in May, and at the end of June was sent to Taroudant, due east of Agadir. A trifling affair of dispatches. He told Ourida he would be back in no time and rode off cheerfully. His business in Taroudant done, he was on the point of turning home when he was joined by a kaid mia and ten picked men from Morocco bearing orders that he was to take them on to Tenduf, a further two hundred miles south, and collect overdue tribute. Ortho well knew what that meant. Tenduf was on the verge of outbreak, the first signal of which would be his, the tax collector’s head, on a charger. Had he been single he would not have gone to Tenduf—he would have made a dash for freedom—but now he had a wife in Morocco, a hostage for his fidelity. Seeking a public scribe, he dictated a letter to Ourida and another to Osman Bâki, commending her to his care should the worst befall, and rode on. The Basha of Tenduf received the Sultan’s envoy with the elaborate courtesy that is inherent in a Moor and signifieth nothing. He was desolated that the tribute was behindhand, enlarged on the difficulty of collecting it in a land impoverished by drought (which it was not), but promised to set to work immediately. In the meantime Ortho lodged in the kasba, ostensibly an honored guest, actually a prisoner, aware that the Basha was the ringleader of the offenders and that his own head might be removed at any moment. Hawk-faced sheiks, armed to the teeth, galloped in, conferred with the Basha, galloped away again. If they brought any tribute it was well concealed. Time went by; Ortho bit his lip, fuming inwardly, but outwardly his demeanor was of polite indifference. Whenever he could get hold of the Basha he regaled him with instances of Imperial wrath, of villages burned to the ground, towns taken and put to the sword, men, women and children; lingering picturesquely on the tortures inflicted on unruly governors. “But why did Sidi do that?” the Basha would exclaim, turning a shade paler at the thought of his peer of Khenifra having all his nails drawn out and then being slowly sawn in half. “Why?” Ortho would scratch his head and look puzzled. “Why? Bless me if I know! Oh, yes, I believe there was some little hitch with the taxes.” “These walls make me laugh,” he remarked, walking on the Tenduf fortifications. The Governor was annoyed. “Why so? They are very good walls.”