After demanding, I am told, £120,000 (together with the release from prison of many tribesmen and the return of his women), the brigand finally agreed to accept the sum of £20,000 and the protection of a British subject. This last, which was proposed by the British Government, brings Raisuli of course under the jurisdiction of the Consular Court, and, to fetch him from the mountains in case he should be wanted, £15,000 of the £20,000 ransom is deposited to his credit in a bank, subject to his good behaviour. But I am not sure that the British Government did an all-wise thing. Foreign protection is greatly sought after by the Moors. In the case of others who enjoy it the power is used to plunder their fellows, and Raisuli may be expected to employ his strength and his new position in some cunning way. The Moorish authorities, always anxious to avoid encounters with the consulates and legations, generally allow protected subjects to do what they please. Raisuli may now exploit his fellow-countrymen with certain safety, or he may direct the profitable business of gun-running--at which he has already had considerable experience, like many other _protégés_ and foreign residents--and no one is likely to protest. At any rate it seems hardly fair to protect a villain in this manner. CHAPTER X DOWN THE COAST Luck with me seems to run in spells. Once on a campaign in the Balkans I had the good fortune to be on hand at everything; massacre, assassination, nor dynamite attack could escape me; I was always on the spot or just at a safe distance off. In Morocco things went consistently the other way. Beginning with the Casablanca affair when I was in America, everything of a newspaper value happened while I was somewhere else. The day the Sultan entered Rabat after his long march from the interior, I sailed past the town unable to land. Now I was to be taken to Laraiche, when a month before I had failed to get there to meet the two score European refugees coming down from Fez.