"Possibly not," agreed Aylmer. He nodded towards the door. "I'll take advantage of his concessions to come and see." He gave another little confident nod to usher the other two before him. As the child ran forward he caught him up with his bound hands and raised him shoulder high. Then, stooping, he passed out at Miller's heels on to the deck. He was laughing still, laughing up at the boy as the childish fingers steadied themselves in his hair. "You won't be able to do that when they shave it to put the pitch plaster on," he cried. "And when they've stretched me on the rack, I shall be too tall to carry you out of a cabin. And as for being a pig man again, and carrying a spear after the thumbscrews have been applied, why, it simply won't bear thinking about!" As he emerged on deck he looked about him keenly. Muhammed's was the first figure which caught his eye. The Moor was sitting on the gunwale opposite the companion, looking shoreward. And the shore, to Aylmer's surprise, was very near on the starboard bow. Suddenly he realized that it was not the mainland which he saw, but an archipelago of islands girdled with reefs. Rockbound channels were frames to pictures of the dun red African strand half a dozen miles away. He looked aft. The sun was not far from its setting, hanging in a red disc above the distant hills of Algeria. The captain was at the tiller. Beside him lounged Landon, watching a gray-painted torpedo boat which had emerged from the shelter of the islands and was about to pass close under their stern. The gold and crimson of the Spanish naval ensign floated at her flagstaff. Landon looked round as he heard the footsteps of the newcomers on the deck. He nodded them a greeting without changing his seat, and did it with a studied air of contempt. "Well?" he said laconically. Aylmer was silent. His glance traveled over Landon's head to examine the war vessel as it passed. The captain grunted something in an undertone. Landon laughed, and held up the first and fourth fingers of his right hand horn-wise. "The good Luigi advises me to avert the evil eye," he explained. "Does that glance of yours threaten us, my affectionate cousin, does it?" Aylmer sat back upon the boom and looked at the other squarely. The child scrambled from his shoulder and went back along the deck to stand at Muhammed's knee. But the Moor, after a quick, welcoming smile, showed no further recognition of his presence. His glance, the glances, indeed, of all on board, centered in the meeting of the two who eyed each other across the slant of Signor Luigi's tiller. Aylmer made a motion of his head towards Miller. "You sent this man to bargain with me?" he said. "No," said Landon. "I sent him to tell you my terms." He laughed; he looked Aylmer insolently in the face and laughed again.