"I have seen him before--once, twice, many times," he explained. "He laughs; he is not gray and dull like Selim. I would like to have him for my kavass." "I drown in perspiration three shirts a day while I wait on thee," affirmed the fat man reproachfully. "Is this thy gratitude?" "I do not wish to be waited on; I wish to be played with," said the child. "I should like to go to the sands where the Kaid's horses are galloped, and play with the brown man. We would paddle and I would throw the water over him. He has promised me this." The girl started and gave a convulsive little grip of the fingers which lay in hers. "He has spoken to you?" she cried. "When--where?" The boy nodded his yellow mop of hair importantly. "Yesterday as I rode through the Sôk," he answered. "He walked beside my donkey and told me that I was a horseman already made, and should be on the back of a black barb like Sid' Abdullah's. Then I, too, could race upon the sands." The girl looked stonily at the Moor. "How was this, Selim?" she asked coldly. "Where was your watchfulness?" The man spread out his hands. "Am I a prophet--am I Allah Himself?" he cried aggrievedly. "There was a crowd--a press--in the Sôk yesterday, wherein one had scarcely room to take breath. And you have seen for yourself. Sidi Jan snatches at familiarities from such as that one; the nearer the gutter he finds his friends the better is he pleased." She looked down at the delinquent, who, without being disconcerted, grinned back. "John," she admonished him gravely, "you are _never_ to speak or listen to strangers in the Sôk, or anywhere else." John wriggled and pouted. "I love the brown man," he answered defiantly. "He's probably a wicked, wicked man," said his monitress. "Instead of playing with you on the sands, he'd very likely bite you--like a camel." The eyes beneath the yellow mop grew round with interest. "Would he?" he asked breathlessly. "That would--would be fun!" Do what he could to restrain it, a smile broadened across Aylmer's face, and in that moment the girl, looking up, met his eye. He reddened slightly again, hastily struck and put a match to his still unlit cigarette. But in that instant he had read surprise first in her glance, then the knowledge that she had been overheard, and lastly--yes, there was no doubt about it--fear. Not the apprehension of the unknown and unexpected this time, but the thrill of distrust experienced by one seeing peril looming unveiled before her. She was afraid of him, John Aylmer! Her apprehension was no longer vague; he had become the target of it.