Mere instinct made Aylmer throw up his arm in defence. Experience and presence of mind bade him fling himself to one side without removing his knee from the path of his assailant. Matters followed the usual course when this old trick of the desert is put in action. The fellow tripped, plunged forward over the outsprawled limb, and fell crashingly upon his elbows. Aylmer's first thought was for the knife which gleamed upon the planking half a dozen yards away. He scrambled to his feet and, without troubling to bend, gravely kicked it into the sea. At the same time he was aware of a commotion behind him. The small child's voice was raised in anger. "I hate you--I hate you!" he declaimed. "Now Selim will get me!" There was a reason for his wrath. Panting, blowing, and, to be frank, looking uncommonly like an over-driven buffalo, the Moor attendant was speeding down the pier with outstretched arms furiously gesticulating. The flap of his slippers slammed upon the boards, boat boys jeered, hotel touts made comments which no Bowdler could render into reputable English. And a few yards behind him--Aylmer's heart gave a queer little leap at the sight--ran totteringly the white-clad lady, his mistress. The child made an angry gesture of repulse. "I won't go back!" he shrilled. "I won't, I won't!" He looked round towards his new-found friend, who was scrambling to his feet. He ran towards him. Aylmer stretched out a hand and whirled the child up, facing towards the Moor. The latter hesitated, looked towards the advancing figures, and hesitated no longer. Behind the lady ran a couple of the newly raised Spanish police. He swerved swiftly aside, dashed down the steps, and passed rapidly from boat to boat across the gunwales till he had gained one on the outskirt of the press. He shouted fiercely to the boy who held the oars, and the latter bent to his work. The tide was with them and they passed rapidly across the harbor mouth towards the yellow sands outside the town. The child struggled and shouted in Aylmer's arms, stretching out his hands as he saw his friend disappear in the direction of the, to him, still credible black stallion and other promised delights. He struck out passionately at Selim as the latter's hand closed upon him like the grip of an embodied Fate. "I want my horse, my horse!" he wailed. "I don't want a donkey; I hate it, hate it!" Aylmer surrendered him, nothing loath, into his attendant's arms and then stood expectant, hat in hand. As she saw Selim again in full command of his responsibilities, the girl dropped from a run into a rapid walk. She panted, she held her hand upon her breast as she joined them. The two khaki-clad police inspected Aylmer with something of mistrust in their gaze. For a moment her breath failed her; she could only look at the captive with half resentful, half satisfied eyes. Then she shook her finger at him. "You wicked child!" she cried. "You wicked, wicked child!"