The Arab was too apoplectically angry to comply, but Crothers took him by both shoulders and shoved him; and finding himself shot forward out of reach, seeing safety ahead and its possible corollary of awful vengeance, he suddenly achieved discretion and scampered through the gap in the wall. “'E's gone to fetch his pals. Look out, mate!” warned Joe Byng. “Not 'im!” vowed Crothers. “'E's 'ad enough, that's all! We've seen the last of 'im!” And the most amazing thing of all was that Crothers believed just what he said--Curley Crothers, to whom Red Sea and Persian Gulf ports were as an open book, and to whom the Arab customs and religion and reprehensible tendencies were currently supposed to be first-reader knowledge. It was he who had proved there were no harems--he who coined the Navy adage, “Search an Arab first, and sit on him, before you come to terms!” Yet here he was, advising Byng to disregard a looted Arab's spittle! There is no accounting, ever, for the ways of shore-leave sailor-men. “Come on, Joe,” he said. “Lead 'the dawg--he can walk now--and let's see what Adra looks like.” IV. All might have been well, and both seamen might have reached the Puncher again with dignity and grace, had they not entered Adra, past the only jail in that part of Arabia. And an Arab jail being rarer and one percent more evil than any other evil thing there is, the two of them quite naturally paused to make its closest possible acquaintance. “Look out for vermin!” cautioned Curley, standing on tiptoe to peer in through the close-spaced iron bars. They forgot the dog. The jail, for the moment, challenged all their waking senses, the olfactory by no means least. “Can you see anything?” asked Byng. Before Crothers could answer him, a snarl, then a yap, then a quick, determined growl gave warning of the terrier's interest in something else than fleas. He had been scratching himself peacefully a moment earlier; now, like a bower anchor taking charge, he ripped the chain through Byng's hand and was off--chin, back and tail in one straight, striving line--in full chase of a pariah. The yellow cur yapped its agony of fear; the nearest hundred and odd mangy monsters of the gutter took up the chorus; within five seconds of the start there was the Puncher's mascot racing after one abominable scavenger, and after him in just as hot pursuit there raced the whole street-cleaning force of Adra--tongues out, eyes blazing, and their mean thin barks all working overtime. “Good-by, Scamp!” groaned Byng, estimating rapidly. “Not yet it ain't!” said Crothers, grabbing Byng's arm and nearly tearing out the muscles. It was a crude way of rousing Byng's latent speed, both of thought and movement, but it worked. Before Joe could swear, even, Crothers was off like the wind, with Joe after him, using the string of oaths he had meant for Crothers on the sand that gave under him and made him stumble at every other stride.