The tale told by the Arabs (two of them were brothers, and all three came from Oran) fully sustained Cecil Thorold’s theory of the spoliation of the hotel. Naturally they pretended at first to an entire innocence concerning the schemes of those who had charge of the _Perroquet Vert_. The two brothers, who were black with coal-dust when rescued, swore that they had been physically forced to work in the stokehold; but ultimately all three had to admit a knowledge of things which was decidedly incriminating, and all three got three years’ imprisonment. The only part of the Algiers Mystery which remained a mystery was the cause of the sinking of the _Perroquet Vert_. Whether she was thoroughly unseaworthy (she had been picked up cheap at Melilla), or whether someone (not on board) had deliberately arranged her destruction, perhaps to satisfy a Moorish vengeance, was not ascertained. The three Arabs could only be persuaded to say that there had been eleven Europeans and seven natives on the ship, and that they alone, by the mercy of Allah, had escaped from the swift catastrophe. The hotel underwent an acute crisis, from which, however, it is emerging. For over a week a number of the pillaged guests discussed a diving enterprise of salvage. But the estimates were too high, and it came to nothing. So they all, Cecil included, began to get used to the idea of possessing irrecoverable property to the value of forty thousand pounds in the Mediterranean. A superb business in telegraphed remittances was done for several days. The fifteen beings who had accompanied the _Perroquet Vert_ to the bottom were scarcely thought of, for it was almost universally agreed that the way of transgressors is, and ought to be, hard. As for Cecil Thorold, the adventure, at first so full of the promise of joy, left him melancholy, until an unexpected sequel diverted the channel of his thoughts. CHAPTER V. IN THE CAPITAL OF THE SAHARA. Mrs. Macalister turned with sudden eagerness and alarm towards Cecil Thorold--the crowd on the lawn in front of the railings was so dense that only heads could be moved--and she said excitedly-- “I’m sure I can see my ghost across there!” She indicated with her agreeable snub nose the opposite side of the course. “Your ghost?” Cecil questioned, puzzled for a moment by this extraordinary remark. Then the Arab horsemen swept by in a cloud of dust and of thunder, and monopolised the attention of the lawn and the grand stand, and the _élite_ of Biskra crammed thereon and therein. They had one more lap to accomplish for the Prix de la Ville.