"Let me take you straight to her," he said. "Let me signal her!"
"Thanks, a thousand times," he said, "but a small matter of victualling which I promised my steward to deal with has just recurred to my mind. I will see to it and then signal for my own boat. After all, too, I might see a little of the town, now we have the sunshine to illuminate it. A couple of hours ago it was London in November, with a few additional smells!"
The lieutenant laughed and turned the prow towards the shore again. He cast another look over his shoulder.
"Is it possible that your master has information of, or suspects, that very lateen? It appears to me that he is chasing it!"
Landon faced seaward and observed the yacht keenly.
"He is a character, that skipper of mine," he said. "He is as likely as not to sink the unfortunate boat if he does not find me on board or get a reasonable account of me. I shall have to smooth matters down with a dollar or two."
A minute later the launch slowed up against the little quay. The three passengers stepped ashore, Landon full of compliments and thanks. Still waving adieu, he, Muhammed, and the child paced contentedly off into the town. The lieutenant turned seaward again.
A slightly bewildered frown clouded his face as he approached the _Diomède_. The yacht had anchored with the lateen alongside her, and a boat was pulling from her towards the warship. The lieutenant considered that for yachtsmen he had never seen a boat's crew pull faster.
Major D'Hubert, Provost Marshal of the French forces occupying Casablanca, grinned widely.
"So you suffered him to escape?" he said.
Commandant Rattier drummed fiercely on the office table.
"Suffered?" he roared. "I entertained him--the _escroc_! I nourished him; I sent him ashore!"
The soldier smiled and looked at Rattier's companion--Aylmer.
"What open-hearted ingenuousness!" he chuckled. "You and I now, my Captain! When one has been officer of the day a few thousand times, or sat upon a few hundred courts-martial, or acted as _maître de logis_, one learns to sift a story then. And this one had its weak points, even for a sailor. Would any one not mentally deranged hire a lateen to take him aboard his own yacht? No, I should have required something better imagined than that--I."