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For Akbar Khan made a long halt on the crown of the pass, waiting to check any endeavour to press closely on his fugitive father, and it would have gone hard with Outram, with a few fagged horsemen at his back, if Hadji Khan had allowed him to overtake the resolute young Afghan chief. As Keane moved forward, there fell to him the guns which the Dost had left in the Urgundeh position.
Our pleasure was great, therefore, when the Hadji and some of his followers paid us a visit that night and told us that work should start in the largest cave the next morning for our benefit. That was good news, indeed, as Richardson could not wait more than another day. It was another good move for the Hadji and his Panglima-ship, and I told Richardson he ought to give it him forthwith.
This was the prelude to another farce; presently the men came of whom Husayn Hadji spoke, and, surrounding my camp, boisterously demanded to know what I was doing in their country against their orders. A violent altercation then ensued.
"Well, Monsieur Bombarnac, I am afraid you will be disappointed, as I have heard that the company has treated several chiefs of the robber bands " "As the Greek Government treated Hadji Stavros in About's romance." "Precisely; and who knows that if in their wisdom " "I don't believe it." "Why not?
For thirty days the Sultan made a progress through the country, everywhere received with joy and enthusiasm as a venerated hadji and marabout, as a teacher of the law, as a man of pious life, as a renowned warrior and an eloquent preacher.
With this sentiment, accompanied by a smile of pity and a shake of his head, the Minister of Marine left the Padre, and directed his steps towards the town. On his way he met the court story-teller or jester. "Thou art early astir, Hadji Babi," he said. "Is there aught in the wind?"
Men call him Hadji, and he is thenceforward a great personage. Hundreds of Moors come to Tangier every year and embark for Mecca. They go part of the way in English steamers, and the ten or twelve dollars they pay for passage is about all the trip costs. They take with them a quantity of food, and when the commissary department fails they "skirmish," as Jack terms it in his sinful, slangy way.
The instant Hassan's eye alighted on them, he stopped and became visibly paler. Omar also stopped, but pretended not to observe the change in his companion's countenance, nor its cause, as he continued the conversation. "Hist!" whispered Hadji Baba to his companions, "when enemies become sudden friends, we should know how to act."
The Cadi was thunderstruck, and caressing his beard with grave affection thoughtfully said: "Allah! Allah! For forty years have I been judge, but never was a cause pleaded in this fashion before." Hadji was a married man, but even Turkish married men are not invulnerable to the charms of other women.
That very night our renegade returned and said he had learned that the Moor we had been told of lived in that house, that his name was Hadji Morato, that he was enormously rich, that he had one only daughter the heiress of all his wealth, and that it was the general opinion throughout the city that she was the most beautiful woman in Barbary, and that several of the viceroys who came there had sought her for a wife, but that she had been always unwilling to marry; and he had learned, moreover, that she had a Christian slave who was now dead; all which agreed with the contents of the paper.
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