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 b. False
ANSWER: True
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 36
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Scarcity and Resources

7. Everyone faces scarcity.

Copyright Cengage Learning. Powered by Cognero. Page 2

 a. True
b. False
ANSWER: True
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 37
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Does Everyone Face Scarcity?

8. Garbage is scarce because it is abundant.

a. True
b. False
ANSWER: False
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 37
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | What Are Goods and Services?

9. If you made a wish list of things you wanted but did not now have, they you became able to have the things on that list,
scarcity would be eliminated.
a. True b. False
ANSWER: False
POINTS: 1
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Does Everyone Face Scarcity?

10. Every choice has a cost

a. True
b. False
ANSWER: True
POINTS: 1
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Does Everyone Face Scarcity?

11. A permanent change to a much higher price of gasoline would lead us to expect fewer gas guzzlers on the road, ceteris
paribus.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: True
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 44
TOPICS: 2.2 People Engage in Rational Decision Making and Marginal Thinking | Many Choices We Face
Involve Marginal Thinking

12. Economists would predict that if salaries increased for engineers and decreased for MBAs, fewer people than before
would go to graduate school in business and more than before would go in engineering, ceteris paribus.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: True
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 46-47

Copyright Cengage Learning. Powered by Cognero. Page 3

TOPICS: 2.3 People Respond Predictably to Changes in Incentives | Positive and Negative Incentives

13. Marginal cost is the additional cost incurred as a result of making an economic decision.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: True
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 42-43
TOPICS: 2.2 People Engage in Rational Decision Making and Marginal Thinking | Many Choices We Face
Involve Marginal Thinking

14. When considering whether or not to consume a second slice of cake, an individual is following marginal thinking if
she compares the total cost of consuming both the first and second slices with their total benefit before making a decision.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: False
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 43
TOPICS: 2.2 People Engage in Rational Decision Making and Marginal Thinking | Many Choices We Face
Involve Marginal Thinking

15. If Xavier gives up a job in which he earns $23,000 per year in order to go to college full time, his foregone income is
part of the opportunity cost of going to college.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: True
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 40
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | The Opportunity Cost of Going to College or Having a
Child

16. The opportunity cost of attending college is likely to be higher for a high school graduate who leaves a job grilling
hamburgers than it is for a high school dropout who leaves a job working as a computer network administrator.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: False
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 40
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | The Opportunity Cost of Going to College or Having a
Child

17. The opportunity cost of a decision is the value of the best foregone alternative to the decision-maker.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: True
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 39

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TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | To Choose Is to Lose

18. The opportunity cost of a decision is the value of all of the available alternatives that were not chosen.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: False
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 39
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | To Choose Is to Lose

19. Since it is possible to grow coffee in the United States, the U.S. would gain by creating a domestic coffee industry
rather than importing coffee from Brazil.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: False
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 49
TOPICS: 2.4 Specialization and Trade Can Make Everyone Better Off | Specialization and Trade Lead to Greater
Wealth and Prosperity

20. A country has a comparative advantage in the production of DVD players if it can produce DVD players at a lower
opportunity cost than others.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: True
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 48
TOPICS: 2.4 Specialization and Trade Can Make Everyone Better Off | Why Do People Specialize?

21. Small, developing countries must first become self-sufficient before they can benefit from international trade.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: False
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 49
TOPICS: 2.4 Specialization and Trade Can Make Everyone Better Off | Specialization and Trade Lead to Greater
Wealth and Prosperity

22. Market failure is a term used to describe what happens when market arrangements do not allocate resources
efficiently.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: True
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 54
TOPICS: 2.6 Appropriate Government Policies Can Improve Market Outcomes | Market Failure

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23. Government price controls make communication of information between buyers and sellers more effective.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: False
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 53
TOPICS: 2.5 Markets Can Improve Economic Efficiency | What Effect Do Price Controls Have on the Market
System?

24. It is difficult to make the concept of need useful because it is difficult to define and compare “needs” among people.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: True
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 37
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Human Wants Exceed Available Resources

25. The market mechanism assures full employment and stable prices
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: False
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 57
TOPICS: 2.7 Government Policies May Help Stabilize the Economy | Introduction

26. Almost everyone is affected directly or indirectly by high rates of employment or high and variable rates of inflation.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: True
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 57
TOPICS: 2.7 Government Policies May Help Stabilize the Economy | Introduction

27. Inflation is an increase in the overall price level in the economy.

a. True
b. False
ANSWER: True
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 58
TOPICS: 2.7 Government Policies May Help Stabilize the Economy | Inflation

28. Unemployment can be caused by downswings in the business cycle, people changing jobs, different skills needed by
employers, or seasonal fluctuations in demand.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: True
POINTS: 1
Copyright Cengage Learning. Powered by Cognero. Page 6
REFERENCES: p. 58
TOPICS: 2.7 Government Policies May Help Stabilize the Economy | Unemployment

29. Sustained economic growth occurs when workers’ productivity rises.

a. True
b. False
ANSWER: True
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 60
TOPICS: 2.8 Higher Productivity Growth Leads to Greater Long-Run Economic Growth | Defining Economic
Growth

30. The only way that an economy can increase its rate of consumption in the long run is by increasing the amount that it
produces.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: True
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 61
TOPICS: 2.8 Higher Productivity Growth Leads to Greater Long-Run Economic Growth | Economic Growth,
Productivity, and the Standard of Living

31. Economic choices or tradeoffs are the result of:

a. human greed.
b. scarcity.
c. poverty.
d. private ownership of resources.
ANSWER: b
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 38
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Trade-Offs

32. Scarcity means that:

a. human desires are limited.
b. resources are insufficient to satisfy all human desires.
c. choices are unnecessary.
d. all but the very wealthy must face choices.
ANSWER: b
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 37
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Does Everyone Face Scarcity?

33. Scarcity applies to:

a. only the poor.
b. the value of our time.
c. both the rich and poor.
d. both (b) and (c)
Copyright Cengage Learning. Powered by Cognero. Page 7
ANSWER: d
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 37
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Does Everyone Face Scarcity?

34. Scarcity:
a. is only a problem in communist countries.
b. is a problem in both communist and socialist countries, but not in market economies.
c. does not exist in wealthy countries.
d. will never be eradicated because humans develop new wants as productive capabilities improve.
ANSWER: d
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 37-38
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Will Scarcity Ever Be Eradicated?

35. Scarcity:
a. exists in command economies.
b. exists in market economies.
c. exists only for the poor in any type of economy.
d. (a) and (b) above are correct
ANSWER: d
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 37
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Scarcity and Resources

36. Which of the following is false?

a. A resource is anything that can be used to produce anything else we value.
b. Resources are costly because they have alternative uses.
c. Losses mean resources are not being used efficiently.
d. None of the above is false; all are true.
ANSWER: d
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 37
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Scarcity and Resources

37. Which of the following is false?

a. Tangible goods are inherently more valuable than intangible goods.
b. Scarcity forces people to compete.
c. The elimination of a bad can be considered a good.
d. None of the above is false; all are true.
ANSWER: a
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 37
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | What Are Goods and Services?

38. Scarcity
Copyright Cengage Learning. Powered by Cognero. Page 8
 a. Can be eradicated with sufficient economic growth.
b. Could be eradicated if we could just eliminate greed.
c. Can never be eradicated
d. Both a. and b. are true
ANSWER: c
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 37
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Will Scarcity Ever Be Eradicated?

39. Scarce goods are:

a. desirable and unlimited in amount.
b. undesirable and unlimited in amount.
c. desirable and limited in amount.
d. undesirable and limited in amount.
ANSWER: c
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 37
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Scarcity and Resources

40. An economy's resources:

a. include land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurial skills.
b. are unlimited in a country like the United States.
c. are always efficiently utilized in wealthy nations.
d. consist of land, labor and capital, but not entrepreneurial skills.
ANSWER: a
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 36
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Scarcity and Resources

41. Which of the following is not a resource for a society?

a. capital goods, like factories and machine tools
b. entrepreneurship
c. legal institutions
d. labor
ANSWER: c
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 36
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Scarcity and Resources

42. Which of the following is not a resource for a society?

a. cash
b. entrepreneurship
c. land
d. labor
ANSWER: a
POINTS: 1
Copyright Cengage Learning. Powered by Cognero. Page 9
REFERENCES: p. 36
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Scarcity and Resources

43. Resources are

a. scarce for households but abundant for the whole economy
b. abundant for households but scarce for the whole economy
c. scarce for households and scarce for the whole economy.
d. abundant for households and the whole economy.
ANSWER: c
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 36
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Scarcity and Resources

44. Which of the following is an example of a resource?

a. Land
b. Capital
c. Entrepreneurship
d. All of the above are resources
ANSWER: d
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 37
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Scarcity and Resources

45. Which of the following is an example of a resource?

a. a river
b. a tractor
c. the chef at a restaurant
d. all of the above are resources
ANSWER: d
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 36
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Scarcity and Resources

46. Which of the following is not an example of a resource?

a. an office building
b. a product's price
c. the land plowed by a farmer in order to grow corn
d. the chief executive officer of a large corporation
ANSWER: b
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 36
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Scarcity and Resources

47. To economists, the resource category land includes all of the following except:
a. trees.
b. a sawmill.

Copyright Cengage Learning. Powered by Cognero. Page

10
 c. a water body.
d. a limestone deposit.
ANSWER: b
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 36
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Scarcity and Resources

48. Which of the following would be categorized as capital resources for a college or university?
a. water, trees, and the acreage a campus rests on
b. chalkboards, overhead projectors, and computers
c. exams, fuel oil (which heats the buildings), and electricity
d. the work effort of registrars, clerical assistants and teaching assistants
ANSWER: b
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 36
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Scarcity and Resources

49. An example of physical capital is:

a. a $100 bill.
b. a stock certificate.
c. a chainsaw.
d. a cheeseburger.
ANSWER: c
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 36
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Scarcity and Resources

50. An example of a capital resource is:

a. stock in a computer software company.
b. a bond issued by a company selling electric generators.
c. a dump truck.
d. an employee of a moving company.
ANSWER: c
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 36
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Scarcity and Resources

51. Which of the following is an example of a capital resource?

a. an unskilled worker
b. a large coal deposit
c. a fishing boat
d. yellow-fin tuna
ANSWER: c
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 36
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Scarcity and Resources
Copyright Cengage Learning. Powered by Cognero. Page 10
52. Which of the following is not an example of a capital resource?
a. a drill press machine
b. a pitch fork
c. a commercial sewing machine
d. 100 acres of farmland in central California
ANSWER: d
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 36
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Scarcity and Resources

53. Which of the following is an example of a capital resource?

a. redwood trees
b. unskilled labor
c. stocks and bonds
d. an oil rig
ANSWER: d
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 36
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Scarcity and Resources

54. The function of an entrepreneur is to:

a. bear business risks.
b. organize the other factors of production.
c. innovate.
d. do all of the above.
ANSWER: d
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 36
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Scarcity and Resources

55. Entrepreneurship is:

a. human capital.
b. another word for the financial capital that can be used to start a business.
c. the resource that organizes the other factors of production in order to produce goods and/or services.
d. another word for physical capital that is used to produce goods and services.
ANSWER: c
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 36
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Scarcity and Resources

56. Every time an individual decides to try out new equipment, or finds better ways to manage money, he or she is
exhibiting aspects of:
a. money management.
b. entrepreneurship.
c. strategic management.

Copyright Cengage Learning. Powered by Cognero. Page 11

 d. capital management.
ANSWER: b
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 36
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Scarcity and Resources

57. An example of an intangible good is:

a. an automobile.
b. a new house.
c. a snowplow.
d. friendship.
ANSWER: d
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 36
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | What Are Goods and Services?

58. All of the following are intangible except:

a. health.
b. love.
c. computer programming expertise.
d. All of the above are intangible goods.
ANSWER: d
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 36
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | What Are Goods and Services?

59. All of the following are tangible goods except:

a. a skateboard.
b. a desk.
c. a train locomotive.
d. fairness.
ANSWER: d
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 36
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | What Are Goods and Services?

60. Economic goods are:

a. only those commodities priced in monetary terms.
b. scarce products that are created from scarce resources.
c. the opposite of normative economic goods.
d. not subject to scarcity.
ANSWER: b
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 36-37
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | What Are Goods and Services?

Copyright Cengage Learning. Powered by Cognero. Page 12

61. Which of the following observations regarding economic goods is incorrect?
a. They are limited in supply.
b. They are desirable.
c. They are solely low-priced essential goods.
d. They are scarce goods created from scarce resources
ANSWER: c
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 36-37
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | What Are Goods and Services?

62. The expression, "There's no such thing as a free lunch" implies that:
a. everyone has to pay for his/her own lunch.
b. the person consuming a good must always pay for it.
c. costs must be incurred when resources are used to produce goods and services.
d. no one has time for a good lunch anymore.
ANSWER: c
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 40-41
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | Is That Really a Free Lunch, a Freeway, or a Free
Beach?

63. Which of the following is true?

a. Tangible goods are subject to economic analysis but intangible goods are not.
b. Intangible goods are just an alternative term for services.
c. Goods and services can be made costless by having the government give them away to citizens.
d. All goods and services, whether tangible or intangible, are made from scarce resources and are subject to
economic analysis.
ANSWER: d
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 36-37
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | What Are Goods and Services?

64. Trent decides to spend an hour playing basketball rather than studying. His opportunity cost is:
a. nothing because he enjoys playing basketball more than studying.
b. the foregone benefit to his grades from studying for an hour.
c. the increase in skill he obtains from playing basketball for that hour.
d. nothing because he had a free pass into the sports complex to play basketball.
ANSWER: b
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 39
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | To Choose Is to Lose

65. Which of the following is true”

a. To choose is to lose.
b. Scarcity forces us to compete, but not to choose.
c. Scarcity forces us to choose, but not to compete.

Copyright Cengage Learning. Powered by Cognero. Page 13

 d. Economic principles would be irrelevant if scarcity was eliminated.
ANSWER: a
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 39
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | To Choose Is to Lose

66. The opportunity cost of an action is equal to:

a. only the monetary payment the action required.
b. the total time spent by all parties in carrying out the action.
c. the highest valued opportunity that must be sacrificed in order to take the action.
d. the value of all of the alternative actions that could have been taken.
ANSWER: c
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 39
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | To Choose Is to Lose

67. The opportunity cost of going to college includes:

a. both tuition and the value of the student's time.
b. tuition, but not the value of the student's time, which is a non-monetary cost.
c. neither tuition nor the value of the student's time, since obtaining a college degree makes one's income higher
in the future.
d. neither tuition nor the value of the student's time, at least at state-supported universities and colleges.
ANSWER: a
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 40
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | The Opportunity Cost of Going to College or Having a
Child

68. Opportunity cost includes

a. monetary costs only.
b. non-monetary costs only.
c. both monetary and non-monetary costs.
d. neither monetary nor non-monetary costs.
ANSWER: c
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 39
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | To Choose Is to Lose

69. A student has a chance to see Taylor Swift in concert. The student also has a major economics exam in the morning. If
the student goes to the concert:
a. she may receive a lower grade on the economics exam.
b. the opportunity cost of the concert includes the value of the time that would otherwise have been spent
studying.
c. the decision involves a tradeoff.
d. all of the above are correct.
ANSWER: d
POINTS: 1
Copyright Cengage Learning. Powered by Cognero. Page 14
REFERENCES: p. 39
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | To Choose Is to Lose

70. The opportunity cost of an item is:

a. greater during periods of inflation and lower during periods of deflation.
b. the highest valued alternative you give up to get that item.
c. the value of all available alternatives you sacrifice to get that item.
d. always equal to the dollar value of the item.
ANSWER: b
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 39
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | To Choose Is to Lose

71. "If I didn't have class tonight, I would save the $4 campus parking fee and spend four hours at work where I earn $10
per hour." The opportunity cost of attending class this evening is:
a. $4.
b. $40.
c. $44.
d. $0.
ANSWER: c
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 39
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | To Choose Is to Lose

72. "If I didn't go to class tonight, I would save the $2 campus parking fee and spend three hours at work where I earn $10
per hour." The opportunity cost of attending class this evening is:
a. $0.
b. $2.
c. $30.
d. $32.
ANSWER: d
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 39
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | To Choose Is to Lose

73. As student reasons that "If I didn't go to class tonight, I would spend three hours at work where I earn $10 per hour. In
addition, my annual parking permit costs the equivalent of $2 per day.” The opportunity cost to that student of attending
that class this evening is:
a. $0.
b. $2.
c. $30.
d. $32.
ANSWER: c
POINTS: 1
REFERENCES: p. 39
TOPICS: 2.1 People Face Scarcity and Costly Trade-offs | To Choose Is to Lose

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was past. Could he but crawl to the door? Not yet; in a minute or
two. That negress must be back soon. He bit into his bleeding lip
again, closed his eyes. The girl bent forward eagerly.
“It is death, Kaid. Thou art dying, dying!”
“No, nor shall I,” he muttered, and instantly realized his mistake.
She drew back, startled, and swooped at him again.
“Open your eyes!” She forced his lids up.
“Failed!”
“Failed!” Ortho repeated.
“Bah! there are other means,” she snarled, jumped up, flitted
round the room, stood transfixed in thought in the center, both
hands to her cheeks, laughed, tore off her orange scarf and dropped
on her knees beside him.
“Other means, Kaid.” She slipped the silk loop round his neck,
knotted it and twisted.
She was going to strangle him, the time-hallowed practice of the
East. He tried to stop her, lifted his heavy hands, but they were
powerless, like so much dead wood. He swelled his neck muscles,
but it was useless; the silk was cutting in all round, a red-hot wire.
He had a flash picture of Osman Bâki standing over his body,
wagging his head regretfully and saying, “I said so,” Osman Bâki
with the Owls’ House for background. It was all over; the girl had
waited and got him in the end. Even at that moment he admired her
for it. She had spirit; never had he seen such spirit. Came a pang of
intolerable pain, his eyeballs were starting out, his head was
bursting open—and then the tension at his throat inexplicably
relaxed.
Ortho rolled over, panting and retching, and as he did so heard
footsteps on the stairs.
A fist thumped on the door, a voice cried, “Kaid! Kaid!” and there
was Osman Bâki.
 He peered into the room, holding a lantern before him. “Kaid, are
you there? Where are you? There is a riot of Draouia in the Djeema
El Fna; two troops to go out. Oh, there you are—Bismillah! What is
this?”
He sprang across to where Ortho lay and bent over him.
“What is the matter? Are you ill? What is it?”
“Nothing,” Ortho croaked. “Trying hasheesh . . . took too much
. . . nothing at all. See to troops yourself . . . go now.” He coughed
and coughed.
“Hasheesh!” The Turk sniffed, stared at him suspiciously, glanced
round the room, caught sight of the girl and held up the lantern.
“Ha-ha!”
The two stood rigid eye to eye, the soldier with chin stuck
forward, every hair bristling, like a mastiff about to spring, the girl
unflinching, three beads of her black necklace in her teeth.
“Ha-ha!” Osman put the lantern deliberately on the ground
beside him and stepped forward, crouched double, his hands
outstretched like claws. “You snake,” he muttered. “You Arab viper,
I’ll . . . I’ll . . .”
Ortho hoisted himself on his elbow. The girl was superb! So slight
and yet so defiant. “Osman,” he rasped, “Osman, friend, go! The
riot! Go, it is an order!”
The Turk stopped, stood up, relaxed, turned slowly about and
picked up the lantern. He looked at Ortho, walked to the door,
hesitated, shot a blazing glance at the girl, gave his mustache a
vicious tug and went out.
Silence but for the sputter of the brazier and the squeak of a
mouse in the wall.
Then Ortho heard the soft plud-plud of bare feet crossing the
room and he knew the girl was standing over him.
 “Well, sweet,” he sighed, “come to complete your work? I am still
in your hands.”
She tumbled on her knees beside him, clasped his head to her
breast and sobbed, sobbed, sobbed as though she would never stop.
 CHAPTER XXIII
Ortho spent that winter in Morocco City, but in the spring was
sent out with a force against the Zoua Arabs south of the Figvig
Oasis, which had been taken by Muley Ismail and was precariously
held by his descendants. They spent a lot of time and trouble
dragging cannon up, to find them utterly useless when they got
there. The enemy did not rely on strong places—they had none—but
on mobility. They played a game of sting and run very exasperating
to their opponents. It was like fighting a cloud of deadly mosquitoes.
The wastage among the Crown forces was alarming; two generals
were recalled and strangled, and when Ortho again saw the
Koutoubia minaret rising like a spear-shaft from the green palms of
Morocco it was after an absence of ten months.
Ourida met him in transports of joy, a two-month baby in her
arms. It was a son, the exact spit and image of him, she declared, a
person of already incredible sagacity and ferocious strength. A few
years and he too would be riding at the head of massed squadrons,
bearing the green banner of the Prophet.
Ortho, burned black with Saharan suns, weak with privation, sick
of the reek of festering battlefields, contemplated the tiny pink
creature he had brought into the world and swore in his heart that
this boy of his should follow peaceful ways.
Fighting men were, as a class, the salt of the earth, simple-
hearted, courageous, dog-loyal, dupes of the cunning and the
cowardly. But apart from the companionship he had no illusions
concerning the profession of arms as practiced in the Shereefian
empire; it was one big bully maintaining himself in the name of God
against a horde of lesser bullies (also invoking the Deity) by methods
that would be deemed undignified in a pot-house brawl. He was in it
for the good reason that he could not get out; but no son of his
should be caught in the trap if he could help it. However, he said
nothing of this to Ourida. He kissed her over and over and said the
boy was magnificent and would doubtless make a fine soldier—but
there was time to think about that.
He saw winter and summer through in Morocco, with the
exception of a short trip on the Sultan’s bodyguard to Mogador,
which port Mahomet had established to offset fractious Agadir and
taken under his special favor.
The sand-blown white town was built on the plans of an Avignon
engineer named Cornut, with fortifications after the style of Vauban.
This gave it a pronounced European flavor which was emphasized by
the number of foreign traders in its streets, drawn thither by the
absence of custom. Also there was the Atlantic pounding on the
Island, a tang of brine in the air and a sea wind blowing. Ortho had
not seen the Atlantic since he left Sallee; homesickness gnawed at
him.
He climbed the Skala tower, and, sitting on a cannon cast for the
third Philippe in 1595, watched the sun westering in gold and
crimson and dreamed of the Owls’ House, the old Owls’ House
lapped in its secret valley, where a man could live his life out in
fullness and peace—and his sons after him.
Walking back through the town, he met with a Bristol trader and
turned into a wine shop. The Englishman treated him to a bottle of
Jerez and the news of the world. Black bad it was. The tight little
island had her back to the wall, fighting for bare life against three
powerful nations at once. The American colonists were in full
rebellion to boot, India was a cock-pit, Ireland sharpening pikes.
General Burgoyne had surrendered at Saratoga. Eliott was besieged
in Gibraltar. French, American and Spanish warships were thick as
herring in the Channel; the Bristolian had only slipped through them
by sheer luck and would only get back by a miracle.
Taxation at home was crippling, and every mother’s son who had
one leg to go upon and one arm to haul with was being pressed for
service; they were even emptying the jails into the navy. He
congratulated Ortho on being out of the country and harm’s way.
Ortho had had a wild idea of getting a letter written and taken home
to Eli by this man, but as he listened he reflected that it was no time
now. Also, if he wanted to be bought out he would have to give
minute instructions as to where the smuggling money was hidden.
Letters were not inviolate; the bearer, and not Eli, might find that
hidden money. And then there was Ourida and Saïd II. Saïd would
become acclimatized, but England and Ourida were incompatible. He
could not picture the ardent Bedouin girl—her bangles, silks and
exotic finery—in the gray north; she would shrivel up like a frost-
bitten lotus, pine and die.
No, he was firmly anchored now. One couldn’t have everything;
he had much. He drank up his wine, wished the Bristolian luck with
his venture and rode back to the Diabat Palace.
A week later he was home again in Morocco.
Added means had enabled him to furnish the Bab Ahmar house
very comfortably, Moorish fashion, with embroidered haitis on the
walls, inlaid tables and plenty of well-cushioned lounges. The walls
were thick; the rooms, though small, were high and airy; the
oppressive heat of a Haouz summer did not unduly penetrate.
Ourida bloomed, Saïd the younger progressed from strength to
strength, waxing daily in fat and audacity. He was the idol of the
odd-job boy and the two slave women (the household had increased
with its master’s rank), of Osman Bâki and Ortho’s men. The latter
brought him presents from time to time: fruit stolen from the
Aguedal, camels, lions and horses (chiefly horses) crudely carved
and highly colored, and, when he was a year old, a small, shy
monkey caught in the Rif, and later an old eagle with clipped wings
and talons which, the donor explained, would defend the little lord
from snakes and such-like. Concerning these living toys, Saïd II.
displayed a devouring curiosity and no fear at all. When the monkey
clicked her teeth at him he gurgled and pulled her tail till she
escaped up the wistaria. He pursued the eagle on all fours, caught it
sleeping one afternoon, and hung doggedly on till he had pulled a
tail feather out. The bird looked dangerous, Saïd II. bubbled
delightedly and grabbed for another feather, whereat the eagle
retreated hastily to sulk among the orange shrubs. Was the door left
open for a minute, Saïd II. was out of it on voyages of high
adventure.
Once he was arrested by the guard at the Ahmar Gate, plodding
cheerfully on all fours for open country, and returned, kicking and
raging, in the arms of a laughing petty officer.
Ortho himself caught the youngster emerging through the
postern onto the Royal parade ground.
“He fears nothing,” Ourida exulted. “He will be a great warrior
and slay a thousand infidels—the sword of Allah!—um-yum, my
jewel.”
That battered soldier and turncoat infidel, his father, rubbed his
chin uneasily. “M’yes . . . perhaps. Time enough yet.”
But there was no gainsaying the fierce spirit of the Arab mother,
daughter of a hundred fighting sheiks; her will was stronger than
his. The baby’s military education began at once. In the cool of the
morning she brought Saïd II. to the parade ground, perched him on
the parapet of the Dar-el-Heni and taught him to clap his hands
when the Horse went by.
Once she hoisted him to his father’s saddle bow. The fat creature
twisted both hands in the black stallion’s mane and kicked the glossy
neck with his heels, gurgling with joy.
“See, see,” said Ourida, her eyes like stars for radiance. “He
grips, he rides. He will carry the standard in his day zahrit.” The
soldiers laughed and lifted their lances. “Hail to the young Kaid!”
Ortho, gripping his infant son by the slack of his miniature jellab,
felt sick. Ourida and these other simple-minded fanatics would beat
him yet with their fool ideas of glory, urge this crowing baby of his
into hardship, terror, pain, possibly agonizing death.
 Parenthood was making a thoughtful man of him. He was no
longer the restless adventurer of two years ago, looking on any
change as better than none. He grudged every moment away from
the Bab Ahmar, dreaded the spring campaign, the separation it
would entail, the chance bullet that might make it eternal.
His ambition dimmed. He no longer wanted power and vast
wealth, only enough to live comfortably on with Ourida and young
Saïd just as he was. Promotion meant endless back-stair intrigues;
he had no taste left for them and had other uses for the money and
so fell out of the running.
A Spanish woman in the royal harem, taking advantage of her
temporary popularity with Mahomet, worked her wretched little son
into position over Penhale’s head and over him went a fat Moor,
Yakoub Ben Ahmed by name, advanced by the offices of a fair sister,
also in the seraglio. Neither of these heroes had more than a
smattering of military lore and no battle experience whatever, but
Ortho did not greatly care. Promotion might be rapid in the
Shereefian army, but degradation was apt to be instantaneous—the
matter of a sword flash. He had risen as far as he could rise with
moderate safety and there he would stop. Security was his aim
nowadays, a continuance of things as they were.
For life went by very happily in the little house by the Bab Ahmar,
pivoting on Saïd II. But in the evening, when that potential
conqueror had ceased the pursuit of the monkey and eagle and lay
locked in sleep, Ourida would veil herself, wind her haik about her
and go roaming into the city with Ortho. She loved the latticed souks
with their displays of silks, jewelry and leather work; the artificers
with their long muskets, curved daggers, velvet scabbarded swords
and pear-shaped powder flasks; the gorgeous horse-trappings at the
saddlers’, but these could be best seen in broad daylight; in the
evening there were other attractions.
It was the Djeema-el-Fna that drew her, that great, dusty,
clamorous fair-ground of Morocco where gather the story-tellers,
acrobats and clowns; where feverish drums beat the sun down,
assisted by the pipes of Aissawa snake charmers and the jingling
ouds and cymbals of the Berber dancing boys; where the Sultan
hung out the heads of transgressors that they might grin
sardonically upon the revels. Ourida adored the Djeema-el-Fna. To
the girl from the tent hamlet in the Sahara it was Life. She wept at
the sad love stories, trembled at the snake charmers, shrieked at the
crude buffoons, swayed in sympathy with the Berber dancers,
besought Ortho for coin, and more coin, to reward the charming
entertainers. She loved the varied crowds, the movement, the
excitement, the din, but most of all she liked the heads. No evening
on the Djeema was complete unless she had inspected these grisly
trophies of imperial power.
She said no word to Ortho, but nevertheless he knew perfectly
well what was in her mind; in her mind she saw young Saïd twenty
years on, spattered with infidel blood, riding like a tornado, serving
his enemies even as these.
Ferocious—she was the ultimate expression of ferocity—but
knowing no mean she was also ferocious in her love and loyalty; she
would have given her life for husband or son gladly, rejoicing. Such
people are difficult to deal with. Ortho sighed, but let her have her
way.
Often of an evening Osman Bâki came to the house and they
would sit in the court drinking Malaga wine and yarning about old
campaigns, while Ourida played with the little ape and the old eagle
watched for mice, pretending to be asleep.
Osman talked well. He told of his boyhood’s home beside the
Bosporus, of Constantinople, Bagdad and Damascus with its pearly
domes bubbling out of vivid greenery. Jerusalem, Tunis and Algiers
he had seen also and now the Moghreb, the “Sunset land” of the
first Saracen invaders. One thing more he wanted to see and that
was the Himalayas. He had heard old soldiers talk of them—
propping the heavens. He would fill his eyes with the Himalayas and
then go home to his garden in Rumeli Hissar and brood over his
memories.
 Sometimes he would take the gounibri and sing the love lyrics of
his namesake, or of Nêdim, or “rose garden” songs he had picked up
in Persia which Ourida thought delicious. And sometimes Ortho
trolled his green English ballads, also favorably received by her,
simply because he sang them, for she did not understand their
rhythm in the least. But more often they lounged, talking lazily, three
very good friends together, Osman sucking at the hookah,
punctuating the long silences with shrewd comments on men and
matters, Ortho lying at his ease watching the brilliant African stars,
drawing breaths of blossom-scented air wafted from the Aguedal,
Ourida nestling at his side, curled up like a sleepy kitten.
Summer passed and winter; came spring and with it, to Ortho’s
joy, no prospect of a campaign for him. A desert marabout, all rags,
filth and fervor, preached a holy war in the Tissant country,
gathering a few malcontents about him, and Yakoub Ben Ahmed was
dispatched with a small force to put a stop to it. There were the
usual rumors of unrest in the south, but nothing definite, merely
young bucks talking big. Ortho looked forward to another year of
peace.
He went in the Sultan’s train to Mogador for a fortnight in May,
and at the end of June was sent to Taroudant, due east of Agadir. A
trifling affair of dispatches. He told Ourida he would be back in no
time and rode off cheerfully.
His business in Taroudant done, he was on the point of turning
home when he was joined by a kaid mia and ten picked men from
Morocco bearing orders that he was to take them on to Tenduf, a
further two hundred miles south, and collect overdue tribute.
Ortho well knew what that meant. Tenduf was on the verge of
outbreak, the first signal of which would be his, the tax collector’s
head, on a charger. Had he been single he would not have gone to
Tenduf—he would have made a dash for freedom—but now he had a
wife in Morocco, a hostage for his fidelity.
 Seeking a public scribe, he dictated a letter to Ourida and
another to Osman Bâki, commending her to his care should the
worst befall, and rode on.
The Basha of Tenduf received the Sultan’s envoy with the
elaborate courtesy that is inherent in a Moor and signifieth nothing.
He was desolated that the tribute was behindhand, enlarged on the
difficulty of collecting it in a land impoverished by drought (which it
was not), but promised to set to work immediately. In the meantime
Ortho lodged in the kasba, ostensibly an honored guest, actually a
prisoner, aware that the Basha was the ringleader of the offenders
and that his own head might be removed at any moment. Hawk-
faced sheiks, armed to the teeth, galloped in, conferred with the
Basha, galloped away again. If they brought any tribute it was well
concealed. Time went by; Ortho bit his lip, fuming inwardly, but
outwardly his demeanor was of polite indifference. Whenever he
could get hold of the Basha he regaled him with instances of
Imperial wrath, of villages burned to the ground, towns taken and
put to the sword, men, women and children; lingering picturesquely
on the tortures inflicted on unruly governors.
“But why did Sidi do that?” the Basha would exclaim, turning a
shade paler at the thought of his peer of Khenifra having all his nails
drawn out and then being slowly sawn in half.
“Why?” Ortho would scratch his head and look puzzled. “Why?
Bless me if I know! Oh, yes, I believe there was some little hitch
with the taxes.”
“These walls make me laugh,” he remarked, walking on the
Tenduf fortifications.
The Governor was annoyed. “Why so? They are very good walls.”
“As walls go,” Ortho admitted. “But what are walls nowadays?
They take so long to build, so short a time to destroy. Why, our Turk
gunners breached the Derunat walls in five places in an hour. The
sole use for walls is to contain the defenders in a small space, then
every bomb we throw inside does its work.”
 “Hum!” The Basha stroked his brindled beard. “Hum—but
supposing the enemy harass you in the open?”
Ortho shrugged his shoulders. “Then we kill them in the open,
that is all. It takes longer, but they suffer more.”
“It took you a long time at Figvig,” the Basha observed
maliciously.
“Not after we learned the way.”
“And what is the way?”
“We take possession of the wells and they die of thirst in the
sands and save us powder. At Figvig there were many wells; it took
time. Here—” He swept his hand over the burning champagne and
snapped his fingers. “Just that.”
“Hum,” said the Basha and walked away deep in thought. Day
after day came and went and Ortho was not dead yet. He had an
idea that he was getting the better of the bluffing match, that the
Basha’s nerve was shaking and he was passing it on.
There came a morning when the trails were hazy with the dust of
horsemen hastening in to Tenduf, and the envoy on the kasba tower
knew that the crisis had arrived.
It was over by evening. The tribute began to come in next day
and continued to roll in for a week more.
The Basha accompanied Ortho ten miles on his return journey,
regretting any slight misconstruction that might have arisen and
protesting his imperishable loyalty. He trusted that his dear friend
Saïd el Inglez would speak well of him to the Sultan and presented
him with two richly caparisoned horses and a bag of ducats as a
souvenir of their charming relations.
Slowly went the train; the horses were heavy laden and the heat
terrific. Ortho dozed in the saddle, impatient at the pace, powerless
to mend it. He beguiled the tedious days, mentally converting the
Basha’s ducats into silks and jewelry for Ourida. It was the end of
August before he reached Taroudant. There he got word that the
court had moved to Rabat and he was to report there. Other news
he got also, news that sent him riding alone to Morocco City, night
and day, as fast as driven horseflesh would carry him.
He went through the High Atlas passes to Goundafa, then north
across the plains by Tagadirt and Aguergour. From Aguergour on the
road was crawling with refugees—men, women, children, horses,
donkeys, camels loaded with household goods staggering up the
mifis valley, anywhere out of the pestilent city. They shouted
warnings at the urgent horseman: “The sickness, the sickness! Thou
art riding to thy death, lord!”
Ortho nodded; he knew. It was late afternoon when he passed
through Tameslouht and saw the Koutoubia minaret in the distance,
standing serene, though all humanity rotted.
He was not desperately alarmed. Plagues bred in the beggars’
kennels, not in palace gardens. It would have reached his end of the
city last of all, giving his little family ample time to run. Osman Bâki
would see to it that Ourida had every convenience. They were
probably down at Dar el Beida reveling in the clean sea breezes, or
at Rabat with the Court. He told himself he was not really
frightened; nevertheless he did the last six miles at a gallop, passed
straight through the Bab Ksiba into the kasba. There were a couple
of indolent Sudanese on guard at the gate and a few more sprawling
in the shadow of the Drum Barracks, but the big Standard Square
was empty and so were the two further courts.
He jumped off his horse at the postern and walked on. From the
houses around came not a sound, not a move; in the street he was
the only living thing. He knocked at his own door; no answer. Good!
They had gone!
The door swung open to his push and he stepped in, half
relieved, half fearful, went from room to room to find them stripped
bare. Ourida had managed to take all her belongings with her then.
He wondered how she had found the transport. Osman Bâki
contrived it, doubtless. A picture flashed before him of his famous
black horse squadron trekking for the coast burdened with Ourida’s
furniture—a roll of haitis to this man, a cushion to that, a cauldron to
another—and he laughed merrily.
Where had they gone, he wondered—Safi, Dar el Beida,
Mogador, Rabat? The blacks at the barracks might know; Osman
should have left a message. He stepped out of the kitchen into the
court and saw a man rooting the little orange trees out of their tubs.
“Hey!”
The man swung about, sought to escape, saw it was impossible
and flung himself upon the ground writhing and sobbing for mercy.
It was a beggar who sat at the Ahmar Gate with his head hidden
in the hood of his haik (he was popularly supposed to have no face),
a supplicating claw protruding from a bundle of foul rags and a
muffled voice wailing for largesse. Ortho hated the loathly beast, but
Ourida gave him money—“in the name of God.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Great lord, have mercy in the name of Sidi Ben Youssef the
Blest, of Abd el Moumen and Muley Idriss,” he slobbered. “I did
nothing, lord, nothing. I thought you had gone to the south and
would not return to . . . to . . . this house. Spare me, O amiable
prince.”
“And why should I not return to this house?” said Ortho.
The beggar hesitated. “Muley, I made sure . . . I thought . . . it
was not customary . . . young men do not linger in the places of lost
love.”
“Dog,” said Ortho, suddenly cold about the heart, “what do you
mean?”
“Surely the Kaid knows?” There was a note of surprise in the
mendicant’s voice.
“I know nothing; I have been away . . . the lalla Ourida?”
 The beggar locked both hands over his head and squirmed in the
dust. “Kaid, Kaid . . . the will of Allah.”
The little court reeled under Ortho’s feet, a film like a heat wave
rose up before his eyes, everything went blurred for a minute. Then
he spoke quite calmly:
“Why did she not go away?”
“She had no time, lord. The little one, thy son, took the sickness
first; she stayed to nurse him and herself was taken. But she was
buried with honor, Kaid; the Turkish officer buried her with honor in
a gay bier with tholbas chanting. I, miserable that I am, I followed
also—afar. She was kind to the poor, the lalla Ourida.”
“But why, why didn’t Osman get them both away before the
plague struck the palace?” Ortho muttered fiercely, more to himself
than otherwise, but the writhing rag heap heard him and answered:
“He had no time, Muley. The kasba was the first infected.”
“The first! How?”
“Yakoub Ben Ahmed brought many rebel heads from Tissant
thinking to please Sidi. They stank and many soldiers fell sick, but
Yakoub would not throw the heads away—it was his first command.
They marched into the kasba with drums beating, sick soldiers
carrying offal.”
Ortho laughed mirthlessly. So the dead had their revenge.
“Where is the Turk officer now?” he asked presently. “Rabat?”
“No, Muley—he too took the sickness tending thy lancers.”
Ortho walked away. All over, all gone—wife, boy, faithful friend.
Ourida would not see her son go by at the proud head of a
regiment, nor Osman review his memories in his vineyard by the
Bosporus. All over, all gone, the best and truest.
Turning, he flung a coin at the beggar. “Go . . . leave me.”
 Dusk was flooding the little court, powder blue tinged with the
rose-dust of sunset. A pair of gray pigeons perched on the parapet
made their love cooings and fluttered away again. From the kasba
minaret came the boom of the muezzin. High in the summer night
drifted a white petal of a moon.
Ortho leaned against a pillar listening. The chink of anklets, the
plud, plud of small bare feet.
“Saïd, my beloved, is it you? Tired, my heart’s dear? Rest your
head here, lord; take thy ease. Thy fierce son is asleep at last; he
has four teeth now and the strength of a lion. He will be a great
captain of lances and do us honor when we are old. Your arm
around me thus, tall one . . . äie, now am I content beyond all
women . . .”
From twilight places came the voice of Osman Bâki and the
subdued tinkle of the gounibri. “Allah has been good to me. I have
seen many wonders—rivers, seas, cities and plains, fair women,
brave men and stout fighting, but I would yet see the Himalayas.
After that I will go home where I was a boy. Listen while I sing you a
song of my own country such as shepherds sing . . .”
Ortho’s head sank in his hands. All over now, all gone. . . .
Something flapped in the shadows by the orange trees, flapped and
hopped out into the central moonlight and posed there stretching its
crippled wings.
It was the old eagle disgustingly bloated.
That alone remained, that and the loathly beggar, left alone in
the dead city to their carrion orgy. A shock of revulsion shook Ortho.
Ugh!
He sprang up and, without looking round, strode out of the
house and down the street to where his horse was standing.
A puff of hot wind followed him, a furnace blast, foul with the
stench of half-buried corpses in the big Mussulman cemetery outside
the walls. Ugh!
 He kicked sharp stirrups into his horse and rode through the
Ksiba Gate.
“Fleeing from the sickness—eh?” sneered a mokaddem of
Sudanese who could not fly.
“No—ghosts,” said Ortho and turned his beast onto the western
road.
“The sea! The sea!”
 CHAPTER XXIV
“Perish me! Rot and wither my soul and eyes if it ain’t Saïd!”
exclaimed Captain Benjamin MacBride, hopping across the court, his
square hand extended.
“Saïd, my bully, where d’you hail from?”
“I’m on the bodyguard at Rabat. The Sultan’s building there now.
Skalas all round and seven new mosques are the order, I hear—we’ll
all be carrying bricks soon. I rode over to see you.”
“You ain’t looking too proud,” said MacBride; “sort of wasted-like,
and God ha’ mercy. Flux?”
Ortho shook his head. “No, but I’ve had my troubles, and”—
indicating the sailor’s bandaged eye and his crutch—“so have you, it
seems.”
“Curse me, yes! Fell in with a fat Spanisher off Ortegal and
mauled him down to a sheer hulk when up romps a brace of
American ‘thirties’ and serves me cruel. If it hadn’t been for nightfall
and a shift of wind I should have been a holy angel by now. Bad
times, boy, bad times. Too many warships about, and all
merchantmen sailing in convoy. I tell you I shall be glad when
there’s a bit of peace and good-will on earth again. Just now
everybody’s armed and it’s plaguy hard to pick up an honest living.”
“Governor here, aren’t you?” Ortho inquired.
“Aye. Soft lie-abed shore berth till my wounds heal and we can
get back to business. Fog in the river?”
“Thick; couldn’t see across.”
“It’s lying on the sea like a blanket,” said MacBride. “I’ve been
watching it from my tower. Come along and see the girls. They’re all
here save Tama; she runned away with a Gharb sheik when I was
cruising—deceitful slut!—but I’ve got three new ones.”
 Ayesha and Schems-ed-dah were most welcoming. They had
grown somewhat matronly, but otherwise time seemed to have left
them untouched. As ever they were gorgeously dressed, bejeweled
and painted up with carmine, henna and kohl. Fluttering and
twittering about their ex-slave, they plied him with questions. He
had been to the wars? Wounded? How many men had he killed?
What was his rank? A kaid rahal of cavalry. . . . Ach! chut, chut! A
great man! On the bodyguard! . . . Ay-ee! Was it true the Sultan’s
favorite Circassians ate off pure gold? Was he married yet?
When he told them the recent plague in Morocco had killed both
his wife and son their liquid eyes brimmed over. No whit less
sympathetic were the three new beauties; they wept in concert,
though ten minutes earlier Ortho had been an utter stranger to
them. Their hearts were very tender. A black eunuch entered bearing
the elaborate tea utensils. As he turned to go, MacBride called “aji,”
pointing to the ground before him.
The slave threw up his hands in protest. “Oh, no, lord, please.”
“Kneel down,” the sailor commanded. “I’ll make you spring your
ribs laughing, Saïd, my bonny. Give me your hand, Mohar.”
“Lord, have mercy!”
“Mercy be damned! Your hand, quick!”
The piteous great creature extended a trembling hand, was
grasped by the wrist and twisted onto his back.
“Now, my pearls, my rosebuds,” said MacBride.
The five little birds of paradise tucked their robes about them and
surrounded the prostrate slave, tittering and wriggling their
forefingers at him. Even before he was touched he screamed, but
when the tickling began in earnest he went mad, doubling, screwing,
clawing the air with his toes, shrieking like a soul in torment—which
indeed he was.
With the pearls and rosebuds it was evidently a favorite pastime;
they tickled with diabolical cunning that could only come of
experience, shaking with laughter and making sibilant noises the
while—“Pish—piss-sh!” Finally when the miserable victim was rolling
up the whites of his eyes, mouthing foam and seemed on the point
of throwing a fit, MacBride released him and he escaped.
The captain wiped the happy tears from his remaining eye and
turned on Ortho as one recounting an interesting scientific
observation.
“Very thin-skinned for a Sambo. D’you know I believe he’d sooner
take a four-bag at the gangway than a minute o’ that. I do, so help
me; I believe he’d sooner be flogged. Vee-ry curious. Come up and
I’ll show you my command.”
The Atlantic was invisible from the tower, sheeted under fog
which, beneath a windless sky, stretched away to the horizon in
woolly white billows. Ortho had an impression of a mammoth herd
of tightly packed sheep.
“There’s a three-knot tide under that, sweeping south, but it
don’t ’pear to move it much,” MacBride observed. “I’ll warrant that
bank ain’t higher nor a first-rate’s topgallant yard. I passed through
the western squadron once in a murk like that there. Off Dungeness,
it was. All their royals was sticking out, but my little hooker was
trucks down, out o’ sight.” He pointed to the north. “Knitra’s over
there, bit of a kasba like this. Er-rhossi has it; a sturdy fellow for a
Greek, but my soul what a man to drink! Stayed here for a week and
’pon my conscience he had me baled dry in two days—me! Back
there’s the forest, there’s pig . . . what are you staring at?”
Ortho spun about guiltily. “Me? Oh, nothing, nothing, nothing.
What were you saying? The forest . . .”
He became suddenly engrossed in the view of the forest of
Marmora.
“What’s the matter? You look excited, like as if you’d seen
something,” said MacBride suspiciously.
“I’ve seen nothing,” Ortho replied. “What should I see?”
 “Blest if I know; only you looked startled.”
“I was thinking.”
“Oh, was you? Well, as I was saying, there’s a mort o’ pigs in
there, wild ’uns, and lions too, by report, but I ain’t seen none. I’ll
get some sport as soon as my leg heals. This ain’t much of a place
though. Can’t get no money out of charcoal burners, not if you was
to torture ’em for a year. As God is my witness I’ve done my best,
but the sooty vermin ain’t got any.” He sighed. “I shall be devilish
glad when we can get back to our lawful business again. I’ve heard
married men in England make moan about their ‘family
responsibilities’—but what of me? I’ve got three separate families
already and two more on the way! What d’you say to that—eh?”
Ortho sympathized with the much domesticated seaman and
declared he must be going.
“You’re in hell’s own hurry all to a sudden.”
“I’m on the bodyguard, you know.”
“Well, if you must that’s an end on’t, but I was hoping you’d stop
for days and we’d have a chaw over old Jerry Gish—he-he! What a
man! Say, would you have the maidens plague that Sambo once
more before you go? Would you now? Give the word!”
Ortho declined the pleasure and asked if MacBride could sell him
a boat compass.
“I can sell you two or three, but what d’you want it for?”
“I’m warned for the Guinea caravan,” Ortho explained. “A couple
of akkabaah have been lost lately; the guides went astray in the
sands. I want to keep some check on them.”
“I thought the Guinea force went out about Christmas.”
“No, this month.”
“Well, you know best, I suppose,” said the captain and gave him
a small compass, refusing payment.
 “Come back and see us before you go,” he shouted as Ortho
went out of the gate.
“Surely,” the latter replied and rode southwards for Sallee at top
speed, knowing full well that, unless luck went hard against him, so
far from seeing Ben MacBride again he would be out of the country
before midnight.
While Ourida lived, life in Morocco had its compensations; with
her death it had become insupportable. He had ridden down to the
sea filled with a cold determination to seize the first opportunity of
escape and, if none occurred, to make one. Plans had been forming
in his mind of working north to Tangier, there stealing a boat and
running the blockade into beleaguered Gibraltar, some forty miles
distant, a scheme risky to the point of foolhardiness. But remain he
would not.
Now unexpectedly, miraculously, an opportunity had come.
Despite his denials he had seen something from MacBride’s tower;
the upper canvas of a ship protruding from the fog about a mile and
a half out from the coast, by the cut and the long coach-whip
pennant at the main an Englishman. Just a glimpse as the royals
rose out of a trough of the fog billows, just the barest glimpse, but
quite enough. Not for nothing had he spent his boyhood at the gates
of the Channel watching the varied traffic passing up and down. And
a few minutes earlier MacBride had unwittingly supplied him with the
knowledge he needed, the pace and direction of the tide. Ortho
knew no arithmetic, but common sense told him that if he galloped
he should reach Sallee two hours ahead of that ship. She had no
wind, she would only drift. He drove his good horse relentlessly, and
as he went decided exactly what he would do.
It was dark when he reached the Bab Sebta, and over the low-
lying town the fog lay like a coverlet.
He passed through the blind town, leaving the direction to his
horse’s instinct, and came out against the southern wall. Inquiring of
an unseen pedestrian, he learnt he was close to the Bab Djedid, put
his beast in a public stable near by, detached one stirrup, and,
feeling his way through the gate, struck over the sand banks
towards the river. He came on it too far to the west, on the spit
where it narrows opposite the Kasba Oudaia of Rabat; the noise of
water breaking at the foot of the great fortress across the Bon
Regreg told him as much.
Turning left-handed, he followed the river back till he brought up
against the ferry boats. They were all drawn up for the night; the
owners had gone, taking their oars with them. “Damnation!” His idea
had been to get a man to row him across and knock him on the
head in midstream; it was for that purpose that he had brought the
heavy stirrup. There was nothing for it now but to rout a man out—
all waste of precious time!
There was just a chance some careless boatman had left his oars
behind. Quickly he felt in the skiffs. The first was empty, so was the
second, the third and the fourth, but in the fifth he found what he
sought. It was a light boat too, a private shallop and half afloat at
that. What colossal luck! He put his shoulders to the stem and hove
—and up rose a man.
“Who’s that? Is that you, master?”
Ortho sprang back. Where had he heard that voice before? Then
he remembered; it was Puddicombe’s. Puddicombe had not returned
to Algiers after all, but was here waiting to row “Sore Eyes” across to
Rabat to a banquet possibly.
“Who’s that?”
Ortho blundered up against the stem, pretending to be mildly
drunk, mumbling in Arabic that he was a sailor from a trading
felucca looking for his boat.
“Well, this is not yours, friend,” said Puddicombe. “Try down the
beach. But if you take my advice you’ll not go boating to-night; you
might fall overboard and get a drink of water which, by the sound of
you, is not what thou art accustomed to.” He laughed at his own
delightful wit.
 Ortho stumbled into the fog, paused and thought matters over.
To turn a ferryman out might take half an hour. Puddicombe had the
only oars on the beach, therefore Puddicombe must give them up.
He lurched back again, steadied himself against the stem and
asked the Devonian if he would put him off to his felucca, getting a
flat refusal. Hiccuping, he said there was no offense meant and
asked Puddicombe if he would like a sip of fig brandy. He said he
had no unsurmountable objection, came forward to get it, and Ortho
hit him over the head with the stirrup iron as hard as he could lay in.
Puddicombe toppled face forwards out of the boat and lay on the
sand without a sound or a twitch.
“I’m sorry I had to do it,” said Ortho, “but you yourself warned
me to trust nobody, above all a fellow renegado. I’m only following
your own advice. You’ll wake up before dawn. Good-by.”
Pushing the boat off, he jumped aboard and pulled for the
grumble of the bar.
He went aground on the sand-spit, and rowing away from that
very nearly stove the boat in on a jag of rock below the Kasba
Oudaia. The corner passed, steering was simple for a time, one had
merely to keep the boat pointed to the rollers. Over the bar he went,
slung high, swung low, tugged on to easy water, and striking a glow
on his flint and steel examined the compass.
Thus occasionally checking his course by the needle he pulled
due west. He was well ahead of the ship, he thought, and by getting
two miles out to sea would be lying dead in her track. Before long
the land breeze would be blowing sufficient to push the fog back,
but not enough to give the vessel more than two or three knots; in
that light shallop he could catch her easily, if she were within
reasonable distance.
Reckoning he had got his offing, he swung the boat’s head due
north and paddled gently against the run of the tide.
Time progressed; there was no sign of the ship or the land
breeze that was to reveal her. For all he knew he might be four miles
out to sea or one-half only. He had no landmarks, no means of
measuring how far he had come except by experience of how long it
had taken him to pull a dinghy from point to point at home in Monks
Cove; yet somehow he felt he was about right.
Time went by. The fog pressed about him in walls of discolored
steam, clammy, dripping, heavy on the lungs. Occasionally it split,
revealing dark corridors and halls, abysses of Stygian gloom; rolled
together again. A hundred feet overhead it was clear night and
starry. Where was that breeze?
More time passed. Ortho began to think he had failed and made
plans to cover the failure. It should not be difficult. He would land on
the sands opposite the Bab Malka, overturn the boat, climb over the
walls and see the rest of the night out among the Mussulman
graves. In the morning he could claim his horse and ride into camp
as if nothing had happened. As a slave he had been over the walls
time and again; there was a crack in the bricks by the Bordj el Kbir.
He didn’t suppose it was repaired; they never repaired anything.
Puddicombe didn’t know who had hit him; there was no earthly
reason why he should be suspected. The boat would be found
overturned, the unknown sailor presumed drowned. Quite simple.
Remained the Tangier scheme.
By this time, being convinced that the ship had passed, he
slewed the boat about and pulled in. The sooner he was ashore the
better.
The fog appeared to be moving. It twisted into clumsy spirals
which sagged in the middle, puffed out cheeks of vapor, bulged and
writhed, drifting to meet the boat. The land breeze was coming at
last—an hour too late! Ortho pulled on, an ear cocked for the growl
of the bar. There was nothing to be heard as yet; he must have gone
further than he thought, but fog gagged and distorted sound in the
oddest way. The spirals nodded above him like gigantic wraiths.
Something passed overhead delivering an eerie screech. A sea-gull
only, but it made him jump. Glancing at the compass, he found that
he was, at the moment, pulling due south. He got his direction again
and pulled on. Goodness knew what the tide had been doing to him.
There might be a westward stream from the river which had pushed
him miles out to sea. Or possibly he was well south of his mark and
would strike the coast below Rabat. Oh, well, no matter as long as
he got ashore soon. Lying on his oars, he listened again for the bar,
but could hear no murmur of it. Undoubtedly he was to the
southward. That ship was halfway to Fedala by now.
Then, quite clearly, behind a curtain of fog, an English voice
chanted: “By the Deep Nine.”
Ortho stopped rowing, stood up and listened. Silence, not a
sound, not a sign. Fichus and twisted columns of fog drifting
towards him, that was all. But somewhere close at hand a voice was
calling soundings. The ship was there. All his fine calculations were
wrong, but he had blundered aright.
“Mark ten.”
The voice came again, seemingly from his left-hand side this
time. Again silence. The fog alleys closed once more, muffling
sound. The ship was there, within a few yards, yet this cursed mist
with its fool tricks might make him lose her altogether. He hailed
with all his might. No answer. He might have been flinging his shout
against banks of cotton wool. Again and again he hailed.
Suddenly came the answer, from behind his back apparently.
“Ahoy there . . . who are you?”
“ ’Scaped English prisoner! English prisoner escaped!”
There was a pause; then, “Keep off there . . . none of your
tricks.”
“No tricks . . . I am alone . . . alone,” Ortho bawled, pulling
furiously. He could hear the vessel plainly now, the creak of her
tackle as she felt the breeze.
“Keep off there, or I’ll blow you to bits.”
“If you fire a gun you’ll call the whole town out,” Ortho warned.
 “What town?”
“Sallee.”
“Christ!” the voice ejaculated and repeated his words. “He says
we’re off Sallee, sir.”
Ortho pulled on. He could see the vessel by this, a blurred
shadow among the steamy wraiths of mist, a big three-master close-
hauled on the port tack.
Said a second voice from aft: “Knock his bottom out if he
attempts to board . . . no chances.”
“Boat ahoy,” hailed the first voice. “If you come alongside I’ll sink
you, you bloody pirate. Keep off.”
Ortho stopped rowing. They were going to leave him. Forty yards
away was an English ship—England. He was missing England by
forty yards, England and the Owls’ House!
He jerked at his oars, tugged the shallop directly in the track of
the ship and slipped overboard. They might be able to see his boat,
but his head was too small a mark. If he missed what he was aiming
at he was finished; he could never regain that boat. It was neck or
nothing now, the last lap, the final round.
He struck to meet the vessel—only a few yards.
She swayed towards him, a chuckle of water at her cut-water;
tall as a cliff she seemed, towering out of sight. The huge bow
loomed over him, poised and crushed downwards as though to ride
him under, trample him deep.
The sheer toppling bulk, the hiss of riven water snapped his last
shred of courage. It was too much. He gave up, awaited the instant
stunning crash upon his head, saw the great bowsprit rush across a
shining patch of stars, knew the end had come at last, thumped
against the bows and found himself pinned by the weight of water,
his head still up. His hands, his unfailing hands had saved him again;
he had hold of the bob-stay!
 The weight of water was not really great, the ship had little more
than steerage way. Darkness had magnified his terrors. He got
across the stay without much difficulty, worked along it to the
dolphin-striker, thence by the martingale to the fo’csle.
The look-out were not aware of his arrival until he was amongst
them; they were watching the tiny smudge that was his boat. He
noticed that they had round-shot ready to drop into it.
“Good God!” the mate exclaimed. “Who are you?”
“The man who hailed just now, sir.”
“But I thought . . . I thought you were in that boat.”
“I was, sir, but I swam off.”
“Good God!” said the mate again and hailed the poop. “Here’s
this fellow come aboard after all, sir. He’s quite alone.”
An astonished “How the devil?”
“Swam, sir.”
“Pass him aft.”
Ortho was led aft. Boarding nettings were triced up and men lay
between the upper deck guns girded with side arms. Shot were in
the garlands and match-tubs filled, all ready. A well-manned, well-
appointed craft. He asked the man who accompanied him her name.
“Elijah Impey. East Indiaman.”
“Indiaman! Then where are we bound for?”
“Bombay.”
Ortho drew a deep breath. It was a long road home.
 CHAPTER XXV
The little Botallack man and Eli Penhale shook hands, tucked the
slack of their wrestling jackets under their left armpits and,
crouching, approached each other, right hands extended.
The three judges, ancient wrestlers, leaned on their ash-plants
and looked extremely knowing; they went by the title of “sticklers.”
The wrestling ring was in a grass field almost under the shadow
of St. Gwithian church tower. To the north the ridge of tors rolled
along the skyline, autumnal brown. Southward was the azure of the
English Channel; west, over the end of land, the glint of the Atlantic
with the Scilly Isles showing on the horizon, very faint, like small
irregularities on a ruled blue line.
All Gwithian was present, men and women, girls and boys, with a
good sprinkling of visitors from the parishes round about. They
formed a big ring of black and pink, dark clothes and healthy
countenances. A good-natured crowd, bandying inter-parochial chaff
from side to side, rippling with laughter when some accepted wit
brought off a sally, yelling encouragement to their district
champions.
“Beware of en’s feet, Jan, boy. The old toad is brear foxy.”
“Scat en, Ephraim, my pretty old beauty! Grip to an’ scandalize
en!”
“Move round, sticklers! Think us can see through ’e? Think you’m
made of glass?”
“Up, Gwithian!”
“Up, St. Levan!”
At the feet of the crowd lay the disengaged wrestlers, chewing
blades of grass and watching the play. They were naked except for
short drawers, and on their white skins grip marks flared red, bruises
and long scratches where fingers had slipped or the rough jacket
edges cut in. Amiable young stalwarts, smiling at each other,
grunting approvingly at smart pieces of work. One had a snapped
collar-bone, another a fractured forearm wrapped up in a
handkerchief, but they kept their pains to themselves; it was all in
the game.
Now Eli and the little Botallack man were out for the final.
Polwhele was not five feet six and tipped the beam at eleven
stone, whereas Eli was five ten and weighed two stone the heavier.
It looked as though he had only to fall on the miner to finish him,
but such was far from the case. The sad-faced little tinner had
already disposed of four bulky opponents in workmanlike fashion
that afternoon—the collar bone was his doing.
“Watch his eyes,” Bohenna had warned.
That was all very well, but it was next to impossible to see his
eyes for the thick bang of hair that dangled over them like the
forelock of a Shetland pony.
Polwhele clumsily sidled a few steps to the right. Eli followed him.
Polwhele walked a few steps to the left. Again Eli followed. Polwhele
darted back to the right, Eli after him, stopped, slapped his right
knee loudly, and, twisting left-handed, grabbed the farmer round the
waist and hove him into the air.
It was cleverly done—the flick of speed after the clumsy walk,
the slap on the knee drawing the opponent’s eye away—cleverly
done, but not quite quick enough. Eli got the miner’s head in
chancery as he was hoisted up and hooked his toes behind the
other’s knees.
Polwhele could launch himself and his burden neither forwards
nor backwards, as the balance lay with Eli. The miner hugged at Eli’s
stomach with all his might, jerking cruelly. Eli wedged his free arm
down and eased the pressure somewhat. It was painful, but
bearable.
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