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TANGIERS IOI
they might not be able to follow my trail. I had
not gone far when the one-eyed fellow overtook me;
his nose was bleeding; he looked like a fugitive but
he snatched my bag and it came to pass, this time, that
the vanquished won the spoils, a form of justice which
is as reasonable as it is rare in history. Hadji abd
Islam—for such was the name of my one-eyed con-
queror—delivered me to the hotel keeper with much
ceremony and commended himself to me as a guide.
I used him so for two weeks; and though at first he
seemed to me a bandit, he turned out to be an excellent
fellow. He would go about with me all day long,
from morning to night, asking but little in return, never
sparing himself, never making any attempt to cheat
me, and never permitting any one else to cheat me
either. May Allah reward him for his kindness and
preserve him from cholera and from the yellow snakes
of the swamps.
I had an unusual feeling of delight as I stepped out
on my balcony after Hadji had left me. The hotel
was built in the Spanish style with balcony windows.
Around it lay the Arab city, white-stuccoed, window-
less, with flat roofs on which white-veiled women
walked up and down.
It was evening; bay and street were silent; far off lay
Spain and Gibraltar, like a distant wall of clouds. The
moon cast a magical brightness over the white city
` before me with its deep shadows in the background,
and the green air floating over it. Minarets and
towers of azulejos seemed to come nearer in this noc-
turnal light. From my veranda, I could look down
over the roofs into Moorish courtyards; under the
pillared loggia in one of the courts an Arab sat on the
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