And the blessed rain came. We had heard it pattering and plashing between our dreams, and, when we came out into the open air, it was moist and sweet and cool. For the first time throughout our entire journey we were unable to procure the coupé to ourselves, for the assizes were to commence at Mostaganem, and, what with witnesses, lawyers, plaintiffs and defendants, the diligence was more than crowded.

We could not see our companion, but, from the large share of the coupé that he monopolized, we thought he must be a very stout person indeed; alas, how we had hoped and prayed that he might prove thin! But there was no help for it, and, by the time we began to be cramped in every limb, came the blessed, beautifying daylight and the ever-shifting African landscape, that made us forget everything else.

We forgave our fellow-traveller his burliness after a while, for he proved so full of information and pleasant. He was a barrister, and told us of all the most important cases coming off at Mostaganem, and a fearful list it was. By far the greater number of prisoners were Arabs charged with assassinations. We told this gentleman of what we had heard at Tclemcen.

“In one place,” we said, “the Arabs are represented as harmless, improvable, mild: in another as the incarnation of villany. What are we to believe?”