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Tangier. He exercised him, increasing the distance each day. He took him to the farrier’s and watched, troubled, as the big-muscled man took a knife and a hammer and fitted Sham’s hooves to the shoes. Both he and Sham were covered with sweat when the shoeing was finally done.
    On the last night in the Sultan’s stables Agba hardly slept at all. He kept jumping down from his hammock and feeling inside the two great pockets which fitted over the cantle of his saddle. He wanted to make sure that nothing was missing: the leathern vessel for water, the fine new nosebag the Signor had given him, the rub-rag made of camel’s hair, the little earthen jug of rancid butter, called budra, with which to rub Sham’s legs, the fly crop made from the hairs of Sham’s tail.
    The stars were beginning to fade when at last he slept.



9. Salem Alick!
    B Y THE time dawn crept down the Atlas Mountains and filled the Meknes valley with long shafts of light, Signor Achmet and six horseboys, on their Arabian stallions, were on their way to the royal palace.
    Agba, first of the six, rode with his eyes fixed on the sun. It was climbing higher and higher, veering southward, nearer and nearer to the tower of the mosque. Now its outer rim was almost touching the slender needle.
    The Signor, too, was watching the sun. If he did not arrive at the exact moment the Sultan had specified, there was notelling what the punishment might be. He quickened his pace. Agba and the other boys did not need to urge their horses. They were eager to go, tossing their heads with impatience. Just as the sun slid behind the tower, the procession moved up the steep incline that led to the entrance of the palace grounds.
    And at that precise moment four bagpipers and four tomtom players tore the morning stillness to shreds. The palace gates were flung open and Sultan Mulai Ismael himself came riding toward them. He swayed on his horse like a ship at sea, and in his wake trailed an enormous following—the parasol holder, the fly-flickers, the groom, the spur-men, and slaves and foot soldiers without number.
    There was a flurry of movement along the walls. A thousand guards stood at attention. A thousand spears, like so many serpents’ tongues, were thrust into the air. A thousand throats shouted above the drums and the bagpipes, “May Allah bless the life of our Sultan!”
    Signor Achmet and the horseboys bowed until their noses brushed the manes of their mounts. Without answering the salutation, the royal procession swept past them, down the incline between rows of guards, and led the way to the city gates.
    In single file the Signor and the horseboys followed. Through the narrow public streets they rode. Buyers and sellers and saints and beggars joined the parade.
    Women, their faces half-hidden by veils, came out on the rooftops to watch and to add their high-voiced cries to the beating of the tom-toms and the skirling of the bagpipes.
    Discordant as the music was, there was a kind of rhythmand excitement to it, too. The horses kept time to it. The silken handkerchiefs of the fly-flickers and even the royal parasol waved to its rhythm.

    As the parade left the market place, Agba felt someone pull at his mantle. He looked out of the corner of his eye and caught the toothless grin of the camel driver.
    Agba smiled in quick recognition.
    The camel driver bellowed a huzza. Then he extended his arms to heaven as if this moment of sharing Agba’s glory was reward enough for all the camel’s milk he had given him.
    At last the procession reached the outer gate of the city. The music stopped. A great silence fell over the multitude as the Sultan, helped by his attendants, dismounted. With a jolting, camel-like trot he made his way to the six Arabians and tied a silken bag around the neck of each one. There was a dark red bag for the chestnut, a pale yellow one for the yellow dun, a gray bag for the dappled gray, a white bag for the white, a black one for the black, and