H. Bedford-Jones

“ But here I am, penniless and dependent upon a consul’s charity—hello! We have strangers among us, it seems!”
Coming toward him along the road were two riders, and the gray eyes of Spence dwelt curiously upon them. He knew that these must be new arrivals in Algiers. Attracted first by their remarkable costumes, it was their faces which finally drew the keen interest of the American.
The man was robed in a burnoose of snowy white. ”

“ If he makes promises, he can fulfill them, Tell the consul at Algiers that I have woven a net to catch Ripperda. If you be the true man I think you, then come with Mulai Ali and help me.
This note was unsigned.
“Ripperda! Who is the fellow?” mused Patrick Spence, frowning. “And I am to beware of a man who wears a black burnoose—plague take it all! Am I mad or dreaming?”
He filled his pipe again. He had been long enough in Algiers to know that the place was a hotbed of intrigue. Spanish armies were holding Oran against the Moors and the land was in turmoil. ”

“ What manner of man art thou?”
IN In the grounds of a villa outside Algiers, in the year 1730, two men were sitting on a low stone garden seat beneath an orange tree.
“A horse’s head?” said Patrick Spence, and frowned. “With no inscription?”
“It needs none.”
Dr. Shaw peered at the bronze coin in his hand, brushing the fresh earth from it lovingly. As his spade and the dirt on his strong brown forearms testified, Spence had been at work in the garden when the coin turned up. He drew at his pipe with the quiet satisfaction of one who has labored hard. ”