Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks Part 73

"I don't quite follow him."

"He's only asking a question, you know. You polly-voo like a native."

"Yes; precisely, Jack. But I don't follow his accent. He's some peasant, I suppose."

"_Votre nom!_" demanded the official, rather fiercely this time.

"Now, then, Mr. Mole," cried a voice in the rear, "you're stopping everyone. Get it out and move on."

"Dear, dear me!" said Mole. "What does it mean?"

"He's asking your name," said Jack, "and you can't understand it."

"Oh!"

"I'll tell him for you, as you don't seem to know a word," said Jack.

"_Il s'appelle Ikey Mole_," he added to the commissaire.

"_Aike Moll_," repeated the commissaire. "_Il est Arabe?_"

"_Oui, monsieur. C'est un des lieutenants du grand Abd-el-Kader._"

"_Vraiment!_" exclaimed the commissaire, in a tone of mingled surprise and respect. "_Pa.s.sez, M'sieur Aike Moll._"[2]

[2] "He calls himself Ikey Mole," says Jack to the _commissaire de police_.

"_Aike Moll!_" repeats the commissaire, p.r.o.nouncing the incongruous sounds as nearly as he can. "Why, he must be an Arab."

To which Jack, with all his ready impudence, replies--

"Yes, sir, he is an Arab. He was one of Abd-el-Kader's lieutenants."

We need scarcely remind our readers that Abd-el-Kader was the doughty Arab chief who made so heroic a resistance to the French in Algiers.

This satisfied the commissaire, who respectfully bade Mole pa.s.s on.

They went on, and Mole anxiously questioned Jack.

"I'm getting quite deaf," said he, by way of a pretext for not having understood the conversation. "Whatever were you saying?"

"I told him your name was Isaac Mole, sir," returned Jack.

"You said Ikey Mole, sir," retorted Mole, "and that is a very great liberty, sir."

"Not at all. Ike is the French for Isaac," responded the unblus.h.i.+ng Jack.

"But what was all that they were saying about Arab?"

"Arab!" repeated Jack, in seeming astonishment.

"Yes."

"Didn't hear it myself."

"I certainly thought I caught the word Arab," said Mr. Mole, giving Jack a very suspicious glance.

"You never made a greater mistake, sir, in your life."

"How very odd."

"Very."

The Cannebiere is the chief promenade in Ma.r.s.eilles, and the inhabitants of this important seaport are not a little proud of it.

Two men sat smoking cigarettes and sipping lazily at their _grog au vin_ at the door of one of then numerous cafes in the Cannebiere.

To these two men we invite the reader's attention.

One was a swarthy-looking Frenchman from the south, a man of a decent exterior, but with a fierce and restless glance.

He was the sort of man whom you would sooner have as a friend than as an enemy.

A steadfast friend--an implacable foe!

That was what you read in his peculiar physiognomy, in that odd mixture of defiance and fearlessness, those anxious glances, frankness and deceit, the varied expressions of which pa.s.sed in rapid succession across his countenance.

This man called himself Pierre Lenoir, although he was known in other ports by other names.

Pierre Lenoir was a sort of Jack of all trades.

He had been apprenticed to an engraver, and had shown remarkable apt.i.tude for that profession, but, being of a roving and restless disposition, he ran away from his employer to s.h.i.+p on board a merchant vessel.

After a cruise or two he was wrecked, and narrowly escaped with his life.

Tired of the sea, for awhile he obtained employment with a medallist, where his skill as an engraver stood him in good stead.

From this occupation he fled as soon as his ready adaptability had made him a useful hand to his new master, and took to a roving life again.

What he was now doing in Ma.r.s.eilles no one could positively a.s.sert.

How it was that Pierre Lenoir had such an abundant supply of ready money, the progress of our narrative will show--for with it are connected several of not the least exciting episodes in the career of young Jack Harkaway.

So much for Pierre Lenoir.

Now for his companion at the cafe.

He was called Markby, and, as his name indicates, he was an Englishman.