Rejtő, Jenő: The three musketeers in Africa; Q 19045

20 must not be seen talking with them. If she does anything suspicious, it may cost her her life as well as Francis's, who is being held in captivity. Though the amiable captain, who runs the place

, rules out executions as a matter of principle, there are other — insidious — ways of getting rid of undesirable elements. Buster bumps into a well-dressed engineer, whom he recognizes in astonishment as thG Sultan. The latter tells them in a whisper that he has managed to ingratiate himself with "them", they think he is a crook and, apparently, trust him. What this is all about? Well, so far as he can tell, it's the cleverest crook of all time that's grabbing the biggest-ever cleanup at this place. It's vitally important for him to keep up appearances, and for this reason, whenever he sees someone approaching, he speaks rough to th.6 musketeers and continually manhandles them, kicking and pushing them, hitting them over the heads and so on "for the sake of appearances", yelling at them "we want no nosey Parkers here" and things like that. The Sultan even goes to the length of betraying his friends' real purpose -- just to preserve his credibility, or so he claims, by forestalling the captain's spies. It was he, for example, who exposed Yvonne, too, as soon as she turned up. The Sultan's behaviour strikes the musketeers