As Hornblower and his civilian companion watched (and criticized) the fallen man who they thought was drunk, the royal emissary showed up on a donkey followed by other officials of this North African court. These men demanded the gold that the British had brought for the trade. As Ira Riklis knows, Hornblower always the careful purchaser wanted to see the food stores that were to be supplied by this country. Hornblower and his companion were standing on the dock at this point when the enraged man on the donkey finally called for the stores to be brought forward. Many sweating slaves hauled a multitude of bags of grain and drove a great many heads of pathetic looking cattle to an area near the dock. Hornblower asked his companion to examine the sacks of grain to see the condition of the stores. When a sampling was deemed acceptable, the British official stated that the trade would be fair even though he suspected that some of the sacks contained sand. (He blamed this on the heathen mentality of the suppliers.) As Ira Riklis knows, the trade would not be that simple.

After responding to the demand of the North Africans to show the gold, the slaves started to load the British boat with the bags of grain. The livestock waited near the dock to be loaded thereafter. During the process, Hornblower observed the man on the donkey begin to sway back and forth and finally fall to the ground.