A few triumphant notes on the flute responded to this, and then all was silent again.
How impatient Mole was for daylight, that he might read the letter.
But it was many hours to that yet, and sleep he found impossible.
At length, a faint streak came through the bars of the gloomy dungeon.
Mole, with some difficulty, dragged himself under this light, straightened out the paper, and read thus—
"Isaac Mole, Esquire,—You are not forgotten by your friends, who much lament your misfortune. We very narrowly escaped being caught and served in the same way. We have, through Captain Deering, got hold of the British consul, to whom we have represented the affair to be only a practical joke, not deserving of a severe punishment. So we hope to get you off with a fine, which we will undertake to pay, whatever it may be. Therefore, keep up your pecker, old man, and believe us to be
"Yours, truly as ever,
"Jack and Friends."
"Cool, after the way they've served me," was the tutor's mental comment upon this message; "but the question is, Can the British consul, or any other man, get me out of the clutches of these ferocious Turks?"
The next night, Mole was able to sleep.