"One, tall, and spare, and like a soldier."
"The Major," Dick told himself. "Hooray! Things are going to come right."
"And the other older, getting grey, also tall, and spare, and soldierly."
"Lead me to them at once," demanded Dick. "They are the men whom His Highness desires to interview. Come, lead quickly; there will be trouble about this matter."
That set the sentry shivering with apprehension, and made him still more eager to appease the officer who had accosted him. Leading the way towards the back of the guard-house, he took down a bunch of keys strung to a hook on the wall and with their help opened a cell. Dick looked in. An ill-kempt, unwieldy man dressed in the uniform of an officer was seated on a stone bench and scowled as the two appeared. And then, recognizing Dick as an officer he burst into a torrent of abuse, expressed in a language of which the midshipman was ignorant.
"Not my bird at any rate," he told himself. "My! Listen to the fellow. I'm sorry for him, awfully. But I can't get mixing myself up in his affairs. Now, let us see the others," he demanded of the Turk.
A minute later they were peering into an adjacent cell, in which Dick instantly recognized the Major. As for the latter, though he looked at our hero very hard and with suspicion, there was no recognition until Dick spoke.
"Major," he said. "Please be careful as I am disguised as a Turkish officer. I have come to demand your release."
"Demand my release! Turkish officer! Why, it's—it's Mr. Midshipman Hamshaw."
"Present, sir," grinned that young gentleman, saluting. "You see," he said, swinging round upon the soldier. "He recognizes me, and so does the other officer. Ah! There will be bad trouble over this, when Shukri Pasha gets to hear of it. Yes, trouble which——"