“You have heard, Colonel Osman, the terms that these strangers have laid down, and that unless the prisoners are surrendered, you, the two bimbaches, myself, and the members of my family, will be carried off as hostages and hung if the prisoners are not delivered up.”
“I heard that, pasha.”
“What is your opinion, colonel?”
“My opinion is that you have no course but to give up the prisoners. No one would expect you to sacrifice the lives of the ladies of your family and your children, to say nothing of your own and ours, merely for the sake of twenty shipwrecked sailors. It seems to me that it were madness to hesitate, pasha.”
“That is also my opinion,” the pasha said. “Therefore, colonel, I will now write you an order to fetch them from prison and bring them under an escort here. You will understand that it will be better that absolute silence should be observed about this affair. The less it is talked of the better. If the officer in special charge of them asks any questions you can intimate that, without knowing it, you believe that the messenger may have arrived from Smyrna with instructions as to their disposal. Dismiss the escort at the outer gate and bring the prisoners yourself here.”
The pasha wrote the order, which he handed to the colonel, who at once hurried off with it.
“You are sure that he will faithfully obey the order, pasha?” Horace asked through the interpreter.
The pasha nodded.
“One of the bimbaches here is his own brother, and he would be sure that his life would be sacrificed were there any treachery.”