At this moment there was a little shriek heard.
“I am afraid,” Horace said, “that one of the ladies’ attendants has come downstairs and has been seized. Perhaps you will like to go upstairs and assure them that there is no cause for alarm. In the meantime I will hand you this bag, which contains the amount of the ransom in gold.”
“You Englishmen act nobly,” the pasha said as he took the bag. “You had us in your power, and need have paid nothing, and you treat me as a friend rather than as an enemy. It is a pity that you fight for the Greeks. When I was a young man I fought in Egypt by the side of your troops.”
Horace escorted him through the sailors in the passages to the foot of the stairs and there left him.
“Your scheme is turning out trumps and no mistake,” Martyn said as he returned to the room. “There is no fear, I hope, of that Turkish colonel bringing all his men down on us.”
“I don’t think so.” And Horace then repeated what the pasha had said as to one of the officers in his hands being the colonel’s brother.
“That is good, Horace. I don’t think he would venture on it anyhow. Evidently the pasha has no fear. If he had he would not have sent him, because he must have known that his treachery jeopardized his own safety and that of his family.”
“How long do you think they will be before they are back?”
“Not much above half an hour, I should think. I don’t think the Turkish soldiers do much in the way of undressing, and certainly our fellows won’t. Now we will leave five men to look after the prisoners here, and we will put all the others in the offices you say look into the court-yard, so that if by any chance this fellow does bring troops down with him we can give them a hot reception.”