The Pasha was in a tent considerably larger than those that surrounded it. The Albanian went in, leaving the prisoners in charge of their guard. In five minutes he came out and signed to them to follow him in. The Pasha was an elderly man with a snow-white beard. He looked at the prisoners with some interest.
“I hear that you are Englishmen,” he said in Greek.
“That is so, sir.”
“And that you are in the Greek service.”
“We were in the Greek service, but after being carried off by Greek brigands I do not know that we shall have any inclination to remain in it.”
“If you had been taken fighting against us I should have ordered you to be shot,” the Pasha said; “but as it is I do not know. Do you belong to that schooner with white sails that has been cruising off the coast some days?”
“We do,” Horace admitted.
“I am told,” the Pasha went on, “that she is the ship that did us much harm at Chios.”
“We were attacked, and we beat off the boats,” Horace said. “That is fair warfare. Our principal object has been to rescue people in danger or distress, whether Christian or Turk. We rescued numbers of Chiot slaves. And on the other hand we saved numbers of Turks at the surrender of the Acropolis at Athens, and conveyed them safely to Tenedos, where we landed them; and the governor there recognized our service to his countrymen, and came off to the ship and invited us on shore to dine with him.”