“Never!” cried Mr Burne, cocking his gun.
“Don’t be foolish, my dear Burne,” said the professor. “I would say, let us fight like men; but what can we do against fifty well-armed scoundrels, who can shelter themselves and pick us off at their ease? Come, keep that gun still, or you will shoot one of us instead of an enemy.”
“Now, that’s cruel!” cried Mr Burne with an air of comical vexation. “Well, I suppose you are right. Here, Yussuf, old fellow, I beg your pardon. I was only in a savage temper. I suppose we must give in; but before I’ll pay a shilling of ransom they shall take off my head.”
Yussuf smiled.
“Confound you, sir, don’t grin at a man when he’s down,” cried Mr Burne. “You’ve got the better of me, but you need not rejoice like that.”
“I do not rejoice, excellency, only that you believe in me once more.”
“Here! hi! you black-muzzled, unbelieving scoundrels, leave off, will you! Don’t point your guns at us, or, by George and the dragon and the other champions of Christendom, I will fight.”
He had looked at the two points of the half-moon road, and seen that about a dozen men were now dismounted, and were apparently taking aim at them.
“Well, Yussuf, we give up,” said the professor. “Perhaps, after all, they may be honest people. Will you go to them and ask what they want with us?”
“They are brigands, excellency.”