“I say,” he said, “those fellows had planned that attack.”
“Decidedly,” said the professor. “I feared it, though I did not say anything more to you.”
“Then it was very ungentlemanly of you, sir,” cried the old lawyer testily. “Lucky for you I was awake, sir, or we should all have been killed in our sleep.”
“I thought you were fast asleep, as, I am ashamed to say, I was.”
“Oh, you own you were, professor.”
“Fast.”
“Then I’ll own I was too. It seems, then, that Yussuf was on the watch and met them.”
“Exactly so, and saved our lives.”
“Well, I don’t know about that, but he certainly kept the boy from drowning during the night, for I couldn’t stir to help him. I don’t dislike that fellow half so much as I did; but I wish to goodness he could do as those Turks and Persians did in the Arabian Nights.”
“What’s that?” said the professor.