“You dirty liar,” I exclaimed; “one of my people has been down to your village there and says it is full of men.”
“Then go and take them for yourself,” he replied, viciously, for he knew that the place was stockaded.
Now I was in a fix. It was all very well to give a slave-dealer the thrashing he deserved, but if he chose to attack us with his Arabs we should be in a poor way. Watching me with the eye that was not bunged up, Hassan guessed my perplexity.
“I have been beaten like a dog,” he said, his rage returning to him with his breath, “but God is compassionate and just, He will avenge in due time.”
The words had not left his lips for one second when from somewhere out at sea there floated the sullen boom of a great gun. At this moment, too, an Arab rushed up from the shore, crying:
“Where is the Bey Hassan?”
“Here,” I said, pointing at him.
The Arab stared until I thought his eyes would drop out, for the Bey Hassan was indeed a sight to see. Then he gabbled in a frightened voice:
“Captain, an English man-of-war is chasing the Maria.”
Boom went the great gun for the second time. Hassan said nothing, but his jaw dropped, and I saw that he had lost exactly three teeth.