'Time,' was the pithy reply.
This brief conversation was interrupted by the arrival of two more prisoners, who were immediately greeted by the usual appalling chorus of yells, cries, curses, and laughter, together with that clattering accompaniment of chains, bolts and fetters, which had so strangely startled Callum and me on our first entrance to this Cimmerian and infernal abode.
CHAPTER LII.
THE GALIONDOI.
Escorted by a party of Turkish police, or personages armed with similar authority, and accoutred with yataghan and pistols, of course, for these are as indispensable to an Osmanli as his nose and eyes, our new companions who entered were two hideous and ferocious Asiatic Turks, with receding foreheads, sharp temples, ana shaggy eyebrows—black and sinister eyes—hooked noses and long moustaches, having a savage curl, round almost to their ears. While they were being secured by the legs to the wall, a gleam of sunlight from one of the grated slits fell upon them, and I recognised Zahroun and another of the Turks who had assisted the Moolah Moustapha in committing Iola to her dreadful tomb amid the waters.
I stepped towards them, with a dark frown on my face and a twitching in my hands, as if I could have sprung upon their throats; and Callum followed me close, with a gleam in his dark eye that betokened mischief.
Zahroun recognised us, and pointed his dirty brown fingers at me with mockery, while his companion gave us but a scowl and a sullen stare.
'Chaoush,' said I, to the sergeant of the guard, 'of what have these men been guilty?'
'Murder and piracy,' replied the soldier, briefly, as he drew a key from the fetter-lock of Zahroun.
'Murder!—where?—near Rodosdchig?'