As we rode in, our comrades hurried forth to meet us, and in a trice we had Serjeant Mac Ildhui, Corporal Donald Roy, and every man of my little detachment around us with clamorous tongues, and hands outstretched in joyous congratulation, with many an inquiry, while the Turkish guard of Topchis looked on with a sullen and dogged stare from under their bushy eyebrows.
Roused by their clamour, an officer in a scarlet jacket and tartan trews, with a Turkish fez, a bearded chin, and a meerschaum in his mouth, jumped over a window on the ground-floor, and joined the group in the castle-yard.
'Mac Innon—Allan Mac Innon!' he exclaimed.
'Jack Belton!'
We shook hands warmly as I dismounted.
'By all the powers, where have you been? In the hands of the evil genii?'
'Where I cannot tell you, at present.'
'We all feared you had bid farewell——'
'To what?'
'The great scuffle of life.'