With those rather solemn words ringing in my ears, bewildered and thoroughly startled, I found myself traversing the streets of Varna with Studhome, while the French drummers were beating la retraite as the sun went down beyond those mountains that were then echoing with the cannon of Silistria, and while the shrill voices of the muezzins proclaimed the hour of evening prayer from the minarets of the mosques, into which the Moslems were pouring, with bowed heads and bare feet, to count their beads.
CHAPTER XXXII.
Sleep by evil spirits troubled,
Fleeing at the matin bell;
Fears that start to eyes scarce waking,
Sighs that will not quit her cell.
As from a dream I was roused at last by Jack Studhome proffering his cigar-case, and saying, with a smile—
"How about the year's pay, Norcliff, eh? I owe you that, I suppose?"
"Don't jest, for Heaven's sake, Jack," said I; "for I feel faint, queer, and ill."
All that night we talked over the affair, through the medium of sundry flasks of iced champagne, without being able to come to any conclusion about it.
As a piece of trickery, it beat all that we had ever seen performed at Cawnpore, Delhi, or Benares, by Indian jugglers, though at mess we had seen those worthies swallow a sword to the hilt, or run it through a basket, in which was concealed a child, whose blood and screams came forth together, till the room door opened, and the little one ran in joyously, unhurt, and without a wound; or the orange seed, which one placed in my tumbler, where it took root, and in three minutes became a little tree in full bearing, from which the mess plucked the oranges as it was handed round. All such performances were beaten by that of the hakim Abd-el-Rasig!
That Jules Jolicoeur had seen a female face—a pretty one, too—in the clam-shell was certain, by whatever art or legerdemain that circumstance was achieved. His astonishment was too genuine and too palpable to be acted. The detail of the crescent brooch was a coincidence, perhaps; but then his description of the wearer accorded so well with that of Cora!
I resolved to seek him next day; but he was despatched on duty along the road towards the Balkan; and, as the event proved, I became too ill to follow him.