"You mean Abdallah ibn Obba."
"The same; but you start—do you know him?"
"Intimately," said I; "and your purpose, O son of a slave!" I had almost added.
"Well, Captain Rioni, this respectable old Tcherkesse is now bargaining for the sale of a cargo of slave girls for the Turkish market, and a small Stambouli craft, which has long baffled the pursuit of our steam corvettes and the row-boats of our Kreposts, is now concealed in some creek near Mezip. Unfortunately all our vessels are over on the Crimean side, otherwise they would soon have found those Turkish swine, who come to steal the subjects of our father the emperor."
Carlovitch gave another of his cold smiles, for he perceived how my hot Circassian blood revolted on hearing my people called the subjects of his emperor I asked haughtily,—
"Your orders, Colonel Carlovitch?"
"You will select fifty of the Tenginski Hussars, and as you and your brothers must know the country well, search every creek and cranny of the coast until the Turkish ship is found. She will be safely beached somewhere, and when discovered, burn her; cut the throats of the Turks, and bring the cargo of girls here. You shall have a couple of the prettiest for your trouble. The daughter of old Abdallah is among them—Basilia, commonly known as the flower of the Abassians. Archipp Ozepoff nearly brought me that girl once before, but some rascal pierced him by an arrow. Take especial care of her, for I am resolved that no great bison of a Turk shall ever call her slave. No, no, her bright eyes will sparkle all the brighter among the green uniforms and silver epaulettes of our Tenginski Hussars. See to all this; you march in an hour, and till you return, farewell."
Taking up a pen he resumed a dispatch which my arrival had interrupted; and after standing for some time, overwhelmed by confusion and the misery of my own thoughts, I withdrew to the foot of a tree, and sat down to reflect on the strange duty I had to perform, and the startling tidings I had just heard.
The image of my beautiful Basilia—for I assure you, gentlemen, that the Circassian maid is the most perfect and lovely creation of God—a prisoner, a slave on board of a slave ship, and consigned a helpless victim of the lust of the licentious Osmanli filled my soul with a horror so great that I forgot my present situation in my anxiety to discover this secret ship, to free her, and to put to the edge of the sword all who were concerned in a transaction so infamous. I saw the whole affair now. The loss of the rich argosy on the Isle of Serpents had brought the difficulties of Abdallah to a crisis, and to retrieve his broken fortune he had sold his only daughter to the Turks! I invoked the curse of the Prophet, and of the twelve Imaums on his avarice; and now my only fear was great that the Turks might launch their boat and escape me: thus it was that with an ardour such as I never thought to feel at the head of Russian troops, I rode from the camp at the head of fifty hussars, with my two brothers by my side; and we galloped along the sea-shore, with all our brilliant appointments glittering in the splendour of the setting sun of Asia.
"Basilia, my pure, my beautiful! this night may make thee mine," thought I; "one stroke of a sabre may give what thy father would not have sold to me, perhaps, for a million of piastres."