"Say, boss, come and report yourself. This is Alussein Pasha. He has had word of you from headquarters; just shake and look as pleased as you can."
Faber shook hands with the man, while Louis offered him a cigarette and struck matches for them all. The concomitants of the ghastly scene were wholly out of place and singularly at variance with the truth. These three men might have met by accident in this outlandish village and have been discussing the best road back to civilization. The bloody struggle, still proceeding in the miserable hovels round about, moved Alussein Pasha no more than did the howling of dogs in an Eastern street. And Paleologue was just as indifferent until some of the ruffians fetched out "old Pop" by the hair of his head and held a scimitar at his throat. Then, to be fair to him, he woke up to the truth and began to argue excitedly with the Pasha—at which moment also Maryska appeared at a window above and spoke to her father in Italian. He answered with a wave of his hand, bidding her disappear; but not before a Turkish subaltern had seen her and thrown her a kiss in the Western fashion. This was too much for Louis, who knocked him down out of hand.
Undoubtedly it was a mad act, and went near to costing the lives of the party. Alussein Pasha uttered a roar like a stricken bull when his officer was floored; the Turks about him drew their knives and pressed upon Faber with fierce shouts. He had as good as given it up, and thought that this was the end of the business, when a young man at the Pasha's side said something to his chief in an earnest note and appeared to bring that savage worthy to his senses. He roared an order to the hawking pack, and they fell back from the prey they had marked down. An excited exchange of doubtful compliments between Louis and the grand Turk was followed by a compromise, Alussein stipulating for an immediate return to the shelter of the priest's house until the affair was over. So, in they went, the soldiers half pushing them with the butts of their rifles and barring the door behind them. "Old Pop" was the only prisoner now. They had forgotten him in the excitement of that very critical moment through which they had passed.
"Have a drink?" said Louis, throwing himself into a chair by the window and his hat into another; he seemed quite unconcerned, even unaware that there had been an instant of peril. John Faber, on the other hand, was talking to himself in decided terms. "John, my boy, you're a d——d fool to be here," he was saying—and that was very true. When he had drunk a tumbler of white wine and mineral water he found the sweat running off him like rain.
"Hot weather for the time of year. Where's your girl, Louis?"
"Oh! I guess she's all right—better where she is. Will you pass over that drawing pad? I can see a picture here."
Faber passed him the pad, and he settled deep in the arm-chair and began to make a rapid sketch of the crowded street. At the same moment Maryska entered the room and closed the door firmly behind her.
II
"Where is the priest?" she asked them in a strange tone. The men looked at her together, then at each other.
"Why, isn't he in the house?"