Next morning he was awakened by his black friend of the previous night, who spread on the mother-of-pearl table a breakfast which in its elegance appeared to be light, but which on close examination turned out, like many light things in this world, to be sufficiently substantial for an ordinary man.
Lancey now expected to be introduced to the Pasha, but he was mistaken. No one came near him again till the afternoon, when the black slave reappeared with a substantial dinner. The Pasha was busy, he said, and would see him in the evening. The time might have hung heavily on the poor man’s hands, but, close to the apartment in which he was confined there was a small marble court, open to the sky, in which were richly-scented flowers and rare plants and fountains which leaped or trickled into tanks filled with gold-fish. In the midst of these things he sat or sauntered dreamily until the shades of evening fell. Then the black slave returned and beckoned him to follow.
He did so and was ushered into a delicious little boudoir, whose windows, not larger than a foot square, were filled with pink, blue, and yellow glass. Here, the door being softly shut behind him, Lancey found himself in the presence of the red-bearded officer whom he had met on board the Turkish monitor.
Redbeard, as Lancey called him, mentally, reclined on a couch and smoked a chibouk.
“Come here,” he said gravely, in broken English. Lancey advanced into the middle of the apartment. “It vas you what blew’d up de monitor,” he said sternly, sending a thick cloud of smoke from his lips.
“No, your—.” Lancey paused. He knew not how to address his questioner, but, feeling that some term of respect was necessary, he coined a word for the occasion—
“No, your Pashaship, I did nothink of the sort. I’m as hinnocent of that ewent as a new-born babe.”
“Vat is your name?”
“Lancey.”
“Ha! your oder name.”