“Is that all?” he asked, when the negro at length came to a decided stop.
“Das all—an’ it’s enuff too! ’Pears to me you’s not so much cut up about dis leetle business as I ’spected you would be.”
“I am anxious, of course, about Hester,” returned the middy; “but at the same time greatly relieved, first, to know that she is in the hands of a respectable British sailor; and, second, that she is not in the hands of these bloodthirsty piratical Moors. But what about her father? Nothing more, I suppose, is known about his fate?”
“Not’ing, on’y it’s as sure as if we did know it. If his carcass isn’t on de hooks by dis time it’ll soon be.”
As the negro spoke the midshipman started up with flashing eyes, exclaimed angrily, “It shall never be,” and ran out of the bower.
Entering the house, he went straight to Ben-Ahmed’s private chamber, which he entered boldly, without even knocking at the door.
The Moor was seated cross-legs on a mat, solacing himself, as usual, with a pipe. He was not a little surprised, and at first was inclined to be angry, at the abrupt entrance of his slave.
“Ben-Ahmed,” said the middy, with vehemence, “the father of the English girl you are so fond of—and whom I love—is in terrible danger, and if you are a true man—as I firmly believe you are—you will save him.”
The Moor smiled very slightly at the youth’s vehemence, pointed with the mouthpiece of his hookah to a cushion, and bade him sit down and tell him all about it.
The middy at once squatted à la Turk, not on the cushion, but on the floor, in front of his master, and, with earnest voice and gesture, related the story which Peter the Great had just told him.