Ben-Ahmed was visibly affected by it.
“But how can I save him?” he asked, with a look of perplexity.
“Did you not once save the life of the Dey?” asked Foster.
“I did. How came you to know that?”
“I heard it from Peter the Great, who aided you on the occasion. And he told me that the Dey has often since then offered to do you some good turn, but that you have always declined.”
“That is true,” said Ben-Ahmed, with the look of a man into whose mind a new idea had been introduced.
“Yes, something may be done in that way, and it would grieve me that the father of my poor little Hester should die. I will try. Go, have my horse saddled, and send Peter to me.”
Our midshipman bounded rather than rose from the floor, and uttered an irresistible, “God bless you,” as he vanished through the doorway on his errand.
“Peter,” he cried—encountering that worthy as he ran—“we’ll manage it! Go to Ben-Ahmed! He wants you—quick! I’m off to fetch his horse.”
Foster was much too anxious to have the thing done quickly to give the order to the head groom. He ran direct to the stable, and, choosing the fleetest of the Moor’s Arab steeds, quickly put on its crimson saddle, with its un-European peaks before and behind, and the other gay portions of harness with which Easterns are wont to caparison their horses.