“What say you, Laronde?” exclaimed the merchant, starting up and rubbing his eyes.
“Get up and follow me,” said Foster, in a stern commanding tone.
“And who are you, that orders me as if I were a dog?” fiercely returned Sommers, who, since the day of the unsuccessful mutiny, had again become desperate, and was in consequence heavily ironed.
“The Dey of Algiers gives the order through me,” replied Foster, pointing to the soldiers, “and it will be your highest wisdom to obey without question. Knock off his irons,” he added, turning abruptly to the chief jailer.
The air of insolent authority which our ‘hipperkritical’ middy assumed was so effective that even Sommers was slightly overawed. While the irons were being removed, the unhappy Frenchman, Edouard Laronde, sought to console him.
“I told you it would soon come to this,” he said in English. “I only wish I was going to die with you.”
“Knock off this man’s irons also,” said the middy, to whom a new idea had suddenly occurred, and who was glad to find that his altered costume and bearing proved such a complete disguise that his old comrade in sorrow did not recognise him.
“I thought,” said the jailer, “that you said only one slave was wanted.”
“I say two slaves are wanted,” growled the midshipman, with a look so fierce that the jailer promptly ordered the removal of Laronde’s fetters.
“Did I not often tell you,” muttered Hugh Sommers, “that your unguarded tongue would bring you to grief?”