“‘Neber mind de yells, Angelica,’ says I, ‘it’s only my leetle ways. But tell me why you allers refuse me before an’ accep’ me now. Is it—de—de fortin?’ Oh, you should have seen her pout w’en I ax dat. Her mout’ came out about two inch from her face. I could hab kissed it—but for de broken ribs.
“‘No, Peter, for shame!’ says she, wid rijeous indignation. ‘De fortin hab nuffin to do wid it, but your own noble self-scarifyin’ bravery in presentin’ your buzzum to de Dey ob Algiers.’
“‘T’ank you, Angelica,’ says I. ‘Das all comfrably settled. You’s a good gall, kiss me now, an’ go away.’
“So she gib me a kiss an’ I turn round an’ went sweetly to sleep on de back ob dat—for I was awrful tired, an’ de ribs was creakin’ badly.”
“Did you marry Angelica?” asked our middy, with sympathetic interest.
“Marry her! ob course I did. Two year ago. Don’ you know it’s her as cooks all our wittles?”
“How could I know, Peter, for you never call her anything but ‘cook?’ But I’m glad you have told me, for I’ll regard her now with increased respect from this day forth.”
“Das right, Geo’ge. You can’t pay ’er too much respec’. Now we’ll go an’ look at de works.”
The part of the wall which the slaves were repairing was built of great blocks of artificial stone or concrete, which were previously cast in wooden moulds, left to harden, and then put into their assigned places by slave-labour. As Foster was watching the conveyance of these blocks, it suddenly occurred to him that Hester Sommers’s father might be amongst them, and he scanned every face keenly as the slaves passed to and fro, but saw no one who answered to the description given him by the daughter.
From this scrutiny he was suddenly turned by a sharp cry drawn from one of a group who were slowly carrying a heavy stone to its place. The cry was drawn forth by the infliction of a cruel lash on the shoulders of a slave. He was a thin delicate youth with evidences of fatal consumption upon him. He had become faint from over-exertion, and one of the drivers had applied the whip by way of stimulus. The effect on the poor youth was to cause him to stumble, and instead of making him lift better, made him rest his weight on the stone, thus overbalancing it, and bringing it down. In falling the block caught the ankle of the youth, who fell with a piercing shriek to the ground, where he lay in a state of insensibility.