“What, Peter the Great! You here!” cried Osman, in extreme surprise.
“Yes, massa, I’s here on a little bit ob business wid Missis Lilly. She’s a fri’nd ob my sister Dinah,” answered Peter humbly.
“Oh, indeed! With my father’s permission, I suppose?”
“Yes, Massa Osman. I neber dar to come in de town widout your fadder’s purmission.”
Osman turned and addressed a few words in an undertone to the master of the house, who thereupon turned to Mrs Lilly.
“You are a wise woman, Lilly,” he said, “so I have come to consult you. It seems that one of the slaves belonging to Ben-Ahmed of Mustapha has made her escape, and it is rumoured that she has taken refuge with some one in this very street, or in one not far from it. Now, as you are well acquainted with almost every one in the neighbourhood, I thought it best to come in the first place to you to ask your advice about the matter.”
The gasp that came from the coffee-hole when this speech was made had something very real in it, and immediately afterwards the pounding was redoubled.
“Was the slabe white or black?” asked Mrs Lilly, with childlike simplicity, and more for the purpose of gaining time to think than anything else.
“She was white,” interposed Osman, “and very beautiful,—in fact, one of the ladies of the harem.”
On hearing this Mrs Lilly looked inquiringly upwards, as if she expected inspiration to flow from the bricks that formed the vaulted ceiling. Then she looked suddenly at Peter the Great, and said—