“Never fear,” returned the consul, smiling, “they dare not report what I say. Come, tell me about it.”
“Oh! it shockable,” said Bobi. “Come an’ see.” So saying, the poor man hurried off in the direction of a low-lying part of the town, closely followed by the consul. Here, seated on a plain mat in an empty cellar, which was destitute of furniture and almost of light, they found the father of the late Sultana. His gentle, kindly spirit seemed, like his frail old body, to be bowed to the very dust.
“My dear friend,” exclaimed the consul, almost overwhelmed with grief at the sight, “has the villain robbed you of all your wealth?”
“He has,” replied the old man, taking the consul’s proffered hand and pressing it warmly; “but he has done worse than that—”
“What! has he dared to—”
Sidi Cadua interrupted and answered the question by quietly removing the lower part of his robe, and exposing his feet, which were dreadfully swollen and scarred with the bastinado.
“Even that is not the worst of it,” said the old man, re-covering his mutilated feet; “my daughter, my sweet, tender Ashweesha, has been cruelly bastinadoed for—”
He broke down here, and, covering his face with his withered hands, groaned aloud.
For a few moments Colonel Langley could not speak.
“But why,” he said at length, “why such cruelty?”