Dashing forward, he seized his friend by the arm and dragged him out by main force, to the amusement of the domestics, who thought it was a practical jest.
“Arrah! don’t stare like that, but come along wid ye,” said Ted, hasting to a neighbouring thicket, into the very heart of which he penetrated before halting.
“What be go wrong?” exclaimed Rais.
“They’re after me, lad. Don’t waste time spaikin’. You’ve got your burnous here, haven’t ye?”
“Yis!”
“Go, fetch it, an’ sharp’s the word.”
Flaggan’s tone and actions were such as to instil a spirit of prompt unquestioning obedience into his friend, who instantly went off; and in a few seconds, (which seemed years to Ted), returned with his burnous.
While the seaman quickly but quietly divested himself of the boar-skin, and put on the burnous with the hood well drawn over his face, he related to his friend the incident at the gate, without, however, mentioning the true cause of his behaviour.
“An’ wat for you go be do now?” asked Rais Ali anxiously.
“To make me escape, sure,” said Ted, holding the head of his cudgel close up to his friend’s nose; “across the mountains or over the say, by hook or crook, or through the air, escape I will somehow, even though I should have to jump out at me mouth an’ lave me body behind me, for depind upon it that all the Turks an’ Moors an’ boors an’ naigers in the Pirates’ Nest ain’t able to take Ted Flaggan alive!”