As one of the occasions on which he fulfilled his destiny and carried out his own fatal decrees bears on our tale, we will follow him.
Having begun the day, at a very early hour, with his cup of coffee, he proceeded in a leisurely way to a certain street in the town where was kept a Turkish bath. This was not an Anglified Turkish bath, good reader, but a real one; not an imitation, but the actual thing itself fresh from Turkey, managed by Turks, or Moors who were at least half Turks, and conducted in accordance with the strictest rules of Turkish etiquette.
Approaching the door of the bath, he observed a tall dignified and very powerful Arab sauntering in front of it.
Rais Ali seemed troubled by the sight of him, paused, advanced, halted, and again advanced, until the tall Arab, catching sight of him, stalked forward with solemn dignity and held out his hand.
“What for yoo comes here?” demanded Rais rather testily.
The tall Moor slowly bent his hooded head and whispered in his ear—“Faix, it’s more than I rightly know mesilf.”
“Yoo’s mad,” said Rais, drawing the tall Arab into the porch of the bath, where they could avoid the observation of passers-by. “Did not I tell yoo for to keep close?”
“So ye did, Rais Ally,” said Ted Flaggan, for it was he, “and it’s close I kep’ as long as I cu’d, which was aisy enough, seeing that ye brought me purvisions so riglar—like a good feller as ye are; but body o’ me, man, I cudn’t live in a cave all me lone for iver, an’ I got tired o’ lookin’ out for that British fleet that niver comes, so I says to mesilf wan fine evenin’, ‘Go out, Ted me boy, an’ have a swim in the say—it’ll do ’ee good, and there’s not much chance of any wan troublin’ ye here.’ No sooner said than done. Out I wint round beyont the Pint Pescade, an’ off wid me close an’ into the say. Och! but it was plisint! Well, just as I was coming out, who should I see on the rocks above me but a big thief of an Arab? I knew at wance that if I was to putt on close he’d guess, maybe, who I was, so I came out o’ the wather an’ ran straight at him naked—meanin’ to frighten him away like. An’ sure enough he tuk to his heels like a Munster pig. I don’t know how it is, but I have always had a strong turn for huntin’. From the time whin I was a small gosoon runnin’ after the pigs an’ cats, I’ve bin apt to give chase to anything that runned away from me, an’ to forgit myself. So it was now. After the Arab I wint, neck an crop, an’ away he wint like the wind, flingin’ off his burnous as he ran; but I was light, bein’ naked, d’ye see, an’ soon overhauled him. For a starn-chase it was the shortest I remember. When I came up wid him I made a grab at his head, an his hake—is that what ye calls it?—comed away in me hand, leaving his shaved head open to view, wid the tuft o’ hair on the top of it.
“I laughed to that extint at this that he got away from me, so I gave him a finishin’ Irish howl, by way o’ making him kape the pace goin’, an’ thin stopped and putt on the hake. By and by I comes to where the burnous was, and putts it on too, an faix, ye couldn’t have towld me from an Arab, for the bare legs an’ feet and arms was all right, only just a taste over light in colour, d’ee see? Thinks I to mesilf, Ted, me boy, ye cudn’t do better than remain as ye are. Wid a little brown dirt on yer face an’ limbs, yer own mother wouldn’t know ye. An’ troth, Rais, I did it; an’ whin I lucked at mesilf in a smooth pool on the baich, it was for all the world as if somebody else was luckin’ at me. To be short wid ye, I’ve bin wanderin’ about the country for the last three or four days quite free an’ aisy.”
“Nobody see yoo?” asked Rais in great surprise.