Looking carefully round, the Jew at length discovered the objects of his search,—Francisco, Lucien, and Mariano Rimini. The two first were seated side by side, eating their meagre meal. Mariano lay near them, heavily laden with irons, and also endeavouring to eat.
“Friends,” said Bacri, approaching them.
“Villain!” cried Mariano, starting up into a reclining attitude, despite the agony that the act occasioned, and fixing his eyes on the Jew.
“You do me injustice, young man,” said Bacri, seating himself on the basement of a pillar.
“It may be that he does you injustice,” said Lucien sternly, “nevertheless we have all of us good reason to believe that you are a friend of the pirate Hassan, and no friend of ours.”
“Whether friend or foe, say thy say, man, and be gone,” cried the bluff Francisco, whose spirit suffered even more than his body from the indignities to which he had been subjected that day.
“Listen, then,” said Bacri impressively. “You know my name and nation, but you do not know that I am the chief of the Jews in this city of devils. I and my people are regarded by these followers of Mohammed as worse than the dogs in their streets, yet, while they treat us with the utmost indignity, they know that we are good traders, and as such bring riches within their walls. I have power—the power of wealth—to help you at a pinch; indeed I have helped you, for it was only by means of a promise of gold that I induced Sidi Hassan to spare your lives when his men were bent on taking them. But that is not what I came to tell you to-night. I came to say that the poor captive girls with whom you voyaged to this place are for the present out of danger.”
“Say you so?” exclaimed Mariano eagerly. “How can that be? Did I not see Angela led to the slave-market this very afternoon?”
“You did, and I purchased her for the purpose of protecting her. She is now in my house. Her sister and the infant have been sent as a temporary gift or loan to the British consul, under whose care she is safe for the present. But be not too sanguine,” added Bacri, seeing that Mariano’s countenance brightened; “the whim of the Dey, or a change of government, which latter is common enough here, may totally alter the state of affairs. If the Dey willed it, I could not hold anything that belongs to me for an hour. They call us dogs, and treat us as such.”
“They are themselves dogs!” cried Mariano indignantly.