"He will take the gold anyhow, when he comes to it on the bill of lading," added the colonel, "though devil a penny I'd pay him."
"It isn't my money," argued the captain, "so there's an end of it."
"How now, Englishmen! We are wasting time. Will you pay the sum demanded?"
"No, I will not!"
"Very good. Get out the rest of the mails and burn them at once!" ordered the monarch, and a couple of minutes afterwards the first bags of mails, sprayed with some inflammatory liquid, were blazing furiously.
"Item two!" called the desert king.
"Gold. Nineteen boxes of bullion for the Bank of England," called out the chancellor.
"Gold?" echoed the air-fiend, as though he were utterly unconscious of the presence of such a commodity, in face of the captain's refusal to pay over a trifling ten thousand pounds to secure right of way for his mails.
"Yes, sir. Nearly one hundred thousand pounds in specie."
"I thought we had prohibited the importation of gold into these regions, chancellor, because of its evil effects upon the minds of the people."