“Thou seest? These others are all with thee. Have it thine own way, Hassan Ah. Unlock thou the riddle and on thy head be the answer! Thou hast our leave to go.”
So Hassan Ah set out undaunted for the jail, with a terrier in tow behind him and a huge smile on his broad-beamed face. And behind him a murmur rose that:
“It was well. He brought the warship in, instead of leaving it outside or—as any wise man would have done—wrecking it on the outer reef, where it could have been plundered at discretion. Let him send the sailors back again and bear the consequences!”
And within a minute of the pilot's arrival at the window of the jail (through which he peered for two minutes before speaking) the whole of Adra's council, followed by the city's children in a noisy horde, proceeded in a cluster after him and took up position, each as he saw fit, at different vantage points.
Then Hassan Ah shook a loose bar of the window until it rattled, and so called attention to himself. Crothers and Joe Byng raced for the window neck and neck, and reached it simultaneously.
“You two men want you-ah dog?” asked Hassan Ah, and the chained dog leaped up at the window as both men swore at once.
“You pass him in here! Come on, you black-faced cornerman! There'll be a cutter's crew ashore pretty soon to rescue us, and if you don't hand that dog over before they get here you'll get the worst whipping you ever had in all your black life!”
“They'll feed you to the dog when they're through with you!” vowed Byng.
“Come on, MacHassan!” ordered Crothers. “Get the key and pass the dog in. That'll settle your account. T hen you's free. You needn't be 'fraid.”
“Ah'm English,” said the pilot of the day before, with an enormous grin that showed a pound or two of yellow ivory. “Ah'm not afraid; Ah can lick you; Ah can fight same as you men. Ah'm English!”