“That must be a slight exaggeration,” remarked the president, now feeling horribly uncomfortable. “Nevertheless, I should like to be quite sure that he had reached the inside of the prison walls. They are very long about it; they ought to be back by this time.”
“Do you wish that I should go and see?” asked Ben Safi, pitying his friend’s uneasiness.
“I shall be much obliged to you.”
At the moment when Ben Safi was leaving the court, a distant clamour was heard from without, followed by several successive gunshots. A sound of many footsteps was audible, as if a crowd of men were approaching. The doors were thrown open violently, and Djilali made his appearance. His clothes were torn and soiled with dirt, and his right eye seemed to have suffered severely.
“Ouf!” he puffed out, “my back is broken! May Sidi Abd-Allah burn me, if he is a man.”
“Explain yourself. Tell me!” said the court, on thorns. “Ben Serraq?—”
“Ben Serraq, indeed? If ever you contrive to get him into prison, I will consent to be roasted alive.”
“He has escaped, then?”
“How should it be otherwise: he is the devil in person?”
“Have the goodness to tell me how you could have been so stupid as to let a single man break away from ten of you.”