"It shall be done."
She pa.s.sed to the further chamber.
A few moments later the curtain was dragged aside, and the two fair Circa.s.sians came forth, each leading a veiled girl by the hand.
Strapping girls they were too; but so closely veiled that it was impossible to see what their features were like.
"Were these the strangers?"
"Yes."
The deputy-governor glared at the new-comers, and then dismissed the Circa.s.sian girls.
They refused to go at first, upon which he grew rabid with anger.
"Your sister Selika opposed my wishes once," he said, with cruel significance; "she will never oppose me more. Begone!"
They tremblingly obeyed the tyrant.
This done, he sent the two armed eunuchs off with a wave of the hand.
"What"s up now, I wonder?" whispered Jack.
"Wait."
The Irishman had an odd suspicion.
And his suspicion was very soon realised.
"Remove your veil," said Osmond, the deputy-pasha, peremptorily.
But he might as well have addressed a stone wall.
The tyrant waited a moment.
Then he seized one of the girls and dragged her aside, tearing down her veil as he did so, and--
Oh, what a roar.
A wild e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of disgust escaped him, for the face under the veil was black.
Black as night, with huge, saucer-like eyes, and a huge mouth wearing a grin that was alarming.
"Yah, yah! don"t you like me, old man? Tink I do for you? Yah, yah!"
And Tinker stood with his tongue out, grinning at the fierce Turk.
The deputy-governor, enraged, made a rush at poor Tinker, and gave him a spiteful, if undignified back hander.
"Golly!" cried Tinker. "Cantankerous immense beast, old Turkey."
"Oh!"
Just then the tyrant was greeted with a stinging spank on the side of his face, and turning round, there was another negress--as he thought.
Or was it the same?
It looked the very identical face and form.
"Yah, yah!" grinned Bogey.
The deputy-governor looked round with a puzzled air.
"Yah, yah!" grinned Bogey, again.
"Yah, yah!" shouted Tinker, poking his fist into the ribs of the Turk, and nearly doubling him up.
The Turk heard the derisive laugh, and he felt the tingling of his ear and the poke in his ribs.
So he dashed at Bogey first.
Bogey feinted and dodged him.
But his petticoats got between his legs, and over he went sprawling.
The Turk sprang after him, and if Tinker had not been there, goodness knows what would have been the result.
But Tinker was very much there.
He bobbed his head and shot straight forward, landing his deputy-excellency fairly in the stomach, with his bare woolly pate.
"Ugh!" gasped the Turk, and down he went.
Bogey no sooner saw him there than he hammered into the Turk"s figure-head in the most violent and ungentlemanly way.
Jack and Harry Girdwood laughed until the tears ran down their cheeks.
"Begorra," whispered the Irishman, "it"s better than a pantomime, but some of us will suffer."
But the end of the adventure promised to be serious.
The fierce Turk grew frightened, and he called for a.s.sistance.