Threading his way carefully through the badly lighted streets, our middy went straight to the Kasba, and, rapping boldly at the gate, demanded admittance.

 

“Show me to the guard-room. I wish to speak with the officer in command,” he said, in the tone of one accustomed to obedience.

 

The soldier who admitted him introduced him to the officer in charge for the night.

 

“I come, sir,” said Foster, with quiet gentlemanly assurance, “to demand an escort for slaves.”

 

“By whose orders?” asked the officer.

 

“The order of his Highness the Dey,” answered Foster, producing the ring.

 

The officer examined it, touched his forehead with it in token of submission, and asked how many men were required.

 

“Six will do,” returned the middy, in a slow, meditative manner, as if a little uncertain on the point—“yes, six will suffice. I only wish their escort beyond the gates. Friends might attempt a rescue in the town. When I have them a short distance beyond the gates I can manage without assistance.”

 

He touched, as he spoke, the handle of a silver-mounted pistol which he carried in his belt. Of course, as he spoke Lingua Franca, the officer of the guard knew quite well that he was a foreigner, but as the notables and Deys of Algiers were in the habit of using all kinds of trusted messengers and agents to do their work, he saw nothing unusual in the circumstance. Six armed soldiers were at once turned out, and with these obedient, unquestioning slaves he marched down the tortuous streets to the Bagnio.

 

The ring procured him admittance at once, and the same talisman converted the head jailer into an obsequious servant.

 

“I have come for one of your slaves,” said the middy, walking smartly into the court where most of the miserable creatures had already forgotten their wretchedness in the profound sleep of the weary. The tramp of the soldiers on the stone pavement and the clang of their arms awoke some of them. “The name of the man I want is Hugh Sommers.”

 

On hearing this one of the slaves was observed to reach out his hand and shake another slave who still slumbered.

 

“Rouse up, Sommers! You are wanted, my poor friend.”

 

“What say you, Laronde?” exclaimed the merchant, starting up and rubbing his eyes.

 

“Get up and follow me,” said Foster, in a stern commanding tone.

 

“And who are you, that orders me as if I were a dog?” fiercely returned Sommers, who, since the day of the unsuccessful mutiny, had again become desperate, and was in consequence heavily ironed.

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