eing present, and have
made this secret known, then you shall be appointed to the command of
the pacha's fleet, which under your directions shall always meet with
success. Such shall be the reward of your fidelity."

It is now four years that I have embraced the true faith, and, sinking
under poverty, I was induced to make use of the exclamation that your
highness heard; for how can I ever hope to meet two barbers at the divan
without other people being present?

"Holy prophet! how strange! Why Mustapha was a barber, and so was I,"
cried the pacha.

"God is great!" answered the renegade, prostrating himself. "Then I
command your fleet?"

"From this hour," replied the pacha. "Mustapha, make known my wishes."

"The present in command," replied Mustapha, who was not a dupe to the
wily renegade, "is a favourite with the men."

"Then send for him and take off his head. Is he to interfere with the
commands of Mahomed?"

The vizier bowed, and the pacha quitted the divan.

The renegade, with a smile upon his lips, and Mustapha with
astonishment, looked at each other for a few seconds; "You have a great
talent, Selim," observed the vizier.

"Thanks to your introduction, and to my own invention, it will at last
be called into action. Recollect, vizier, that I am grateful--you
understand me;" and the renegade quitted the divan, leaving Mustapha
still in his astonishment.

Chapter XIV

"Mustapha," said the pacha, taking his pipe out of his mouth, after half
an hour's smoking in silence, "I have been thinking it very odd that our
holy prophet (blessed be his name!) should have given himself so much
trouble about such a son of Shitan as that renegade rascal, Huckaback,
whose religion is only in his turban. By the sword of the prophet, is it
not strange that he should send him to command my fleet?"

"It was the will of your sublime highness," replied Mustapha, "that he
should command your fleet."

"Mashallah! was it not the will of the prophet?"

Mustapha smoked his pipe, and made no reply.

"He was a great story-teller," observed the pacha, after another pause.

"He was," drily replied Mustapha. "No Kessehgou of our true believers
could equal him; but that is now over, and the dog of an Isauri must
prove himself a Rustam in the service of your sublime highness. Aware
that your highness would require amusement, and that it was the duty of
your slave, who shines but by the light of your countenance, to procu