er's
classical mind. 'Oh mamma, mamma,' she cried, 'Ulysse really has got the
skeleton of a Triton. It is exactly like the stone creatures in the
Champs Elysees.'

There was no denying the resemblance, and it so increased the confusion
in Estelle's mind between the actual and the mythological, that Arthur
told her that she was looking out for the car of Amphitrite to arise from
the waters. Anxiety and trouble had made him much better acquainted with
Madame de Bourke, who was grateful to him for his kindness to her
children, and not without concern as to whether she should be able to
procure his release as well as her own at Algiers. For Laurence
Callaghan she had no fears, since he was born at Paris, and a naturalised
French subject like her husband and his brother; but Arthur was
undoubtedly a Briton, and unless she could pass him off as one of her
suite, it would depend on the temper of the English Consul whether he
should be viewed as a subject or as a rebel, or simply left to captivity
until his Scottish relations should have the choice of ransoming him.

She took a good deal of pains to explain the circumstances to him as well
as to all who could understand them; for though she hoped to keep all
together, and to be able to act for them herself, no one could guess how
they might be separated, and she could not shake off that foreboding of
misfortune which had haunted her from the first.

The kingdom of Algiers was, she told them, tributary to the Turkish
Sultan, who kept a guard of Janissaries there, from among whom they
themselves elected the Dey. He was supposed to govern by the consent of
a divan, but was practically as despotic as any Eastern sovereign; and
the Aga of the Janissaries was next in authority to him. Piracy on the
Mediterranean was, as all knew, the chief occupation of the Turks and
Moors of any spirit or enterprise, a Turk being in authority in each
vessel to secure that the Sultan had his share, and that the capture was
so conducted as not to involve Turkey in dangerous wars with European
powers. Capture by the Moors had for several centuries been one of the
ordinary contingencies of a voyage, and the misfortune that had happened
to the party was not at all an unusual one.

In 1687, however, the nuisance had grown to such a height that Admiral Du
Quesne bombarded the town of Algiers, and destroyed all the
fortifications, peace being only granted on condition that a French
Consul should