,
when the anxious watchers could perceive signs as if of paying down coin
made interrogatively. 'Promise them anything, everything,' cried Hebert;
'M. le Comte would give his last sou--so would Madame la Marquise--to
save Mademoiselle.'

'I have told him so,' said Laurence presently; 'I bade him let them know
it is little they can make of us, specially now they have stripped us as
bare as themselves, the rascals! but that their fortunes would be
made--and little they would know what to do with them--if they would only
send M. l'Abbe and Mademoiselle to Algiers safe and sound. There! he is
trying to incense them. Never fear, Master Phelim, dear, there never was
a rogue yet, black or white, or the colour of poor Madame's frothed
chocolate, who did not love gold better than blood, unless indeed 'twas
for the sweet morsel of revenge; and these, for all their rolling eyes
and screeching tongues, have not the ghost of a quarrel with us.'

'My beads, my breviary,' sighed the Abbe. 'Get them for me, Lanty.'

'I wish they would end it quickly,' said Estelle. 'My head aches so, and
I want to be with mamma. Poor Victorine! yours is worse,' she added, and
soaked her handkerchief in the few drops of water left in the gourd to
lay it on the maid's forehead.

The howling and shrieking betokened consultation, but was suddenly
interrupted by some half-grown lads, who came running in with their hands
full of what Lanty recognised to his horror as garments worn by his
mistress and fellow-servants, also a big kettle and a handspike. They
pointed down to the sea, and with yells of haste and exultation all the
wild conclave started up to snatch, handle, and examine, then began
rushing headlong to the beach. Hassan's explanations were scarcely
needed to show that they were about to ransack the ship, and he evidently
took credit to himself for having induced them to spare the prisoners in
case their assistance should be requisite to gain full possession of the
plunder.

Estelle and Victorine were committed to the charge of a
forbidding-looking old hag, the mother of the sheyk of the party; the
Abbe was allowed to stray about as he pleased, but the two men were
driven to the shore by the eloquence of the club. Victorine revived
enough for a burst of tears and a sobbing cry, 'Oh, they will be killed!
We shall never see them again!'

'No,' said Estelle, with her quiet yet childlike resolution, 'they are
not going to kill any of u