remembered, contained a Jack-in-the-box, or Polichinelle, which the poor
little Chevalier had bought at the fair at Tarascon. This he contrived
to secrete and hand to Victorine. 'Keep the secret,' he said, 'and you
will find your best guardian in that bit of a box.' And when that very
evening an Arab showed some intentions of adding her to his harem,
Victorine bethought herself of the box, and unhooked in desperation. Up
sprang Punch, long-nosed and fur-capped, right in the bearded face.

Back the man almost fell; 'Shaitan, Shaitan!' was the cry, as the
inhabitants tumbled pell-mell out of the hovel, and Victorine and Punch
remained masters of the situation.

She heard Lanty haranguing in broken Arabic and _lingua Franca_, and
presently he came in, shaking with suppressed laughter. 'If ever we get
home,' said he, 'we'll make a pilgrimage to Tarascon! Blessings on good
St. Martha that put that sweet little imp in my way! The rogues think he
is the very genie that the fisherman let out of the bottle in
Mademoiselle's book of the Thousand and One Nights, and thought to see
him towering over the whole place. And a fine figure he would be with
his hook nose and long beard. They sent me to beg you fairly to put up
your little Shaitan again. I told them that Shaitan, as they call him,
is always in it when there's meddling between an espoused pair--which is
as true as though the Holy Father at Rome had said it--and as long as
they were civil, Shaitan would rest; but if they durst molest you, there
was no saying where he would be, if once you had to let him out! To
think of the virtue of that ugly face and bit of a coil of wire!'

Meantime Hebert, having ascertained that both the Jew and Hassan were
going away, the one to Constantina, the other to Algiers, wrote, and so
did Estelle, to the Consul at Algiers, explaining their position and
entreating to be ransomed. Though only nine years old, Estelle could
write a very fair letter, and the amazement of the Arabs was unbounded
that any female creature should wield a pen. Marabouts and merchants
were known to read the Koran, but if one of the goats had begun to write,
their wonder could hardly have been greater; and such crowds came to
witness the extraordinary operation that she could scarcely breathe or
see.

It seemed to establish her in their estimation as a sort of supernatural
being, for she was always treated with more consideration than the rest
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