can
nearly say them.'

'_Misericorde_!' cried M. Hubert. 'What may not the child have brought
on herself!'

'Selim will be a chief,' returned Estelle. 'He will make his people do
as he pleases, or he would do so; but now there will be no one to tell
him about the true God and the blessed Saviour,' she added sadly.

'Mademoiselle!' cried Hebert in indignant anger--'Mademoiselle would not
be ungrateful for our safety from these horrors.'

'Oh no!' exclaimed the child. 'I am very happy to return to my poor
papa, and my brothers, and my grandmamma. But I am sorry for Selim!
Perhaps some good mission fathers would go out to them like those we
heard of in Arcadia; and by and by, when I am grown up, I can come back
with some sisters to teach the women to wash their children and not scold
and fight.'

The _maitre d'hotel_ sighed, and was relieved when Estelle retired to the
deserted women's apartments for the night. He seemed to think her
dangerous language might be understood and reported.

The next morning the Marabout sent messengers, who brought back Yakoub
and his people, and before many hours a sort of council was convened in
the court of Yakoub's house, consisting of all the neighbouring heads of
families, brown men, whose eyes gleamed fiercely out from under their
haiks, and who were armed to the teeth with sabres, daggers, and, if
possible, pistols and blunderbusses of all the worn-out patterns in
Europe--some no doubt as old as the Thirty Years War; while those who
could not attain to these weapons had the long spears of their ancestors,
and were no bad representatives of the Amalekites of old.

After all had solemnly taken their seats there was a fresh arrival of
Sheyk Abderrahman and his ferocious-looking following. He himself was a
man of fine bearing, with a great black beard, and a gold-embroidered
sash stuck full of pistols and knives, and with poor Madame de Bourke's
best pearl necklace round his neck. His son Selim was with him, a slim
youth, with beautiful soft eyes glancing out from under a haik, striped
with many colours, such as may have been the coat that marked Joseph as
the heir.

There were many salaams and formalities, and then the chief Marabout made
a speech, explaining the purpose of his coming, diplomatically allowing
that the Cabeleyzes were not subject to the Dey of Algiers, but showing
that they enjoyed the advantages of the treaty with France, and that
therefore they were boun