One look between her
and Selim might have been fatal to all; though hers may have been in all
childish innocence, she did not know how the fiery youth was writhing in
his father's indignant grasp, forcibly withheld from rushing after one
who had been a new life and revelation to him.

Mayhap the passion was as fleeting as it was violent, but the Marabout
knew it boded danger to the captives to whom he had pledged his honour.
He sent them, mounted on mules, on in front, while he and his company
remained in the rear, watching till Lanty and Victorine were driven up
like cattle by Eyoub, to whom he paid an earnest of his special share of
the ransom. He permitted no pause, not even for a greeting between
Estelle and poor Victorine, nor to clothe the two unfortunates, more than
by throwing a mantle to poor Victorine, who had nothing but a short
petticoat and a scanty, ragged, filthy bournouse. She shrouded herself
as well as she could when lifted on her mule, scarce perhaps yet aware
what had happened to her, only that Lanty was near, muttering
benedictions and thanksgivings as he vibrated between her mule and that
of the Abbe.

It was only at the evening halt that, in a cave on the mountain-side,
Estelle and Victorine could cling to each other in a close embrace with
sobs of joy; and while Estelle eagerly produced clothes from her little
store of gifts, the poor _femme de chambre_ wept for joy to feel indeed
that she was free, and shed a fresh shower of tears of joy at the sight
of a brush and comb.

Lanty was purring over his foster-brother, and cosseting him like a cat
over a newly-recovered kitten, resolved not to see how much shaken the
poor Abbe's intellect had been, and quite sure that the reverend father
would be altogether himself when he only had his _soutane_ again.

CHAPTER XIV--WELCOME

'Well hath the Prophet-chief your bidding done.'

MOORE (_Lalla Rookh_).

Bugia was thoroughly Moorish, and subject to attacks of fanaticism.
Perhaps the Grand Marabout did not wholly trust the Sunakite not to stir
up the populace, for he would not take the recovered captives to his
palace, avoided the city as much as possible, and took them down to the
harbour, where, beside the old Roman quay, he caused his trusty
attendant, Reverdi, to hire a boat to take them out to the French
tartane--Reverdi himself going with them to ensure the fidelity of the
boatmen. Estelle would have kissed the good old man's