be the understanding, and I will remunerate you for the
extra trouble and expense."

"Never!" said the officer, honestly. "These Turks have paid me well
for my services, and I have already a purse heavy with gold, after
purchasing the Petrel, and if need be, I can make her pay."

"Have it as you will; it matters not to me, so that she reaches her
home, and the Turk is foiled."

"I am a rover myself, and the Circassian coast would suit me quite
as well as any other for a season. From whence does she come?"

"Anapa."

"Anapa? that shall be my destination," said Selim, at once.

"Hark! what is that?" asked the physician, turning to the back part
of the cabin.

"Nothing, but a young friend of mine; he's asleep, I think."

"Asleep; why he's moving, and must have overheard us, I am sure."

"No fear."

"But what we have said is no more nor less than downright treason."

"That's true."

"And would cost us both our heads if it should be reported."

"He wont report it if he has heard it; he bears the Sultan no
good-will, I can assure you, for it is only a day or two since that
he was sentenced to death by him for some trivial cause."

"What was it?" asked the Armenian.

"Getting a peep at some of his favorites, I believe, or some such
affair."

"Do you remember his name?" asked the Armenian, as the subject of
this conversation came out of one of the state-rooms in the cabin,
and approached them.

"Yes; he is a Circassian, named Aphiz Adegah!"

CHAPTER XII.

THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE.

Though to the Armenian physician the fact of Aphiz's being there was
nothing remarkable, to the reader we must explain how such a
circumstance could be possible after the scenes we have described;
for it will be remembered that we left him at the moment he was sunk
in the Bosphorus and left by the officers of the Sultan to drown.

The fact was that the Circassian's sentence was more than usually
peremptory and sudden, and he was taken at once from the place of
confinement and borne away in the boat without his person being
searched, or indeed any of the usual precautions in such cases being
adopted to prevent accident or the escape of the prisoner. Aphiz
submitted without resistance to be placed in the sack, preparatory
to being cast into the sea, nor was he ignorant of the fate that was
intended to be inflicted upon him, but some confident hope,
nevertheless, seemed to support him at the time.

The officers of the