"Oh, it's dreadful, Jack."

"The greater the man, the greater the polygamist. A pasha has as many
wives as he can keep, and more too. The pasha of this province is not
rich for his rank, and for his matrimonial proclivities."

"Lor'!"

"How many wives should you suppose he has?" asked Jack, with an air of
deep gravity.

"Don't know," replied the orphan, quietly.

"Ninety-eight living."

Mr. Figgins jumped up and dropped his chibouk.

"Never."

"A fact," asserted Jack, with gravity.

"Why, the man must be a regular Bluebeard."

"You've hit it, sir," responded Jack; "that's the sort of man he is."

"Well, that is all very well for the Turks and for these old sinners
the pashas, but I am an Englishman."

"This is the way it will most likely be done," continued Jack. "On your
presentation to his excellency the pasha, you are expected to make some
present. The pasha makes a return visit of ceremony, and leaves behind
him some solid evidence of his liberality."

"Well?"

"Well, but the very highest compliment that a pasha can pay you is to
leave you one of his wives. He generally makes it an old stock-keeper,
something that has been a good thirty years or so in the seraglio."

Mr. Figgins took the liveliest interest in this narrative.

He was growing rapidly convinced of the truth of Jack's descriptions of
these singular manners and customs of the country in which they were.

Yet he eyed Jack as one who has a lingering doubt.

"Ahem!" said Mr. Figgins, "I don't think that I shall join you on your
visit ashore in the morning."

"We'll see in the morning," said Jack; "it's a pity to put off your
trip for the sake of such a trifling danger as that of having a wife or
so given to you."

"It's no use," said Mr. Figgins, "my mind is fully made up; I shall not
visit the pasha."

"It will be taken as a grave insult to go ashore without paying your
respects to his excellency."

"I can't help that," returned the orphan, resolutely; "I won't visit
him."

"Mr. Figgins," said Jack, in a voice of deep solemnity, "these Turks
are cruel, vindictive, and revengeful. The last Englishman who refused
was, by order of the pasha, skinned alive, placed on the sunny side of
a wall, and blown to death by flies."

"Surely the Turks are not such barbarians," said Mr. Figgins.

"You'll find they are. They'd think no more of polishing you off than
of killing a fly."

If that rascal Jack intended to make poor Mr. Figgi