"Stand aside----"

"Restrain your temper here," returned the lady; "his excellency would
not be pleased to hear of this."

These words appeared to cool the ferocity of the deputy-governor a
little.

"Let the strangers come forth then," he growled.

"It shall be done."

She passed to the further chamber.

A few moments later the curtain was dragged aside, and the two fair
Circassians came forth, each leading a veiled girl by the hand.

Strapping girls they were too; but so closely veiled that it was
impossible to see what their features were like.

"Were these the strangers?"

"Yes."

The deputy-governor glared at the new-comers, and then dismissed the
Circassian girls.

They refused to go at first, upon which he grew rabid with anger.

"Your sister Selika opposed my wishes once," he said, with cruel
significance; "she will never oppose me more. Begone!"

They tremblingly obeyed the tyrant.

This done, he sent the two armed eunuchs off with a wave of the hand.

* * * *

"What's up now, I wonder?" whispered Jack.

"Wait."

The Irishman had an odd suspicion.

And his suspicion was very soon realised.

* * * *

"Remove your veil," said Osmond, the deputy-pasha, peremptorily.

But he might as well have addressed a stone wall.

The tyrant waited a moment.

Then he seized one of the girls and dragged her aside, tearing down her
veil as he did so, and--

Oh, what a roar.

A wild ejaculation of disgust escaped him, for the face under the veil
was black.

Black as night, with huge, saucer-like eyes, and a huge mouth wearing a
grin that was alarming.

"Yah, yah! don't you like me, old man? Tink I do for you? Yah, yah!"

And Tinker stood with his tongue out, grinning at the fierce Turk.

The deputy-governor, enraged, made a rush at poor Tinker, and gave him
a spiteful, if undignified back hander.

"Golly!" cried Tinker. "Cantankerous immense beast, old Turkey."

"Oh!"

Just then the tyrant was greeted with a stinging spank on the side of
his face, and turning round, there was another negress--as he thought.

Or was it the same?

It looked the very identical face and form.

"Yah, yah!" grinned Bogey.

The deputy-governor looked round with a puzzled air.

"Yah, yah!" grinned Bogey, again.

"Yah, yah!" shouted Tinker, poking his fist into the ribs of the Turk,
and nearly doubling him up.

The