he negro threw back his head and began one of his silent laughs, but
suddenly stopped, opened his eyes wide, pursed his lips, and moved his
broad shoulders uneasily.

"I mus' laugh _easy_ for some time to come," he remarked.

"Poor fellow!" said Foster, "I fear you must. I say--how my soles do
sting!"

"Oh yes, _I_ knows," returned Peter, with a remarkably intelligent nod.
"But come. We mus' go an' see what massa's a-goin' to do, for you bery
sure he won't rest quiet till he's turned ebery stone to find Missy
Hester."

Peter the Great left the room with a brave effort to suppress a groan;
while our middy followed with an equally valorous determination not to
limp. In both efforts they were but partially successful.

As Peter had prophesied, Ben-Ahmed did indeed leave no stone unturned to
recover Hester Sommers, but there was one consideration which checked
him a good deal, and prevented his undertaking the search as openly as
he wished, and that was the fear that the Dey himself might get wind of
what he was about, and so become inquisitive as to the cause of the stir
which so noted a man was making about a runaway slave. For Ben-Ahmed
feared--and so did Osman--that if the Dey saw Hester he might want to
introduce her into his own household.

The caution which they had therefore to observe in prosecuting the
search was all in favour of the runaway.

As time passed by, Hester, _alias_ Geo'giana, began to feel more at ease
in her poor abode and among her new friends, who, although unrefined in
manners, were full to overflowing with the milk of human kindness, so
that at last the unfortunate English girl began to entertain positive
affection for Mrs Lilly and her black handmaiden.

She also began to feel more at ease in traversing the intricate streets
of the city, for the crowds that passed her daily had evidently too much
to do attending to their own business to bestow more than an indifferent
glance at two negro girls. And if the features of one of the two was
not according to the familiar negro type, it is probable that all the
inhabitants of Algiers were aware of the fact that some of the tribes of
black people in the interior of Africa possess the well-formed features
and comparatively thin lips of Europeans.

As Hester's anxieties about herself began to abate, however, her desire
to find out where and how her father was became more and more intense.
But the poor child was doomed to many months of hope