but
you don't look much like a' officer in your present costoom. Well,
then, here's wot I've got to say--"

"Don't waste your time, Brown, in spinning the yarn of your rescue of
the girl," said Foster, interrupting; "we've heard all about it already
from Sally, and can never sufficiently express our thanks to you for
your brave conduct. Tell us, now, what happened after you disappeared
from Sally's view."

The sailor thereupon told them all about his subsequent proceedings--how
he had persuaded Hester to accompany him through the woods and by a
round about route to a part of the coast where he expected ere long to
find friends to rescue him. From some reason or other best known to
himself, he was very secretive in regard to the way in which these
friends had managed to communicate with him.

"You see I'm not free to speak out all I knows," he said. "But surely
it's enough to say that my friends have not failed me; that I found them
waitin' there with a small boat, so light that they had dragged it up
an' concealed it among the rocks, an' that I'd have bin on my way to old
England at this good hour if it hadn't bin for poor Miss Sommers, whom
we couldn't think of desartin'."

"Then she refused to go with you?" said Foster.

"Refused! I should think she did! Nothing, she said, would indooce her
to leave Algiers while her father was in it. One o' my mates was for
forcing her into the boat, an' carryin' her off, willin' or not willin',
but I stood out agin' him, as I'd done enough o' that to the poor thing
already. Then she axed me to come along here an' ax Peter the Great if
he knowed anything about her father. `But I don't know Peter the
Great,' says I, `nor where he lives.' `Go to Sally,' says she, `an'
you'll get all the information you need.' `But I'll never get the
length o' Sally without being nabbed,' says I. `Oh!' says she, `no fear
o' that. Just you let me make a nigger of you. I always keep the stuff
about me in my pocket, for I so often cry it off that I need to renew it
frequently.' An' with that she out with a parcel o' black stuff and
made me into a nigger before you could say Jack Robinson. Fort'nately,
I've got a pretty fat lump of a nose of my own, an' my lips are pretty
thick by natur', so that with a little what you may call hard poutin'
when I had to pass guards, janissaries, an' such like, I managed to get
to where Missis Lilly an' Sally lived, an' they sent me on here. An'
now t