A Strange Visit, a Strange Commission, and a Strange Display of Temper.  
After Ben-Ahmed had departed on his mission to the Dey of Algiers, George Foster and Peter the Great re-entered the house, and in the seclusion of the bower continued to discuss the hopes, fears, and possibilities connected with the situation.
 
“Dat was a clebber dodge ob yours, Geo’ge,” remarked the negro, “an’ I’s got good hope dat somet’ing will come ob it, for massa’s pretty sure to succeed w’en he take a t’ing in hand.”
 
“I’m glad you think so, Peter. And, to say truth, I am myself very sanguine.”
 
“But dere’s one t’ing dat ’plexes me bery much. What is we to do about poo’ Hester’s fadder w’en he’s pardoned? De Dey can spare his life, but he won’t set him free—an’ if he don’t set him free de slabe-drivers ’ll be sure to kill ’im out ob spite.”
 
The middy was silent, for he could not see his way out of this difficulty.
 
“Perhaps,” he said, “Ben-Ahmed may have thought of that, and will provide against it, for of course he knows all the outs and ins of Moorish life, and he is a thoughtful man.”
 
“Das true, Geo’ge. He am a t’oughtful man. Anyhow, we kin do not’ing more, ’cept wait an’ see. But I’s much more ’plexed about Hester, for eben if de sailor am a good an’ true man, as you say, he can’t keep her or his-self alibe on not’ing in de mountains, no more’n he could swim wid her on his back across de Mederainyon!”
 
Again the middy was silent for a time. He could by no means see his way out of this greater difficulty, and his heart almost failed him as he thought of the poor girl wandering in the wilderness without food or shelter.
 
“P’r’aps,” suggested Peter, “she may manage to git into de town an’ pass for a nigger as she’s dood before, an’ make tracks for her old place wid Missis Lilly—or wid Dinah.”
 
“No doubt she may,” cried Foster, grasping at the hope as a drowning man grasps at a plank. “Nothing more likely. Wouldn’t it be a good plan for you to go into town at once and make inquiry?”
 
“Dessay it would,” returned the negro. “Das just what I’ll do, an’ if she’s not dere, Dinah may gib my int’lec’ a jog. She’s a wonderful woman, Dinah, for workin’ up de human mind w’en it’s like goin’ to sleep. Poo’ Samson hab diskivered dat many times. I’ll go at once.”
 
“Do, Peter, my fine fellow, and you’ll lay me for ever under the deepest ob—”
 
He was interrupted by a slave who at the moment approached the bower and said that a man wanted to see Peter the Great.
 
“To see Ben-Ahmed, you mean,” said Peter.
 
“No—to see yourself,” returned the slave.
 
“Sen’ ’im here,” said the negro, with a magnificent wave of the hand.
 
In a few minutes the slave returned accompanied by a negro, who limped so badly that he was obliged to use a stick, and whose head was bandaged up with a blue cloth. Arrived at the bower, he stood before Peter the Great and groaned.
 
“You may go,” said Peter to the slave, who lingered as if anxious to hear the news of the visitor. When he was out of hearing, Peter turned to the lame man, looked him sharply in the face, and said—
 
“You’s bery black in de face, my frind, but you’s much blacker in de h’art. What business hab you to come here widout washin’ your white face clean?”
 
“Well, you’re a pretty smart chap for a nigger. An’ I dare say you’ll understand that I’d have had some difficulty in fetchin’ this here port at all if I’d washed my face,” answered the lame man, in excellent nautical English.
 
While he spoke, Foster ran towards him, laid a hand on his shoulder, and looked earnestly into his face.
 
“You are the British sailor,” he said, “who rescued Hes—Miss Sommers from the janissaries?”
 
“That’s me to a tee,” replied the sailor, with a broad grin.
 
“Is Miss Sommers safe?” asked the middy anxiously.
 
“Ay! safe as any woman can be in this world. Leastwise, she’s in a cave wi’ three o’ the toughest sea-dogs as any man could wish to see—one o’ them bein’ a Maltese an’ the other two bein’ true-blue John Bulls as well as Jack Tars. But Miss Sommers gave me orders to say my say to Peter the Great, so if this nigger is him, I’ll be obleeged if he’ll have a little private conversation wi’ me.”
 
“Did Miss Sommers say that I was not to hear the message?” asked the middy, in some surprise.
 
“She made no mention o’ you, or anybody else at all, as I knows on,” returned the sailor firmly, “an’ as my orders was to Peter the Great, an’ as this seems to be him, from Sally’s description—a monstrous big, fine-lookin’ nigger, with a lively face—I’ll say my say to him alone, with your leave.”
 
“You may say it where you is, for dis yar gen’lem’n is a frind ob mine, an’ a hofficer in the Bri’sh navy, an’ a most ’tickler friend of Hester Sommers, so we all frinds togidder.”
 
“You’ll excuse me, sir,” said the seaman, touching his forelock, “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 the question is, what’s to be done, for it’s quite clear that my mates an’ me can’t remain for ever hidin’ among the rocks. We must be off; an’ I want to know, are we to take this poor gal with us, or are we to leave her behind, an’, if so, what are her friends a-goin’ to do for her?”
 
“There’s no fear of your friends going off without you, I suppose?”
 
“Well, as they risked their precious lives to rescue me, it ain’t likely,” returned the seaman.
 
“Would it not be well to keep Brown here till Ben-Ahmed returns?” asked Foster, turning to Peter the Great.
 
The negro knitted his brows and looked vacantly up through the leafy roof of the bower, as if in profound meditation. Some of the brighter stars were beginning to twinkle in the darkening sky by that time, and one of them seemed to wink at him encouragingly, for he suddenly turned to the middy with all the energy of his nature, exclaiming, “I’s got it!” and brought his great palm down on his greater thigh with a resounding slap.
 
“If it’s in your breeches pocket you must have squashed it, then!” said Brown—referring to the slap. “Anyhow, if you’ve got it, hold on to it an’ let’s hear what it is.”
 
“No—not now. All in good time. Patience, my frind, is a virtoo wuf cultivation—”
 
“You needn’t go for to tell that to a Bagnio slave like me, Mister Peter. Your greatness might have made you aware o’ that,” returned the sailor quietly.
 
An eye-shutting grin was Peter’s reply to this, and further converse was stopped by the sound of clattering hoofs.
 
“Massa!” exclaimed the negro, listening. “Das good. No time lost. Come wid me, you sham ............