"What is it, Cochrane?" asked Cecil Brown--for the Colonel had served in
the East, and was the only one of the travellers who had a smattering of
Arabic.

"As far as I can make out, he says there is no use keeping the dragoman,
as no one would trouble to pay a ransom for him, and he is too fat to
make a good slave."

"Poor devil!" cried Brown. "Here, Cochrane, tell them to let him go.
We can't let him be butchered like this in front of us. Say that we
will find the money amongst us. I will be answerable for any reasonable
sum."

"I'll stand in as far as my means will allow," cried Belmont.

"We will sign a joint bond or indemnity," said the lawyer. "If I had a
paper and pencil I could throw it into shape in an instant, and the
chief could rely upon its being perfectly correct and valid."

But the Colonel's Arabic was insufficient, and Mansoor himself was too
maddened by fear to understand the offer which was being made for him.
The negro looked a question at the chief, and then his long black arm
swung upwards and his sword hissed over his shoulder. But the dragoman
had screamed out something which arrested the blow, and which brought
the chief and the lieutenant to his side with a new interest upon their
swarthy faces. The others crowded in also, and formed a dense circle
around the grovelling, pleading man.

The Colonel had not understood this sudden change, nor had the others