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The dismay of poor Mrs Langley and Agnes when they heard of the fate of the consul and his child may be imagined. It was however mitigated in some degree when, next morning, a boat came off to the "Prometheus" containing Master Jim himself, in charge of the faithful Zubby!
Set down the basket, my man, and come and hold him." Now the Zaharian Zubby, not having been let into the secret of the mysterious proceedings that followed, became a source of unexpected danger and annoyance to the surgeon and his friends.
"Oh! I'm so glad," exclaimed Angela, sitting down on a mat beside her sister, and gazing through her tears. "So am I, darling," responded Paulina, "and so would baby be if she were awake and understood it." Zubby looked as if she were on the point of awaking baby in order to enable her to understand it; fortunately she thought better of this.
Having traversed several streets in which Moors sat cross-legged, embroidering purses and slippers with gold, in holes in the wall so small that a good-sized bust might have objected to occupy them; where cobblers, in similar niches, made and repaired round-toed shoes of morocco leather, and the makers of horn rings for fingers, wrists, arms and ankles wrought as deftly with their toes as with their fingers; where working silversmiths plied their trade in precious metals and gems in a free-and-easy open-air fashion that would have made the mouth of a London thief water; and where idle Arabs sipped coffee and smoked the live-long day, as though coffee and tobacco were the aim and end of life which latter they proved indeed to many of them, Mrs Langley with Agnes, followed by Zubby, paused before a niche in which were displayed for sale a variety of curious old trinkets of a nondescript and utterly useless character.
The consul and surgeon affected to talk and laugh lightly as they approached the gate, and were permitted to pass, the guard supposing, no doubt, that the British consul was exercising his wonted civility in conducting his friends down to their boat. But fate, in the form of Zubby, was unfavourable to them.
"He's going all right," said the surgeon, with a look and nod of satisfaction, as the child, lying in the nautical man's arms, dropt suddenly into a profound slumber. "Now, we will pack him. Stay, has he a cloak or shawl of any kind?" said the surgeon, looking round. "Zubby alone knows where his mysterious wardrobe is to be found," replied the Colonel.
She had been trained in a school of dire adversity ever since the arrival of the coal-black one from beyond the Zahara, and had learned to hope against hope in an extraordinary degree in a case which was absolutely hopeless, for, whatever others might think or hope, Zubby knew herself to be incurable!
Do stop the noise of that screeching imp of blackness," he added, turning a look of anger on Zubby, whose grief was, like her mirth, obstreperous. "I wish as some 'un had pared her nails afore I comed here," growled the nautical man.
Two days after the events narrated in the last chapter, Mrs Langley, being seated on her favourite couch in the court under the small banana-tree, sent Zubby into the garden to command the attendance of Ted Flaggan.
"We must get ready immediately," continued Mrs Langley, with a cautioning shake of the head at Zubby, as she turned to Agnes; "because, you know, we may as well take the opportunity to do a little shopping before dinner." "What! `shopping' in the pirate city?" we hear you exclaim, reader.
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