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Ben Zoof left to go into the kitchen, and Servadac approached the professor in order to assist him in rising to a sitting posture. "Do you recognize your quondam pupil, professor?" he asked. "Ah, yes, yes; you are Servadac," replied Rosette. "It is twelve years or more since I saw you; I hope you have improved." "Quite a reformed character, sir, I assure you," said Servadac, smiling.

When Servadac and his companions reached the shore, they found that the Hansa had anchored in an exposed bay, protected but barely by a few projecting rocks, and in such a position that a gale rising from the west would inevitably drive her on to the land, where she must be dashed in pieces.

"Well, then," said Ben Zoof, "if you will be good enough to come with me for about a mile, I shall be able to show you my companions. But we must take our guns." "Why take our guns?" asked Servadac. "I hope we are not going to fight." "No, not with men," said Ben Zoof; "but it does not answer to throw a chance away for giving battle to those thieves of birds."

"I have occasionally dreamed that I was a swallow flying over the Montmartre, but I never experienced anything of this kind before; it must be peculiar to the coast of Algeria." Servadac was stupefied; he felt instinctively that he was not dreaming, and yet was powerless to solve the mystery. He was not, however, the man to puzzle himself for long over any insoluble problem.

And, turning contemptuously on his heel, Servadac left the old man vociferating bitterly, and with uplifted hands protesting vehemently against the rapacity of the Gentiles. By the 20th all preliminary arrangements were complete, and everything ready for a final departure from the island.

Irritated and disgusted at all the cold formalities, Hector Servadac resolved to leave all the talking to the count; and he, quite aware that the Englishmen would adhere to the fiction that they could be supposed to know nothing that had transpired previous to the introduction felt himself obliged to recapitulate matters from the very beginning.

See, how circumscribed is the horizon!" Servadac replied that he had noticed the same circumstance from the top of the cliffs of Gourbi Island. "Yes," said the count; "it becomes more and more obvious that ours is a very tiny world, and that Gourbi Island is the sole productive spot upon its surface.

"I think not, Captain Servadac." "But why not?" persisted the captain. "Because these very Spaniards have, by formal contract, made over Ceuta, in its integrity, to the British government." Servadac uttered an exclamation of surprise. "And as the price of that important cession," continued Major Oliphant, "they have received a fair equivalent in British gold."

"Captain Servadac, who accompanies me," continued the count, "has been most severely tried by the disaster. Engaged as he was in an important mission as a staff-officer in Algeria " "A French colony, I believe," interposed Major Oliphant, half shutting his eyes with an expression of supreme indifference.

The men hesitated. In an instant Servadac mounted the side-work, laid himself down in the gap, and thus filling up the breach by his own body, shouted, "March on!" And through a storm of shot, not one of which touched the prostrate officer, the troop passed in safety.