rform her wonted duty
clumsily, and to stick a variety of pins in various unnecessary places.
She was then sent to the kitchen with some trivial message to the cook.

While she was away, Master Jim was packed in the bottom of the vegetable
basket, and a quantity of cabbages, cauliflowers, etcetera, were placed
above him. The basket was given to the nautical man to carry. Then the
surgeon and the consul went out arm-in-arm, followed by two midshipmen,
who were in attendance in the hall. Robinson--so the nautical man was
named--brought up the rear.

They proceeded along the street Bab-el-Oued for some distance, and then,
passing the mosque near the slave-market, descended the street that led
to the Marina, and the place where the boat of the "Prometheus" lay in
waiting.

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. Either that loving damsel's finger had
been more effective than was at first supposed, or the pins were
operating with unwonted pungency, but certain it is, that just as Mr
Robinson was passing under the gateway, Master Jim awoke from his
profound slumber. Feeling, although not naturally dyspeptic, that the
cabbages weighed heavy on his stomach, he set up such a howl, and struck
out so violently, that the lid of the basket was forced up, and sundry
vegetables rolled before the eyes of the astonished Turks.

Of course Master Jim and his bearer were taken prisoners, but the evil
did not stop here, for the officer of the guard at once ordered the
arrest of the consul himself, as well as the surgeon, the midshipmen,
and the boat's crew of the "Prometheus," and the whole were thrust into
the dungeons of the common prison--the consul, by special order of the
Dey, being loaded with iron fetters.

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!

Whether it was that Omar deemed the child a useless encumbrance or a
valueless article, or was visited by one of those touches of compunction
which are well-known to assail at times t