hallah! do I know him?" gasped out Mohammed, his emotion nearly
choking him. "Allah is great and Mohammed is his prophet--do I know
him?" he repeated, taking a long draw at his chibouque as if to calm his
nerves, while he lay back for a moment motionless amid his cushions.

"Well, who on earth is he, Mohammed?" demanded Tom abruptly--"that is,
unless the a--medicine--has got into your head."

While the Greek had been talking to Charley in the first instance, it
may be mentioned that Tom had dexterously transferred the bottle of
brandy to the keeping of the Turk, who had secreted it behind his back,
after turning half aside and pouring out a pretty good dose into his
coffee-cup, all with the most rapid legerdemain as if he were a
practical conjuror.

"Effendi," said Mohammed with dignity, "you insult me by such a remark.
The sight of that man--that Grec, that villainous piratt, quite
overwhelmed me."

"Pirate!" said Charley, for Tom was too much abashed by the Turk's
rebuke to speak.

"Yes, piratt," repeated Mohammed firmly. "That would-be simple Grec
sailor, as he represented himself to you, was no one else than Demetri
Pedrovanto, better known in the Aegean Sea, as `The Corsair of Chios.'
There's a price of ten thousand piastres on his head. Mashallah! How
he dares show himself in Beyrout, amongst the enemy he has plundered, I
know not. However, kismet! 'tis his fate, I suppose."

"Are you sure?" asked Charley, who was inclined to think that Mohammed
was cramming them.

"Effendi, throw dirt on my beard if I lie. It is Demetri Pedrovanto,
sure enough."

"But I never heard of pirates being about in these waters, with so many
French and English cruisers going backwards and forwards in the
neighbourhood," observed Tom.

"Aha, you Inglese and Frenchmans don't know everyting!" said the Turk
laconically, after emitting another volume of smoke, which he had been
apparently accumulating all the time he had been speaking previously.
"There are alway piratts in dese seas, and always will be, as long as
Grecs are Grecs!"

"Ah, you say that because you are a Turk," said Charley chaffingly.

"No, no, no," replied Mohammed, shaking his head vehemently. "I'm not
one great bigot because I have been born under the crescent. I am
cosmopolitaine. You ask your consul, or ze Americans, dey will tell you
the same. All dose Grecs are piratts, and dem as isn't piratts are
brigands, tiefs, every one."

"Well, you've go