“You might possibly have found them so,” returned Stratford, coolly; “but my tastes don’t happen to lie in that direction. I endured their performances for some time, and then they began to get tiresome. It was rather hard on the poor things, I know, for they were doing their level best; but I yawned aggressively, and suggested that we should go back to business. They bundled the girls out, and I found that the King and Fath-ud-Din had about reached the end of their patience. They took to threats now, and discoursed movingly for some time on the subject of tortures, with a strictly personal application. Fath-ud-Din did most of the talking; but when the King thought that his language was lacking in vigour, he added a few stronger touches to the picture. At last I remarked that this was all very interesting, but it wasn’t business, and that set them off. The King stamped on the floor, and immediately the curtain over the door was pulled aside, and a gang of the most villainous-looking negroes I ever saw filed in. ‘Seize that white devil,’ said Fath-ud-Din, ‘and let our lord the King behold your skill.’ That was all very well, but there were two sides to the question. ‘Stop,’ I said to the foremost black fellow as he turned towards me--‘cross that line in the floor at your peril!’ He laughed. I believe they thought I meant to take it fighting; but that was not my game at all. In a rough-and-tumble fight with those niggers I should have gone under in no time, and I didn’t exactly see being pulled to pieces with red-hot pincers to make a holiday for the King and Fath-ud-Din. I had slipped the little revolver down my sleeve and into my right hand, and I had some extra cartridges in my left, and as the man set his foot on the line I had pointed at, I shot him straight off. It was rather a strong thing to do; but it was my only chance. The other black fellows drew back as the first man fell forward on his face, his arms almost touching the King, and Fath-ud-Din opened his mouth to yell out to the guard; but I spoke first, slipping in another cartridge into the chamber I had fired. ‘I have six shots here without reloading,’ I said. ‘The next two are for the King and the Grand Vizier, as soon as either of them moves or speaks; the rest are for the first four men that cross this line.’” [image: images/img_08.jpg caption: “I have six shots here without reloading,” I said.] “Sir,” said Mr Hicks, approvingly, “there was a dreadful smart newspaper man lost when you were raised for a diplomatist.” Stratford smiled in acknowledgment of the compliment, which was delivered with even more than the amount of drawl which Mr Hicks chose usually to affect.