"Not quite."

"Ah, well, then, it won't be so bad for you as it might."

"What won't?"

"Marriage."

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Jack," exclaimed the orphan; "my experience of the happy state was any thing but agreeable with one wife. Goodness knows how long I should survive if I had, as you say, several wives."

"Don't worry yourself, Mr. Figgins," said Jack, "but it is just as well to be prepared."

"For what?"

"An emergency. You don't know what might happen to you in this country."

Mr. Figgins looked really very anxious at this.

"I don't well see how they can marry a man."

"That's not the question, Mr. Figgins. You could refuse. It would cost you your life for a certainty."

The orphan nearly rolled off his cushion.

"What!"

"Fact, I assure you," said Jack, gravely.

"Explain."

"You will be expected to pay a visit of state to the pasha."

"Yes."

"That is the greatest honour on landing for a stranger."

"What is a pasha?"

"The governor of the province, a regular Bung."

"Well."

"Bluebeard was a pasha, you remember."

"No, no," interrupted the orphan, delighted to show his historical accuracy. "Bluebeard was a bashaw."

"It is the same thing, another way of writing or pronouncing the identical same dignity or rank. Well, you know that polygamy is the pet vice of the followers of Islam."

"Oh, it's dreadful, Jack."

"The greater the man, the greater the polygamist. A pasha has as many wives as he can keep, and more too. The pasha of this province is not rich for his rank, and for his matrimonial proclivities."

"Lor'!"

"How many wives should you suppose he has?" asked Jack, with an air of deep gravity.

"Don't know," replied the orphan, quietly.

"Ninety-eight living."

Mr. Figgins jumped up and dropped his chibouk.

"Never."

"A fact," asserted Jack, with gravity.

"Why, the man must be a regular Bluebeard."

"You've hit it, sir," responded Jack; "that's the sort of man he is."

"Well, that is all very well for the Turks and for these old sinners the pashas, but I am an Englishman."

"This is the way it will most likely be done," continued Jack. "On your presentation to his excellency the pasha, you are expected to make some present. The pasha makes a return visit of ceremony, and leaves behind him some solid evidence of his liberality."

"Well?"

"Well, but the very highest compliment that a pasha can pay you is to leave you one of his wives. He generally makes it an old stock-keeper, something that has been a good thirty years or so in the seraglio."

Mr. Figgins took the liveliest interest in this narrative.

He was growing rapidly convinced of the truth of Jack's descriptions of these singular manners and customs of the country in which they were.

Yet he eyed Jack as one who has a lingering doubt.

"Ahem!" said Mr. Figgins, "I don't think that I shall join you on your visit ashore in the morning."

"We'll see in the morning," said Jack; "it's a pity to put off your trip for the sake of such a trifling danger as that of having a wife or so given to you."

"It's no use," said Mr. Figgins, "my mind is fully made up; I shall not visit the pasha."

"It will be taken as a grave insult to go ashore without paying your respects to his excellency."

"I can't help that," returned the orphan, resolutely; "I won't visit him."

"Mr. Figgins," said Jack, in a voice of deep solemnity, "these Turks are cruel, vindictive, and revengeful. The last Englishman who refused was, by order of the pasha, skinned alive, placed on the sunny side of a wall, and blown to death by flies."

"Surely the Turks are not such barbarians," said Mr. Figgins.

"You'll find they are. They'd think no more of polishing you off than of killing a fly."

If that rascal Jack intended to make poor Mr. Figgins uneasy, he certainly succeeded very well.

Mr. Figgins looked supremely miserable.

"Good night, Mr. Figgins. Think it over."

"I tell you I——"

"Never mind, don't decide too rashly. Pleasant dreams."

"Pleasant dreams," said the orphan. "I shall have the nightmare."

The orphan's pillow was haunted that night by visions of a terrible nature.

He fancied himself in the presence of a turbaned Turk, a powerful pasha, who was sitting cross-legged on an ottoman, smoking a pipe, of endless length, and holding in his hand a drawn sword—a scimitar that looked ready to chop his head off.

Beside this terrible Turk stood five ladies, in baggy trousers, and long veils.

No words were spoken, but instinctively the orphan knew that he had to decide between the scimitar and the quintet of wives—wall-flowers of the pasha's harem.

Silently, in mute horror, the orphan was about to submit to the least of the two evils, and choose a wife.

Then he awoke suddenly.

What an immense relief it was to find it only a dream after all.

"I don't quite believe that young Harkaway," said the orphan, dubiously; "he is such a dreadful practical joker. But I won't go on shore, nevertheless. It's not very interesting to see these savages, after all; they really are nothing more than savages."

And after a long and tedious time spent in endeavouring to get to sleep again, he dropped off.

But only to dream again about getting very much married.

He slept far into the morning, for his dreams had disturbed him much, and he was tired out.

When he awoke, there was someone knocking at his cabin door.

"Come in."

"It's only me, Mr. Figgins," said a familiar voice.

"Come in, captain."

Captain Deering entered.

"Not up yet, Mr. Figgins?" he said, in surprise. "We've got visitors aboard already."

"Dear me."

"Distinguished visitors. The pasha and his suite."

"You don't say so?" exclaimed the orphan, sitting up.

"Fact, sir," returned the captain. "It must be ten years since I last had the honour of an interview with his excellency."

"You know him, then, Captain Deering?"

"Rather. Been here often. Know every inch of the country," said the captain.

"What sort of a man is the pasha?" said the orphan, thinking of Jack's statement.

"Oh, a decent fellow enough, unless he's riled," was the reply.

"Do you speak the language?" said the orphan.

"Like a native."

"Is he as much married as they say?" demanded Mr. Figgins.

The captain smiled.

"His excellency has a weakness that way; but," he added, in a warning voice, "you must not make any allusion to that."

"I won't see him," said Mr. Figgins. "I don't intend to visit him."

"But I have come to fetch you to pay your respects."

"Where?"

"Here, on board, in the state saloon."

"But——"

"Make haste, Mr. Figgins," interrupted Captain Deering. "It is no joke to make a pasha wait. Look alive. I'll come and fetch you in five minutes. Up you get."

And then Captain Deering departed.

Mr. Figgins was sorely perplexed now.

But he arose and began to dress himself as quickly as possible.

"After all," he said to himself, "it is just as well. I should certainly like to see the pasha, and this is a bit of luck, for there's no danger here at any rate, if what that young Harkaway said was true."

He went to the cabin door and shouted out for Tinker.

"Tinker!"

"He's engaged," answered Captain Deering, who was close by.

"I want him."

"He's away, attending his excellency in the saloon," returned Captain Deering.

"Bogey then."

"Bogey's there too."

"Never mind."

"Are you nearly ready?"

"Yes"

"Look sharp. I wouldn't have his excellency put out of temper for the world; it would be sure to result in the bowstringing of a few of his poor devils of slaves when he got ashore again, and you wouldn't care to