Page:Ballantyne--The Battery and the Boiler.djvu/214

 floor level. Besides this, it was sumptuously furnished in a fashion singularly out of keeping with the spot and its surroundings. Pictures hung on the walls, Persian rugs lay on the floors. Ottomans, covered with silk and velvet, were strewn about here and there, among easy-chairs of various kinds, some formed of wickerwork—in the fantastic shapes peculiar to the East—others of wood and cane, having the ungainly and unreasonable shapes esteemed by Western taste. Silver lamps and drinking-cups and plates of the finest porcelain were also scattered about, for there was no order in the cavern, either as to its arrangement or the character of its decoration. In the centre stood several large tables of polished wood, on which were the remains of what must have been a substantial feast—the dishes being as varied as the furniture—from the rice and egg messes of Eastern origin, to the preserved sardines of the West.

"Ha! ha!" laughed the weird old creature who ushered the astonished youths into this strange banqueting hall, "the rubberts—rubbers—you calls dem?"

"Robbers, she means; that 's the naughty men," explained Letta, who seemed to enjoy the old woman's blunders in the English tongue.

"Yis, dats so—roberts an' pyrits—ha! ha! dems feed here dis mornin'. You feed dis