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128 me to observe that a Dey should not retain the services of one who is capable of showing fear."

"Perhaps you are right," returned Achmet, with a smile; "especially one who has had the audacity to dethrone me.—And now, what demand have you to make of me to-day? Not, I trust, that old one—the liberation of slaves!"

"No, not exactly that," replied the consul. "Nevertheless," he added earnestly, "I do come to make an appeal in behalf of slaves."

The Dey's countenance became grave.

"I refer," continued the consul, "to those unfortunate slaves who recently attempted to escape, and are now lying in chains condemned to be bastinadoed, thrown on the hooks, and otherwise tortured to death."

"How!" exclaimed the Dey, frowning darkly, while a flush of anger covered his face, "can you plead for slaves who have not only rebelled and fled, but who have disabled two of my janissaries, and some of whom—especially their leader Castello and the young Sicilian Mariano—are so turbulent as to be an absolute nuisance to their guards?"

"Your highness is aware," answered the consul respectfully, "that British ideas in regard to slavery and all connected with it are widely different from those entertained by Algerines, and I do not presume to pass an opinion on the sentences pronounced on