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Rh CHAPTER XV.

IN WHICH TED FLAGGAN AND HIS FRIEND RAIS ALI ACT A CONSPICUOUS PART, AND A POLITICAL STORM BEGINS TO BREAK.

is unquestionably many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip, but on the present occasion there was no such slip. Mariano succeeded in diminishing and flattening himself to such an extent that the janissaries passed without observing him. The moment they were out of sight he glided from his hiding-place, and soon found his way to the top of the ramparts, near the Bab-Azoun gate. The head of Castello was at his elbow; the wearied Turkish sentinel was not a hundred yards distant. Mariano could see him clearly defined against the eastern sky every time he reached the end of his beat.

"If he takes it into his head to walk this way, I am lost," thought Mariano.

It seemed as if the man had heard the thought, for he walked slowly towards the spot where the youth lay at full length on the ground. There was no mound or niche or coping of any kind behind