Page:Ballantyne--The Pirate City.djvu/323

Rh The old servant pleaded not guilty with earnest solemnity.

"Are you quite sure you saw him take the ring?" demanded the cadi of Ziffa.

"Quite sure," replied the girl.

"And you are sure you did not take it?" he asked of the negro.

"Absolutely certain," answered the old man.

"And you are convinced that you once had the ring, and now have it not?" he said, turning to Hadji Baba.

"Quite."

"The case is very perplexing," said the cadi, turning to the administrators of the law who stood at his elbow; "give the master and the servant each one hundred strokes of the bastinado, twenty at a time, beginning with the servant."

The officers at once seized on the old negro, threw him down and gave him twenty blows. They then advanced to Hadji Baba, and were about to seize him, when he cried out—

"Beware what thou doest! I am an officer of the Dey's palace and may not be treated thus with impunity."

The cadi, who either did not, or pretended not, to believe the statement, replied sententiously—

"Justice takes no note of persons.—Proceed."

The officers threw Baba on his face, and were