Page:Kéraban the Inflexible Part 1 (Jules Verne).djvu/20

22 had not yet arrived for indulging in any of the various products of the Ottoman distilleries.

This individual's name was Scarpante, the intendant or steward of the Seigneur Saffar, a rich Turk who lived at Trebizond.

Saffar himself was at that particular time travelling in Southern Russia, and intended to return to Trebizond when he had visited the Caucasian provinces, never doubting that his intendant would meanwhile have succeeded in carrying to a successful termination an enterprise with which he had been specially charged. Scarpante was to rejoin him at his palatial residence when he had accomplished his mission, which Saffar never admitted to himself even was likely to fail. He could not conceive that any emissary of his should not succeed when he had commanded success, and backed his orders with the powerful aid of money. In everything he acted with the ostentation which is characteristic of these "nabobs"of Asia Minor.

The steward was a very audacious fellow, an adept at all enterprises which required skill and force to carry them out He hesitated at nothing to carry out his master's designs, which were put through per fas et nefas. It was upon one of these desperate undertakings that he arrived in Constantinople, and that he was then awaiting the meeting with a certain Maltese captain, who was no better than himself.

The captain's name was Yarhud; he was commander of a felucca—the Guidare—and made periodical voyages across the Black Sea. To his ordinary smuggling he added even a less creditable trade, that of carrying black slaves from the Soudan, Ethiopia, or Egypt, and others from Georgia and Circassia. The market for these human commodities was at that very corner of Top-Hané—a market in regard to which the Government, very conveniently, shut its eyes.

Scarpante was still waiting, but the captain did not come. Although the intendant remained outwardly impassible and nothing betrayed his feelings, he was inwardly boiling with indignation.

"Where is the dog?" he muttered. "Has any accident happened to him? He ought to have quitted Odessa the