It might have been in consequence of this threat of the Bey, much as they affected to despise it, that the Cabeleyzes prepared to return to the heights of Mount Araz, whence they had only descended during the autumn to find fresh pasture for their cattle, and to collect dates and chestnuts from the forest.

‘Alas!’ said Hubert, ’this is worse than ever.  As long as we were near the sea, I had hope, but now all trace of us will be lost, even if the Consul should send after us.’

‘Never fear, Maitre Hubert,’ said Estelle; ’you know Telemaque was a prisoner and tamed the wild peasants in Egypt.’

’Ah! the poor demoiselle, she always seems as if she were acting a comedy.’

This was happily true.  Estelle seemed to be in a curious manner borne through the dangers and discomforts of her surroundings by a strange dreamy sense of living up to her part, sometimes as a possible martyr, sometimes as a figure in the mythological or Arcadian romance that had filtered into her nursery.

CHAPTER VI—­A MOORISH VILLAGE

’Our laws and our worship on thee thou shalt take,
And this shalt thou first do for Zulema’s sake.’ 
Scott.

When Arthur Hope dashed back from the party on the prow of the wrecked tartane in search of little Ulysse, he succeeded in grasping the child, but at the same moment a huge breaker washed him off the slipperily-sloping deck, and after a scarce conscious struggle he found himself, still retaining his clutch of the boy, in the trough between it and another.  He was happily an expert swimmer, and holding the little fellow’s clothes in his teeth, he was able to avoid the dash, and to rise on another wave.  Then he perceived that he was no longer near the vessel, but had been carried out to some little distance, and his efforts only succeeded in keeping afloat, not in approaching the shore.  Happily a plank drifted so near him that he was able to seize it and throw himself across it, thus obtaining some support, and being able to raise the child farther above the water.

At the same time he became convinced that a strong current, probably from a river or stream, was carrying him out to sea, away from the bay.  He saw the black heads of two or three of the Moorish crew likewise floating on spars, and yielding themselves to the stream, and this made him better satisfied to follow their example.  It was a sort of rest, and gave him time to recover from the first exhaustion to convince himself that the little boy was not dead, and to lash him to the plank with a handkerchief.

By and by—­he knew not how soon—­calls and shouts passed between the Moors; only two seemed to survive, and they no longer obeyed the direction of the current, but turned resolutely towards the land, where Arthur dimly saw a green valley opening towards the sea.  This was a much severer effort, but by this time immediate self-preservation had become the only thought, and happily both wind and the very slight tide were favourable, so that, just as the sun sank beneath the western waves, Arthur felt foothold on a sloping beach of white sand, even as his powers became exhausted.  He struggled up out of reach of the sea, and then sank down, exhausted and unconscious.