By a strange coincidence, Agnes and her friend came bounding out into the shrubbery at that moment, having finished their brief luncheon, and Ziffa chanced to catch sight of the stout mariner as he hastened to meet his friend.
With the intuitive sharpness of an Eastern mind she observed the fact, and with the native acuteness of a scheming little vixen, she guessed that something might turn up. Acting on the thought, she shouted—
"Wait a little, Agnes; I will hide: you shall find me."
Innocent Agnes obediently waited, while Ziffa ran down the wrong side of the cactus hedge, and kept up with the seaman—a little in rear of him.
"Ho! Ally Babby," shouted Ted Flaggan, when he was within hail—it might be a hundred yards or so—of his friend, "what d'ee think? that little brown-faced chip of Hadji Baba has been up here eaves-dropping, and has got to windward of us a'most. Leastwise she knows enough o' the Riminis to want to know more—the dirty little spalpeen."
"Thank you," thought Ziffa, as she listened.
When Flaggan had varied his remarks once or twice, by way of translating them, Rais Ali shook his head.
"That bad," said he, "ver' bad. We mos' be tremendous cautious. Ziffa's a little brute."
