Page:Ballantyne--The Pirate City.djvu/374

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352
THE PIRATE CITY.

"Ay, but they don't come disguised as Moors," said Flaggan, "and I niver was inside a Turkish bath before. Don't know more nor a child what to do."

"Yoo don' go in bath dressed—go naked," returned Rais, growing impatient. "Do noting in bath, only let 'em do what dey pleases to yoo."

"Very good, plaze yersilf, Ally Babby," said Ted, resignedly plunging his arms into the cistern; "only remimber, I give ye fair warnin', av the spalpeens attempts to take me prisoner, I'll let fly into thir breadbaskets right an' left, an' clear out into the street, naked or clothed, no matter which,—for I've said it wance, an' I means to stick to it, they'll niver take Ted Flaggan alive."

"All right," returned Rais Ally, "yoo wash yours faces an' holds your tongue."

After removing as much as possible of the brown earth from his visage and limbs, the seaman drew the hood of his burnous well over his face, and—having assiduously studied the gait of Moors—strode with Oriental dignity into the outer court, or apartment, of the bath, followed his friend into an unoccupied corner and proceeded to undress.

"Musha! it's like a house-full of Turkish corpses," whispered Ted as he surveyed the recumbent figures in white around him.

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