And the little adventurer sat in a shed
With one woman dying, and one woman dead.
Nothing he knew of the late defeat,
Nothing of Mehemit's enforced retreat;
For he spoke no word of the Turkish tongue,
And had seen no Englishman all day long.
So he sat there, calm, with a flask of rum,
And a cigarette 'twixt finger and thumb,
Tranquilly smoking, and watching the smoke,
And probably hatching some stupid joke,
When in at the door, without a word,
Burst a Circassian, hand on sword.
And the sword leapt out of its sheath, as a flame
Breaks from the coals when the fire is stirred.
And Mr. King, with a "What's _your_ game?"
Faced the Tchircasse with the wild-beast eyes.
"Naow, what do you want?" said Mr. King.
Quoth the savage, in English, "The woman dies!"
"Waat," said the impostor, "you'll take your fling,
At least in the first case, along of a son
Of Columbia, daughter of Albion."

The Tchircasse moved to the side of the bed.
A distaff was leaning against the wall,
And Mr. King, with arms at length,
Gave it a swing, with all his strength,
And crashed it full at the villain's head,
And dropped him, pistols and daggers and all.
Then sword in hand, he raged through the door,