The Middy and the Moors: An Algerine Story, R. M. Ballantyne [most difficult books to read .TXT] 📗

‘Oh!’ says she, ‘no fear o’ that. Just you let me make a nigger of you. I always keep the stuff about me in my pocket, for I so often cry it off that I need to renew it frequently.’ An’ with that she out with a parcel o’ black stuff and made me into a nigger before you could say Jack Robinson. Fort’nately, I’ve got a pretty fat lump of a nose of my own, an’ my lips are pretty thick by natur’, so that with a little what you may call hard poutin’ when I had to pass guards, janissaries, an’ such like, I managed to get to where Missis Lilly an’ Sally lived, an’ they sent me on here. An’ now the question is, what’s to be done, for it’s quite clear that my mates an’ me can’t remain for ever hidin’ among the rocks. We must be off; an’ I want to know, are we to take this poor gal with us, or are we to leave her behind, an’, if so, what are her friends a-goin’ to do for her?”

“There’s no fear of your friends going off without you, I suppose?”

“Well, as they risked their precious lives to rescue me, it ain’t likely,” returned the seaman.

“Would it not be well to keep Brown here till Ben-Ahmed returns?” asked Foster, turning to Peter the Great.

The negro knitted his brows and looked vacantly up through the leafy roof of the bower, as if in profound meditation. Some of the brighter stars were beginning to twinkle in the darkening sky by that time, and one of them seemed to wink at him encouragingly, for he suddenly turned to the middy with all the energy of his nature, exclaiming, “I’s got it!” and brought his great palm down on his greater thigh with a resounding slap.

“If it’s in your breeches pocket you must have squashed it, then!” said Brown—referring to the slap. “Anyhow, if you’ve got it, hold on to it an’ let’s hear what it is.”

“No—not now. All in good time. Patience, my frind, is a virtoo wuf cultivation—”

“You needn’t go for to tell that to a Bagnio slave like me, Mister Peter. Your greatness might have made you aware o’ that,” returned the sailor quietly.

An eye-shutting grin was Peter’s reply to this, and further converse was stopped by the sound of clattering hoofs.

“Massa!” exclaimed the negro, listening. “Das good. No time lost. Come wid me, you sham nigger, an’ I’s gib you somet’ing to tickle you stummik. You go an’ look arter de hoss, Geo’ge.”

While the middy ran to the gate to receive his master, Peter the Great led the sham nigger to the culinary regions, where, in a sequestered corner, he supplied him with a bowl containing a savoury compound of chicken and rice.

“I hope that all has gone well?” Foster ventured to ask as the Moor dismounted.

“All well. Send Peter to me immediately,” he replied, and, without another word, hurried into the house.

Calling another slave and handing over the smoking horse to him, Foster ran to the kitchen.

“Peter, you’re—”

“Wanted ’meeditly—yes, yes—I knows dat. What a t’ing it is to be in’spensible to anybody! I don’t know how he’ll eber git along widout me.”

Saying which he hurried away, leaving the middy to do the honours of the house to the sailor.

“I s’pose, sir, you haven’t a notion what sort o’ plans that nigger has got in his head?” asked the latter.

“Not the least idea. All I know is that he is a very clever fellow and never seems very confident about anything without good reason.”

“Well, whatever he’s a-goin’ to do, I hope he’ll look sharp about it, for poor Miss Sommers’s fate and the lives o’ my mates, to say nothin’ of my own, is hangin’ at this moment on a hair—so to speak,” returned the sailor, as he carefully scraped up and consumed the very last grain of the savoury mess, murmuring, as he did so, that it was out o’ sight the wery best blow-out he’d had since he enjoyed his last Christmas dinner in old England.

“Will you have some more?” asked the sympathetic middy.

“No more, sir, thankee. I’m loaded fairly down to the water-line. Another grain would bust up the hatches; but if I might ventur’ to putt forth a wish now, a glass o’—no? well, no matter, a drop o’ water’ll do. I’m well used to it now, havin’ drunk enough to float a seventy-four since I come to this city o’ pirates.”

“You will find coffee much more agreeable as well as better for you. I have learned that from experience,” said the middy, pouring out a tiny cupful from an earthen coffee-pot that always stood simmering beside the charcoal fire.

“Another of that same, sir, if you please,” said the seaman, tossing off the cupful, which, indeed, scarcely sufficed to fill his capacious mouth. “Why they should take their liquor in these parts out o’ things that ain’t much bigger than my old mother’s thimble, passes my comprehension. You wouldn’t mind another?—thankee.”

“As many as you please, Brown,” said the middy, laughing, as he poured out cupful after cupful; “there’s no fear of your getting half-seas-over on that tipple!”

“I only wish I was half-seas-over, or even a quarter that length. Your health, sir!” returned Brown, with a sigh, as he drained the last cup.

Just then Peter the Great burst into the kitchen in a very elated condition.

“Geo’ge,” he cried, “you be off. Massa wants you—’meeditly. But fust, let me ax—you understan’ de place among de rocks whar Brown’s mates and de boat am hidden?”

“Yes, I know the place well.”

“You knows how to get to it?”

“Of course I do.”

“Das all right; now come along—come along, you sham nigger, wid me. Has you got enuff?”

“Bustin’—all but.”

“Das good now; you follow me; do what you’s tol’; hol’ you tongue, an’ look sharp, if you don’ want your head cut off.”

“Heave ahead, cap’n; I’m your man.”

The two left the house together and took the road that led to the hill country in rear of the dwelling.

Meanwhile George Foster went to the chamber of the Moor. He found his master seated, as was his wont, with the hookah before him, but with the mouthpiece lying idly on his knee, and his forehead resting on one hand. So deeply was he absorbed in communing with his own thoughts, that he did not observe the entrance of his slave until he had been twice addressed. Then, looking up as if he had been slightly startled, he bade him sit down.

“George Foster,” he began impressively, at the same time applying a light to his hookah and puffing sedately, “you will be glad to hear that I have been successful with my suit to the Dey. God has favoured me; but a great deal yet remains to be done, and that must be done by you—else—”

He stopped here, looked pointedly at the middy, and delivered the remainder of his meaning in pufflets of smoke.

“I suppose you would say, sir, that unless it is done by me it won’t be done at all?”

To this the Moor nodded twice emphatically, and blew a thin cloud towards the ceiling.

“Then you may count upon my doing my utmost, if that which I am to do is in the interest of Hester Sommers or her father, as no doubt it is.”

“Yes, it is in their interest,” rejoined Ben-Ahmed. “I have done my part, but dare not go further; for much though I love little Hester—who has been to me as a sweet daughter—I must not risk my neck for her unnecessarily. But, if I mistake not, you are not unwilling to risk that?”

“Ay, fifty necks would I risk for her sake if I had them,” returned our middy with enthusiasm, for he was in that stage of love which glories in the acknowledgment of thraldom.

Ben-Ahmed looked at him with interest, sighed, and sought solace in the pipe.

After a few meditative puffs, he continued—

“After all, you run little risk, as you shall see. When I asked the Dey, with whom I am familiar, for the pardon of the slave Sommers, he did not seem pleased, and objected that there had been too many revolts of late; that this man’s case was a bad one, and that it was necessary to make an example or two.

“‘Very true, your highness,’ I replied, ‘but may I beg you to make an example of some other slaves, and forgive Sommers?’

“‘Why do you take so much interest in this man?’ demanded the Dey, who seemed to me rather short in his temper at the time.

“‘Because he is the father of one of my female slaves, your highness,’ I replied; ‘and it is the fear that they will be separated for ever that makes the man desperate and the girl miserable. If you will permit me, I should like to reunite them. Your highness has often expressed a wish to do me some kindness for the privilege I once had of saving your highness’s life. Will you now refuse me this man’s life?’ ‘Nay, I will not refuse you, Ben-Ahmed. But I do not see that my granting your request will reunite the father and child, unless, indeed, you are prepared to purchase the man.’

“‘I am prepared to do so, your highness,’ I said.

“‘In that case you are at liberty to go to the Bagnio and take him out. Here is my ring.’

“Now, Foster,” continued the Moor, drawing the ring in question from his vest-pocket, “take this. Show it to the captain of the guard at the Bagnio, who will admit you. Tell him that I sent you for one of the slaves. After that your own intelligence must guide you. Go, and God go with you.”

“I will do as you command, Ben-Ahmed,” said Foster; “but I must tell you frankly that I will not—”

“Silence!” thundered the Moor, with a look of ferocity which the amazed midshipman could not account for. “Have you not understood me?”

“Yes, sir, perfectly, but—”

“When a slave receives a command,” cried Ben-Ahmed in rising wrath, “it is his duty to obey in silence. Again I say—go!”

The middy bowed with feelings of indignation, but on reaching the door paused, and again essayed to speak.

“I give you fair warning, Ben-Ahmed, that I will not—”

“Silence!” again roared the Moor, seizing an ornamental box and hurling it violently at his slave, who, dipping his head, allowed it to go crashing against the wall, while he went out and shut the door.

“Well, old boy, I’m absolved from any allegiance to you,” he muttered, as he walked smartly down the garden walk towards the gate; “so if I do a good deal more than your bidding you mustn’t be surprised. But your sudden burst of anger is incomprehensible. However, that’s not my business now.”

Had any one been there to observe the Moor after the middy had taken his departure, he would have seen that the passion he had displayed evaporated as rapidly as it had arisen, and that he resumed the amber mouthpiece of his hookah with a peculiar smile and an air of calm contentment. Thereafter he ordered out his horse, mounted it in his usual dignified manner, and quietly rode away into the darkness of the night.

It may be observed here our middy had improved greatly in the matter of costume since his appointment to the rank of limner to Ben-Ahmed. The old canvas jacket, straw hat, etcetera, had given place to a picturesque Moorish costume which, with the middy’s fine figure and natural bearing, led people to suppose him a man of some note, so that his appearance was not unsuited to the mission he had in hand.

We need scarcely say that his spirit was greatly agitated, as he walked towards the town, by uncertainty as to how he ought to act in the present emergency, and his mind was much confused by the varied, and, to some extent, inexplicable incidents of the evening. His thoughts crystallised, however, as he went along, and