The Middy and the Moors: An Algerine Story. Robert Michael Ballantyne
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of speaking out, George Foster hit out, and the voice with the lantern went down into the lee scuppers!
Then, the glare of the lantern being removed from his eyes, George saw, by the light of the binnacle lamp, that his adversary, a savage-looking Turk—at least in dress—was gathering himself up for a rush, and that the steersman, a huge negro, was grinning from ear to ear.
“Go below!” said a deep stern voice in the Arabic tongue.
The effect of this order was to cause the Turk with the broken lantern to change his mind, and retire with humility, while it solemnised the negro steersman’s face almost miraculously.
The speaker was the captain of the vessel; a man of grave demeanour, herculean mould, and clothed in picturesque Eastern costume. Turning with quiet politeness to Foster, he asked him in broken French how he had come on board.
The youth explained in French quite as much broken as that of his interrogator.
“D’you speak English?” he added.
To this the captain replied in English, still more shattered than his French, that he could, “a ver’ leetil,” but that as he, (the youth), was a prisoner, there would be no occasion for speech at all, the proper attitude of a prisoner being that of absolute silence and obedience to orders.
“A prisoner!” ejaculated Foster, on recovering from the first shock of surprise. “Do you know that I am an officer in the Navy of his Majesty the King of Great Britain?”
A gleam of satisfaction lighted up the swarthy features of the Turk for a moment as he replied—
“Ver goot. Ransum all de more greater.” As he spoke, a call from the look-out at the bow of the vessel induced him to hurry forward.
At the same instant a slight hissing sound caused Foster to turn to the steersman, whose black face was alive with intelligence, while an indescribable hitch up of his chin seemed to beckon the youth to approach with caution.
Foster perceived at once that the man wished his communication, whatever it was, to be unobserved by any one; he therefore moved towards him as if merely to glance at the compass.
“Massa,” said the negro, without looking at Foster or changing a muscle of his now stolid visage, “you’s in a dreffle fix. Dis yer am a pirit. But I’s not a pirit, bress you! I’s wuss nor dat: I’s a awrful hyperkrite! an’ I wants to give you good adwice. Wotiver you doos, don’t resist. You’ll on’y git whacked if you do.”
“Thank you, Sambo. But what if I do resist in spite of being whacked?”
“Den you bery soon change your mind, das all. Moreober, my name’s not Sambo. It am Peter de Great.”
As he said so Peter the Great drew himself up to his full height, and he drew himself up to six feet four when he did that!
The captain coming aft at that moment put an abrupt end to the conversation. Two powerful Moorish seamen accompanied him. These, without uttering a word, seized Foster by the arms. In the strength of his indignation our middy was on the point of commencing a tremendous struggle, when Peter the Great’s “don’t resist,” and the emphasis with which it had been spoken, came to mind, and he suddenly gave in. His hands were tied behind his back, and he was led down into a small, dimly-lighted cabin, where, being permitted to sit down on a locker, he was left to his own reflections.
These were by no means agreeable, as may well be supposed, for he now knew that he had fallen into the hands of those pests, the Algerine pirates, who at that time infested the Mediterranean.
With the thoughtlessness of youth Foster had never troubled his mind much about the piratical city of Algiers. Of course he knew that it was a stronghold on the northern coast of Africa, inhabited by Moorish rascals, who, taking advantage of their position, issued from their port and pounced upon the merchantmen that entered the Mediterranean, confiscating their cargoes and enslaving their crews and passengers, or holding them to ransom. He also knew, or had heard, that some of the great maritime powers paid subsidies to the Dey of Algiers to allow the vessels of their respective nations to come and go unmolested, but he could scarcely credit the latter fact. It seemed to him, as indeed it was, preposterous. “For,” said he to the brother middy who had given him the information, “would not the nations whom the Dey had the impudence to tax join their fleets together, pay him an afternoon visit one fine day, and blow him and his Moors and Turks and city into a heap of rubbish?”
What the middy replied we have now no means of knowing, but certain it is that his information was correct, for some of the principal nations did, at that time, submit to the degradation of this tax, and they did not unite their fleets for the extinction of the pirates.
Poor George Foster now began to find out that the terrible truths which he had refused to believe were indeed great realities, and had now begun to affect himself. He experienced an awful sinking of the heart when it occurred to him that no one would ever know anything about his fate, for the little boat would be sure to be found bottom up, sooner or later, and it would of course be assumed that he had been drowned.
Shall it be said that the young midshipman was weak, or wanting in courage, because he bowed his head and wept when the full force of his condition came home to him? Nay, verily, for there was far more of grief for the prolonged agony that was in store for his mother and sister than for the fate that awaited himself. He prayed as well as wept. “God help me—and them!” he exclaimed aloud. The prayer was brief but sincere,—perhaps the more sincere because so brief. At all events it was that acknowledgment of utter helplessness which secures the help of the Almighty Arm.
Growing weary at last, he stretched himself on the locker, and, with the facility of robust health, fell into a sound sleep. Youth, strength, and health are not easily incommoded by wet garments! Besides, the weather was unusually warm at the time.
How long he slept he could not tell, but the sun was high when he awoke, and his clothes were quite dry. Other signs there were that he had slept long, such as the steadiness of the breeze and the more regular motion of the vessel, which showed that the gale was over and the sea going down. There was also a powerful sensation in what he styled his “bread-basket”—though it might, with equal truth, have been called his meat-and-vegetable basket—which told him more eloquently than anything else of the lapse of time.
Rising from his hard couch, and endeavouring to relieve the aching of the bound arms by change of position, he observed that the cabin hatch was open, and that nothing prevented his going on deck, if so disposed. Accordingly, he ascended, though with some difficulty, owing to his not having been trained to climb a ladder in a rough sea without the use of his hands.
A Moor, he observed, had taken his friend Peter the Great’s place at the tiller, and the captain stood near the stern observing a passing vessel. A stiffish but steady breeze carried them swiftly over the waves, which, we might say, laughingly reflected the bright sunshine and the deep-blue sky. Several vessels of different rigs and nationalities were sailing in various directions, both near and far away.
Going straight to the captain with an air of good-humoured sang froid which was peculiar to him, Foster said—
“Captain, don’t you think I’ve had these bits of rope-yarn on my wrists long enough? I’m not used, you see, to walking the deck without the use of my hands; and a heavy lurch, as like as not, would send me slap into the lee scuppers—sailor though I be. Besides, I won’t jump overboard without leave, you may rely upon that. Neither will I attempt, single-handed, to fight your whole crew, so you needn’t be afraid.”
The stern Moor evidently understood part of this speech, and he was so tickled with the last remark that his habitual gravity gave place to the faintest flicker of a smile, while a twinkle gleamed for a moment in his eye. Only for a moment, however. Pointing over the side, he bade his prisoner “look.”
Foster looked, and beheld in the far distance a three-masted vessel that seemed to bear a strong resemblance to a British man-of-war.
“You promise,” said the captain, “not shout or ro–ar.”
“I promise,”