There are some things in this world so unbelievable that even when we know them to be true we still remain in a state of semi-scepticism.
When our unfortunate midshipman awoke next morning, raised himself on his elbow, and felt that all his bones and muscles were stiff and pained from lying on a stone floor, it was some time before he could make out where he was, or recall the events of the last few days. The first thing that revived his sluggish memory was the scuttling away, in anxious haste, of a scorpion that had sought and found comfortable quarters during the night under the lee of his right leg. Starting up, he crushed the reptile with his foot.
“You will get used to that,” said a quietly sarcastic voice with a slightly foreign accent, close to him.
The speaker was a middle-aged man with grey hair, hollow cheeks, and deep sunken eyes.
“They trouble us a little at first,” he continued, “but, as I have said, we get used to them. It is long since I cared for scorpions.”
“Have you, then, been long here?” asked Foster.
“Yes. Twelve years.”
“A prisoner?—a slave?” asked the midshipman anxiously.
“A prisoner, yes. A slave, yes—a mummified man; a dead thing with life enough to work, but not yet quite a brute, more’s the pity, for then I should not care! But here I have been for twelve years—long, long years! It has seemed to me an eternity.”
“It is a long time to be a slave. God help you, poor man!” exclaimed Foster.
“You will have to offer that prayer for yourself, young man,” returned the other; “you will need help more than I. At first we are fools, but time makes us wise. It even teaches Englishmen that they are not unconquerable.”
The man spoke pointedly and in a harsh sarcastic tone which tended to check Foster’s new-born compassion; nevertheless, he continued to address his fellow-sufferer in a sympathetic spirit.
“You are not an Englishman, I think,” he said, “though you speak our language well.”
“No, I am French, but my wife is English.”
“Your wife! Is she here also?”
“Thank God—no,” replied the Frenchman, with a sudden burst of seriousness which was evidently genuine. “She is in England, trying to make up the sum of my ransom. But she will never do it. She is poor. She has her daughter to provide for besides herself, and we have no friends. No, I have hoped for twelve years, and hope is now dead—nearly dead.”
The overwhelming thoughts that this information raised in Foster’s mind rendered him silent for a few minutes. The idea of the poor wife in England, toiling for twelve years almost hopelessly to ransom her husband, filled his susceptible heart with pity. Then the thought of his mother and Minnie—who were also poor—toiling for years to procure his ransom, filled him with oppressive dread. To throw the depressing subject off his mind, he asked how the Frenchman had guessed that he was an Englishman before he had heard him speak.
“I know your countrymen,” he answered, “by their bearing. Besides, you have been muttering in your sleep about ‘Mother and Minnie.’ If the latter is, as I suppose, your sweetheart—your fiancée—the sooner you get her out of your mind the better, for you will never see her more.”
Again Foster felt repelled by the harsh cynicism of the man, yet at the same time he felt strangely attracted to him, a fact which he showed more by his tones than his words when he said—
“My friend, you are not yet enrolled among the infallible prophets. Whether I shall ever again see those whom I love depends upon the will of God. But I don’t wonder that with your sad experience you should give way to despair. For myself, I will cling to the hope that God will deliver me, and I would advise you to do the same.”
“How many I have seen, who had the sanguine temperament, like yours, awakened and crushed,” returned the Frenchman. “See, there is one of them,” he added, pointing to a cell nearly opposite, in which a form was seen lying on its back, straight and motionless. “That young man was such another as you are when he first came here.”
“Is he dead?” asked the midshipman, with a look of pity.
“Yes—he died in the night while you slept. It was attending to him in his last moments that kept me awake. He was nothing to me but a fellow-slave and sufferer, but I was fond of him. He was hard to conquer, but they managed it at last, for they beat him to death.”
“Then they did not conquer him,” exclaimed Foster with a gush of indignant pity. “To beat a man to death is to murder, not to conquer. But you called him a young man. The corpse that lies there has thin grey hair and a wrinkled brow.”
“Nevertheless he was young—not more than twenty-seven—but six years of this life brought him to what you see. He might have lived longer, as I have, had he been submissive!”
Before Foster could reply, the grating of a rusty key in the door caused a movement as well as one or two sighs and groans among the slaves, for the keepers had come to summon them to work. The Frenchman rose and followed the others with a hook of sullen indifference. Most of them were without fetters, but a few strong young men wore chains and fetters more or less heavy, and Foster judged from this circumstance, as well as their expressions, that these were rebellious subjects whom it was difficult to tame.
Much to his surprise, the youth found that he was not called on to join his comrades in misfortune, but was left behind in solitude. While casting about in his mind as to what this could mean, he observed in a corner the two rolls of black bread which he had received the previous night, and which, not being hungry at the time, he had neglected. As a healthy appetite was by that time obtruding itself on his attention, he took hold of one and began to eat. It was not attractive, but, not being particular, he consumed it. He even took up the other and ate that also, after which he sighed and wished for more! As there was no more to be had, he went to the fountain in the court and washed his breakfast down with water.
About two hours later the door was again opened, and a man in the uniform of a janissary entered. Fixing a keen glance on the young captive, he bade him in broken English rise and follow.
By this time the lesson of submission had been sufficiently impressed on our hero to induce him to accord prompt obedience. He followed his guide into the street, where he walked along until they arrived at a square, on one side of which stood a large mosque. Here marketing was being carried on to a considerable extent, and, as he threaded his way through the various groups, he could not help being impressed with the extreme simplicity of the mode of procedure, for it seemed to him that all a man wanted to enable him to set himself up in trade was a few articles of any kind—old or new, it did not matter which—with a day’s lease of about four feet square of the market pavement. There the retail trader squatted, smoked his pipe, and calmly awaited the decrees of Fate!
One of these small traders he noted particularly while his conductor stopped to converse with a friend. He was an old man, evidently a descendant of Ishmael, and clothed in what seemed to be a ragged cast-off suit that had belonged to Abraham or Isaac. He carried his shop on his arm in the shape of a basket, out of which he took a little bit of carpet, and spread it close to where they stood. On this he sat down and slowly extracted from his basket, and spread on the ground before him, a couple of old locks, several knives, an old brass candlestick, an assortment of rusty keys, a flat-iron, and half a dozen other articles of household furniture. Before any purchases were made, however, the janissary moved on, and Foster had to follow.
Passing through two or three tortuous and narrow lanes, which, however, were thickly studded with shops—that is, with holes in the wall, in which merchandise was displayed outside as well as in—they came to a door which was strictly guarded. Passing the guards, they found themselves in a court, beyond which they could see another court which looked like a hall of justice—or injustice, as the case might be. What strengthened Foster in the belief that such was its character, was the fact that, at the time they entered, an officer was sitting cross-legged on a bench, smoking comfortably, while in front of him a man lay on his face with his soles turned upwards, whilst an executioner was applying to them the punishment of the bastinado. The culprit could not have been a great offender, for, after a sharp yell or two, he was allowed to rise and limp away.
Our hero was led before the functionary who looked like a judge. He regarded the middy with no favour. We should have recorded that Foster, when blown out to sea, as already described, had leaped on the pirate’s deck without coat or vest. As he was still in this dismantled condition, and had neither been washed nor combed since that event occurred, his appearance at this time was not prepossessing.
“Who are you, and where do you come from?” was the first question put by an interpreter.
Of course Foster told the exact truth about himself. After he had done so, the judge and interpreter consulted together, glancing darkly at their prisoner the while. Then the judge smiled significantly and nodded his head. The interpreter turned to a couple of negroes who stood ready to execute any commands, apparently, and said a few words to them. They at once took hold of Foster and fastened a rope to his wrist. As they did so, the interpreter turned to the poor youth and said—
“What you tell is all lies.”
“Indeed, indeed, it is not,” exclaimed the midshipman fervently.
“Go!” said the interpreter.
A twitch from the rope at the same moment recalled our hero to his right mind; and the remembrance of the poor wretch who had just suffered the bastinado, and also of Peter the Great’s oft-repeated reference to “whacking,” had the effect of crushing the spirit of rebellion which had just begun to arise in his breast. Thus he was conducted ignominiously into the street and back to the market-square, where he was made to stand with a number of other men, who, like himself, appeared to be slaves. For what they were there waiting he could not tell, but he was soon enlightened, as after half an hour, a dignified-looking Moor in flowing apparel came forward, examined one of the captives, felt his muscles, made him open his mouth, and otherwise show his paces, after which he paid a sum of money for him and a negro attendant led him away.
“I’m to be sold as a slave,” Foster involuntarily groaned aloud.
“Like all the rest of us,” growled a stout sailor-like man, who stood at his elbow.
Foster turned quickly to look at him, but a sudden movement in the group separated them after the first glance at each other.
By way of relieving his overcharged feelings he tried to interest himself in the passers-by. This, however, he found very difficult, until he observed a sturdy young Cabyle coming along with two enormous feathery bundles suspended over his right shoulder, one hanging before, the other behind. To his surprise these bundles turned out to be living fowls, tied by the legs and hanging with their heads down. There could not, he thought, have been fewer than thirty or forty birds in each bundle, and it occurred to him at once that they had probably been carried to market thus from some distance in the country. At all events, the young Cabyle seemed to be dusty and warm with walking. He even seemed fatigued, for, when about to pass the group of slaves, he stopped to rest and flung down his load. The shock of the fall must have snapped a number of legs, for a tremendous cackle burst from the bundles as they struck the ground.
This raised the thought in Foster’s mind that he could hope for no mercy where such wanton cruelty was not even deemed worthy of notice by the bystanders; but the sound of a familiar voice put all other thoughts to flight.
“Dis way, massa, you’s sure to git fuss-rate fellers here. We brought ’im in on’y yesterday—all fresh like new-laid eggs.”
The speaker was Peter the Great. The man to whom he spoke was a Moor of tall stature and of somewhat advanced years.
Delighted more than he could express, in his degraded and forlorn condition, at this unlooked-for meeting with his black friend, Foster was about to claim acquaintance, when the negro advanced to the group among whom he stood, exclaiming loudly—
“Here dey am, massa, dis way.” Then turning suddenly on Foster with a fierce expression, he shouted, “What you lookin’ at, you babby-faced ijit? Hab you nebber seen a handsome nigger before dat you look all t’under-struck of a heap? Can’t you hold your tongue, you chatterin’ monkey?” and with that, although Foster had not uttered a syllable, the negro fetched him a sounding smack on the cheek, to the great amusement of the bystanders.
Well was it then for our middy that it flashed into his mind that Peter the Great, being the most astounding “hyperkrite” on earth, was at work in his deceptive way, else would he have certainly retaliated and brought on himself swift punishment—for slaves were not permitted to resent injuries or create riots. As it was, he cast down his eyes, flushed scarlet, and restrained himself.
“Now, massa,” continued the negro, turning to the fine, sailor-like man who had spoken to Foster a few minutes before, “here’s a nice-lookin’ man. Strong an’ healfy—fit for anyt’ing no doubt.”
“Ask him if he understands gardening,” said the Moor.
We may remark, in passing, that Peter the Great and his owner had a peculiar mode of carrying on conversation. The latter addressed his slave in the Lingua Franca, while Peter replied in his own nigger English, which the Moor appeared to understand perfectly. Why they carried it on thus we cannot explain, but it is our duty to record the fact.
“Understand gardening!” exclaimed the sailor, in supreme contempt, “I should think not. Wot d’you take me for, you black baboon! Do I look like a gardener? Ploughin’ an’ diggin’ I knows nothin’ about wotsomever, though I have ploughed the waves many a day, an’ I’m considered a fust-rate hand at diggin’ into wittles.”
“Oh! massa, das de man for your money! Buy him, quick!” cried the negro, with a look of earnest entreaty at his master. “He say he’s ploughed many a day, an’’s a fuss-rate hand at diggin’. Do buy ’im!”
But the Moor would not buy him. Either he understood the sailor’s language to some extent, or that inveterate obstinacy of which Peter had made mention as being part of his character was beginning to assert itself.
“Ask this one what he knows about it,” said the Moor, pointing to a thin young man, whose sprightly expression showed that he had not yet fully realised what fate was in store for him in the pirates’ stronghold.
“Wich is it you mean, massa, dis one?” said Peter, purposely mistaking and turning to Foster. “Oh! you needn’t ask about him. He not wuff his salt. I could tell him at a mile off for a lazy, useless feller. Gib more trouble dan he’s wuff. Dere now, dis looks a far better man,” he added, laying hold of the thin sprightly youth and turning him round. “What d’ye t’ink ob dis one?”
“I told you to ask that one,” replied the Moor sharply.
“Can you do gardenin’, you feller?” asked Peter.
“Oui, oui—un peu,” replied the youth, who happened to be French, but understood English.
“None ob your wee-wees an’ poo-poos to me. Can’t you speak English?”
“Oui, yes, I gardin ver’ leetle.”
“Jus’ so. Das de man for us, massa, if you won’t hab de oder. I likes de look ob ’im. I don’t t’ink he’ll be hard on de wittles, an’ he’s so t’in dat he won’t puspire much when he works in de sun in summer. Do buy him, massa.”
But “massa” would not buy him, and looked hard for some time at our hero.
“I see how it am,” said the negro, growing sulky. “You set your heart on dat useless ijit. Do come away, massa, it ’ud break my heart to lib wid sich a feller.”
This seemed to clinch the matter, for the Moor purchased the objectionable slave, ordered Peter the Great to bring him along, and left the market-place.
“Didn’t I tell you I’s de greatest hyperkrite as ever was born?” said Peter, in a low voice, when sufficiently far in rear to prevent being overheard by his master.
“You certainly did,” replied Foster, who felt something almost like satisfaction at this change in his fate; “you are the most perfect hypocrite that I ever came across, and I am not sorry for it. Only I hope you won’t deceive your friends.”
“Honour bright!” said the negro, with a roll of the eyes and a solemnity of expression that told far more than words could express.
“Can you tell me,” asked the middy, as they walked along, “what has become of that fine-looking girl that was captured with her father and mother by your captain?”
“Don’t say my captain, sar,” replied Peter sternly. “He no captain ob mine. I was on’y loaned to him. But I knows nuffin ob de gall. Bery likely she’s de Dey’s forty-second wife by dis time. Hush! look sulky,” he added quickly, observing that his master was looking back.
Poor Foster found himself under the necessity of following his black friend’s lead, and acting the “hyperkrite,” in order to prevent their friendship being discovered. He did it with a bad grace, it is true, but felt that, for his friend’s sake if not his own, he was bound to comply. So he put on an expression which his cheery face had not known since that period of infancy when his frequent demands for sugar were not gratified. Wheels worked within wheels, however, for he felt so disgusted with the part he had to play that he got into the sulks naturally!
“Fuss-rate!” whispered Peter, “you’s a’most as good as myself.”
By this time they had reached one of the eastern gates of the city. It was named Bab-Azoun. As they passed through it the negro told his brother-slave that the large iron hooks which ornamented the wall there were used for the purpose of having criminals cast on them; the wretched victims being left to hang there, by whatever parts of their bodies chanced to catch on the hooks, till they died.
Having reached the open country outside the walls, they walked along a beautiful road, from which were obtained here and there splendid views of the surrounding country. On one side lay the blue Mediterranean, with its picturesque boats and shipping, and the white city descending to the very edge of the sea; on the other side rose the wooded slopes of a suburb named Mustapha, with numerous white Moorish houses in the midst of luxuriant gardens, where palms, bananas, cypresses, aloes, lemon-trees, and orange groves perfumed the balmy air, and afforded grateful shade from the glare of the African sun.
Into one of those gardens the Moor at last turned and led the way to a house, which, if not in itself beautiful according to European notions of architecture, was at least rendered cheerful with whitewash, and stood in the midst of a beauty and luxuriance of vegetation that could not be surpassed.
Opening a door in this building, the Turk entered. His slaves followed, and Foster, to his surprise, found what may be styled a miniature garden in the courtyard within.
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