“Geo’ge, come wid me,” said Peter the Great one afternoon, with face so solemn that the heart of the young midshipman beat faster as he followed his friend.
They were in Ben-Ahmed’s garden at the time—for the middy had been returned to his owner after a night in the common prison, and a threat of much severer treatment if he should ever again venture to lay his infidel hands on one of the faithful.
Having led the middy to the familiar summer house, where most of their earnest or important confabulations were held, Peter sat down and groaned.
“What’s wrong now?” asked the middy, with anxious looks.
“Oh! Geo’ge, eberyt’ing’s wrong,” he replied, flinging himself down on a rustic seat with a reckless air and rolling his eyes horribly. “Eberyt’ing’s wrong. De world’s all wrong togidder—upside down and inside out.”
The middy might have laughed at Peter’s expression if he had not been terribly alarmed.
“Come, Peter, tell me. Is Hester safe?”
“I don’ know, Geo’ge.”
“Don’t know! Why d’you keep me in such anxiety? Speak, man, speak! What has happened?”
“How kin I speak, Geo’ge, w’en I’s a’most busted wid runnin’ out here to tell you?”
The perspiration that stood on Peter’s sable brow, and the heaving of his mighty chest, told eloquently of the pace at which he had been running.
“Dis is de way ob it, Geo’ge. I had it all fro’ de lips ob Sally herself, what saw de whole t’ing.” As the narrative which Peter the Great had to tell is rather too long to be related in his own “lingo,” we will set it down in ordinary language.
One day while Hester was, as usual, passing her father, and in the very act of dropping the customary supply of food, she observed that one of the slaves had drawn near and was watching her with keen interest. From the slave’s garb and bearing any one at all acquainted with England could have seen at a glance that he was a British seaman, though hard service and severe treatment, with partial starvation, had changed him much. He was in truth the stout sailor-like man who had spoken a few words to Foster the day he landed in Algiers, and who had contemptuously asserted his utter ignorance of gardening.
The slaves, we need hardly say, were not permitted to hold intercourse with each other for fear of their combining to form plans of rebellion and escape, but it was beyond the power of their drivers to be perpetually on the alert, so that sometimes they did manage to exchange a word or two without being observed.
That afternoon it chanced that Sommers had to carry a stone to a certain part of the wall. It was too heavy for one man to lift, the sailor was therefore ordered to help him. While bearing the burden towards the wall, the following whispered conversation took place.
“I say, old man,” observed the sailor, “the little girl that gives you biscuits every day is no more a nigger than I am.”
“Right!” whispered the merchant anxiously, for he had supposed that no one had observed the daily gift; “she is my daughter.”
“I guessed as much by the cut o’ your jibs. But she’s in danger, for I noticed that one o’ the drivers looked at her suspiciously to-day, and once suspicion is roused the villains never rest. Is there no means of preventing her coming this way to-morrow?”
“None. I don’t even know where she comes from or goes to. God help her! If suspected, she is lost, for she will be sure to come to-morrow.”
“Don’t break down, old man; they’ll observe you. If she is taken are you willing to fight?”
“Yes,” answered the merchant sternly.
“I am with you, then. Your name?”
“Sommers. Yours?”
“Brown.”
A driver had been coming towards them, so that the last few words had been spoken in low whispers. A sharp cut of the whip on the shoulders of each showed that the driver had observed them talking. They received it in absolute silence and without any outward display of feeling. To that extent, at all events, they had both been “tamed.”
But the stout seaman had been for many weeks acting a part. At first, like Sommers, he had been put in heavy irons on account of his violence and ferocity; but after many weeks of childlike submission on his part, the irons were removed. Despite the vigilance of the guards, a plot had been hatched by the gang to which Brown belonged, and it was almost, though not quite, ripe for execution when the events we are describing occurred. Poor Hester’s action next day precipitated matters and caused the failure of the plot—at least to some extent.
She had gone as usual with Sally to visit the slave-gang, and had dropped her biscuits, when her anxious father said, in a low but hurried voice, “Pass quickly, and don’t come again for some time!”
Hester involuntarily stopped.
“Darling father!” she said, restraining herself with difficulty from leaping into his arms, “why—oh! why am I not—”
She had only got thus far when the janissary, whose suspicions had been aroused, pounced upon her, and, seizing her by the wrist, looked keenly into her face.
“Ho! ho!” he exclaimed, glancing from the girl to her sire, “what mystery have we here? Come, we must investigate this.”
Poor Hester winced from the pain of the rude soldier’s grip as he proceeded to drag her away. Her father, seeing that further concealment was impossible, and that final separation was inevitable, became desperate. With the bound of an enraged tiger he sprang on the soldier and throttled him. Both being powerful men they fell on the ground in a deadly struggle, at which sight Hester could only look on with clasped hands in helpless terror.
But the British seaman was at hand. He had feared that some such mischief would arise. Seeing that two other soldiers were running to the aid of their fallen comrade, he suddenly gave the signal for the revolt of the slaves. It was premature. Taken by surprise, the half-hearted among the conspirators paid no attention to it, while the timid stood more or less bewildered. Only a few of the resolute and reckless obeyed the call, but these furnished full employment for their guards, for, knowing that failure meant death, if not worse, they fought like fiends.
Meanwhile the first of the two soldiers who came running, sword in hand, towards Sommers, was met by Brown. With a piece of wood in his left hand, that worthy parried the blow that was delivered at his head. At the same time he sent his right fist into the countenance of his adversary with such force that he became limp and dropped like an empty topcoat. This was fortunate, for the companion janissary was close to him when he wheeled round. The blazing look of the seaman, however, induced so much caution in the Turk that, instead of using his sword, he drew a long pistol from his girdle and levelled it. Brown leaped upon him, caught the pistol as it exploded just in time to turn the muzzle aside, wrenched the weapon from his foe’s grasp, and brought the butt of it down with such a whack on his head that it laid him beside his comrade.
Turning quickly to the still struggling pair, he saw that the janissary was black in the face, and that Sommers was compressing his throat with both hands and had his knee on his stomach, while Hester and Sally were looking on horrified, but hopeful. At the same time he saw fresh soldiers running up the street to reinforce the guard.
“Hester,” he said sharply, and seizing the girl’s hand, “come, bolt with me. I’ve knowed your father a good while. Quick!”
“Impossible!” she cried, drawing back. “I will not leave my father now!”
“You’ll have to leave him anyhow,” cried the sailor. “You can do him no good. If free you might—”
A shout at the moment caused him to glance round. It proceeded both from slaves and guards, for both at the same moment caught sight of the approach of the reinforcements. The former scattered in all directions, and the latter gave chase, while pistol-shots and yells rent the air.
Instead of wasting more breath in useless entreaty, Brown seized the light form of Hester in his arms and ran with her to the ramparts. In the confusion of the general skirmish he was not observed—or, if observed, unheeded—by any one but Sally, who followed him in anxious haste, thinking that the man was mad, for there could be no possible way of escape, she thought, in that direction. She was wrong. There was method in Brown’s madness. He had for a long time previously studied all the possibilities with reference to the meditated uprising, and had laid down for himself several courses which he might pursue according to the success, failure, or partial failure of their plans.
There was one part of the rampart they were engaged in repairing at that time which had given way and partly fallen into the ditch outside. The portion of the wall still remaining had been further demolished in order that a more secure foundation might be laid. The broken wall here had been but partially rebuilt, and was not nearly as high as the completed wall. A jump from this might be possible to a strong active man if the ground below were soft, or even level—though the risk of broken limbs was considerable.
Brown had observed, however, that at this place a small tree grew out from a mass of rock which had been incorporated as part of the wall, and that just below it there stood a huge bush of the cactus kind. To these two he had made up his mind to intrust himself in the event of things coming to the worst.
Accordingly it was to this part of the rampart he ran with Hester in his strong arms. We have said that Sally ran after the sailor with anxiety, but that feeling was deepened into dismay when she saw him approach the portion of the wall just described, and she gave out one of her loudest coffee-pestle gasps when she saw him jump straight off the wall without a moment’s hesitation.
Craning her neck and gazing downward, she saw the sailor go crashing through the little tree and alight with a squash in the heart of the watery cactus, out of which he leaped with such agility that Sally was led to exclaim under her breath—
“Hoh! don’t de spikes make ’im jump!”
Whether it was the spikes or other influences we cannot tell, but certain it is that Brown did jump with wonderful activity, considering the burden he carried, dashed up the opposite bank, cut across country like a hunted hare, and found shelter in a neighbouring wood before the revolt in the city was completely quelled.
Here he pulled up and set the terrified Hester down.
“You’ll excuse me, miss,” he said pantingly, as he wiped his brows with the sleeve of his shirt—which garment, with a pair of canvas trousers, a grass hat, and thin carpet shoes, constituted his costume. “I’m wery sorry to carry you off agin’ your will, but you’ll thank me for it yet, maybe, for if I had left you behind, you couldn’t have helped your poor father, and they’d have took you off for sartin to be a slave. Now, d’ye see, if you an’ I manage to escape, there’s no sayin’ what we may do in the way o’ raisin’ ransom to buy back your father. Anyway, he has been so anxious about you, an’ afraid o’ your bein’ catched, an’ the terrible fate in store for you if you are, that I made up my mind for his sake to carry you off.”
To this explanation Hester listened with varying feelings.
“I believe, from the honesty of your look and tone,” she said, at last, “that you have acted for the best, whether wisely or not remains to be seen; but I thank you heartily for your intentions, and especially for your kind feelings towards my dear father; but now I must claim the right to use my own judgment. I will return to the city and succour my father, or perish with him. Yet, rest assured, I will never forget the brave seaman who has so nobly risked his life to save me. Your name is—”
“Brown, miss—at your service.”
“Well, good-bye, Brown, and God’s blessing attend you,” she said, extending her black little hand.
The seaman gently took it and gave it a timid pressure, as if he feared to crush it in his brawny hand.
“I’ll shake hands with you,” he said, “but I won’t say good-bye, for I’ll steer back to the city with you.”
“Brown, this is sheer madness. There is no reason in what you propose to do. You cannot help me by sacrificing yourself.”
“That’s exactly what yer father would say to you, miss, if he was alongside of us—‘You can’t help me by sacrificin’ of yerself.’ Then, p’r’aps he would foller up that obsarvation by sayin’, ‘but you may an’ can help me if you go wi’ that sailor-friend o’ mine, who may be rough and ready, but is sartinly true-blue, who knows the coast hereaway an’ all its hidin’-places, an’ who’ll wentur his life to do me a good turn, cause why? I once wentured my life to do him a good turn o’ the same kind.’”
“Is this true, Brown? Did you know my father before meeting him here; and did he really render you some service?”
“Yes, indeed, miss; I have sailed in one o’ your father’s wessels, an’ once I was washed overboard by a heavy sea, and he flung over a lifebuoy arter me, and jumped into the water himself to keep me afloat till a boat picked us up, for I couldn’t swim. Now, look ’ere, miss, if you’ll consent to sail under my orders for a short spell, you’ll have a better chance o’ doin’ your father a sarvice than by returnin’ to that nest o’ pirates. Moreover, you’ll have to make up your mind pretty quick, for we’ve lost too much time already.”
“Go on, Brown, I will trust you,” said Hester, placing her hand in that of the seaman, who, without another word, led her swiftly into the bush.
Now, all this, and a great deal more was afterwards related by Hester herself to her friends; but at the time all that was known to Sally—the only witness of the exploit—was that Hester Sommers had been carried off in the manner related by an apparently friendly British sailor. This she told soon after to Peter the Great, and this was the substance of the communication which Peter the Great, with glaring eyes and bated breath, made to George Foster, who received it with feelings and expressions that varied amazingly as the narrative proceeded.
“Is that all?” he asked, when the negro at length came to a decided stop.
“Das all—an’ it’s enuff too! ’Pears to me you’s not so much cut up about dis leetle business as I ’spected you would be.”
“I am anxious, of course, about Hester,” returned the middy; “but at the same time greatly relieved, first, to know that she is in the hands of a respectable British sailor; and, second, that she is not in the hands of these bloodthirsty piratical Moors. But what about her father? Nothing more, I suppose, is known about his fate?”
“Not’ing, on’y it’s as sure as if we did know it. If his carcass isn’t on de hooks by dis time it’ll soon be.”
As the negro spoke the midshipman started up with flashing eyes, exclaimed angrily, “It shall never be,” and ran out of the bower.
Entering the house, he went straight to Ben-Ahmed’s private chamber, which he entered boldly, without even knocking at the door.
The Moor was seated cross-legs on a mat, solacing himself, as usual, with a pipe. He was not a little surprised, and at first was inclined to be angry, at the abrupt entrance of his slave.
“Ben-Ahmed,” said the middy, with vehemence, “the father of the English girl you are so fond of—and whom I love—is in terrible danger, and if you are a true man—as I firmly believe you are—you will save him.”
The Moor smiled very slightly at the youth’s vehemence, pointed with the mouthpiece of his hookah to a cushion, and bade him sit down and tell him all about it.
The middy at once squatted à la Turk, not on the cushion, but on the floor, in front of his master, and, with earnest voice and gesture, related the story which Peter the Great had just told him.
Ben-Ahmed was visibly affected by it.
“But how can I save him?” he asked, with a look of perplexity.
“Did you not once save the life of the Dey?” asked Foster.
“I did. How came you to know that?”
“I heard it from Peter the Great, who aided you on the occasion. And he told me that the Dey has often since then offered to do you some good turn, but that you have always declined.”
“That is true,” said Ben-Ahmed, with the look of a man into whose mind a new idea had been introduced.
“Yes, something may be done in that way, and it would grieve me that the father of my poor little Hester should die. I will try. Go, have my horse saddled, and send Peter to me.”
Our midshipman bounded rather than rose from the floor, and uttered an irresistible, “God bless you,” as he vanished through the doorway on his errand.
“Peter,” he cried—encountering that worthy as he ran—“we’ll manage it! Go to Ben-Ahmed! He wants you—quick! I’m off to fetch his horse.”
Foster was much too anxious to have the thing done quickly to give the order to the head groom. He ran direct to the stable, and, choosing the fleetest of the Moor’s Arab steeds, quickly put on its crimson saddle, with its un-European peaks before and behind, and the other gay portions of harness with which Easterns are wont to caparison their horses.
In a wonderfully short space of time he had the steed round to the front door, and sent another slave to tell his master that it was ready.
The Moor had also caparisoned himself, if we may say so, for the intended visit, and he had evidently done it in haste. Nevertheless, his gait was stately, and his movements were slow, as he gravely mounted the horse and rode away. The impatience of the middy was somewhat relieved, however, when he saw that Ben-Ahmed, on reaching the main road, put spurs to his horse, and rode towards the city at full gallop.
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |