At Aboukir and Acre Part 30

Edgar had, on reaching London, stopped at the Golden Cross for the night, and the first thing in the morning taken a hackney-coach and driven at once to Dulwich, where his father had taken a house close to that of his brother. It was now the first week in December. Edgar drove up to the entrance to the garden in which the house stood, paid the coachman, and then rang the bell. The servant opened it, and looked somewhat surprised at seeing a young naval officer standing there.

"Are Mr. and Mrs. Blagrove in?" he asked.

"Yes, sir, they are both in."

"All right!" he said; "show me to the room where they are. You need not announce me; I am their son."

The girl at once led the way into the house, and Edgar walked into the room, where the party were seated at breakfast. Mr. Blagrove was sitting with his back to the door, and did not see him come in. His mother and sisters looked up in surprise as he entered unannounced. It was two years since they had seen him, and they scarcely recognized in the tall young officer the lad whom they had last seen at Alexandria on their departure for England. Mr. Blagrove, on seeing their eyes fixed on the door, turned round, and leapt to his feet.

"My dear Edgar," he exclaimed as he warmly embraced him, "where have you sprung from? Your last letter was from Smyrna three months ago. Mother,"

he went on, turning round, "let me introduce your boy to you."

For some minutes there was little coherent conversation.

"Now, sit down, Edgar," Mr. Blagrove said at last, "and let us hear what unexpected chance has brought you home. I suppose, as you are in uniform, that you have not left the service."

"Not at all, sir; I am home on three months' leave, having come home in the _Suzanne_, a brig belonging to yourself."

"Belonging to me!" Mr. Blagrove said in astonishment. "What on earth do you mean?"

"I bought her in your name, father, and you will have a bill presented in the course of a couple of months or so for eight hundred and fifty pounds. At any rate you will not be a loser by her. There will be from six to seven hundred pounds, I cannot say how much exactly, for the cargo was not weighed, but it is somewhat over two hundred tons at three pounds a ton, and there is, besides, a hundred pounds for the pa.s.sage-money of twenty invalid sailors, so you see you get the ship for practically about a hundred pounds, to which there will have to be added the payment of a captain, mate, and ten Italian sailors. She was valued by a court of naval officers at eight hundred and fifty pounds, that being the price they considered that she might fetch if sold there. I should say that she is worth quite double that. She is about three hundred tons, and carried six guns, so at any rate you are likely to make a thousand by the transaction.

"Then I have to inform you that, at Sir Sidney Smith's request, which I have no doubt will be complied with, you will be appointed, by the president of the prize court, agent for the sale of what Eastern goods there are on board her. The cargo is made up of European goods, dried fruits, and Eastern goods. They are what we captured from the pirates, and Sir Sidney Smith suggested that it would be as well to intrust to one who knew the value of the Eastern goods the work of selling them privately, instead of putting them up to auction, and he requested that the agency should be given to you. Wilkinson, who has come home with me, is going to see the president of the prize court this morning, and he is to come up here afterwards. Of course Sir Sidney did it chiefly to oblige me, but he thought that the goods would really fetch more if sold in that way. He said, of course, that you would get a commission on the sale, and as you said in the last letter that I received that you were getting very sick of having nothing to do, I thought you might like the job."

"Certainly I should like it, Edgar, and that purchase of the ship seems a very satisfactory one, though, of course, the profit will be yours and not mine, as I had nothing to do with it."

"Oh, yes, it is your business, father; she is bought with your money, and I am glad that I have been able to do something for the firm. I shall soon be getting my prize money, which will keep me in cash for a very long time."

"We won't argue about that now, Edgar. At any rate I shall be glad to see to the sale of these Eastern goods, though, of course, it will be but a small thing."

"I don't know, father. I think that it will be rather a large thing. At any rate there is something between eighty and a hundred tons of them."

"Between eighty and a hundred tons!" his father replied. "You mean with the dried fruits, of course."

"Not at all, father! The fruits will be sold in the ordinary way in the prize court."

"Then, what can these things be?"

"I should say the great proportion of them are carpets--Turkish, Persian, and Syrian."

"A hundred tons of such carpets as those, Edgar, would be worth a very large sum, indeed; surely you must be mistaken?"

"It's the acc.u.mulation of years of piracy, father; perhaps from hundreds of ships captured by those scoundrels. But, of course, they are not all carpets. There are silks, muslins, embroidered robes, Egyptian scarves and manufactures, and other sorts of things. We have not opened above a dozen bales out of some twelve hundred, and have, therefore, no idea of the relative value of the others. We were a tender of the _Tigre's_, our craft being a prize taken by her, and all of us, officers and men, being borne on her books, the whole ship divides. Still, if the things are worth as much as we think, it will bring us in a handsome sum. And there is, besides, twelve thousand five hundred in cash, the proceeds of the sale of the vessels we captured; and we also share with the other ships under Sir Sidney Smith's command in the value of the vessels and cargoes they have captured as they tried to reach an Egyptian port. They say they were worth something like forty thousand, of which the _Tigre's_ share will be about half."

"Well, Edgar, if there are a hundred tons of such goods as you describe, your cargo must be a valuable one indeed. Of course I can tell nothing about it until I see them opened. At any rate it will give me occupation, and I should say a good paying occupation, for some time."

"I suppose you got that letter, father, that I sent from Constantinople, from Mr. Muller?"

"Yes, and a very satisfactory one it was. It reconciled me to some extent to staying here. It was not pleasant to think that one was living upon one's capital, but I found from his statement that my share of the business he was doing would fully cover my expenses here. And now, let us hear something more about your doings. Your letter from Constantinople told us about your adventures in Egypt; then we had one written the day after the French had retreated from before Acre, and the one that we received from Smyrna two months since; but that was a short one, and beyond saying that you had been very lucky in capturing and destroying a number of pirates, and that you were enjoying your cruise very much, you did not give us any detail. You may as well tell us that part first."

Early in the afternoon Wilkinson arrived. As Edgar had spoken warmly of his kindness to him when he had first joined the _Tigre_, and of the friendship that had sprung up between them, he was very cordially received by Mr. and Mrs. Blagrove. The former was well pleased when he heard the details of the interview with the president of the prize court, and said that he would go up and see him in the morning.

"I will hire a warehouse for a month or two," he said. "It will be much more satisfactory than working in a place where a lot of other business is being transacted. The bales will all have to be opened and examined, the goods cla.s.sed and a.s.sorted, and I shall have to bring people down there to examine them. The expense will be nothing in comparison to the advantage of having a quiet place to one's self."

On the following morning Mr. Blagrove went up and had a very satisfactory talk with the president of the prize court. The _Suzanne_ arrived four days later, having made a fast run from Portsmouth. By that time Mr. Blagrove had engaged a warehouse, where, in a short time, the whole of the goods of which he was to dispose were safely stored.

Wilkinson went down on the day after his arrival to his people in Devonshire, and Edgar established himself as a.s.sistant to his father. As bale after bale was opened, the latter was astonished at the beauty and value of some of the contents. A few only of the bales contained common country cloths, and it was evident that such goods of this sort as had fallen into the hands of the pirates had been sold at once, as there was a ready market for them at the towns and villages of the islands and the mainland. Many of the carpets were of great size. Some of the very large ones Mr. Blagrove valued at fully 500, and there were scores worth from 50 to 100. Some of the silks and embroideries he p.r.o.nounced to be almost priceless.

"They must," he said, "have been specially woven and worked for the ladies of the Sultan's harem."

When, after a month's stay, Edgar prepared to rejoin with his friend Wilkinson, not more than one-third of the contents of the warehouse had been sold, but these had fetched over 40,000, and his father had no doubt that he should obtain a proportionate sum for the remainder. The Italian sailors who had aided to bring the _Suzanne_ home had been sent off a week after her arrival by a vessel bound for Naples, and the brig herself had, as soon as the cargo was all cleared out, fetched 1800 by auction, being almost a new vessel.

"I have no doubt," Mr. Blagrove said, "that ere long a British army will be sent out, and the French compelled to leave Egypt. If I thought that the war was likely to go on for some time as at present, I should say that you had better leave the service. As it is, you would not be doing much good if you stayed here, and so may as well hold on."

It was the first day of March, 1800, when the vessel with supplies for the troops, in which Wilkinson and Edgar had taken their pa.s.sage, joined the fleet off Alexandria, and until the beginning of December they took part in the somewhat tedious work of blockading the Egyptian coast. In spite of their efforts the fleet were not always successful, for from time to time one or other of the ships was forced to sail to Cyprus to obtain fresh supplies, although quite a fleet of small vessels was employed in bringing water, fresh meat, and vegetables for the use of the fleet, as the health of the seamen would have suffered much from living for so long a period upon salt meat.

In November news was received that the army under Sir Ralph Abercrombie, which had for so long been engaged in watching Cadiz, was to sail upon an expedition for the reconquest of Egypt. It was stated that the expedition would, in the first place, sail for Syria, there to join the army that the Sultan a.s.sured the English government was in readiness to advance. Sir Sidney Smith was ordered to sail at once for that coast, to ascertain the real state of things, and to decide upon the spot where the fleet had best a.s.semble, for, from its long absence from England, there were many repairs needed, and it was desirable that the situation should be such that the ships could be careened, and a portion at least of the weeds that had acc.u.mulated be sc.r.a.ped off.

His absence was in one respect unfortunate, for some of the other blockading ships were, after a very heavy gale, obliged to go to Cyprus to repair damages; and two French men-of-war heavily laden with troops and ammunition managed to run safely in to Alexandria, thereby increasing the strength of the French army by four thousand seasoned soldiers, and by an ample supply of ammunition. It was a great disappointment to the crews when, on their return to their stations off the coast, they found that the French had taken advantage of their absence, and that the result of their eighteen months of incessant vigil had been wasted.

Wilkinson had by this time served his full time, and Condor having been appointed to the _Theseus_, Sir Sidney Smith again gave the command of the _Tigress_ to him, with the rank of acting lieutenant, which would, he was sure, be confirmed.

"I suppose you would like to have Mr. Blagrove with you?"

"Certainly, sir. There is no one I would rather have."

"It is a pity that he has not served his time yet," Sir Sidney said. "He is a most active young officer, and his knowledge of so many languages is of immense advantage. I would gladly give him an independent command, but as there are so many midshipmen senior to him, I could not do so.

You know the coast of Anatolia probably better than anyone else here.

Which harbour would you recommend as the most suitable for the entry of a large fleet? It must be well sheltered, and the sh.o.r.e should offer facilities for heeling the vessels over as far as possible in order to clean them. I know that at Rhodes there is not enough water for first-cla.s.s men-of-war."

"By far the best place I know, sir, is the Bay of Marmorice. It is on the mainland almost opposite Rhodes, and within a day's easy sail. We went into it quite by accident, for the entrance might be pa.s.sed without notice, but we had been chasing a suspicious craft, and saw her disappear, and, following her, found ourselves in a great landlocked harbour, big enough to hold a hundred ships-of-war, and absolutely sheltered. It is by far the finest harbour that I have ever seen."

"I am sailing for Rhodes in the first place. Lord Keith, who commands the fleet, has written to request me to meet him there; and if your report is correct, it will save me the trouble of examining the whole line of coast between Rhodes and Acre."

Edgar was glad to be again on board the _Tigress_. The account of the sale of the goods she had captured had now been received; the total amounted to 133,000, of which 110,000 had been paid in to the prize court by Mr. Blagrove, the other 23,000 had been the proceeds of the fruits and other goods. There were in addition the sums received for vessels sold. The astonishment of the officers of the _Tigre_ was great indeed when they heard the result, for very little had been said about the value of the cargo, and the sum realized was at least three times as great as the most sanguine had hoped.

"It was an excellent plan getting your father to undertake the business," Sir Sidney Smith said to Edgar, when the latter informed him that he had received a communication from his father saying how much the goods he had sold had realized. "I don't suppose they would have fetched a third of that amount had they been sold in the ordinary way by auction by the prize court. I am sure that we must all feel greatly obliged to him."

"And he must feel greatly obliged to you, Sir Sidney; for, as he told me, his commission had been fixed at three per cent, so he has, after paying his expenses, done a fine stroke of business for himself."

"He has managed extremely well, Mr. Blagrove, and it has been a fortunate affair for us all."

CHAPTER XVII.

ABERCROMBIE'S EXPEDITION.