Chatterbox, 1906 Part 41

'Well, he calls it so, and really I don't know myself what he is after.

He will get into trouble one of these days with the coastguard people, I tell him. But that's nothing to us. I saw him, and went out to him, and he's to take us off if he can.'

'And supposing he can't?'

'Then we must get to Tyre-c.u.m-Widcombe somehow, and slip down to the nearest port. If you had been a little quicker in your part of the business, we should have got off more easily, for he was waiting for us a bit higher up the coast, where there were fewer eyes to see.'

'I couldn't get the key,' returned Thomas in an aggrieved tone. 'It took me some time before I could find out where it was. I had to watch Peet close, and at last, thinks I, I'll climb the oak in the garden of his house, and see if I could catch him putting it away. I could see right into his windows, and it wasn't long before I saw all I wanted to, and had the key safe.'

'But, man, there's the pa.s.sage you told me about. It's close by, isn't it?'

'I tried that way once,' said Thomas, with an unmirthful laugh. 'I'm not going to try it again in a hurry, not I. Why, I couldn't 'a been half-way down--no, nor yet a quarter--when a big stone came right down on me shoulder and knocks me flat. Mother did wonder why I couldn't move my arm without pain for quite a long time. I crawled back the way I had come. Master Peet was always saying the roof wasn't safe, but I didn't believe him. But I have had enough of it now. I preferred finding the key, even if it was slower.'

There was a pause. The faint ripple of the tide was followed by the hiss of the water as it surged round the rocks and fell back. Not daring to move in the silence, Alan stood still.

'The game's worth the candle, I suppose?' said Thomas, presently.

'I should just think so!' returned his companion, his voice growing hard. 'I have not had time or light to examine the box, but I trusted you to see that it contained all we wanted. Of course, if it does not---- '

'I put in all I could see,' began Thomas, sullenly.

'Then we have a great prize--the only specimen known, and we shall see our money back for that. As to the rest, why--until I can examine things for myself, I can't tell you anything. I should like to get off before the loss is discovered, and--well, how safe are we here? I should not wish to be caught like a rat in a trap while we are waiting for the tide to go down.'

'We're as safe here as anywhere,' returned Thomas, in the same sullen tone. 'Now, tell me,' he continued, with some irritation in his voice, 'have you got to pay that boat and the crew out of our profits in this business?'

His companion gave a low chuckle of amus.e.m.e.nt.

'There is not much that Jean Marie Fargis will not do for me, my friend.'

'That's the skipper, I suppose?'

'It is. He got into an ugly sc.r.a.pe not many years ago, and people have not forgotten it. I pulled him out of it, and started him in another walk of life. He is not like to forget, even if I would let him. So he's useful, you see.'

'I see. All the same, I expect this business will cost a pretty penny if Fargis is afraid of you.'

'You will get your pay, never fear.'

'But if the coastguard sees him fishing in British waters?'

'Then his orders are--cut and run. He can meet us at Havre or Cherbourg.'

'That's where he come from, is it?'

'No, it isn't. They are some of his places of call in his fishing trade.

He lives at Tout-Pet.i.t--quite a small place, further south. Go there, man, if ever you find it wise to disappear, and mention my name to Fargis. He will see you are all right till you can look round.

By-the-by, I hear the Earl's daughter that lives here is an heiress. Is that so? Hullo! what's that?'

Both men sprang up at the noise, and crept cautiously forward to listen.

It had sounded like a stifled cry, and a splash, but so faint that in the stillness which followed they thought themselves mistaken. Their movement give Alan his chance.

(_Continued on page 142._)

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'Give me a leg up.'"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Concealment was impossible."]

STORIES FROM AFRICA.

V.--THE STORY OF A RETRIBUTION.

We have had two stories of cruel captivity among the Moors of North Africa, and back in the fifteenth--even in the sixteenth--century, such things seem easy to believe. The hard thing to realise is that, not a hundred years ago, in days which our own grandparents might almost remember, Christian captives were still toiling under the whips of their Moorish taskmasters in the port of Algiers, with the prospect of torture and death before them if they tried to escape and failed. But the cup of Moorish cruelty and evil-doing was very nearly full, the day of retribution was drawing near, and to England fell the honour of striking the first blow.

It was in the spring of the year 1816, when the great cloud which had overhung all Europe had been dispersed by the battle of Waterloo, that the English Admiral, Lord Exmouth, appeared before the port of Algiers, and, in the name of his nation, sent in a demand for the abolition of Christian slavery and the cession of the Ionian Islands. The Turks have always been skilful in putting off the day of submission, and the reply was that the Dey must communicate with his lord, the Sultan of Turkey, before he could make a definite answer. Those unpleasant visitors, the English gunboats, were thus got rid of for three months; but, unfortunately for him, the Dey had not learnt wisdom from the warning.

On the Ascension Day following, the crews of a Neapolitan fishing fleet landed at Bona, on the north coast of Africa, to join in the festival service. The pirates of Algiers swooped down upon the defenceless fishermen, and ma.s.sacred numbers of them on the spot without any provocation. Then, as if to show that the act was one of open defiance, they trampled on and insulted the British flag, and imprisoned the English Vice-Consul.

The news set England aflame, the story of the Bona ma.s.sacres was told from mouth to mouth, the sufferings of the Christian captives were described in burning words in the House of Commons, and soon the news reached the proud Citadel of the Sea that Lord Exmouth was once more upon his way.

It must have been anxious work for the European consuls in Algiers, knowing that the tyrant, driven to bay, was likely enough to vent his wrath upon those in his power. The English Consul was a married man, with children too to consider, and he determined, if possible, to get his wife and little ones out of the evil place before harm befell them.

An English vessel, the _Prometheus_, was in the harbour, and, though the Dey had forbidden the Consul and his family to leave the city, the Captain of the _Prometheus_ had a scheme for conveying them safely on board. He himself landed on the pretext of conferring with the Dey, and, when he returned to his ship, the Consul's wife and little daughter, disguised as sailors, left the city under his charge. But there was another member of the family who was less easily disposed of, namely, the baby, a very unlikely pa.s.senger for a man-of-war's boat, and certain to be detected by the Moorish guard, who watched the crew re-embark.

With many misgivings and in grievous anxiety, the Consul's wife had been induced to leave the little one behind her, the Captain a.s.suring her that he would be on sh.o.r.e again on the following day, and that he had concocted a plan for bringing the baby back with him.

So the boat of the _Prometheus_ put in again on the morrow, watched, doubtless, with eager eyes by the anxious mother and daughter on board the vessel. The little one was drugged into a heavy sleep, and laid at the bottom of a big basket, with vegetables skilfully piled above him.

One of the British sailors took the precious burden, and the Consul strolled in front of it towards the harbour. There was nothing remarkable in the sailors wishing for a few fresh vegetables to vary the ship's fare, or in the English Consul seeing his countrymen to their boat. But the Moorish guard had grown suspicious, as men are likely to do who know that their lives will certainly pay for any lack of vigilance. And so the sharp eyes that watched the English tars preparing to embark noticed some rather unusual movements amongst the cabbages that were being carried so carefully; and when a dismal howl arose from under the green stuff and a little arm disturbed the vegetables, concealment was impossible. The basket and its contents were seized by the guard and carried before the Dey, and the Consul and the sailors from the _Prometheus_ were arrested and imprisoned.

It was terrible news, indeed, which reached the poor mother, waiting on board for her husband and child. Life in Algiers must have taught her, only too well, the lengths to which Moorish cruelty could go, and the tyrant who had defied the English nation was not likely to be deterred by fear of consequences from avenging himself on his prisoner. The very approach of the English ships might mean the sword or the bow-string, or a yet more horrible death by torture. Some comfort the poor lady received next day, when her baby was sent her, alive and well. Even the cruelty of the Dey of Algiers had stopped short of hurting the child; but the Consul, heavily ironed, was in the tyrant's dungeon, awaiting, with many another luckless captive, the sentence from which the English Admiral might be too late to save them. And, meanwhile, Lord Exmouth, who had been joined at Gibralter by a Dutch squadron, arrived before the Citadel of the sea, and sent in his demand for immediate release of all Christian prisoners. The Admiral had made his arrangements with the utmost care, and, when the time allowed for answer pa.s.sed without any reply, he boldly sent his flag-ship, the _Queen Charlotte_, straight for the strong fort at the end of the pier which guarded the harbour. As the troops flocked to the walls to watch the advance of the fleet, the Admiral himself shouted and signed to them to retire under cover, while he anch.o.r.ed right before the enemy's guns. The fort fired first; then a broadside from the _Queen Charlotte_ crashed with terrible effect into its walls.

Lord Exmouth had come there with the intention of doing his work thoroughly: and very thoroughly he did it, for eight long hours of that hot August day. When darkness fell, the famous forts, built by the hands of thousands of luckless captives, were a ma.s.s of ruins. The a.r.s.enal, the storehouses, and the fleet in the harbour had been utterly destroyed. With the dawn, a boat, bearing the flag of truce, carried the Admiral's terms to the beaten city. Every captive was to be immediately surrendered, Christian slavery to be abolished, all ransoms paid during the past year to be restored, and the Consul and sailors delivered unhurt, and with due compensation. Three guns were to be fired in token that all demands had been conceded, otherwise the bombardment would re-commence.

Three hours pa.s.sed, slow hours indeed to those waiting at the harbour's mouth. Then across the water came the boom of three guns, the knell of the old reign of tyranny and cruelty, the message of joy and release to many an anxious heart. The prison doors were opened; the English Consul and his fellow-prisoners, half expecting to be led to execution, found themselves restored to those they loved. Hundreds of Christian slaves, many of them too dazed and bewildered by the sudden change to realise their freedom, thronged the rescuing ships, gazing back upon the shattered fortifications which their hands had helped to build. And fervent indeed must have been the thanksgivings which, by Lord Exmouth's order, went up from the decks of the English ships, for the success of the 'conflict between his Majesty's fleet, and the enemies of mankind.'

MARY H. DEBENHAM.

THE MYSTERIOUS VISITOR.

Who's that slamming the garden door?

I have heard it three times three!

And though to the window I run to look, He's hiding away from me.

The tree-tops laugh in the windy sky, And the maker-of-mischief, hovering nigh, Is hiding away from me.

Who's that rattling the window-pane?

I have heard it three times three!