Old Jack Part 17

"It is, however, right that you should understand that there is considerable danger in the expedition; for if our errand was to be discovered, we should certainly be sacrificed to the fury of the Moors."

"I've no fear about that, sir," said I. "A man cannot expect to be always able to do what is right without running some risk and taking some trouble."

Sidy that evening brought us off some Moorish clothes, in which the captain and I rigged ourselves out. We certainly did look two funny figures, I thought, as we turned ourselves round and round in them.

Sidy had not forgotten a couple of long knives, to which the captain added a brace of pistols a piece. I was very glad it was dusk when we left the ship, for I should not have liked my shipmates to have seen me with my bare legs and slippers, and a dirty blanket over my head just like an old Irishwoman.

A sh.o.r.e-boat was alongside--a sort of canoe turned up at both ends, and flat-bottomed. An old Moor sat in her. Sidy had bribed him to put us on sh.o.r.e, and to ask no questions. He told him that we were Moors, who had had business on board the brig, and that we desired to land without notice. He accordingly pulled to an unfrequented part of the harbour, and we stepped on sh.o.r.e, as we believed, unnoticed. The captain and Sidy led the way, I following in the character of a servant. Of course, if spoken to, I was to be dumb. We pa.s.sed along a narrow sandy road, with low stone walls on either side skirting the town, till we arrived at the entrance of a house of somewhat larger dimensions than those of the neighbouring edifices. This, I found, was the residence of a German renegade and a merchant, who had, by Sidy's means, been bribed to a.s.sist us.

We were ushered into his presence as Moorish guests come to visit him.

He was seated cross-legged on a cushion at one end of a room, with a large pipe by his side. The apartment was not very finely furnished, seeing that it had little else in it besides a few other cushions like the one he sat on. Certainly he looked exactly like an old Moor, and I could not persuade myself that he was not one. He invited us to sit down; which the captain and Sidy did near him, while I tucked my legs under me at a distance. After he had bowed and talked a little through the interpreter, he clapped his hands, and some slaves brought each of us a pipe--not an unpleasant thing just then to my taste. Again he clapped his hands, and the slaves brought in some low, odd, little tables, one of which was placed before each of us. There was a bowl of porridge, and some plates with little lumps of fried meat, and rice, and dates, but not a drop of grog or liquor of any sort. Afterwards, however, coffee was brought to us in cups scarcely bigger than thimbles; but it did little more than just warm up my tongue. As soon as the slaves had withdrawn, I was not a little surprised to hear the seeming Moor address the captain in tolerable English.

"So you want to find one of your captured countrymen?" said he. "Well, to-morrow morning I start on a journey to visit a friend who has one as a slave. His description answers that of him whom you seek. I will obtain for you a short conversation with him. You must contrive the means of rescuing him. I can do no more."

After some further talk on the subject our host got up, and, having carefully examined all the outlets to the room to ascertain that no one was looking in, produced a stout black bottle from a chest, and some gla.s.ses. I found that the bottle contained most veritable Schiedam.

"Now, as I don't think this good stuff was known to Master Mohammed when he played his pranks on earth, he cannot object to any of his faithful followers tasting a drop of it now and then."

Thereon he poured out a gla.s.s for each of us, and winked at Sidy, as much as to say, "We understand each other--we are both of us rogues."

The captain took but little; so did I: but Muly Ha.s.san the merchant, and the interpreter, did not stop their potations till they had finished the bottle, and both were very drunk. The merchant had sense enough left to hide his bottle, and then his slaves came and made him up a couch in one corner of the room. They also prepared beds for us in the other corners.

The next morning we were up before break of day, and mounted on some small horses, almost hid by their gaily-coloured saddle-cloths and trappings. And such saddles! Rising up in peaks ahead and astern, a drunken tailor could not have tumbled off one of them had he tried. I do not remember much about the appearance of the country. A large portion was lying waste; but there were fields of various sorts of corn, and even vineyards, though the grapes produced from them were not, I suppose, used for the manufacture of wine: indeed, I know that they are eaten both fresh and dried. Date-trees were, however, in great abundance, the fruit being one of the princ.i.p.al articles of food among the people. The roads were very bad; and altogether there was an air of misery and neglect which will always be seen where the ruler is a tyrant and the people are slaves. We rested in some sheds put up for the accommodation of pa.s.sengers during the heat of the day, and in the afternoon proceeded on to our destination.

"Now, my friends, look out for your countryman," said the renegade.

"You will probably see him tending cattle or labouring in the fields among other slaves. He is probably in his own dress, and you will easily recognise him."

Curiously enough, we had not ridden on for ten minutes further, when, not far from the road, we saw a man seated on a bank a short distance from the road, and looking very sorrowful and dispirited. His dress was that of a seaman. I looked round, and seeing no one near except our own party, I slipped off my horse, and ran up to him. Of course, he thought I was a Moor, and he looked as if he would have fainted with surprise when he heard me hail him in English.

"Who are you? What do you come here for?" he exclaimed, panting for breath.

"I belong to the _Dolphin_ brig, and I came here to try and find Captain Stenning and any of his companions."

"Heaven be praised, then?" he exclaimed, bursting into tears. "He and I are the only survivors of that demon-possessed craft which he commanded.

But how came your vessel to be called by the name of one which proved so unfortunate?"

"I cannot tell you all about that just now," I answered, seeing that much time would be lost if I entered into particulars. I therefore merely explained the steps we had taken to discover them, and asked him what had become of Captain Stenning.

"The captain! He has been in this very place till within the last three or four weeks, when the Moors carried him away to serve on board one of their ships--the very ship which captured us. They found out that he was the captain and understood navigation, so they took him to navigate one of their piratical craft. I was sick and unfit for work, or they would have taken me likewise; but they saw that I was only a man before the mast, and guessed that I did not understand navigation. What has since become of the captain I don't know. There is no one here I can talk to. They set me to work by signs, which, if I do not understand, they sharpen my wits with a lash; and they take care that I shall not run away, by securing me at night with a chain round my leg. There are several other slaves employed by the same master, but not one of them understands a word of English."

The young man's name was Jacob Lyal, he told me; and he said that he was just out of his apprenticeship when he joined the _Dolphin_.

"I have a father and mother, and brothers and sisters, at home, in Somersetshire, and it would make their hearts sorrowful if they heard that I was left a slave in this barbarous country; so you'll do all you can to help me," he exclaimed, as I was about to leave him, for I was afraid of remaining longer lest we should be observed.

Just as I was going, however, I told him to try and arrange some plan by which we might have a talk with him, and let him know how things stood before we left the place, should we be unable to take him with us. He also described very accurately the sort of place in which he was locked up at night; and I promised, if I could, to go and have some more conversation with him. As we did not lose time in talking of anything except the matter in hand, I was speedily able to rejoin the captain and his companions. The captain approved of the arrangements I had made, though he was very sorry that there was no immediate prospect of meeting with Captain Stenning.

We were received with all the usual marks of respect by the old Moor who owned the property. He had been a pirate in his youth, and cut-throats and robbed without compunction; but he was now a dignified old gentleman, who looked as if he had been engaged in rural affairs all his life. I came in for almost as much of the attention and good fare as the captain; for in that country a beggar may eat off the same table, or rather the same floor, and sit under the same roof as a prince. The excuse for the visit was to sell to the old Moor some of the goods aboard the _Dolphin_, specimens of which the captain had brought with him.

As soon after our arrival as we had shaken the dust out of our clothes, and washed our faces and our hands and feet, we were ushered by slaves into a hall, at one end of which sat the old Moor, and the captain and the renegade and the interpreter were placed on each side of him, and I sat a little further off, tucking up my legs as I had done before; and then some black slaves in white dresses brought in a little table for each of us, with all sorts of curious things to eat, which I need not describe, for in that country one feast is very much like another. The renegade had also brought a case; but that it contained something besides merchandise he proved by producing, one after the other, several of his favourite bottles of Schiedam, which apparently were no less acceptable to the old Moor than to him. I am not, however, fond of describing such scenes, or of picturing such gross hypocrites as the renegade and the old Moor.

I gained an advantage, however, from their drunken habits; for as soon as it was dark I stole out of the house, and tried to find my way to the shed where Lyal told me he was chained at night. I had taken good note of the bearings of the place as we rode along. I knew that if I was found prying about, I should run a great chance of being killed; but still I was resolved to run every risk to try and rescue the poor fellow from captivity. Of course, as the captain afterwards told me, we might have gone home to England, and laid the state of the case before the Government; and after a year or so spent in diplomatising, the poor fellow, if he was still alive, might have been released, or the Emperor of Morocco might have declared that he could not find him, or that he was dead; and thus he would have remained on, like many others, in captivity.

There was a little light from the moon, which enabled me to mark the outlines of the house I was leaving, as well as to find my way. Two servants were stationed in the entrance pa.s.sage, but they had wrapped themselves up in their haiks and gone soundly to sleep, so I stepped over their bodies without waking them. Every person about the house, indeed, seemed to have gone to sleep, but the dogs were more faithful than the human beings, and some of them barked furiously as I walked along. They were either chained or locked up, and finding my footsteps going from them, they were soon silent. At length I reached the shed I was in search of. It was near a cottage, with several other similar sheds in the neighbourhood. As I came to the entrance, a voice said--

"Come in; but speak low."

At first I could see no one, but on going further in, I discovered the object of my search sitting in a corner on a heap of straw. He was chained there, and could not move.

"It gives me new life to see a countryman here, and one who wants to help me," said the poor fellow. "I thought all the world had deserted me, and that I should be left to die in this strange land, among worse than heathens, who treat me as a dog; or that I should be tempted to give up my faith and turn Mohammedan, as others have done."

I cannot repeat all our conversation. At last an idea struck me.

"I'll tell you what," said I; "just do you pretend to be mad, and play all sorts of strange pranks, and do all the mischief you can; and then the captain will propose to buy you, and perhaps the old Moor will sell you a bargain, and be glad to be rid of you."

"A very good idea," he answered. "But here am I chained up like a dog, and how am I to get free?"

"No fear," said I, producing a knife which Peter had given me, containing all sorts of implements, and among them a file. "You shall soon be at liberty, at all events."

Accordingly I set to work, and in less than an hour I had filed the chain from off his legs. While we were filing away, we arranged what he was to do. He was to make a huge cap, with a high peak of straw, and he was to cut his jacket into shreds, and a red handkerchief I had into strips, and to fasten them about him in long streamers, and he was to take a thick pole in his hand, covered much in the same way, and then he was to rush into the house, shrieking and crying out as if a pack of hounds were after him.

"They will not wonder at seeing me mad, for I have done already many strange things, and very little work, since I came here," he remarked.

"But what it to become of the chain?"

"You had better carry that with you, and clank it in their faces," said I. "Make as if you had bitten it through. That will astonish them, and they will, at all events, be afraid to come near your teeth."

To make a long story short, we worked away with a will, and in half an hour or so he was rigged out in a sufficiently strange fashion. I have no doubt, had Peter been with us, he would have improved on our arrangement. I then, advising Lyal to follow me in a short time, stole back, and took my place un.o.bserved in the old Moor's dining-hall. The captain guessed what I had been doing, but the rest of the party had been too much engaged in their potations to miss me. After a little time I stole over to the captain and told him the arrangements I had made, that he might be ready to act accordingly.

In a short time the silence which had hitherto prevailed was broken by a terrible uproar of dogs barking, and men hallooing and crying out at the top of their voices; while, above all, arose as unearthly shrieks as I had ever heard. Presently in rushed a crowd of black and brown servants, followed by a figure which I recognised as that of Lyal, though he had much improved his appearance by fastening a haik over his shoulders and another round his waist, while he waved above his head a torch, at the risk of setting his high straw-cap on fire. The people all separated before him, as he dashed on, right up to the old Moor, who, with a drunken gaze of terror and astonishment, stared at him without speaking.

"Ho! ho!" shouted the sailor, seizing him by the nose; "old fellow, I have you now!"

Thereon he kicked over the jar of Schiedam, the contents of which he set on fire with his torch; and keeping fast hold of the old Moor's nose, who in his fright knew not how to resist, dragged him round and round the room, shouting and shrieking all the time like a very demoniac.

The place would have been meantime set on fire had not the captain and I quenched the flames, while the renegade and the interpreter, in their drunken humours, could only lean back on their cushions, and laugh as if they would split their sides at the extraordinary predicament of our host.

"I say, countrymen, if you had but your horses ready, we might gallop away before all these people knew where they are," shouted Lyal.

"Who'll just take a spell at the old fellow's nose, for I am tired of holding on?"

On this Captain Gale thought that it was time to interfere, and he and I going up to the old Moor, pretended to use great exertion in dragging away the sailor from him. The captain then led him back to his seat, while I held Lyal.

"Here, Sidy," said the captain to the interpreter; "tell the old man that if he will give me fifty dollars, I will take that madman off his hands."

When the old Moor had somewhat recovered his composure, Sidy explained the offer. "He says that he can kill him, and so get him out of his way!" was the answer. "He dare not do that," put in the renegade; "all the people here will own him as inspired. Abate your price, and stick to it."

Finally, the captain consented to carry away the madman on having twenty dollars added to the price he was to receive for his goods.

"Take him! take him!" exclaimed the old Moor. "The man who can eat through iron, drive all my slaves before him, set fire to my house, and pull me by the nose, is better away from me than near! Take care, though, that he does not come back again!"

The captain promised that he would take very good care of that; and the next day, with joyful hearts at our unexpected success, we set forward on our return-journey to Salee. As the renegade and Sidy were both to be rewarded according to our success, they were well content; and by their aid, the same night we got on board the brig with our recovered countryman without being observed. We had now to turn the whole of our attention to the recovery of Captain Stenning; and every excuse which Captain Gale could think of was made for our stay in the harbour.

Still, we had very little of our cargo left, and every day saw it decrease. The spring-tides were also coming on, when there was the greatest depth of water on the bar, and we could the most easily make our escape without a pilot.