The Knight of Malta Part 40

"Your fine vocabulary of gormandising ought to win for you the esteem of your cook. You appear to me to be made, both of you, for the purpose of understanding each other," said Pog, eating with disdainful indifference the delicate dishes served by his host.

"My cook," replied Trimalcyon, "understands me well enough, in fact, although sometimes he has his discouragements; he regrets France, from which country I carried him off unawares. I have tried to console him, for a long time, with everything,--silver, money, attention,--nothing succeeds however, so I have finished where I ought to have begun, with a severe bastinado, and am quite well satisfied with it, and he is too, I suppose, since he cooks wonderfully, as you see.

Give us something to drink, Orangine!" called Trimalcyon to the mulattress, who poured out a glorious gla.s.s of Bordeaux wine. "What is that wine, Crow-provender?" asked he of the negro dwarf, holding his gla.s.s up to his eyes to judge its colour.

"My lord, it was taken, in the month of June, from a Bordeaux brigantine on its way to Genoa."

"H'm, h'm," said Trimalcyon, tasting it, "it is good, very good, but there is the inconvenience of supplying ourselves as we do, friend Pog: we never have the same quality, so if we get accustomed to one kind of wine, we meet with cruel disappointments. Ah! our trade is not a bed of roses. But you do not drink! Fill Seigneur Fog's gla.s.s, Swan-skin," said Trimalcyon, to the white Circa.s.sian, pointing to his guest's cup.

Pog, as a refusal, placed his finger over his gla.s.s.

"At least, let us drink to the success of our descent upon La Ciotat, comrade."

Pog replied to this new invitation by a movement of contemptuous impatience.

"As you please, comrade," said Trimalcyon, without the slightest indication of being offended by the refusal and haughty manner of his guest, "it is just as well not to trust myself to your invocations; the devil knows your voice, and he always thinks you are calling him. But you are wrong to disdain that ham, it is from Westphalia, I think,--is it not, you scoundrel?"

"Yes, my lord," said the dwarf, "it came from that Dutch fly-boat, arrested as it sailed out of the strait of Sardinia. It was destined for the Viceroy of Naples." At that moment the flourishes of the musicians ceased; a noise, at first quite indistinct, but increasing by degrees, soon became loud and threatening. The clanking of chains and complaints of the galley-slaves could be heard, and, finally, rising above the tumult, the voices of the spahis and the cracking of the c.o.xswain's whip.

Trimalcyon seemed so accustomed to these cries, that he continued to drink a gla.s.s of wine that he was carrying to his lips, and carelessly remarked, as he set his gla.s.s on the table:

"There are some dogs that want to bite; fortunately their chains are good and strong. Crow-provender, go and see why the musicians have stopped playing. I will have them given twenty blows of the cowhide if they stop again, instead of blowing their trumpets. I am too good. I love the arts too much. Instead of selling these do-nothings in Algiers, I have kept them to make music, and that is the way they behave! Ah! if they were not too feeble for the crew, they should find out what it is to handle the oar."

"They are certainly too weak for that, my lord," said the negro dwarf; "the comedians that you captured with them on that galley from Barcelona are still at the house of Jousouf, who bought them. He cannot get two pieces of gold for a single one of the singing, blowing cattle."

Pog-Reis seemed thoughtful and oblivious of what was pa.s.sing around him, although the murmurs of dissatisfaction increased to such violence that Trimalcyon said to the dwarf:

"Before you go out, place here by me, on the divan, my pistols and a stock of arms. Well, now go and see what is the matter. If it is anything serious, let Mello come and tell me. At the same time, inform those blowers of trumpets that I will make them swallow trumpets and buccinae if they stop playing a moment."

"My lord, they say they have not wind enough to play two hours together."

"Ah, they lack wind, do they! Ah, well, tell them that if they give me that reason again I will have their stomachs opened, and by means of a blacksmith's bellows put them in such a condition that they will not lack wind."

At this coa.r.s.e and brutal pleasantry, Orangine and Swan-skin looked at each other in astonishment.

"You can tell them besides," added Trimalcyon, "that as they are not worth one piece of gold in the slave market, and as it costs me more to keep them than they are worth, I shall think nothing of gratifying my caprice on them."

The negro went out.

"What I like in you," said Pog, slowly, as he awakened from his reverie, "is that you are a stranger to every sentiment, I will not say of virtue, but of humanity."

"And what in the devil do you say that to me for, friend Pog? You see that, as inhuman as I am, I do not forget who you are, and who I am. You say 'tu' to me, and I answer 'vous' to you."

Just then two shots were fired and resounded through the galley.

"The devil! there is Mello who is also saying 'tue,'" added Trimalcyon, smiling at his odious play upon words and looking toward the door with imperturbable calmness. The two women slaves fell on their knees with signs of agonising terror.

Suddenly the trumpets burst forth with an energy which doubtless violated all the laws of harmony, but which proved at least that the threats conveyed by the negro dwarf had taken effect, and that the unhappy musicians believed Trimalcyon capable of torturing them.

After two more shots, there was a cry,--a terrible roar uttered by all the slaves at once.

The tumult was then succeeded by a profound silence. "It seems it was nothing after all," said the captain of the _Sybarite_, addressing Pog, who had again fallen into a reverie. "But tell me, comrade,"

continued he, "in what do you discover that I have nothing human in me? I love the arts, and letters and luxury. I plunder with discretion, taking only what suits me. I enjoy to the utmost all of the five senses with which I am provided. I fight with care, preferring to attack one who is weaker rather than one who is stronger than myself, and my commerce consists in taking from those who have with the least possible chance of loss. Yes, once again I ask you, comrade, where in the devil do you see inhumanity in that?"

"Come, you excite my shame as well as my pity. You have not even the energy of evil. There is always in you the pedantry of the college."

"Fie, fie upon you, my comrade; do not talk of the college, of that sad time of meagre cheer and privations without number. I would be at this moment as dry as a galley mast, if I had continued spitting Latin, while now," said the insolent knave, striking his stomach, "I have the rotundity of a prebendary; and all that, thanks to whom? To Yacoub-Reis, who, twenty years ago, made me a slave as I was going by sea to Civita-Vecchia, to try my clerical fortune in the city of the clergy. Yacoub-Reis gave me mind, activity, and courage. I was young, he taught me his trade. I renounced my religion, I took the turban, and so from one thing to another, from pillage to murder, I came at last to be commander of the _Sybarite_. Commerce goes well! I expose myself in extreme cases, and when it is necessary I fight like another, but I take care of my skin, it is true, because I intend before long to retire from business, and repose from the fatigues of war in my retreat in Tripoli, with several Madames Trimalcyon. Again I ask, is not all that very human?"

These words appeared to make little impression on the silent companion of the captain of the _Sybarite_, who contented himself with saying, with a shrug of the shoulders:

"The wild boar to his lair!"

"Sardanapalus! speaking of wild boars, how I would like to have those that figured in the epic feasts of Trimalcyon, my patron!" cried the unmannerly boor, without appearing to take offence at the contempt of his guest. "Those were worthy wild boars, that they served whole with caps on their heads, and insides stuffed with puddings and sausages imitating the entrails, or perhaps enclosing winged thrushes that would fly up to the ceiling. Those are luxuries I shall realise some day or other. Sardanapalus! I have worked twenty years just to give myself some day a feast worthy of Roman antiquity!"

The negro dwarf opened the door.

The pirate then thought only of the tumult which had so suddenly ceased.

"Ah, well, rascal, what about that noise? Why did not Mello come? Was it, then, nothing?"

"No, my lord, a Christian quarrelled with an Albanian slave."

"And then?"

"The Albanian stabbed the Christian."

"And then?"

"The Christians cried 'Death to the Albanian,' but the Christian who was wounded knocked the Albanian down and almost killed him."

"And then?"

"Then the Albanians and the Moors, in their turn, roared against the Christians."

"And then?"

"To prevent the crew killing each other, and to satisfy everybody, patron Mello blew the wounded Christian's and the wounded Albanian's brains out."

"And then?"

"My lord, seeing that, everybody became quiet."

"And the musicians?"

"My lord, I spoke to them about the blacksmith's bellows, and before I had finished my sentence, they blew so hard on their trumpets and sh.e.l.ls, I became almost deaf. I was about to forget, my lord, that Mello signalled the long-boat of Seigneur Erebus, who is coming now to the galley."

Pog started.

Trimalcyon cried, "Quick, Swan-skin, Orangine, a cover for the most beautiful youth who ever captured poor merchant ships."