Robert Michael Ballantyne
The Pirate City: An Algerine Tale
The amazement of the Algerines at this sight was great, for they were well aware of the bad feeling which had for many years existed between the leading couple in this little procession, or rather between their predecessors, some of whom had taken undignified, not to say disgraceful, methods of displaying their jealousy.
“Allah!” exclaimed the Algerines, turning up their eyes, “the English and French consuls walking together! Surely the old prophecy is about to come true, ‘When Christians are at peace among themselves the downfall of Algiers is decreed!’”
It is said that there really does exist a very old prophecy to this effect among the Mussulmans of Algeria, and certain it is that the prophecy was ultimately fulfilled, but at the time of which we write it was only anticipated.
Demanding an immediate audience, the party were admitted into the presence-chamber, where they created feelings of great surprise in the breasts of the pirate-king and his piratical courtiers.
When Rais Ali had tremblingly translated the demand which had been made with stern dignity by his master, the Dey flew into a towering rage, and actually foamed at the mouth, as he replied—
“Why art thou not glad that I thus punish your old enemy? Was not England lately at war with Denmark?”
“I am not glad,” answered the British consul, “because it is against the spirit of Christianity to cultivate feelings of revenge, and the fact that we were not long since at war with Denmark is no doubt the very reason why the Danes have found it difficult to pay, at the exact time, the debt which they will unquestionably discharge before long; but if your highness continues to act thus to their representative, in despite of his inviolable character, and in defiance of treaties wherein it is specified that the persons and families of consuls are to be held sacred, you may rest assured that no civilised nation will continue to treat with you.”
“What care the Deys of Algiers for the persons of consuls, which you deem so sacred?” said Omar savagely. “Hast thou not heard that in time past we have blown the consuls of refractory nations from the months of our cannon?”
“I have,” replied the Colonel calmly, “and I have also heard that Algiers has been several times bombarded, and nearly reduced to ashes. I do not presume to use threats to your highness,” added the consul firmly, though respectfully, “but I am here as spokesman of these representatives of various powers, to assure you that if you do not release the consul of Denmark immediately, we will all write to our respective governments to send vessels of war to remove us from a court where the law of nations is not respected.”
Omar attempted to bluster a little more, but had sense enough to perceive that he had already gone too far, and at length consented to grant the consuls’ demands. The condemned consul was immediately set at liberty, and his brethren returned to his residence in the same manner as they had left it, with this difference, that the French and English consuls walked in front, with the representative of Denmark between them.
This incident, as may be imagined, did not improve Omar’s temper. Immediately after it, he issued some stringent decrees in reference to the slaves, and ordered the execution of six chief men of the State, whose presence in the city had been a source of danger to the consolidation of his power. Among other things, he made some stern laws in reference to runaway slaves; and, having his attention drawn to the fact that the scrivano-grande of the late Achmet, and his assistant secretary, had not yet been discovered, he not only ordered the search for them to be continued with increased diligence, but took the unusual method of offering a reward to any one who should find or bring news of them.
This caused the matter to be widely talked about, and among others who heard of the proclamation was a little Moorish girl named Ziffa.
Now this Ziffa was the only daughter of Hadji Baba, the Court story-teller, who, like the Vicar of Bray, managed to remain in office, no matter who should come into or go out of power.
We are sorry to have to record the fact that Ziffa was a bad child—a particularly naughty little girl. She told lies, and was a little thief, besides being fond of that despicable habit styled eavesdropping. She listened behind doors and curtains and at key-holes without feeling a particle of shame! It is probable that the child’s attention would not have been arrested by the proclamation of the Dey, if it had not chanced that, during a visit which she was asked to pay to the garden of the British consul for the purpose of playing with Agnes Langley, she overheard Rais Ali and Ted Flaggan mention the name of Lucien Rimini. The seaman had found it necessary to take Rais into his confidence, and little Ziffa, in the exercise of her disgraceful vocation of eavesdropper, had overheard a little of their conversation about the Riminis. She did not, however, hear much, and, having no interest in the Riminis, forgot all about it.
On hearing the proclamation, however, she bethought her that something might be made out of the matter, if she could only manage to get her little friend Agnes to play the part of spy, and find out about things for her. Opportunity was not long wanting. She had an engagement that very day to go out to the consul’s garden to spend the day with Agnes, and a faithful old negro servant of her father was to conduct her thither.
Ziffa was extremely fond of finery. Just as she was about to set out, her eye fell on a splendid diamond ring which lay on her father’s dressing-table. Hadji Baba was very fond of this ring, as it had been a gift to him from Achmet, his former master, and he never went abroad without it, but a hasty summons to the palace had, on this occasion, caused him to forget it. As it was made for the little finger of Hadji Baba, which was remarkably thin, it exactly fitted the middle finger of Ziffa which was uncommonly fat. Seizing the ring, she thrust it into her bosom, resolving to astonish her friend Agnes. Then, running down-stairs to the old servant, she was soon on her way to the consul’s garden.
“Agnes,” she said, on finding herself alone with her friend, “I want you to do something for—”
“Oh what a lovely ring!” exclaimed Agnes, as Ziffa drew it out of her breast and put it on.
“Yes, isn’t it pretty? But I must not let my old servant see it, lest he should tell my father, who’d be very angry if he knew I had taken it.”
Agnes was taken by surprise, and remained silent. She had been so carefully trained to tell her father and mother everything, and to trust them, that it was a new and disagreeable idea to her the thought of doing anything secretly.
“Well, this is what I want,” continued Ziffa; “I want you to listen to the talk of Rais Ali and the sailor who lives with you, when they don’t know you are near, and tell me all that they say about a family named Rimini—will you?”
“Oh, I can’t do that,” said Agnes decidedly; “it would be wrong.”
“What would be wrong?” asked Mrs Langley, coming out from a side-walk in the garden at that moment to fetch the children in to lunch.
Agnes blushed, looked down, and said nothing. Her mother at once dropped the subject, and led them into the house, where she learned from Agnes the nature of her little friend’s proposal.
“Take no further notice of it, dear,” said her mother, who guessed the reason of the child’s curiosity.
Leaving the friends at lunch in charge of Paulina Ruffini, she hastened to find Ted Flaggan, whom she warned to be more careful how he conversed with his friend Rais.
“What puzzles me, ma’am,” said Ted, “is, how did the small critter understand me, seein’ that she’s a Moor?”
“That is easily explained: we have been teaching her English for some time, I regret to say, for the purpose of making her more of a companion to my daughter, who is fond of her sprightly ways. I knew that she was not quite so good a girl as I could have wished, but had no idea she was so deceitful. Go, find Rais Ali at once, and put him on his guard,” said Mrs Langley, as she left the seaman and returned to the house.
Now, if there ever was a man who could not understand either how to deceive, or to guard against deception, or to do otherwise than take a straight course, that man was Ted Flaggan, and yet Ted thought himself to be an uncommonly sharp deceiver when occasion required.
Having received the caution above referred to, he thrust his hands into his coat-pockets, and with a frowning countenance went off in search of Rais Ali. Mariner-like, he descried him afar on the horizon of vision, as it were, bearing down under full sail along a narrow path between two hedges of aloes and cactus, which led to the house.
By a strange coincidence, Agnes and her friend came bounding out into the shrubbery at that moment, having finished their brief luncheon, and Ziffa chanced to catch sight of the stout mariner as he hastened to meet his friend.
With the intuitive sharpness of an Eastern mind she observed the fact, and with the native acuteness of a scheming little vixen, she guessed that something might turn up. Acting on the thought, she shouted—
“Wait a little, Agnes; I will hide: you shall find me.”
Innocent Agnes obediently waited, while Ziffa ran down the wrong side of the cactus hedge, and kept up with the seaman—a little in rear of him.
“Ho! Ally Babby,” shouted Ted Flaggan, when he was within hail—it might be a hundred yards or so—of his friend, “what d’ee think? that little brown-faced chip of Hadji Baba has been up here eavesdropping, and has got to windward of us a’most. Leastwise she knows enough o’ the Riminis to want to know more—the dirty little spalpeen.”
“Thank you,” thought Ziffa, as she listened.
When Flaggan had varied his remarks once or twice, by way of translating them, Rais Ali shook his head.
“That bad,” said he, “ver’ bad. We mus’ be tremendous cautious. Ziffa’s a little brute.”
“Ha!” thought Ziffa.
“You don’t say so?” observed Flaggan. “Well, now, I’d scarce have thought we had reason to be so fearful of a small thing, with a stupid brown face like that.”
“Brute!” muttered Ziffa inaudibly.
“Oh! she werry sharp chile,” returned Rais, “werry sharp—got ears and eyes from the sole of hers head to de top of hers feets.”
Ziffa said nothing, either mentally or otherwise, but looked rather pleased.
“Well,” continued Rais, “we won’t mention the name of Rimini again nowhars—only w’en we can’t help it, like.”
“Not a whisper,” said Flaggan; “but, be the way, it’ll be as well, before comin’ to that state of prudent silence, that you tell me if the noo hole they’ve gone to is near the owld wan. You see it’s my turn to go up wi’ provisions to-morrow night, and I hain’t had it rightly explained, d’ye see?”
Here Rais Ali described, with much elaboration, the exact position of the new hole to which the Rimini family had removed, at the head of Frais Vallon, and Mademoiselle Ziffa drank it all in with the most exuberant satisfaction.
Shortly afterwards Agnes Langley found her friend hiding close to the spot in the garden where she had last seen her.
That night Hadji Baba made an outrageous disturbance in his household as to the lost diamond ring, and finally fixed, with the sagacity of an unusually sharp man, on his old negro as being the culprit.
Next morning he resolved to have the old man before the cadi, after forenoon attendance at the palace. While there, he casually mentioned to Omar the circumstance of the theft of his ring, and asked leave to absent himself in the afternoon to have the case tried.
“Go,” said Omar gravely, “but see that thou forget not to temper justice with mercy.—By the way, tell me, friend Hadji, before thou goest, what was the meaning of that strange request of thine the other day, and on which thou hast acted so much of late?”
The story-teller turned somewhat pale, and looked anxious.
The strange request referred to was to the effect that the Dey should give him no more gifts or wages, (in regard to both of which he was not liberal), but that instead thereof he, Hadji Baba, should be allowed to whisper confidentially in the Dey’s ear on all public occasions without umbrage being taken, and that the Dey should give him a nod and smile in reply. Omar, who was a penurious man, had willingly agreed to this proposal, and, as he now remarked, Baba had made frequent use of the license.
“Pardon me, your highness,” said Baba; “may I speak the truth without fear of consequences?”
“Truly thou mayest,” replied the Dey; “and it will be well that thou speakest nothing but the truth, else thou shalt have good reason to remember the consequences.”
“Well, then, your highness,” returned Baba boldly, “feeling that my income was not quite so good as my position at Court required, and desiring earnestly to increase it without further taxing the resources of your highness’s treasury, I ventured to make the request which I did, and the result has been—has been—most satisfactory.”
“Blockhead!” exclaimed the irritable Dey, “that does not explain the nature of the satisfaction.”
“Your slave was going to add,” said Hadji Baba hastily, “that my frequent whispering in your ear, and your highness’s gracious nods and smiles in reply, have resulted in my being considered one of the most influential favourites in the palace, so that my good word is esteemed of the utmost value, and paid for accordingly.”
Omar laughed heartily at this, and Hadji Baba, much relieved, retired to have his case tried before the cadi, taking his daughter with him, for she had assured him that she had seen the old servant take it.
The old servant pleaded not guilty with earnest solemnity.
“Are you quite sure you saw him take the ring?” demanded the cadi of Ziffa.
“Quite sure,” replied the girl.
“And you are sure you did not take it?” he asked of the negro.
“Absolutely certain,” answered the old man.
“And you are convinced that you once had the ring, and now have it not?” he said, turning to Hadji Baba.
“Quite.”
“The case is very perplexing,” said the cadi, turning to the administrators of the law who stood at his elbow; “give the master and the servant each one hundred strokes of the bastinado, twenty at a time, beginning with the servant.”
The officers at once seized on the old negro, threw him down and gave him twenty blows. They then advanced to Hadji Baba, and were about to seize him, when he cried out—
“Beware what thou doest! I am an officer of the Dey’s palace and may not be treated thus with impunity.”
The cadi, who either did not, or pretended not, to believe the statement, replied sententiously—
“Justice takes no note of persons.—Proceed.”
The officers threw Baba on his face, and were about to proceed, when Ziffa in alarm advanced with the ring and confessed her guilt.
Upon this the cadi was still further perplexed, for he could not now undo the injustice of the blows given to the negro. After a few minutes’ severe thought he awarded the diamond ring to the old servant, and the two hundred blows to the master as being a false accuser.
The award having been given, the case was dismissed, and Hadji Baba went home with smarting soles, resolved to punish Ziffa severely.
“Spare me!” said Ziffa, whimpering, when her father, seizing a rod, was about to begin.
“Nay, thou deservest it,” cried Baba, grasping her arm.
“Spare me!” repeated Ziffa, “and I will tell you a great secret, which will bring you money and credit.”
The curiosity of the story-teller was awakened.
“What is it thou hast to tell?”
“Promise me, father, that you won’t punish me if I tell you the secret.”
“I promise,” said Baba, “but see that it is really something worth knowing, else will I give thee a severer flogging.”
Hereupon the false Ziffa related all she knew about the hiding-place of the Rimini family. Her father immediately went to the palace, related it to the Dey, and claimed and received the reward.
That night a party of soldiers were sent off to search the head of Frais Vallon, and before morning they returned to town with Francisco and his two sons, whom they threw into their old prison the Bagnio, and loaded them heavily with chains.
Chapter Twenty Three.
In which Danger looms very Dark in and around the Pirate City
About this time four vessels entered the port of Algiers. One was a French man-of-war with a British merchantman as a prize. The other was an Algerine felucca with a Sicilian brig which she had captured along with her crew of twenty men.
There were a number of men, women, and children on board the Frenchman’s prize, all of whom, when informed of the port into which they had been taken, were thrown into a state of the utmost consternation, giving themselves up for lost—doomed to slavery for the remainder of their lives,—for the piratical character of the Algerines was well-known and much dreaded in those days by all the maritime nations. Newspapers and general knowledge, however, were not so prevalent then as now, and for a thousand Englishmen of the uneducated classes who knew that the Algerines were cruel pirates, probably not more than two or three were aware of the fact that England paid tribute to Algiers, and was represented at her Court by a consul. The crew of the prize, therefore, were raised from the lowest depths of despair to the highest heights of extravagant joy on hearing that they were free, and their gratitude knew no bounds when the consul sent Ted Flaggan and Rais Ali to conduct them from the Marina to his own town residence, where beds and board, attendance and consolation, were hospitably provided for them. We might add with truth that they were also provided with amusement, inasmuch as Ted Flaggan allowed the effervescence of his sympathetic spirit and wayward fancy to flow over in long discourses on Algerine piracy and practice in general, in comparison with which the “Arabian Nights” is tameness itself.
With the poor Sicilian captives, however, the case was very different, for the felucca which brought them in brought also a report that the Sicilian government had behaved very brutally to some Algerines whom they had captured. The immediate result was that all the Sicilian captives then in Algeria were ordered to be heavily ironed and put to the severest work at the quarries and on the fortifications, while some of the most refractory among them were beaten to death, and others were thrown upon the large hooks outside the town-wall, or crucified.
To the latter death Francisco Rimini and his sons were condemned, and it is certain that the sentence would have been carried into immediate effect—for legal processes among the pirates were short, and judicial action was sharp—had not an event occurred which arrested for a brief period the hand of piratical justice.
This event was the arrival of a Sicilian priest, who was commissioned to treat for the exchange of prisoners and the ransom of a certain number of Sicilian slaves. The ransom of these slaves varied much according to their position, but a very common price demanded and paid was from 200 pounds to 400 pounds sterling. Of course noblemen, bankers, wealthy merchants, etcetera, were rated much higher than others, but not too high to render their ransom impossible, for the Algerines were adepts at this species of traffic, having been engaged in it more or less for several centuries! As the settlement of these ransoms, and the ascertaining as to who were the fortunate ones whose friends had succeeded in raising the necessary funds, required time, the execution of the Riminis and other Sicilians was, as we have said, delayed.
When Paulina and her sister heard of the arrival of the priest, they flew into each other’s arms, never doubting that the husband of the former must have at last raised the required sum for their ransom, but on being reminded that the priest was commissioned to redeem only captives of Sicily, they sat down and relieved themselves by giving way to floods of tears. Paulina, however, soon comforted herself by kissing her baby, and Angela consoled herself with the reflection that, at all events, Mariano and his father and brother would be ransomed, which, she naturally argued, would enable the first to move heaven and earth in order to effect the ransom of herself, and sister also. She did not know, poor girl, of the dreadful fate to which her lover was already doomed, for the consul, although aware of it, could not prevent it, and had not the heart to tell her.
Previous to this event the British consul had endeavoured to use his influence to bring about peace between the Algerines and Sicilians, but the former, having no desire for peace, made the terms such as could not be agreed to, namely, that the Sicilians should pay them 450 pounds before any negotiations for peace should be entered on. The rejection of this proposal did not, of course, facilitate the arrangements that were now being made, and when Omar demanded that, in cases of exchange of prisoners, two Algerines should be returned for each Sicilian slave set free, it was seen that the prospect of a speedy termination of hostilities was not bright.
After some days spent in useless discussion, the worthy priest was obliged to return home without accomplishing his mission.
One good result, however, followed. Those captives who had been condemned to death, and for whom ransoms had been offered, were reprieved; nevertheless, they were treated with cruel severity. Of course the unfortunates for whom no ransom had been offered were treated with the utmost rigour, and the sentences of such as had been condemned to die were ordered to be carried out. In the case of poor Mariano the sentence was altered, for that headstrong youth had in his despair made such a fierce assault on his jailers that, despite his chains, he had well-nigh strangled three of them before he was effectually secured. He was therefore condemned to be buried alive in one of the huge square blocks of concrete with which the walls of a part of the fortifications were being strengthened.1
While these things were pending, very different scenes were taking place at the French consulate, for great preparations were going on for a mask-ball which was about to take place there.
It may, perhaps, appear strange to some readers that any one could have the heart to engage in gaieties in the midst of such horrible scenes of injustice, cruelty, and death, but it must be remembered that human beings have a wonderful capacity for becoming used and indifferent to circumstances the most peculiar—as all history assures us—and it must also be borne in remembrance that the unfortunate Sicilian captives, whose sorrows and sufferings we have tried to depict, were a mere fraction of the community in the midst of which they suffered. It is probable that the great body of the people in Algiers at that time knew little, and cared less, about the Riminis and their brethren.
Since the reconciliation of the English and French Consuls, at the time when the representative of Denmark was rescued, the Frenchman had displayed great cordiality to the Briton—not only accepting the invitations which before he had refused, but drinking with apparent enthusiasm to the health of the English king, on the occasion of a dinner given in celebration of that monarch’s birthday at the British consulate.
The mask-ball was a very great affair indeed when it came off—which it did at the country residence of the French consul. The mansion, which was Mauresque in style, was splendidly decorated with flags of various nations, and the skiffa, with its sparkling fountain and graceful palmettas, was a perfect blaze of variegated lamps. These hung amid the foliage of the creepers that twined round the curved marble pillars, and their red garish light contrasted powerfully with the clear purity of the star-lit sky, which formed the natural roof of the skiffa.
The grounds around the consulate were also decorated and lighted up with the taste for which the French are peculiarly noted.
Of course all the consuls were invited, with their respective families, and were present, with the exception of Mrs Langley, who happened to be indisposed, and Agnes, who stayed at home to nurse her mother. As an affair of the kind involved a good deal of laxity of what may be styled domestic discipline, many of the superior servants were also permitted to stroll about the grounds in fancy costumes. The consuls themselves appeared in their proper uniforms, but some of the members of their households displayed themselves in forms and aspects which we find it difficult to describe, while others of the guests habited themselves in the skins, and gave themselves the airs, of wild beasts of the forest.
There were wild-boars from the Jurjura Hills, overgrown monkeys from the gorge of “la Chiffa,” lions from Mount Atlas, and panthers from the Zahara, besides other nondescript creatures from nowhere. But these were a mere sprinkling in the gay scene of richly dressed ladies and gentlemen, among whom, strange to say, were not a few Christian slaves! These last were Italian and Portuguese officers who had been captured by the Algerines at various times. Had they been taken by civilised peoples, they would have been deemed prisoners of war, and treated as such, but the pirates styled them slaves, and would certainly have treated them as beasts of burden—as they treated hundreds of their countrymen—but for the fact that they had friends at home who paid an annual sum to purchase for them exemption from such drudgery. Having nothing to do, and no means of escaping, these unfortunate men did what they could to mitigate the woes of their brethren—though they were not allowed to do much—and entered more or less into the society and amusements of the city. Hence, though liable at any moment to be put in chains, or sent to the quarries, or even slain by their savage captors, they were to be found waltzing at the fancy ball of the French consul!
Among those who cut a very conspicuous—we may venture to say a beastly—figure that night was our friend Ted Flaggan. The eccentric tar, desiring to enjoy the ball under the shelter of a mask which would preserve his incognito, had, with the aid of Rais Ali, provided himself with the complete skin of a wild-boar, including the head with its enormous tusks, and, having fitted it to his person, and practised a variety of appropriate antics, to the delight of Agnes, who was the only person besides Rais admitted to his secret, he felt himself to be quite up in his part—almost fitted to hold converse with the veritable denizens of the forest.
Flaggan had arranged that he was to put on the boar-dress in the town residence of Rais Ali. Being unwilling to attract the attention of the populace by passing through the streets, in broad daylight, he determined to postpone his advent to an advanced part of the evening.
It was a clear, calm night when he left the country residence of the British consul, with a crescent moon to light him on his way. He had just issued from the garden gate, when an old man, clad in a half-monkish robe, advanced, towards him with strides that would have done credit to a dragoon.
“I’ve me doubts that yer not so ancient as ye look, owld feller,” he said, eyeing the man keenly as he drew near, and moving the head of the thick stick, which, as usual, rested in his pocket, as if to hold it in readiness for instant action.
“Be the Breetish consul at home?” said the old man in broken English and in breathless haste.
“Not at present,” answered the seaman quickly, for he now saw that the man was really old, and that anxiety had given him strength to exert himself beyond his ordinary powers, “but I’m goin’ to meet him—bein’, if I may so spake, his edgedukong. Av you’ve anything in the world to say to his Excellency I’m your man to carry the message.”
“You are Breetish sailor, I zee,” returned the old man, sitting down and heaving a deep sigh, as if unable to recover breath. “You will onderstan’ when I say your Lord Exmouth do come quickly for bombard de city!”
“Onderstand you—is it?” exclaimed Ted, with sudden excitement. “Faix do I, but I don’t belave ye.”
“Man!” said the other, with an earnest look, “doos you tink I come here like dis for tell do Breetish consul a lie!”
“Shure yer right, an’ I’m a goose,” exclaimed the tar, becoming still more excited; “but are ’ee sure yer not mistaken, owld man?”
“Quite sure. Listen. Go, tell consul dat one boat come shore at Pointe Pescade, find me dere, capture me—carry me off. It was fishin’ boat in Breetish pay. Dey find out who I be. Give leave to go shore again, and warn Breetish consul to look out, for Turk ver’ savage when him hear of dis. Lord Exmouth, wid large fleet come straight to Algiers, for delivrin’ all slaves, an’ blow up de city.”
“Hurrah!” shouted Flaggan, in a subdued voice, while he unpocketed the cudgel and twirled it over his head. “Good luck to ’ee, owld man. I’m off to tell the consul. Go in here an’ they’ll give ’ee some grub. Say I sent ’ee.—But, hallo!” he added, when on the point of starting, “what’s yer name?”
“The Padre Giovanni,” replied the old man.
“Och! it’s mesilf has heard of ’ee,” cried the seaman, as he turned and dashed down the road leading to the city. So energetic was he in his motions, and so quick was his pace, on reaching Bab-el-Oued gate, that the guard—a young soldier, lately arrived from Turkey—became suspicious, and ventured to intercept him.
Flaggan was in no humour to be stopped, or even spoken with. He made an attempt to force past, which caused the soldier to present his piece at him. Hereupon Ted drew forth his cudgel, hit the Turk a Donnybrookian whack over the skull that laid him flat on the ground, and took to his heels.
The rest of the guard, who saw this little incident and recognised the now well-known seaman, instantly gave chase; but Ted was too active for them. He doubled down a narrow street on his left, and in five minutes was beyond their reach. He knew now that nothing but prompt action could save him from immediate arrest and probable castigation. He therefore went straight to Rais Ali’s house, and was admitted by an old negress.
