“Does she not know of our design?” asks the Don, lifting his eyebrows.
“No more than the man in the moon, Señor,” answers Jack. “For, though Kit and I may have discoursed of it at odd times, we have been mighty careful to shut our mouths or talk of a fine day at her approach.”
“Very good,” says Don Sanchez. “You are her father.”
“And she shall know it,” says Jack, with resolution, and taking a stride or two in advance he calls to her to give over dancing and come to him.
“Have you forgot your breeding,” he asks as she turns and waits for him, “that you have no more respect for your elders than to choke ’em with dust along of your shuffling?”
“What a thoughtless thing am I!” cries she, in a voice of contrition. “Why, you’re floured as white as a shade!”
Then taking up a corner of her waist-shawl, she gently rubs away the dust from the tip of his nose, so that it stood out glowing red from his face like a cherry through a hole in a pie-crust, at which she claps her hands and rings out a peal of laughter.
“I counted to make a lady of you, Moll,” says Jack, in sorrow, “but I see plainly you will ever be a fool, and so ’tis to no purpose to speak seriously.”
“Surely, father, I have ever been what you wish me to be,” answers she, demurely, curious now to know what he would be telling her.
“Then do you put them plaguy clappers away, and listen to me patiently,” says he.
Moll puts her hands behind her, and drawing a long lip and casting round eyes at us over her shoulder, walks along very slowly by her father’s side, while he broaches the matter to her. And this he did with some difficulty (for ’tis no easy thing to make a roguish plot look innocent), as we could see by his shifting his bundle from one shoulder to the other now and again, scratching his ear and the like; but what he said, we, walking a pace or two behind, could not catch, he dropping to a very low tone as if ashamed to hear his own voice. To all he has to tell she listens very attentively, but in the end she says something which causes him to stop dead short and turn upon her gaping like a pig.
“What!” he cries as we came up. “You knew all this two months ago?”
“Yes, father,” answers she, primly, “quite two months.”
“And pray who told you?” he asks.
“No one, father, since you forbade me to ask questions. But though I may be dumb to oblige you, I can’t be deaf. Kit and you are for ever a-talking of it.”
“Maybe, child,” says Dawson, mightily nettled. “Maybe you know why we left Alicante this morning.”
“I should be dull indeed if I didn’t,” answers she. “And if you hadn’t said when we saw the ships that we might meet more Englishmen in the town than we might care to know hereafter, why—well, maybe we should have been in Alicante now.”
“By denying yourself that satisfaction,” says Don Sanchez, “we may conclude that the future we are making for you is not unacceptable.”
Moll stopped and says with some passion:
“I would turn back now and go over those mountains the way we came to ride through France in my fine gown like a lady.”
“Brava! bravamente!” says the Don, in a low voice, as she steps on in front of us, holding her head high with the recollection of her former state.
“She was ever like that,” whispers Dawson, with pride. “We could never get her to play a mean part willingly; could we, Kit? She was for ever wanting the part of a queen writ for her.”
The next day about sundown, coming to a little eminence, Don Sanchez points out a dark patch of forest lying betwixt us and the mountains, and says:
“That is Elche, the place where we are to stay some months.”
We could make out no houses at all, but he told us the town lay in the middle of the forest, and added some curious particulars as how, lying on flat ground and within easy access of the sea, it could not exist at all but for the sufferance of the Spaniards on one side and of the Barbary pirates on the other, how both for their own convenience respected it as neutral ground on which each could exchange his merchandise without let or hindrance from the other, how the sort of sanctuary thus provided was never violated either by Algerine or Spaniard, but each was free to come and go as he pleased, etc., and this did somewhat reassure us, though we had all been more content to see our destination on the crest of a high hill.
From this point we came in less than half an hour to Santa Pola, a small village, but very bustling, for here the cart-road from Alicante ends, all transport of commodities betwixt this and Elche being done on mules; so here great commotion of carriers setting down and taking up merchandise, and the way choked with carts and mules and a very babel of tongues, there being Moors here as well as Spaniards, and all shouting their highest to be the better understood of each other. These were the first Moors we had seen, but they did not encourage us with great hopes of more intimate acquaintance, wearing nothing but a kind of long, ragged shirt to their heels, with a hood for their heads in place of a hat, and all mighty foul with grease and dirt.
Being astir betimes the next morning, we reached Elche before midday, and here we seemed to be in another world, for this region is no more like Spain than Spain is like our own country. Entering the forest, we found ourselves encompassed on all sides by prodigious high palm trees, which hitherto we had seen only singly here and there, cultivated as curiosities. And noble trees they are, standing eighty to a hundred feet high, with never a branch, but only a great spreading crown of leaves, with strings of dates hanging down from their midst. Beneath, in marshy places, grew sugar-canes as high as any haystack; and elsewhere were patches of rice, which grows like corn with us, but thrives well in the shade, curiously watered by artificial streams of water. And for hedges to their property, these Moors have agaves, with great spiky leaves which no man can penetrate, and other strange plants, whereof I will mention only one, they call the fig of Barbary, which is no fig at all, but a thing having large, fleshy leaves, growing one out of the other, with fruit and flower sprouting out of the edges, and all monstrous prickly. To garnish and beautify this formidable defence, nature had cast over all a network of creeping herbs with most extraordinary flowers, delightful both to see and smell, but why so prickly, no man can say.
“Surely, this must be paradise,” cries Moll, staying to look around her.
And we were of the same thinking, until we came to the town, which, as I have said, lies in the midst of this forest, and then all our hopes and expectations were dashed to the ground. For we had looked to find a city in keeping with these surroundings—of fairy palaces and stately mansions; in place whereof was nought but a wilderness of mean, low, squalid houses, with meandering, ill-paved alleys, and all past everything for unsavoury smells—heaps of refuse lying before every door, stark naked brats of children screaming everywhere, and a pack of famished dogs snapping at our heels.
Don Sanchez leads the way, we following, with rueful looks one at the other, till we reach the market-place, and there he takes us into a house of entertainment, where a dozen Moors are squatting on their haunches in groups about sundry bowls of a smoking mess, called cuscusson, which is a kind of paste with a little butter in it and a store of spices. Their manner of eating it is simple enough: each man dips his hand in the pot, takes out a handful, and dances it about till it is fashioned into a ball, and then he eats it with all the gusto in the world. For our repast we were served with a joint of roast mutton, and this being cut up, we had to take up in our hands and eat like any savages—their religion denying these Moors anything but the bare necessities of life. Also, their law forbids the drinking of wine, which did most upset Jack Dawson, he having for drink with his meat nothing but the choice of water and sour milk; but which he liked least I know not, for he would touch neither, saying he would rather go dry any day than be poisoned with such liquor.
Whilst we were at our meal, a good many Moors came in to stare at us, as at a raree show, and especially at
Moll, whose bright clothes and loose hair excited their curiosity, for their women do rarely go abroad, except they be old, and wear only long dirty white robes, muffling the lower part of their faces. None of them smiled, and it is noticeable that these people, like our own Don, do never laugh, taking such demonstration as a sign of weak understanding and foolishness, but watching all our actions very intently. And presently an old Moor, with a white beard and more cleanly dressed than the rest, pushing the crowd aside to see what was forward, recognised Don Sanchez, who at once rose to his feet; we, not to be behind him in good manners, rising also.
“May Baba,” says the old Moor; and repeating this phrase thrice (which is a sure sign of hearty welcome), he claps the Don’s hand, without shaking it, and lays his own upon his breast, the Don doing likewise. Then Don Sanchez, introducing us as we understood by his gestures, the old Moor bends his head gravely, putting his right hand first to his heart, next to his forehead, and then kissing the two foremost fingers laid across his lips, we replying as best we could with a bowing and scraping. These formalities concluded, the Don and the old Moor walk apart, and we squat down again to our mutton bones.
After a lengthy discussion the old Moor goes, and Don Sanchez, having paid the reckoning, leads us out of the town by many crooked alleys and cross-passages; he speaking never a word, and we asking no questions, but marvelling exceedingly what is to happen next. And, following a wall overhung by great palms, we turn a corner, and find there our old Moor standing beside an open door with a key in his hand. The old Moor gives the key into Don Sanchez’s hand, and with a very formal salutation, leaves us.
Then following the Don through the doorway, we find ourselves in a spacious garden, but quite wild for neglect; flower and weed and fruit all mingling madly together, but very beautiful to my eye, nevertheless, for the abundance of colour, the richness of the vegetables, and the graceful forms of the adjacent palms.
A house stood in the midst of this wilderness, and thither Don Sanchez picked his way, we at his heels still too amazed to speak. Beside the house was a well with a little wall about it, and seating himself on this, Don Sanchez opens his lips for the first time.
“My friend, Sidi ben Ahmed, has offered me the use of this place as long as we choose to stay here,” says he. “Go look in the house and tell me if you care to live in it for a year.”
CHAPTER XII.
How Don Sanchez very honestly offers to free us of our bargain if we will; but we will not.
The house, like nearly all Moorish houses of this class, was simply one large and lofty room, with a domed ceiling built of very thick masonry, to resist the heat of the sun. There was neither window nor chimney, the door serving to admit light and air, and let out the smoke if a fire were lighted within. One half of this chamber was dug out to a depth of a couple of feet, for the accommodation of cattle (the litter being thrown into the hollow as it is needed, and nought removed till it reaches the level of the other floor), and above this, about eight feet from the ground and four from the roof, was a kind of shelf (the breadth and length of that half), for the storage of fodder and a sleeping-place for the inhabitants, with no kind of partition, or any issue for the foul air from the cattle below.
“Are we to live a year in this hutch?” asks Moll, in affright.
“Have done with your chatter, Moll!” answers Jack, testily. “Don’t you see I’m a-thinking? Heaven knows there’s enough to swallow without any bugbears of your raising.”
With that, having finished his inspection of the interior, he goes out and looks at it outside.
“Well,” says Don Sanchez, “what think you of the house?”
“Why, Señor, ’tis no worse as I can see than any other in these parts, and hath this advantage, which they have not, of being in a sweet air. With a bit of contrivance we could make a shift to live here well enough. We should not do amiss neither for furniture, seeing that ’tis the custom of the country to eat off the floor and sit upon nothing. A pot to cook victuals in is about all we need in that way. But how we are to get anything to cook in it is one mystery, and” (clacking his tongue) “what we are going to drink is another, neither of which I can fathom. For, look you, Señor, if one may judge of men’s characters by their faces or of their means by their habitations, we may dance our legs off ere ever these Moors will bestow a penny piece upon us, and as for their sour milk, I’d as lief drink hemlock, and liefer. Now, if this town had been as we counted on, like Barcelona, all had gone as merry as a marriage bell, for then might we have gained enough to keep us in jollity as long as you please; but here, if we die not of the colicks in a week, ’twill be to perish of starvation in a fortnight. What say you, Kit?”
I was forced to admit that I had never seen a town less likely to afford a subsistence than this.
Then Don Sanchez, having heard us with great patience, and waited a minute to see if we could raise any further objections, answers us in measured tones.
“I doubt not,” says he, “that with a little ingenuity you may make the house habitable and this wilderness agreeable. My friend, Sidi ben Ahmed, has offered to provide us with what commodities are necessary to that end. I agree with you that it would be impossible to earn the meanest livelihood here by dancing; it would not be advisable if we could. For that reason, my knowledge of various tongues making me very serviceable to Sidi ben Ahmed (who is the most considerable merchant of this town), I have accepted an office in his house. This will enable me to keep my engagement with you. You will live at my charge, as I promised, and you shall want for nothing in reason. If the Moors drink no wine themselves, they make excellent for those who will, and you shall not be stinted in that particular.”
“Come, this sounds fair enough,” cries Dawson. “But pray, Señor, are we to do nothing for our keep?”
“Nothing beyond what we came here to do,” replies he, with a meaning glance at Moll.
“What!” cries poor Moll, in pain. “We are to dance no more!”
The Don shook his head gravely; and, remembering the jolly, vagabond, careless, adventurous life we had led these past two months and more, with a thousand pleasant incidents of our happy junketings, we were all downcast at the prospect of living in this place—though a paradise—for a year without change.
“Though I promised you no more than I offer,” says the Don, “yet if this prospect displease you, we will cry quits and part here. Nay,” adds he, taking a purse from his pocket, “I will give you the means to return to Alicante, where you may live as better pleases you.”
It seemed to me that there was an unfeigned carelessness in his manner, as if he would as lief as not throw up this hazardous enterprise for some other more sure undertaking. And, indeed, I believe he was then balancing another alternative in his mind.
At this generous offer Moll dashed away the tears that had sprung to her eyes, brightening up wonderfully, but then, casting her eyes upon the Don, her face fell again as at the thought of leaving him. For we all admired him, and she prodigiously, for his great reserve and many good qualities which commanded respect, and this feeling was tinged in her case, I believe, with a kind of growing affection.
Seeing this sentiment in her eyes, the Don was clearly touched by it, and so, laying his hand gently on her shoulder, he says:
“My poor child, remember you the ugly old women we saw dancing at Barcelona? They were not more than forty; what will they be like in a few years? Who will tolerate them? who love them? Is that the end you choose for your own life—that the estate to which our little princess shall fall?”
“No, no, no!” cries she, in a passion, clenching her little hands and throwing up her head in disdain.
“And no, no, no, say I,” cries Dawson. “Were our case ten times as bad, I’d not go back from my word. As it is, we are not to be pitied, and I warrant ere long we make ourselves to be envied. Come, Kit, rouse you out of your lethargies, and let us consult how we may improve our condition here; and do you, Señor, pray order
us a little of that same excellent wine you spoke of, if it be but a pint, when you feel disposed that way.”
The Don inclined his head, but lingered, talking to Moll very gravely, and yet tenderly, for some while, Dawson and I going into the house to see what we could make of it; and then, telling us we should see him no more till the next day, he left us. But for some time after he was gone Moll sat on the side of the well, very pensive and wistful, as one to whom the future was opened for the first time.
Anon comes a banging at our garden gate, which Moll had closed behind the Don; and, going to it, we find a Moorish boy with a barrow charged with many things. We could not understand a word he said, but Dawson decided these chattels were sent us by the Don, by perceiving a huge hogskin of wine, for which he thanked God and Don Sanchez an hundred times over. So these commodities we carried up to the house, marvelling greatly at the Don’s forethought and generosity, for here were a score of things over and above those we had already found ourselves lacking; namely, earthen pipkins and wooden vessels, a bag of charcoal, a box of carpenters’ tools (which did greatly like Dawson, he having been bred a carpenter in his youth), instruments for gardening (to my pleasure, as I have ever had a taste for such employment), some very fine Moorish blankets, etc. So when the barrow was discharged, Dawson gives the lad some rials out of his pocket, which pleased him also mightily.
Then, first of all, Dawson unties the leg of the hogskin, and draws off a quart of wine, very carefully securing the leg after, and this we drank to our great refreshment; and next Moll, being awoke from her dreams and eager to be doing, sets herself to sort out our goods, such as belong to us (as tools, etc.), on one side, and such as belong to her (as pipkins and the rest) on the other. Leaving her to this employment, Dawson and I, armed with a knife and bagging hook, betake ourselves to a great store of canes stacked in one corner of the garden, and sorting out those most proper to our purpose, we lopped them all of an equal length, and shouldering as many as we could carried them up to our house. Here we found Moll mighty jubilant in having got her work done, and admirably she had done it, to be sure. For, having found a long recess in the wall, she had brushed it out clean with a whisp of herbs, and stored up her crocks according to their size, very artificial, with a dish of oranges plucked from the tree at our door on one side, and a dish of almonds on the other, a pipkin standing betwixt ’em with a handsome posey of roses in it. She had spread a mat on the floor, and folded up our fine blankets to serve for cushions; and all that did not belong to her she had bundled out of sight into that hollowed side I have mentioned as being intended for cattle.
The Pirate Story Megapack: 25 Classic and Modern Tales Page 27