The Barbary Pirates

by William Dietrich

  “Smith’s hesitant. Doesn’t like the water much, for an Englishman.”

  “Here, hold my rifle. I’m rested now.” So I swam back through the cave to the grotto, the distance seeming a fraction of what it had been before, and took his blunderbuss from him. “It’s just like being born,” I coaxed. “The whole world is on the other side.” I led the awkward geologist to the edge of the grotto, taught him to take deep breaths, and then we dunked and swam through, me leading him by the arm, and coming up just as the sky was pinking to our left, which must be east. Smith blew like a whale and coughed. I glanced around. From the direction of the sunrise, we’d come out somewhere on Thira’s southern coast.

  “Now what?” asked Fulton. “We can’t even climb up.”

  “We go home,” Cuvier said. “Look—isn’t that our ship?”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Dragut’s xebec appeared to be anchored in a most unlikely place, off the steep unprotected stretch of Thira’s southern shore. Had our luck finally turned? The vessel was quiet, the sun just breaking the rim of the sea, and no one spotted us as we swam the hundred meters to its bobbing hull. Fulton cupped his mouth to shout, but I instinctively cautioned him. I wanted to get on board first, with our weapons.

  I caught the anchor line, wrapped my feet and hands around it, and pulled myself up to the bow. The crew was curled amidships, asleep, and the lone watchman, our helmsman, was focused primarily on getting seeds out of a pomegranate. At a signal my companions followed me up. I handed Fulton my soaked longrifle, pulled out my nicked and blunted rapier, and whispered to Smith and Cuvier to brandish their weapons. I trusted no one at this point. Then we lightly ran for the wheel, the helmsman turning just in time to find the tip of my weapon at his eye. The other Muhammadans came awake when we stood over them. Dragut instinctively reached for a pistol. As my sword dipped to stay his hand, he stopped, looking at us in confusion. We stood like a cluster of half-drowned rats, dripping, filthy, torn, and menacing, Fulton holding my rifle, Smith his blunderbuss, and Cuvier his dueling pistols. The fact that none of our wet guns would fire did not immediately register.

  “You come out of the sea?” our captain managed.

  “Aye,” I said. “It’s been a long night. And we’re in a bit of a hurry.”

  “But I don’t understand. Wasn’t I to pick you up back at the quay, on the other side of the island? Why are you here, with weapons drawn?”

  I looked about. “Here’s a better question: Why are you anchored here in the open sea, away from any sheltered harbor?”

  Dragut looked to the shore, as if an answer might be found there. “The weather was calm, so we anchored for the night to wait for the morning’s breeze,” he finally said. “If you were a sailor, you would understand.” He blinked. “But where did you come from?”

  “We’ve been poking about. We need to get back to Venice as soon as possible. Can you take us there?”

  “Ah, then you have found what you were looking for?” He sat up eagerly, his eyes flicking from one to the other of us, looking for some sign of treasure. The man was a mercenary like me.

  “We hope.”

  Now he seemed to gain more certainty. “Then of course. Abdul! Constantine! Up, up, come you lazy dogs, let us raise the anchor for our passengers!” He glanced to the shore again. “There is no time to lose!” He looked back to me. “But why do you hold your sword on your friend Hamidou?”

  “Greece makes me nervous.”

  “You are under Dragut’s protection now! Come, come, take your ease, have some dates and wine. Get out of your sodden clothes! You look exhausted. You can sleep in the sun.”

  “There’re some ships on the other side of the island we should avoid, I think.”

  “And no one is swifter and more elusive than Hamidou! Come, put your weapons away, get some rest, and then you can tell me your adventures! Out of the sea. Ha!”

  I had my sodden shirt half off before I remembered the parchment pasted by seawater onto my back. I hesitated about showing it, but there was no privacy aboard and if I was to salvage anything I had to dry my artifact out. Cuvier peeled it off my skin and we examined the old document. The writing had smeared, but was still legible. Dragut glanced our way as we uncurled it, but made no comment. The anchor came up, the sails filled, and we began to move.

  Our captain had turned to watch the cliffs of the island.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked.

  “Shepherds who might betray our direction for a coin.” He snapped an order and a long red-and-green pennant was raised, unfurling and flapping in the wind.

  “What’s that?”

  “A flag of the Barbary pirates. It will confuse anyone ashore about our purpose.” And indeed, now I did see men, waving or shaking their fists as we gathered headway. “They will be confused by my cleverness. No captain is smarter than Hamidou Dragut! None swifter! Or more quiet! Yes, you are lucky that you are paying me.”

  I watched uneasily. “Are those the men pursuing us?”

  “Who knows? Now they will report to their superiors, perhaps. But report the wrong thing, no?”

  I didn’t trust Dragut or anyone else, but the idea of getting away from Thira seemed a good one. His crew certainly seemed cheered by the idea.

  So we staked our prize on the deck to dry, determined to keep an eye on it. I had some food, famished enough to gobble, and resolved to stand sentry while the others slept.

  When I woke, it was dark again. I’d slept the entire day away.

  A moon was up, lighting the sea, and the tops of the waves were silver. It was still warm, pleasantly so, and the rigging creaked as the xebec cut through the sea. I looked at the horizon but land had fallen away in all directions. I felt for the parchment. To my relief it was where I’d left it, so I rolled it into my ragged jacket. Then I drank to slake my thirst and crawled over my companions to find Dragut.

  Our captain was standing by the bowsprit, studying the stars. I’m a poor celestial navigator and admire people who can make sense of the spangle.

  “Where are we?” I asked quietly.

  He turned, the whites of his eyes the most visible thing in his dark face. “On our way home,” he said. “Look—the sea is as soft as a mother this night. The sail is billowed like a breast, and the moon is milk. A good sign, I think.”

  “Of what?”

  “That we are all finding what we’re looking for. You’re a man who is always searching, no?”

  “It seems so. And others always seem to be searching for me.”

  “Yes, in Venice and the island. Why is that?”

  I shook my head. “I know nothing worth knowing.”

  Now a flash of teeth. “Yet you have things worth knowing, perhaps? Yes, I have seen your parchment, and noticed your urgency of escape. What is so important about it?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t read it. I don’t even know if I can read it.”

  “Which is why you swim to my ship and climb aboard, sword unsheathed, guns displayed, wet and bloody? Well, I am a simple sailor, grateful for a calm night. Go get more rest, American, and tell me someday if our little adventure was worth it.”

  Cuvier helped me decipher the parchment the next day. It was medieval Latin, as might be expected from a Templar document, and badly aged and smudged. Hamidou gave us paper and pen to write down our translation. I feared the seawater had ruined it, but we made out just enough to come to a disappointing conclusion.

  “This has nothing to do with Atlantis, ancient weapons, or Archimedes,” the French savant murmured.

  It in fact appeared to be an account of a Roman Catholic monk’s pilgrimage to the Holy Land, as well as a series of standard prayers from the Roman church. There was nothing about secrets, Knights Templar, or underground tunnels.

  “Perhaps it’s a code,” I suggested. “I seem to stumble across them all the time.”

  “Hail Mary is a code?” Cuvier replied. “I’m afraid, Ethan Gage, that you led us thro
ugh the gate of Hades for a book of prayer.” He gave me back the parchment. “Of interest to historians and theologians, perhaps, but no more remarkable than a hymnal.”

  I turned the parchment sideways and upside down, inspected the back, and held it up to the sun. Nothing. “But why would they seal this in plaster?” I asked in frustration. “That portion of the wall was newer, I’m certain of it!”

  “Perhaps to reinforce their mud. There may have been something of real value down there they had removed and were patching. It was an interesting rumor, but we’ve investigated it and found nothing. Fini! That’s how science works—the experiments that do not succeed are often as important as those that do. We’ve discharged our obligation to Napoleon and escaped with our lives, which itself is a miracle. Now we go home.”

  Empty-handed again! By the beard of the dwarf, I hate underground places. People dig them to squirrel away things all the time, but I rarely seem to emerge with anything valuable. Nor had I discovered anything on Thira that provided a clue to the fate of Astiza, which I’d been hoping for, given Osiris’s wager in Paris. The entire expedition had proved pointless. All four of us were disappointed.

  Fulton grew bored when Cuvier started translating the Apostles’ Creed, and instead stood at the stern, looking about at the sea and then curiously at the sun. “What time do you think it is?” he finally asked us.

  “Midmorning.”

  “And the sun rises in the east, does it not?”

  “I’m hardly certain of anything anymore, but I’ll hazard that,” I said.

  “And so our solar orb should be on our starboard side as we sail north, should it not? To our right?”

  “Aye.”

  “Which by my reckoning means we are sailing due south, directly away from Venice instead of toward it.”

  We leaped up. “What?”

  “I think our doughty captain is going entirely the wrong way.”

  “Hamidou!” I called to the bow. “Which way are we going?”

  “Home, I told you!” he called cheerfully.

  “Whose home? You’ve got us pointed south, you idiot! Don’t you have a compass?”

  Dragut looked at the sky in amazement and then shouted at one of his crewmen. An argument broke out. Finally, with a push, the man was driven to scamper up the mast like a monkey, bare feet climbing on the rings that held the sail, to scan the horizon as if looking for an alternate sun. No new course was set. He released a cord and a narrow white banner unfurled to wave in the breeze. What was that for? At last the man pointed excitedly and began shouting in Arabic. Then a chorus of shouts went up from all the crew, and they stood on the gunwales to peer at the horizon.

  “What’s going on?” Smith asked.

  Dragut pointed off our bow and stern. “Pirates.” And indeed, we now noticed dark sails cresting the horizon. “Many men, I think, very dangerous.”

  “What? Where the devil have you brought us?”

  “Wait, I put about.” He snapped orders and the helmsman turned, but then another crewman shouted and the wheel spun back. An argument broke out. The bow slid into the teeth of the breeze, and sails began to luff, and we coasted to a stop, wallowing in the waves. Now the crew was shouting at each other even more, while breaking out guns, swords, and pikes. Meanwhile we drifted, rigging creaking and banging.

  My companions and I looked at each other, hope evaporating like dew.

  “Look to your guns,” I said resignedly.

  Enemy sail were bearing down on us like boulders accelerating downhill.

  Our own weapons had been dried and cleaned that morning and so we loaded, even as our crew seemed impossibly clumsy at swinging the booms and turning the rudder to get out of irons. At the time we needed them most they’d panicked into incompetence!

  “I thought you were the best sailor in the Mediterranean!”

  “It seems I am cursed by an incompetent crew,” Dragut muttered.

  “I thought you had fooled them with your Barbary banner!”

  He looked aloft. “Maybe we still can.”

  “Do you think that’s the bunch that was after us at Thira?” Fulton asked.

  “How would they know to chase us here?” Smith said.

  “My friends, I think it is wisest if we surrender,” Dragut suddenly counseled. “They are drawing within artillery range, and we have no long-range guns to reply. My ship is swift and light, but it is small and can’t stand up to a pounding.”

  “I thought you could outsail any ship out here!”

  “Not a Barbary corsair. We’re a Muslim crew. Perhaps they will have mercy?”

  “But we’re not Muslim! We’re Christian! We’ll be enslaved!”

  “True. But we can save your lives. Thus does Hamidou look after his passengers!”

  Smoke bloomed from the hull of one of the corsairs, there was a shriek of shot, and a waterspout erupted where a cannon ball dropped, just fifty yards off our stern. My heart began to hammer. The trouble with sea fights is that there’s nowhere to hide.

  “No,” Cuvier declared, looking more like a determined grenadier than a zoologist. “We’re going to fight. Beasts of prey look for easy victims. So do bullies. But scratch the lion and he’ll back off looking for easier meat. Let’s crouch beneath the bulwark, wait until they draw near, and then give a broadside with your light guns and our arms. It will throw them into confusion. If we can cut up their rigging, maybe we can escape.”

  “You’re willing to risk your life?” Dragut asked.

  “I’d rather sell it here than in a slave market.”

  “You are mad, Christians. But very brave, too. All right.” He snapped orders to his crewmen. “You Europeans take your place just by the bulwark there, where the protection is best. We will ready behind you, with matches for the cannon. I’ll watch for the precise moment and we will rise as one and fire! Every shot must hit to throw them into disorder. Then you must help us with the lines to draw off and escape.”

  Ever notice how organizers put followers in the front rank, and them behind? But it didn’t seem the time to argue choreography. The pirate corsairs were coming on fast, lateen-sailed vessels larger than the xebec but just as swiftly built, and crammed with men. As we crouched I could peek through a hawser hole at the mob of them, stripped to the waist except for earrings and armlets of gold. Some were bearded and turbaned. Others were shaved bald, muscles bulging, painted with tattoos or decorated with great mustaches. All of them were roaring and clashing steel for our maximum demoralization. Were these the ships I’d seen at Thira? The animal smell of them came across the water, plus oil and spices, the smell of Africa.

  “Hold your fire until the last moment,” Dragut counseled. “Remember, we get only one volley! We must wait until they are close as possible!”

  “Damnation,” Smith muttered. “I felt less confined in a canal ditch.”

  “Your blunderbuss will give them pause,” I encouraged. “Georges, fire both your pistols at once. Fulton, you’ve lost your pipes. Do you need a gun?”

  “I’ve got an ax to cut their boarding lines,” he said. “And maybe we can swing the boom to knock some of them back. A pendulum can accumulate tremendous power.”

  “Just what Archimedes would advise.” I turned back to Hamidou. “Ready when you are!”

  He nodded encouragingly and laid his cutlass on the flat of his hand.

  The nearest corsair loomed to fill all my view, its sails almost black, its crew balanced on the railing, twitchy as colts.

  “Steady,” I murmured. I’d already picked a target for my longrifle, a big brute of a pirate who looked to be their captain. Then, because of the time it took to reload, I’d slash at any boarders with my rapier. We’d sting like a scorpion. “When you give the word, Dragut.” I tensed, ready to rise and fire.

  It was then that I felt the annoyingly familiar press of a gun barrel at the nape of my neck. “And the word is ‘surrender,’ Ethan Gage,” he said cheerfully. I realized I’d never told hi
m my whole name and yet he knew it, the devious bastard. “Take your finger from your trigger, please, and lower your longrifle to the deck, so that I do not have to shatter your spine.”

  I glanced sideways. My companions also had guns to their heads, held by our own crewmen. We’d been betrayed, from beginning to end! Had the Venetian gondoliers simply been herding us to this treacherous vessel from the start? Our arms thumped on the deck.

  Then there was a crash of wood as the two ships mated, and a shout as a rank of half-naked, unwashed pirates poured across, their bare feet lighting like cats. In seconds we were yanked backward, our arms wrenched and our feet bound.

  Dragut looked at me with amazement. “You didn’t get off even a single shot. I expected more from the hero of Acre and Mortefontaine.”

  “When I finally do, I’ll aim at you.”

  “Alas, I think the time for that is past.”

  “What base treachery is this?” cried Smith.

  “I believe, gentlemen, that we have once more been led into a trap by our esteemed guide, Ethan Gage,” said Cuvier.

  “But why not just seize us yourselves back at Thira?” I asked our captain.

  “It was you who had the rapier to my eye, not vice versa. We didn’t really expect you to escape from the island.”

  “And because I wanted the pleasure of seizing you myself!” cried a new voice. A lithe new pirate swung on a line from the enemy poop and lightly landed on ours, this one beardless and dressed in sea boots, greatcoat, and bloused trousers that were a century back in style, as braided and gaudy as a Caribbean buccaneer’s. The newcomer wore a magnificent broad-brimmed plumed hat and held a jeweled sword in a fine-fingered hand. A broken, ominously broken second sword was tucked in a wide leather belt, along with twin pistols. As the buccaneer hopped down to the xebec’s main deck, some of the other scoundrels flinched as they made room, and we soon saw why. With a leap a black hound cleared the gap between the two vessels and followed his master onto our deck, landing with a heavy thump with feet skittering for new purchase. This muscular beast was a short-haired, thick-snouted mastiff, ugly with slobber and hanging jowls, a dog that bristled at the sight of us and growled with the purr of Hell’s Cerberus. Its eyes were yellow, its flanks scarred, its tail chewed, and the whole package was uglier than the fleas that inhabited it.