CHAPTER EIGHT.
TED FLAGGAN AND RAIS ALI PROCEED ON A MISSION, AND SEE IMPRESSIVESIGHTS.
Two days after the events narrated in the last chapter, Mrs Langley,being seated on her favourite couch in the court under the smallbanana-tree, sent Zubby into the garden to command the attendance of TedFlaggan. That worthy was gifted with a rare capacity for taking theinitiative in all things, when permitted to do so, and had institutedhimself in the consul's mansion as assistant gardener, assistant cookand hostler, assistant footman and nurseryman, as well as generaladvice-giver and factotum, much to the amusement of all concerned, forhe knew little of anything, but was extremely good-humoured, helpful,and apart from advice-giving--modest.
"Flaggan," said Mrs Langley, when the stout seaman appeared, hat inhand, "I want you to accompany our interpreter, Rais Ali, into town, tobring out a message from a gentleman named Sidi Omar. Ali himself hasother duties to attend to, and cannot return till evening, so takeparticular note of the way, lest you should miss it in returning."
"I will, ma'am," replied Ted, with a forecastle bow, "Does Mister Allyonderstand English?"
"Oh yes," returned Mrs Langley, with a laugh. "I forgot that he wasabsent when you arrived. You will find that he understands all you sayto him, though I'm not quite sure that you will understand all he saysto you. Like some of the other Moors here, he has been in the Britishnavy, and has acquired a knowledge of English. You'll find him apleasant companion, I doubt not. Be so good as to tell him that I wishto see him before he leaves."
Obedient to the summons, Rais Ali quickly appeared. The interpreter wasa stout, tall, dignified man of about thirty-five, with a great deal ofself-assertion, and a dash of humour expressed in his countenance.
"Ali," said Mrs Langley, "you are aware that Sidi Omar is to be marriedto-morrow. I have been invited to the wedding, but have stupidlyforgotten the hour at which I was asked to see the bride dressed. Willyou go to Sidi Omar, or some of his people, and find this out? Take thesailor, Mr Flaggan, with you, and send him back with the information assoon as possible."
"Yis, mum," replied the interpreter; "an' please, mum, I was want too,tree days' leave of absins."
"No doubt Colonel Langley will readily grant your request. Have yousome particular business to transact, or do you merely desire aholiday?"
"Bof," replied the Moor, with a mysterious smile. "I'se got finishedthe partikler bizziness of bein' spliced yesterdays, an' I wants littilholiday."
"Indeed," said Mrs Langley in surprise, "you have been very quiet aboutit."
"Ho yis, wery quiet."
"Where is your bride, Ali? I should like so much to see her."
"Her's at 'ome, safe," said Rais Ali, touching a formidable key whichwas stuck in his silken girdle.
"What! have you locked her up?"
"Yis--'bleeged to do so for keep her safe."
"Not alone, I hope?" said Mrs Langley.
"No, not 'lone. Her's got a bootiflul cat, an' I means buy her a littlenigger boy soon."
Having arranged that Mrs Langley was to visit his bride on her way toSidi Omar's wedding the following day, Rais Ali set out on his mission,accompanied by Mr Flaggan.
The Irishman soon discovered that the Moor was a conceited coxcomb and abarefaced boaster, and ere long began to suspect that he was an arrantcoward. He was, however, good-humoured and chatty, and Ted, being inthese respects like-minded, rather took a fancy to him, and slilyencouraged his weakness.
"Ye must have seed a power o' sarvice in the navy, now," he said, withan air of interest; "how came you to git into it?"
"Ha! that wos cos o' me bein' sitch a strong, good-lookin' feller,"replied Ali, with an air of self-satisfaction.
"Just so," said Flaggan; "but it's not common to hear of Moors bein'taken aboard our men o' war, d'ee see. It's that as puzzles me."
"Oh, that's easy to 'splain," returned Ali. "The fac' is, I'd bin forsev'l year aboord a Maltese trader 'tween Meddrainean an' Liverp'l, andgot so like a English tar you coodn't tell the one fro' the oder. SpokEnglish, too, like natif."
"Ha!" exclaimed Ted, nodding his head gravely--"well?"
"Well, one night w'en we was all sleeperin' in port, in a 'ouse onshore, the press-gang comes round an' nabs the whole of us. We fightlike lions. I knock seven men down, one before the tother, 'cause ofbein' very strong, an' had learn to spar a littil. You know how tospar?"
"Well," returned Ted, looking with a smile at his huge hands, "I can'tgo for to say as I know much about the science of it, d'ee see; but Ican use my fists after a fashion."
"Good," continued the Moor. "Well, then, we fights till all our eyes isblack, an' all our noses is red, an' some of our teeths is out, but thesailirs wos too many for us. We wos 'bleeged to gif in, for wot kincourage do agin numbers? so we wos took aboord a friggit and 'zamined."
"An' what?" asked the seaman.
"'Zamined. Overhauled," replied the Moor.
"Oh! examined, I see. Well?"
"Well, I feels sure of git hoff, bein' a Algerine Moor, so w'en my turncomes, I says to the hofficer wot 'zamined us, says I, `I's not aBreetish man!'
"`Wot are you, then?' says the hofficer.
"`I's a Moor,' says I.
"`Moor's the pity,' says he."
Ted gave a short laugh at this.
"Now, that's strange," observed Ali, glancing at his companion in somesurprise; "that's 'zactly wot they all did, w'en the hofficer says that!I've thought oftin 'bout it since, but never could see wot they laughat."
"Oh, it's just a way we've got," returned Flaggan, resuming his gravity;"the English have a knack o' larfin', off and on, w'en they shouldn'tought to.--Git along with your yarn."
"Well, that wos the finish. I became a Breetish tar, an' fouted in allthe battils of the navy. I 'spected to get promotion an' prize-money,but nivir git none, 'cause of circumstances as wos never 'splained tome. Well, one night we come in our friggit to anchor in bay of Algiers.I gits leave go ashore wi' tothers, runs right away to our Dey, whogits awrful waxy, sends for Breetish cap'n, 'splain that I's the son ofa Turk by a Algerine moder an' wery nigh or'er the cap'n's head to becutted off."
"You don't say so?"
"Yis, it's troo. Wery near declare war with England acause of that,"said Ali, with an air of importance. "But the Breetish consul heinterfere, goes down on hims knees, an' beg the Dey for to parding himsnation."
"He must ha' bin a cowardly feller, that consul!"
"No," said the interpreter sternly, "him's not coward. Him was mymaster, Kurnil Langley, an' only do the right ting: humbil hisself toour Dey w'en hims contry do wrong.--Now, here we is comin' toBab-el-Oued, that means the Water-gate in yoor lingo, w'ere the peepilshold palaver."
This in truth appeared to be the case, for many of the chief men of thecity were seated under and near the gate, as the two drew near, smokingtheir pipes and gossiping in the orthodox Eastern style.
The big Irishman attracted a good deal of notice as he passed throughthe gates; but Turks are grave and polite by nature: no one interruptedhim or made audible comments upon his somewhat wild and unusualappearance.
Passing onwards, they entered the town and traversed the main streettowards the Bab-Azoun gate, which Ali explained to his companion was theGate of Tears, and the place of public execution.
Here they came suddenly on the body of a man, the feet and limbs ofwhich were dreadfully mangled, showing that the miserable wretch hadperished under the bastinado.
At the time we write of, and indeed at all times during Turkish rule,human life was held very cheap. For the slightest offences, orsometimes at the mere caprice of those in power, men were taken up andbastinadoed in the open streets until they died from sheer agony, andtheir relations did not dare to remove the bodies for burial until theirtyrants had left the scene. Cruelty became almost the second nature ofthe people. Theft was checked by the amputation of the first joint ofthe fore-finger of the right hand for the first offen
ce. For thesecond, the whole hand was sacrificed, and for the third, the headitself was forfeited. Sometimes, in cases of capital punishment,decapitation was performed by degrees! and other refinements toohorrible to mention were constantly practised.
While the interpreter was explaining to his companion as much of this ashe deemed it right for him to know, several of the sorrowing relationsof the dead man came forward and carried the body away. Little noticewas taken of the incident, which, from beginning to end, scarcelyinterrupted the general flow of business.
At the Bab-Azoun gate, which occupied a position not many yards distantfrom the spot on which now stands the principal theatre of Algiers, Alileft Ted Flaggan for a few minutes, begging him to wait until he hadtransacted a piece of business in the market held just outside the gate.
"Tell me before ye go, Ally, what may be the use of them three big hooksclose to the gate," said Flaggan, pointing upwards.
"Them's for throwin' down teeves an' murderers on to.--You stay here; menot be wery long come back."
Rais Ali hurried away, leaving the sailor to observe and moralise on allthat passed around him. And there was a good deal to induce thought inone who had been accustomed to comparatively humane laws and mercifuldispensations in his native land, for, besides the scene which he hadjust witnessed, and the huge hooks whose uses had just been explained tohim, he now noticed that several conspicuous places near him weregarnished with the heads of malefactors who had been recently executed.He observed, also, that the innumerable donkeys which were beingconstantly driven past him, overladen with market produce, were coveredwith open sores, and that these sores appeared to be selected forspecial flagellation when the brutal drivers wished to urge the wretchedcreatures on.
He stood thus for some time watching with interest the throng of Turks,Jews, Moors, negroes, and others that continually streamed to and fro,some on foot, some on horseback, and others, especially the men withmarketable commodities, on mules and donkeys. It was not difficult forhim to distinguish between the races, for Rais Ali had already told himthat none but Turks were permitted to wear the turban, not even the sonsof Turks by Algerine mothers, and that the Jews were by law commanded todress in sombre black.
Suddenly he observed a body of men advancing towards the gate, carryingsomething in their arms, and followed by an orderly crowd at arespectful distance. With the curiosity of an idler he approached, andfound that they bore a man, who was firmly bound hand and foot. The manwas a Moor, and the anxious look of his pale face showed that he wasabout to suffer punishment of some kind.
The seaman mingled with the crowd and looked on.
Laying the man on the ground with his face downwards, the officers ofjustice sent away two of their number, who speedily returned with ablacksmith's anvil and forehammer. On this they placed one of theirvictim's ankles, and Flaggan now saw, with a sickening heart, that theywere about to break it with the ponderous hammer. One blow sufficed tocrush the bones in pieces, and drew from the man an appalling shriek ofagony. Pushing his leg farther on the anvil, the executioner broke itagain at the shin, while the other officials held the yelling victimdown. A third blow was then delivered on the knee, but the shriek thatfollowed was suddenly cut short in consequence of the man havingfainted. Still the callous executioner went on with his horrible task,and, breaking the leg once more at the thigh, proceeded to go throughthe same process with the other leg, and also with the arms. Whentwelve blows had thus been delivered, the writhing of the wretchedvictim proved that he was still alive, though his labouring chest wasnow incapable of giving vent to his agony in shrieks.
We would not describe such a scene as this were it not certainly true;and we relate it, reader, not for the purpose of harrowing yourfeelings, but for the sake of showing what diabolical deeds we men arecapable of, unless guarded therefrom by the loving and tender _spirit_of Jesus Christ. We say "spirit" advisedly, for we are well aware thatfalse professors of that blessed name have, many a time, committed deedseven more horrible than that which we have just described.
Unable to bear the sight longer, the sailor turned and hurried away fromthe spot.
Fortunately he met Rais Ali just outside the crowd.
"Come, lad, come," he cried, seizing that boastful man by the arm, insuch a grasp that Rais turned pale with alarm. "I can't stop here.Let's git away. Sure it's divls they must be, an' not men!"
Blindly dragging the interpreter along by main force through severalstreets, Flaggan stopped suddenly at last to recover breath and to wipethe perspiration from his brow.
"Don't ask me wot I've seen," he said, to Ali's inquiries, "I can'ta-bear to think on it. God help me! I wish I could wipe it out of mebrain intirely. Come along, let's finish our business, an' git out o'this cursed place."
Proceeding rapidly and in silence towards the street at the base of thetriangular town, which followed the line of ramparts that faced the sea,they discovered the great man of whom they were in search, Sidi Omar,walking up and down with the cadi, or chief judge, to whose daughter hewas to be united on the following day.
"It won't do to 'trupt 'em jus' yit. Hold on a littil," said Rais Alito his companion.
Ted Flaggan had no objection to "hold on," for the sight of the oceanwith its fresh breezes cooled his brow, and tended to turn his mind awayfrom the horrible thoughts that filled it.
While they are waiting, let you and me, reader, listen to the conclusionof the converse held between the bridegroom and father-in-law.
The cadi was a stern old Turk, with a long grey beard. The son-in-lawelect was, as we have elsewhere said, an ill-favoured elderly man withonly one eye. He did not look quite so happy as one would have expectedin a bridegroom so near his wedding-day, but that was to be accountedfor, to some extent, by the fact that he already possessed four wives,and was naturally somewhat used to weddings.
"No, no," said he, in a cautious tone, to the judge; "it won't do to behasty about it, Achmet is too popular at present."
"What has that to do with the question?" asked the cadi, in a tone ofcontempt. "If our party be strong enough we have only to strike; and Itell you that I believe it to be quite strong enough."
"I know it," returned Omar impatiently, "but I also know that my enemy,Sidi Hassan, is more than usually on the alert just now; I think it wellto delay for a time. Besides," he added, smiling, "you surely would nothave me begin a revolution on the very eve of my marriage!"
"I would have you lose as little time as possible," replied the cadi."But see, if I mistake not, these two men are eyeing us rathernarrowly."
Seeing that they were observed, Rais Ali advanced, and, with a lowsalaam, delivered his message to Sidi Omar, who gave him the necessaryreply, and dismissed him.
Resuming their conference, the two magnates turned to saunter along thestreet, when Omar observed a dark object like a dog, coiled up in anangle of the parapet. Poking it with his cane, he caused it to uncoiland display the vacant, features of a half-witted negro boy. The poorcreature fell on his knees in alarm on seeing the well-known face ofSidi Omar, but sprang to his feet with alacrity, and ran off at fullspeed on being sternly told to "be gone."
Meanwhile Rais Ali led his friend safely through the Bab-el-Oued gate,and, turning his face in the right direction said--
"Now, you git 'ome, fast. Keep 'er steady--a point morer to thewestward--so, yoo can't go wrong."
Instead of obeying orders, Ted Flaggan turned, and, with an amusedsmile, watched the retreating figure of the interpreter. Then, aftersauntering on some distance in a reverie, he stopped and gazed long andearnestly at the pirate city, whose white-washed domes and minaretsgleamed in the sunshine like marble, contrasting beautifully with thebright green of the Sahel hills behind, and the intense blue of the skyand sea.
"A whited sepulchre!" muttered the seaman, with a frown, as he turnedaway and pushed forward at a rapid pace towards the residence of theBritish consul.
The Pirate City: An Algerine Tale Page 8