REVEALS SOMETHING SURPRISING IN REGARD TO EUROPEAN FORBEARANCE AND
PIRATIC IMPUDENCE.
Seated on a gun-carriage, apart from his comrades in sorrow, Francisco
Rimini gazed in stern silence upon the moonlit sea, and thought,
perchance, of the little old lady with the rippling mouth, and the
dark-eyed daughter of his adoption.
"Your fate is a sad one," said a deep voice close to his side.
Francisco started, and looked round with indignant surprise at Bacri.
"None the less sad that a friend has proved false, Jew," he said
sternly. "It has never been my custom to call any of your race `dog,'
as too many of my creed have done in time past, but I am tempted to
change my custom this night."
"To misname me would do you no good and me no harm," replied the Jew
gravely. "My race is an accursed one as far as man is concerned, but
man's curse is of no more value than his blessing."
"If these arms were free, Bacri," retorted Francisco hotly, "I would
teach thee that which would prove anything but a blessing to thy
carcase, thou huge caitiff! I had thought better of thee than thou
didst deserve.--Go, thy bulky presence is distasteful."
"Wherein have I wronged you?" asked the Jew.
"Wronged me!" exclaimed Francisco, with rising wrath, "art thou not hand
and glove with the chief pirate? Thinkest thou that my eyes have lost
their power of vision?"
"Truly I am acquainted with the corsair, though the acquaintance was
none of my seeking," returned the Jew, "for, as I said before, traders
have dealings with many sorts of men; but I did not advise him to attack
you, and I could not hinder him."
"Scoundrel!" exclaimed the padrone, "couldst thou not restrain thine
hand when it knocked the senses out of my boy Mariano? Wouldst have me
believe that thy huge fists are not subject to thy villainous will, or
that they acted as they did by mere accident, instead of aiding to repel
the pirates?"
"I did it to save his life," replied Bacri, "and not only his, but your
own and the lives of all your men. I saw that Mariano was about to
prevail, and if he had slain the corsair chief, not one of you would
have been alive at this moment."
Francisco's wrath when roused was not readily appeased, nevertheless
this statement puzzled him so much that he remained silently gazing at
the Jew, from sheer inability to express his feelings.
"Listen," continued Bacri, drawing nearer, and speaking in a lower tone,
"the man into whose hands you have fallen is Sidi Hassan, one of the
most noted and daring of the pirates on the Barbary coast. Escape from
him is impossible. I know him well, and can assure you that your only
hope of receiving anything that deserves the title of good treatment
depends on your quiet and absolute subjection to his will. Rebellious
or even independent bearing will insure your speedy and severe
humiliation. We `dogs of Jews,'" continued Bacri, with a sad smile,
"may seem to you to hang our heads rather low sometimes, but I have seen
Christian men, as bold as you are, crawl upon the very dust before these
Turks of Algiers."
"Our fate, then," said Francisco, "is, I suppose, and as I half
suspected, to be slavery in that pirates' nest, Algiers?"
"I fear it is," replied the Jew, "unless Providence permits a storm to
set you free; but let me correct your notion of Algiers. A pirates'
nest it undoubtedly is, but there are others than pirates in the nest,
and some of these are even honest men."
"Ha!" exclaimed the padrone, quickly and with bitterness; "is one of
these said honest men a Jew of stalwart frame, and does his connexion
with the piratical nest free him from the bonds to which I and my sons
are doomed?"
"To both questions I answer yes," replied the Jew.
"Then a fig for your honesty, Master Bacri!" said Francisco, with a toss
of his head, in lieu of a snap of his fingers, which in the
circumstances was impossible, "for I now believe that you knocked
Mariano down simply to save the life of your comrade Sidi Hassan, and
that you will pocket your own share of my ship and cargo."
"I have not the power to alter your belief," said the Jew quietly, as he
turned away and left the unfortunate captive to his meditations.
As the night advanced the wind continued to abate, and when morning
broke, the broad breast of the Mediterranean undulated like a sheet of
clear glass, on which was gradually revealed the form of a strange
vessel becalmed not far from the prize.
As soon as it was sufficiently light to permit of objects being clearly
seen, Sidi Hassan fired a gun and showed the Algerine flag.
"Our luck has changed," he said to his first officer, with an air of
satisfaction. "Get the boats ready; we will board at once."
"She shows British colours," said the mate, regarding the vessel in
question intently through his glass.
"So she does," returned the captain, "but that device won't go down with
me. Board her at once, while I bring our broadside to bear."
The mate, with two boats full of armed men, soon pulled alongside the
strange sail, and the pirate-vessel was brought round with her broadside
to bear by means of long oars or sweeps. In a short time the boats
returned with the mortifying intelligence that the papers were all
right, and that the vessel, being in truth a British merchantman, was
not a legitimate prize. The corsair therefore sailed away under the
influence of a light breeze which had arisen.
At the time of which we write, (about sixty years ago), Algiers was
under the dominion of Turkey, but exercised all the rights of an
independent state. It may be described as a monstrous blot of barbarism
hanging on the skirts of civilisation. It was an anomaly too, for it
claimed to be an orthodox power, and was recognised as such by the
nations of Europe, while in reality its chief power consisted in
consummate impudence, founded on pride and ignorance of the strength of
other powers, coupled with the peculiarity of its position and with the
fact that the great nations were too much engaged fighting with each
other to be at leisure to pay attention to it. Its rulers or Deys were
most of them ignorant men, who had risen, in many cases, from the ranks
of the janissaries or common Turkish soldiery, and its sole occupation
was piracy--piracy pure and simple.
It did not, like other powers, find a pretext for war in the righting of
a supposed or real wrong. The birds of the Pirates' Nest were much too
simple in their grandeur thus to beat about the bush. They went
straight to the point. Without any pretext at all they declared war
with a nation when they had a mind to plunder it, and straightway set
about making prizes of the merchantmen of that nation; at the same time
keeping carefully clear of its cruisers. If there had been a tangible
grievance, diplomacy might have set it right--but there never was any
grievance, either real or imaginary. If there had been a worthy fleet
that would come out and face a foe, courage and power might have settled
the question--but there was no such fleet. The nest possessed only a
few small frigates and a considerable number of boats, large and small,
which crept along the northern shores of Africa, and pounced upon unwary
traders, or made bold dashes at small villages on the southern shores of
Europe and in the isles of the Mediterranean. Trade was horribly
hampered by them, though they had no ostensible trade of their own;
their influence on southern Europe being comparable only to that of a
wasps' nest under one's window, with this difference, that even wasps,
as a rule, mind their own business, whereas the Algerine pirates minded
the business of everybody else, and called _that_ their own special
vocation!
Like other powers, they took prisoners, but instead of exchanging these
in times of war and freeing them on return of peace, they made
galley-slaves of them all, and held them to ransom. At all times there
were hundreds of Christian slaves held in bondage. Even in this present
century, so late as 1816, the Algerine Turks held in captivity thousands
of Christian slaves of all grades and classes, from all parts of Europe,
and these were in many cases treated with a degree of cruelty which is
perhaps equalled, but not surpassed, by the deeds recorded of negro
slavery; and so hopeless were people as to the power or intention of
governments to mend this state of things, that societies were formed in
some of the chief countries in the world, including England, France, and
America, for the express purpose of ransoming Christian slaves from
those dreaded shores of Barbary.
Having said this, the reader will doubtless be prepared to hear that the
civilised world, howling with indignation, assailed, burned, and
exterminated this pirates' nest. Not at all. The thing was tolerated;
more than that, it was recognised! Consuls were actually sent to the
nest to represent Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland,
Sweden, Denmark, America; disgraceful treaties were entered into; and
annual tribute was paid by each of these, in the form of a costly
"present" to the Dey, for the purpose of securing immunity to their
trading vessels! Whatever nation kept a consul at this nest and paid
"black-mail" passed scot free. The nation that failed in these respects
was ruthlessly and systematically plundered--and this at the time when
Lord Nelson was scouring the ocean with mighty armaments; when our songs
lauded the wooden walls of old England to the skies; and when Great
Britain claimed to herself the proud title of "Mistress of the Sea"! If
you doubt this, reader, let us assure you that all history asserts it,
that recorded facts confirm it, and that our proper attitude in regard
to it is to stand amazed, and admit that there are some things in this
curious world which "no fellow can understand."
Without apologising for this digression, we return to the thread of our
tale.
Finding, then, as we have said, that the British merchantman was not a
legitimate foe, the corsair proceeded to look out for a more worthy
object of attack--namely, a vessel of some hapless petty state, which,
being too venturesome, or too poor to pay black-mail, was at war,
perforce, with the Algerines. Fortune, however, ceased for a short time
to be propitious. No suitable vessel was to be found, therefore Sidi
Hassan resolved to exercise the rights of the unusually free and
independent power of which he was a worthy representative in a somewhat
strange fashion.
Bearing down on the coast, he sailed along it for some time, with the
intention of making a bold dash at some small fishing village. His mate
rather objected to this, knowing well that such attempts were too apt to
be attended with considerable loss of life; but Sidi Hassan was not a
man to be easily turned from his purpose. The sight of a brig in the
offing, however, induced him to run out again to sea. He was soon
within hail, and, finding that the vessel was a Sicilian trader, boarded
her at once.
No opposition was offered, the brig being totally without arms and her
crew small. She, like the vessel of our friend Francisco, was laden
with wine and fruit. There were only two passengers on board, but these
two were great prizes in Hassan's estimation, being beautiful girls of
about seventeen and eighteen respectively. They were sisters--the elder
being on her way with her infant son to join her husband in Malta.
Hassan was glad of the opportunity thus thrown in his way of pleasing
his master the Dey of Algiers by presenting to him these unfortunates,
whose manners and appearance bespoke them ladies, and at once sent them
on board his vessel, along with their money and jewels. Their wardrobe
was distributed among the pirate crew--the money and jewels being the
Dey's perquisite.
"I have a plan in my head," said Hassan to his second in command, "which
the capture of this brig has suggested to me. Go, take charge of our
vessel, and send me twenty of the best men of our crew fully armed--also
a British Union-jack. There is a captain of a port in this
neighbourhood against whom I have a special grudge, and to whom I would
fain give a free passage to Algiers! so make haste."
The order was soon executed, and the pirate-vessel ordered to remain
where she was while the brig stood inshore and sailed along the coast.
In a few hours she was off the port above referred to, when she hove-to,
hoisted the British flag, and fired a gun. The captain of the port
innocently put off to the brig, and in a few minutes found himself and
his boat's crew taken captive by the Algerines!
Having thus successfully accomplished his design, Hassan returned to his
vessel, put a crew on board the second prize, and, directing his course
to Africa made all sail for the port of Algiers.
During the voyage the unfortunate captives saw little of each other,
nevertheless Mariano saw enough of the sisters, to create in his breast
feelings of the tenderest pity--especially for the younger sister, whom
he thought rather pretty than otherwise! As for the Jew, he kept aloof
from all the captives, but seemed to have a good understanding with the
pirate captain, and to be acquainted with several of his men.