"Get up, Blindi, and come along with me." Laying the head of the old
man gently on the ground, and rising with some wrath, Blindi demanded,
in English so broken that we find difficulty in mending it sufficiently
to be presented to the reader--
"Wot for you means by dat?"
"Speak your mother tongue, you dog, and make haste, for the Minister of
Marine wants you."
"Oh! mos' awfrul," exclaimed Blindi, turning pale, and drawing his blue
garment hastily round him, as he meekly followed the officer of
justice--whose chief office, by the way, was to administer injustice.
The man whom we have styled Blindi was a somewhat peculiar character.
He was an Algerine by birth, but had served several years in the British
navy, and had acquired a smattering of the English language--forecastle
English, as a matter of course. In consequence of this, and of having
lost an eye in the service, he had obtained a pension, and the
appointment of interpreter to all his Britannic Majesty's ships visiting
Algiers. He dwelt at the harbour, or Marina, where he excited the
wonder and admiration of all the Turks and Moors by his volubility in
talking English. He was a man of no small importance, in his own
estimation, and was so proud of his powers as a linguist that he
invariably interlarded his converse with English phrases, whether he was
addressing Turk, Jew, or Christian. Lingua Franca--a compound of nearly
all the languages spoken on the shores of the Mediterranean--was the
tongue most in use at the Marina of Algiers at that time, but as this
would be unintelligible to our reader, we will give Blindi's
conversations in his favourite language. What his real name was we have
failed to discover. The loss of his eye had obtained for him in the
navy the name of Blind Bob. In his native city this was Italianised
into Blindi Bobi. But Bobi was by no means blind of the other eye. It
was like seven binocular glasses rolled into one telescope. Once he had
unfortunately brought it to bear on the Minister of Marine with such a
concentrated stare that he, being also blind of an eye, regarded it as a
personal allusion thereto, and never forgave Blindi Bobi.
"This is the second time," said Omar, when the culprit was brought
before him, "that I have caught you interfering with the slaves."
"Please, sar, hims was werry bad--dyin', me s'pose."
"Speak your own tongue, dog, else you shall smart for it," said the
Minister of Marine, with increasing wrath.
The poor interpreter to his Britannic Majesty's navy repeated his words
in the Lingua Franca, but Omar, again interrupting him, ordered the
sbirro to take him off and give him the bastinado.
"And have a care, Blindi," added Omar, observing that the interpreter
was about to speak; "if you say that you are under the protection of the
British consul I'll have you flayed alive.--Off with him!"
The sbirro, with a comrade, led Bobi through several of the narrow
streets of the town to a chamber which was set apart for the infliction
of punishment. It was a dark, vaulted apartment under a public
building. The massive pillars of stone which supported its roof looked
pale and ghostlike against the thick darkness which was beyond them,
giving the idea of interminable space. One of the sbirros lighted a
lantern, and led the way through a massive door, all studded with huge
nails, into a small square chamber, the walls of which looked as if they
had been bespattered with a dark-brown liquid, especially in the
neighbourhood of several iron rings, from which chains depended. In
addition to these and a number of other characteristic implements, there
was a pile of blood-stained rods in a corner.
Saying a few words to a powerful negro whom they found in attendance,
the sbirros handed Blindi Bobi over to him. He instantly disrobed him
of his blue gown, and threw him on his back with the aid of an equally
powerful assistant, and began to uncover his stomach.
The interpreter was no coward. He had prepared himself to endure
manfully the bastinado on the soles of his feet--as it was usually
administered--but when he perceived that they were about to inflict the
blows on a more tender part of his body, he trembled and remonstrated.
"Sidi Omar no' say you hit 'im dare. Hims 'peal to British consil--"
Thus far he spoke, from the force of habit, in his adopted tongue, but
fear speedily drove him to that of his mother.
All tongues, however, were alike to the negroes, who, rendered callous
from long service against their will in a brutalising office, went about
their preparations with calm and slow indifference.
Just as they were about to begin, one of the sbirros, who had a personal
regard for Bobi, spoke a few words to one of the negroes, who
immediately turned Blindi Bobi on his face and firmly raised his feet so
that the naked soles were turned upwards. The other negro applied one
of the rods thereto with all his might. For a few seconds the poor
sufferer uttered no sound, but at last he gave vent to an irresistible
yell. At a sign from the chief sbirro the punishment was stopped, and
Bobi was released and allowed to rise.
Conducting him to the door, the sbirro thrust him into the street, flung
his blue gown after him, and advised him to beware of again rousing the
wrath of Sidi Omar.
Blindi Bobi was far too well acquainted with the cruelties perpetrated
continually in the pirate city to be ignorant of the fact that he had
got off with a light punishment, yet we fear that did not cause him to
entertain much gratitude to Sidi Omar as he limped back to his quarters
at the Marina.
Arrived there, he observed that the sick old man still lay where he had
left him. Running towards him with a sudden impulse, he drew forth his
flask, knelt down, raised the old man's head and gave him a long hearty
draught, after which he took another to himself.
"Derre!" he said, rising and shaking his fist defiantly in the direction
in which Sidi Omar dwelt, "I's revenged on you--brute! bah! boo-o!"
After this relief to his feelings Blindi Bobi went home to attend to his
poor feet.
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Note 1. In 1795 the Americans concluded peace with the Algerians by the
payment of half a million piastres, and an annual tribute of 24,000
piastres.