'From when this youth?
His country, name, and birth declare!'
SCOTT.
'You had forgotten this legacy, Mr. Hope,' said Captain Beresford, taking
Arthur into his cabin, 'and, judging by its weight, it is hardly to be
neglected. I put it into my locker for security.'
'Thank you, sir,' said Arthur. 'The question is whether I ought to take
it. I wished for your advice.'
'I heard what passed,' said the captain. 'I should call your right as
complete as if you had a will made by a half a dozen lawyers. When we
get into port, a few crowns to the ship's company to drink your health,
and all will be right. Will you count it?'
The folds were undone, and little piles made of the gold, but neither the
captain nor Arthur were much the wiser. The purser might have computed
it, but Captain Beresford did not propose this, thinking perhaps that it
was safer that no report of a treasure should get abroad in the ship.
He made a good many inquiries, which he had deferred till Arthur should
be in a fitter condition for answering, first about the capture and
wreck, and what the young man had been able to gather about the
Cabeleyzes. Then, as the replies showed that he had a gentleman before
him, Captain Beresford added that he could not help asking, '_Que diable
allait il faire dans cette galere_?'
'Sir,' said Arthur, 'I do not know whether you will think it your duty to
make me a prisoner, but I had better tell you the whole truth.'
'Oho!' said the captain; 'but you are too young! You could never have
been out with--with--we'll call him the Chevalier.'
'I ran away from school,' replied Arthur, colouring. 'I was a mere boy,
and I never was attainted,' explained Arthur, blushing. 'I have been
with my Lord Nithsdale, and my mother thought I could safely come home,
and that if I came from Sweden my brother could not think I compromised
him.'
'Your brother?'
'Lord Burnside. He is at Court, in favour, they say, with King George.
He is my half-brother; my mother is a Maxwell.'
'There is a Hope in garrison at Port Mahon--a captain,' said the captain.
'Perhaps he will advise you what to do if you are sick of Jacobite
intrigue and mystery, and ready to serve King George.'
Arthur's face lighted up. 'Will it be James Hope of Ryelands, or Dickie
Hope of the Lynn, or--?'
Captain Beresford held up his hands.
'Time must show that, my young friend,' he said, smiling. 'And now I
think the officers expect you to join their mess in the gunroom.'
There Arthur found the little Chevalier strutting about in an adaptation
of the smallest midshipman's uniform, and the centre of an admiring
party, who were equally diverted by his consequential airs and by his
accounts of his sports among the Moors. Happy fellow, he could adapt
himself to any society, and was ready to be the pet and plaything of the
ship's company, believing himself, when he thought of anything beyond the
present, to be full on the road to his friends again.
Fareek was a much more difficult charge, for Arthur had hardly a word
that he could understand. He found the poor fellow coiled up in a
corner, just where he had seen his former master's remains disappear,
still moaning and weeping bitterly. As Arthur called to him he looked up
for a moment, then crawled forward, striking his forehead at intervals
against the deck. He was about to kiss the feet of his former fellow-
slave, the glittering gold, blue, and white of whose borrowed dress no
doubt impressed him. Arthur hastily started back, to the amazement of
the spectators, and called out a negative--one of the words sure to be
first learnt. He tried to take Fareek's hand and raise him from his
abject attitude; but the poor fellow continued kneeling, and not only
were no words available to tell him that he was free, but it was
extremely doubtful whether freedom was any boon to him. One thing,
however, he did evidently understand--he pointed to the St. George's
pennant with the red cross, made the sign, looked an interrogation, and
on Arthur's reply, 'Christians,' and reiteration of the word 'Salem,'
_peace_, he folded his arms and looked reassured.
'Ay, ay, my hearty,' said the big boatswain, 'ye've got under the old
flag, and we'll soon make you see the difference. Cut out your poor
tongue, have they, the rascals, and made a dummy of you? I wish my cat
was about their ears! Come along with you, and you shall find what
British grog is made of.'
And a remarkable friendship arose between the two, the boatswain
patronising Fareek on every occasion, and roaring at him as if he were
deaf as well as dumb, and Fareek appearing quite confident under his
protection, and establishing a system of signs, which were fortunately a
universal language. The Abyssinian evidently viewed himself as young
Hope's servant or slave, probably thinking himself part of his late
master's bequest, and there was no common language between them in which
to explain the difference or ascertain the poor fellow's wishes. He was
a slightly-made, dexterous man, probably about five and twenty years of
age, and he caught up very quickly, by imitation, the care he could take
of Arthur's clothes, and the habit of waiting on him at meals.
Meantime the _Calypso_ held her course to the south-east, till the chart
declared the coast to be that of Djigheli Bay, and Arthur recognised the
headlands whither the unfortunate tartane had drifted to her destruction.
Anchoring outside the hay, Captain Beresford sent the first lieutenant,
Mr. Bullock, in the long-boat, with Arthur and a well-armed force, with
instructions to offer no violence, but to reconnoitre; and if they found
Mademoiselle de Bourke, or any others of the party, to do their best for
their release by promises of ransom or representations of the
consequences of detaining them. Arthur was prepared to offer his own
piastres at once in case of need of immediate payment. He was by this
time tolerably versed in the vernacular of the Mediterranean, and a
cook's boy, shipped at Gibraltar, was also supposed to be capable of
interpreting.
The beautiful bay, almost realising the description of AEneas' landing-
place, lay before them, the still green waters within reflecting the
fantastic rocks and the wreaths of verdure which crowned them, while the
white mountain-tops rose like clouds in the far distance against the
azure sky. Arthur could only, however, think of all this fair scene as a
cruel prison, and those sharp rocks as the jaws of a trap, when he saw
the ribs of the tartane still jammed into the rock where she had struck,
and where he had saved the two children as they were washed up the
hatchway. He saw the rock where the other three had clung, and where he
had left the little girl. He remembered the crowd of howling, yelling
savages, leaping and gesticulating on the beach, and his heart trembled
as he wondered how it had ended.
Where were the Cabeleyzes who had thus greeted them? The bay seemed
perfectly lonely. Not a sound was to be heard but the regular dip of the
oars, the cry of a startled bird, and the splash of a flock of seals,
which had been sunning themselves on the shore, and which floundered into
the sea like Proteus' flock of yore before Ulysses. Would that Proteus
himself had still been there to be captured and interrogated! For the
place was so entirely deserted that, saving for the remains of the wreck,
he must have believed himself mistaken in the locality, and the
lieutenant began to question him whether it had been daylight when he
came ashore.
Could the natives have hidden themselves at sight of an armed vessel? Mr.
Bullock resolved on landing, very cautiously, and with a sufficient
guard. On the shore some fragments of broken boxes and packing cases
appeared; and a sailor pointed out the European lettering painted on
one--sse de B---. It plainly was part of the address to the Comtesse de
Bourke. This encouraged the party in their search. They ascended the
path which poor Hebert and Lanty Callaghan had so often painfully
climbed, and found themselves before the square of reed hovels, also
deserted, but with black marks where fires had been lighted, and with
traces of recent habitation.
Arthur picked up a rag of the Bourke livery, and another of a brocade
which he had seen the poor Countess wearing. Was this all the relic that
he should ever be able to take to her husband?
He peered about anxiously in hopes of discovering further tokens, and Mr.
Bullock was becoming impatient of his lingering, when suddenly his eye
was struck by a score on the bark of a chestnut tree like a cross, cut
with a feeble hand. Beneath, close to the trunk, was a stone, beyond the
corner of which appeared a bit of paper. He pounced upon it. It was the
title-page of Estelle's precious Telemaque, and on the back was written
in French, If any good Christian ever finds this, I pray him to carry it
to M. the French Consul at Algiers. We are five poor prisoners, the Abbe
de St. Eudoce, Estelle, daughter of the Comte de Bourke, and our
servants, Jacques Hebert, Laurent Callaghan, Victorine Renouf. The
Cabeleyzes are taking us away to their mountains. We are in slavery, in
hunger, filth, and deprivation of all things. We pray day and night that
the good God will send some one to rescue us, for we are in great misery,
and they persecute us to make us deny our faith. O, whoever you may be,
come and deliver us while we are yet alive.'
Arthur was almost choked with tears as he translated this piteous letter
to the lieutenant, and recollected the engaging, enthusiastic little
maiden, as he had seen her on the Rhone, but now brought to such a state.
He implored Mr. Bullock to pursue the track up the mountain, and was
grieved at this being treated as absurdly impossible, but then
recollecting himself, 'You could not, sir, but I might follow her and
make them understand that she must be saved--'
'And give them another captive,' said Bullock; 'I thought you had had
enough of that. You will do more good to this flame of yours--'
'No flame, sir. She is a mere child, little older than her brother. But
she must not remain among these lawless savages.'
'No! But we don't throw the helve after the hatchet, my lad! All you
can do is to take this epistle to the French Consul, who might find it
hard to understand without your explanations. At any rate, my orders are
to bring you safe on board again.'
Arthur had no choice but to submit, and Captain Beresford, who had a wife
and children at home, was greatly touched by the sight of the childish
writing of the poor little motherless girl; above all when Arthur
explained that the high-sounding title of Abbe de St. Eudoce only meant
one who was more likely to be a charge than a help to her.
France was for the nonce allied with England, and the dread of passing to
Sweden through British seas had apparently been quite futile, since, if
Captain Beresford recollected the Irish blood of the Count, it was only
as an additional cause for taking interest in him. Towards the Moorish
pirates the interest of the two nations united them. It was intolerable
to think of the condition of the captives; and the captain, anxious to
lose no time, rejoiced that his orders were such as to justify him in
sailing at once for Algiers to take effectual measures with the consul
before letting the family know the situation of the poor Demoiselle de
Bourke.