'With dazed vision unawares
From the long alley's latticed shade
Emerged, I came upon the great
Pavilion of the Caliphat.
Right to the carven cedarn doors,
Flung inward over spangled floors,
Broad-based flights of marble stairs
Ran up with golden balustrade,
After the fashion of the time,
And humour of the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.'
TENNYSON.
Civilised and innocuous existence has no doubt been a blessing to Algiers
as well as to the entire Mediterranean, but it has not improved the
picturesqueness of its aspect any more than the wild and splendid 'tiger,
tiger burning bright,' would be more ornamental with his claws pared, the
fiery gleam of his yellow eyes quenched, and his spirit tamed, so as to
render him only an exaggerated domestic cat. The steamer, whether of
peace or war, is a melancholy substitute for the splendid though sinister
galley, with her ranks of oars and towers of canvas, or for the dainty
lateen-sailed vessels, skimming the waters like flying fish, and the
Frank garb ill replaces the graceful Arab dress. The Paris-like block of
houses ill replaces the graceful Moorish architecture, undisturbed when
the _Calypso_ sailed into the harbour, and the amphitheatre-like city
rose before her, in successive terraces of dazzling white, interspersed
with palms and other trees here and there, with mosques and minarets
rising above them, and with a crown of strong fortifications. The
harbour itself was protected by a strongly-fortified mole, and some
parley passed with the governor of the strong and grim-looking castle
adjacent--a huge round tower erected by the Spaniards, and showing three
ranks of brazen teeth in the shape of guns.
Finally, the Algerines having been recently brought to their bearings, as
Captain Beresford said, entrance was permitted, and the _Calypso_ enjoyed
the shelter of the mole; while he, in full-dress uniform, took boat and
went ashore, and with him the two escaped prisoners. Fareek remained on
board till the English Consul could be consulted on his fate.
England and France were on curious terms with Algiers. The French had
bombarded the city in 1686, and had obtained a treaty by which a consul
constantly resided in the city, and the persons and property of French
subjects were secured from piracy, or if captured were always released.
The English had made use of the possession of Gibraltar and Minorca to
enforce a like treaty. There was a little colony of European
merchants--English, French, and Dutch--in the lower town, near the
harbour, above which the Arab town rose, as it still rises, in a steep
stair. Ships of all these nations traded at the port, and quite recently
the English Consul, Thomas Thompson by name, had vindicated the honour of
his flag by citing before the Dey a man who had insulted him on the
narrow causeway of the mole. The Moor was sentenced to receive 2200
strokes of bastinado on the feet, 1000 the first day, 1200 on the second,
and he died in consequence, so that Englishmen safely walked the narrow
streets. The Dey who had inflicted this punishment was, however, lately
dead. Mehemed had been elected and installed by the chief Janissaries,
and it remained to be proved whether he would show himself equally
anxious to be on good terms with the Christian Powers.
Arthur's heart had learnt to beat at sight of the British ensign with
emotions very unlike those with which he had seen it wave at Sheriffmuir;
but it looked strange above the low walls of a Moorish house, plain
outside, but with a richly cusped and painted horse-shoe arch at the
entrance to a lovely cloistered court, with a sparkling fountain
surrounded by orange trees with fruit of all shades from green to gold.
Servants in white garments and scarlet fezzes, black, brown, or white (by
courtesy), seemed to swarm in all directions; and one of them called a
youth in European garb, but equally dark-faced with the rest, and not too
good an English scholar. However, he conducted them through a still more
beautiful court, lined with brilliant mosaics in the spandrels of the
exquisite arches supported on slender shining marble columns.
Mr. Thompson's English coat and hearty English face looked incongruous,
as at sight of the blue and white uniform he came forward with all the
hospitable courtesy due to a post-captain. There was shaking of hands,
and doffing of cocked hats, and calling for wine, and pipes, and coffee,
in the Alhambra-like hall, where a table covered with papers tied with
red tape, in front of a homely leathern chair, looked more homelike than
suitable. Other chairs there were for Frank guests, who preferred them
to the divan and piles of cushions on which the Moors transacted
business.
'What can I do for you, sir?' he asked of the captain, 'or for this
little master,' he added, looking at Ulysse, who was standing by Arthur.
'He is serving the King early.'
'I don't belong to your King George,' broke out the young gentleman. 'He
is an _usurpateur_. I have only this uniform on till I can get my proper
clothes. I am the son of the Comte de Bourke, Ambassador to Spain and
Sweden. I serve no one but King Louis!'
'That is plain to be seen!' said Mr. Thompson. 'The Gallic cock crows
early. But is he indeed the son of Count Bourke, about whom the French
Consul has been in such trouble?'
'Even so, sir,' replied the captain. 'I am come to ask you to present
him, with this gentleman, Mr. Hope, to your French colleague. Mr. Hope,
to whom the child's life and liberty are alike owing, has information to
give which may lead to the rescue of the boy's sister and uncle with
their servants.'
Mr. Thompson had heard of a Moorish galley coming in with an account of
having lost a Genoese prize, with ladies on board, in the late storm. He
was sure that the tidings Mr. Hope brought would be most welcome, but he
knew that the French Consul was gone up with a distinguished visitor, M.
Dessault, for an audience of the Dey; and, in the meantime, his guests
must dine with him. And Arthur narrated his adventures.
The Consul shook his head when he heard of Djigheli Bay.
'Those fellows, the Cabeleyzes, hate the French, and make little enough
of the Dey, though they do send home Moors who fall into their hands. Did
you see a ruined fort on a promontory? That was the Bastion de France.
The old King Louis put it up and garrisoned it, but these rogues
contrived a surprise, and made four hundred prisoners, and ever since
they have been neither to have nor to hold. Well for you, young
gentleman, that you did not fall into their hands, but those of the
country Moors--very decent folk--descended, they say, from the Spanish
Moors. A renegade got you off, did he? Yes, they will sometimes do
that, though at an awful risk. If they are caught, they are hung up
alive on hooks to the walls. You had an escape, I can tell you, and so
had he, poor fellow, of being taken alive.'
'He knew the risk!' said Arthur, in a low voice; 'but my mother had once
been good to him, and he dared everything for me.'
The Consul readily estimated Arthur's legacy as amounting to little less
than 200 pounds, and was also ready to give him bills of exchange for it.
The next question was as to Fareek. To return him to his own country was
impossible; and though the Consul offered to buy him of Arthur, not only
did the young Scot revolt at the idea of making traffic of the faithful
fellow, but Mr. Thompson owned that there might be some risk in Algiers
of his being recognised as a runaway; and though this was very slight, it
was better not to give any cause of offence. Captain Beresford thought
the poor man might be disposed of at Port Mahon, and Arthur kept to
himself that Tam's bequest was sacred to him. His next wish was for
clothes to which he might have a better right than to the uniform of the
senior midshipman of H.M.S. _Calypso_--a garb in which he did not like to
appear before the French Consul. Mr. Thompson consulted his Greek clerk,
and a chest belonging to a captured merchantman, which had been claimed
as British property, but had not found an owner, was opened, and proved
to contain a wardrobe sufficient to equip Arthur like other gentlemen of
the day, in a dark crimson coat, with a little gold lace about it, and
the rest of the dress white, a wide beaver hat, looped up with a rosette,
and everything, indeed, except shoes, and he was obliged to retain those
of the senior midshipman. With his dark hair tied back, and a suspicion
of powder, he found himself more like the youth whom Lady Nithsdale had
introduced in Madame de Varennes' _salon_ than he had felt for the last
month; and, moreover, his shyness and awkwardness had in great measure
disappeared during his vicissitudes, and he had made many steps towards
manhood.
Ulysse had in the meantime been consigned to a kind, motherly, portly
Mrs. Thompson, who, accustomed as she was to hearing of strange
adventures, was aghast at what the child had undergone, and was enchanted
with the little French gentleman who spoke English so well, and to whom
his Grand Seigneur airs returned by instinct in contact with a European
lady; but his eye instantly sought Arthur, nor would he be content
without a seat next to his protector at the dinner, early as were all
dinners then, and a compound of Eastern and Western dishes, the latter
very welcome to the travellers, and affording the Consul's wife themes of
discourse on her difficulties in compounding them.
Pipes, siesta, and coffee followed, Mr. Thompson assuring them that his
French colleague would not be ready to receive them till after the like
repose had been undergone, and that he had already sent a billet to
announce their coming.
The French Consulate was not distant. The _fleur-de-lis_ waved over a
house similar to Mr. Thompson's, but they were admitted with greater
ceremony, when Mr. Thompson at length conducted them. Servants and
slaves, brown and black, clad in white with blue sashes, and white
officials in blue liveries, were drawn up in the first court in two lines
to receive them; and the Chevalier, taking it all to himself, paraded in
front with the utmost grandeur, until, at the next archway, two
gentlemen, resplendent in gold lace, came forward with low bows. At
sight of the little fellow there were cries of joy. M. Dessault spread
out his arms, clasped the child to his breast, and shed tears over him,
so that the less emotional Englishmen thought at first that they must be
kinsmen. However, Arthur came in for a like embrace as the boy's
preserver; and if Captain Beresford had not stepped back and looked
uncomprehending and rigid he might have come in for the same.
Seated in the verandah, Arthur told his tale and presented the letter,
over which there were more tears, as, indeed, well there might be over
the condition of the little girl and her simple mode of describing it. It
was nearly a month since the corsair had arrived, and the story of the
Genoese tartane being captured and lost with French ladies on board had
leaked out. The French Consul had himself seen and interrogated the
Dutch renegade captain, had become convinced of the identity of the
unfortunate passengers, and had given up all hopes of them, so that he
greeted the boy as one risen from the dead.
To know that the boy's sister and uncle were still in the hands of the
Cabeleyzes was almost worse news than the death of his mother, for this
wild Arab tribe had a terrible reputation even among the Moors and Turks.
The only thing that could be devised after consultation between the two
consuls, the French envoy, and the English captain, was that an audience
should be demanded of the Dey, and Estelle's letter presented the next
morning. Meanwhile Arthur and Ulysse were to remain as guests at the
English Consulate. The French one would have made them welcome, but
there was no lady in his house; and Mrs. Thompson had given Arthur a hint
that his little charge would be the better for womanly care.
There was further consultation whether young Hope, as a runaway slave--who
had, however, carried off a relapsed renegade with him--would be safe on
shore beyond the precincts of the Consulate; but as no one had any claim
on him, and it might be desirable to have his evidence at hand, it was
thought safe that he should remain, and Captain Beresford promised to
come ashore in the morning to join the petitioners to the Dey.
Perhaps he was not sorry, any more than was Arthur, for the opportunity
of beholding the wonderful city and palace, which were like a dream of
beauty. He came ashore early, with two or three officers, all in full
uniform; and the audience having been granted, the whole party--consuls,
M. Dessault, and their attendants--mounted the steep, narrow stone steps
leading up the hill between the walls of houses with fantastically carved
doorways or lattices; while bare-legged Arabs niched themselves into
every coigne of vantage with baskets of fruit or eggs, or else
embroidering pillows and slippers with exquisite taste.
The beauty of the buildings was unspeakable, and they projected enough to
make a cool shade--only a narrow fragment of deep blue sky being visible
above them. The party did not, however, ascend the whole 497 steps, as
the abode of the Dey was then not the citadel, but the palace of Djenina
in the heart of the city. Turning aside, they made their way thither
over terraces partly in the rock, partly on the roofs of houses.
Fierce-looking Janissaries, splendidly equipped, guarded the entrance,
with an air so proud and consequential as to remind Arthur of poor
Yusuf's assurances of the magnificence that might await little Ulysse as
an Aga of that corps. Even as they admitted the infidels they looked
defiance at them from under the manifold snowy folds of their mighty
turbans.
{The pirate city: p0.jpg}
If the beauty of the consuls' houses had struck and startled Arthur, far
more did the region into which he was now admitted seem like a dream of
fairyland as he passed through ranks of orange trees round sparkling
fountains--worthy of Versailles itself--courts surrounded with cloisters,
sparkling with priceless mosaics, in those brilliant colours which
Eastern taste alone can combine so as to avoid gaudiness, arches and
columns of ineffable grace and richness, halls with domes emulating the
sky, or else ceiled with white marble lacework, whose tracery seemed
delicate and varied as the richest Venice point! But the wonderful
beauty seemed to him to have in it something terrible and weird, like
that fairyland of his native country, whose glory and charm is
overshadowed by the knowledge of the teinds to be paid to hell. It was
an unnatural, incomprehensible world; and from longing to admire and
examine, he only wished to be out of it, felt it a relief to fix his eyes
upon the uniforms of the captain and the consuls, and did not wonder that
Ulysse, instead of proudly heading the procession, shrank up to him and
clasped his hand as his protector.
The human figures were as strange as the architecture; the glittering of
Janissaries in the outer court, which seemed a sort of guardroom, the
lines of those on duty in the next, and in the third court the black
slaves in white garments, enhancing the blackness of their limbs, each
with a formidable curved scimitar. At the golden cusped archway beyond,
all had to remove their shoes as though entering a mosque. The Consuls
bade the new-comers submit to this, adding that it was only since the
recent victory that it had not been needful to lay aside the sword on
entering the Dey's august presence. The chamber seemed to the eyes of
the strangers one web of magic splendour--gold-crusted lacework above,
arches on one side open to a beauteous garden, and opposite semicircles
of richly-robed Janissary officers, all culminating in a dazzling throne,
where sat a white-turbaned figure, before whom the visitors all had to
bow lower than European independence could well brook.
The Dey's features were not very distinctly seen at the distance where
etiquette required them to stand; but Arthur thought him hardly worthy to
be master of such fine-looking beings as Abou Ben Zegri and many others
of the Moors, being in fact a little sturdy Turk, with Tartar features,
not nearly so graceful as the Moors and Arabs, nor so handsome and
imposing as the Janissaries of Circassian blood. Turkish was the court
language; and even if he understood any other, an interpreter was a
necessary part of the etiquette. M. Dessault instructed the interpreter,
who understood with a readiness which betrayed that he was one of the
many renegades in the Algerine service.
The Dey was too dignified to betray much emotion; but he spoke a few
words, and these were understood to profess his willingness to assist in
the matter. A richly-clad official, who was, Mr. Thompson whispered, a
Secretary of State, came to attend the party in a smaller but equally
beautiful room, where pipes and coffee were served, and a consultation
took place with the two Consuls, which was, of course, incomprehensible
to the anxious listeners. M. Dessault's interest was deeply concerned in
the matter, since he was a connection of the Varennes family, to which
poor Madame de Bourke belonged.
Commands from the Dey, it was presently explained, would be utterly
disregarded by these wild mountaineers--nay, would probably lead to the
murder of the captives in defiance. But it was known that if these wild
beings paid deference to any one, it was to the Grand Marabout at Bugia;
and the Secretary promised to send a letter in the Dey's name, which,
with a considerable present, might induce him to undertake the
negotiation. Therewith the audience terminated, after M. Dessault had
laid a splendid diamond snuff-box at the feet of the Secretary.
The Consuls were somewhat disgusted at the notion of having recourse to
the Marabouts, whom the French Consul called _vilains charlatan_, and the
English one filthy scoundrels and impostors. Like the Indian Fakirs,
opined Captain Beresford; like the begging friars, said M. Dessault, and
to this the Consuls assented. Just, however, as the Dominicans, besides
the low class of barefooted friars, had a learned and cultivated set of
brethren in high repute at the Universities, and a general at Rome, so it
appeared that the Marabouts, besides their wild crew of masterful
beggars, living at free quarters, partly through pretended sanctity,
partly through the awe inspired by cabalistic arts, had a higher class
who dwelt in cities, and were highly esteemed, for the sake of either ten
years' abstinence from food or the attainment of fifty sciences, by one
or other of which means an angelic nature was held to be attained.
Fifty sciences! This greatly astonished the strangers, but they were
told by the residents that all the knowledge of the highly cultivated
Arabs of Bagdad and the Moors of Spain had been handed on to the select
few of their African descendants, and that really beautiful poetry was
still produced by the Marabouts. Certainly no one present could doubt of
the architectural skill and taste of the Algerines, and Mr. Thompson
declared that not a tithe of the wonders of their mechanical art had been
seen, describing the wonderful silver tree of Tlemcen, covered with
birds, who, by the action of wind, were made to produce the songs of each
different species which they represented, till a falcon on the topmost
branch uttered a harsh cry, and all became silent. General education
had, however, fallen to a low ebb among the population, and the wisdom of
the ancients was chiefly concentrated among the higher class of
Marabouts, whose headquarters were at Bugia, and their present chief,
Hadji Eseb Ben Hassan, had the reputation of a saint, which the Consuls
believed to be well founded.
The Cabeleyzes, though most irregular Moslems, were extremely
superstitious as regarded the supernatural arts supposed to be possessed
by the Marabouts, and if these could be induced to take up the cause of
the prisoners, there would be at least some chance of their success.
And not long after the party had arrived at the French Consulate, where
they were to dine, a messenger arrived with a parcel rolled up in silk,
embroidered with gold, and containing a strip of paper beautifully
emblazoned, and in Turkish characters. The Consul read it, and found it
to be a really strong recommendation to the Marabout to do his utmost for
the servants of the Dey's brother, the King of France, now in the hands
of the children of Shaitan.
'Well purchased,' said M. Dessault; 'though that snuff-box came from the
hands of the Elector of Bavaria!'
As soon as the meal was over, the French Consul, instead of taking his
siesta as usual, began to take measures for chartering a French tartane
to go to Bugia immediately. He found there was great interest excited,
not only among the Christian merchants, but among Turks, Moors, and Jews,
so horrible was the idea of captivity among the Cabeleyzes. The Dey set
the example of sending down five purses of sequins towards the young
lady's ransom, and many more contributions came in unasked. It was true
that the bearers expected no small consideration in return, but this was
willingly given, and the feeling manifested was a perfect astonishment to
all the friends at the Consulate.
The French national interpreter, Ibrahim Aga, was charged with the
negotiations with the Marabout. Arthur entreated to go with him, and
with some hesitation this was agreed to, since the sight of an old friend
might be needed to reassure any survivors of the poor captives--for it
was hardly thought possible that all could still survive the hardships of
the mountains in the depth of winter, even if they were spared by the
ferocity of their captors.
Ulysse, the little son and heir, was not to be exposed to the perils of
the seas till his sister's fate was decided, and accordingly he was to
remain under the care of Mrs. Thompson; while Captain Beresford meant to
cruise about in the neighbourhood, having a great desire to know the
result of the enterprise, and hoping also that if Mademoiselle de Bourke
still lived he might be permitted to restore her to her relations.
Letters, clothes, and comforts were provided, and placed under the charge
of the interpreter and of Arthur, together with a considerable gratuity
for the Marabout, and authority for any ransom that Cabeleyze rapacity
might require,--still, however, with great doubt whether all might not be
too late.