Prison at Mascara—Death of Meurice—Lanternier joins us—Four new
prisoners—Their adventures—Our way of passing our time—Conversation
of the prisoners—Fourteen heads—The Italians.
During the afternoon of the 5th a mule was brought to convey Meurice
to Mascara, and I asked for another for myself; but in spite of my
illness it was refused me. I revenged myself by pouring several
pitchers of water into the chests containing cartridges which stood in
our tent; and I flatter myself that I watered them so thoroughly as to
prevent their ever being of much use to my persecutors.
I had no sooner accomplished my revenge than Ben Faka returned
with the Kait of Mascara who was to escort us to the town, and we
immediately started, accompanied by Fleury, Bourgeois, and little
Benedicto. I was so overpowered by illness and fatigue that at length
even the Kait took pity on me, and seeing that I was totally unable to
walk, ordered Bourgeois and Fleury to lift me up on the mule behind
Meurice.
The Kait conducted us to a small house next door to that in which he
administers justice, and informed us that this was to be our dwelling.
It consisted of two small rooms on the ground floor, and one above
which was accessible only by an external staircase in the court. We
took up our quarters in the upper room, as it seemed rather less
damp than the others. It was quite bare of any sort of furniture,
and received a little light and a good deal of cold wind through two
loop-holes looking into the court. A plank about three feet wide,
fixed against the wall, seemed intended to serve as a bed.
The Kait gave us a piece of an old camel hair tent and two rugs to
cover us. The two soldiers had the tent, and Meurice and I the rugs.
The Sultan’s artillery was just passing through Mascara on its road
to Tekedemta, and Jean Mardulin who belonged to it, came to visit us;
he found us so ill and miserable that he proposed to stay and take
care of us,—an offer which we accepted with joy and gratitude. He had
scraped together a little money, which he generously placed at our
disposal.
Meurice begged for an interview with Lanternier, but the Kait replied,
that he had received strict orders from Abd-el-Kader not to allow him
to communicate with the other prisoners. We, however, sent him a share
of our rations every day by Mardulin.
So far were we from recovering our health that I had now entirely lost
the use of my legs, and my headaches daily increased in violence. I
begged the Kait twenty times to let me be bled; and at length he sent
me the same barber who had operated on Meurice. The barber cupped me
on the back of my head, which relieved me very much.
On the morning of the 12th the weather was detestable, the rain fell
in torrents, and we suffered even more than usual from cold and damp.
Meurice stretched out his hand towards me, as we lay side by side; I
took it, and asked him how he felt. He replied that he was no better
and felt very cold. I crept closer to him and offered him my haick;
but he refused it, saying that he did not suffer more than the day
before, but that he felt he had not long to live. “You,” said he, “are
young and strong; you will return to Algiers, where you will see my
wife—poor Clarisse! tell her how much I loved her, and that my last
thought was of her.” He then covered his head with his haick, and for
half an hour uttered not a single groan. At the end of that time I
took hold of his arm and asked him how he felt: he made no answer, and
I uncovered his face—he was dead.
I will not attempt to describe the feelings which crowded upon me as
I lay with Meurice’s body by my side. Night was come, and I called
the other prisoners, and bade them examine whether our poor companion
was really dead. They went to fetch the Kait, who, now that it was
too late, ordered a fire for us. Had this been granted us a few
days earlier, Meurice might have been saved. Bourgeois and Mardulin
undressed the body, rolled it in a rug, and laid it in the opposite
corner of the room. They gave me his clothes. The vermin on the haick
were so thick that it stood on end; but misery by degrees blunts all
our sensibilities, both moral and physical. I rolled myself in his
clothes, and at least was warmer.
The next afternoon Mardulin and Bourgeois, assisted by a couple of
Jews, whom the Kait had appointed for the purpose, removed the body.
They dug a hole just outside the wall of the town, on the road to El
Borgj, sewed the body in a ragged piece of old haick, and buried it
there.
The weather that night was terrific; the rain fell in torrents, and
the wind blew a perfect gale; nevertheless, at sunrise an Arab came
to inform the Kait that the corpse of the Christian was half out of
the earth. In spite of the weather the Arabs had dug up the body, in
order to steal the ragged piece of haick in which Mardulin had sewn
it. The Kait affected to be very angry, and promised us that he would
punish the thieves; but he made no attempt to discover them. Mardulin
immediately went to the spot where he had buried Meurice, enlarged
the hole, and replaced in it our unfortunate companion, whom these
barbarians would not suffer to rest in peace, even after death.
When Abd-el-Kader heard of Meurice’s death, he sent the most positive
orders that we were to have everything we might want; and the
Kait asked me what I wished for. I asked for three fowls, and for
permission for Lanternier to join us. As the Kait wished to keep me
alive, I obtained both my requests. It is impossible to describe
the joy of poor Lanternier, who immediately set about curing me by
continued and violent friction and the application of red-hot bricks
to my legs, which were so completely benumbed that even when the skin
was burnt I did not feel it.
All this time the Sultan was encamped to the south of Oran, at a place
where there are several marabouts and some mineral springs. He had
sent Milud-ben-Arrach with the cavalry to Milianah to collect tribute
from the Hadjutes of the neighbouring tribes. He was to have gone
among the Hadjutes himself during the month of September, but had been
prevented by the revolt of the Beni-Flitas.
I heard one day that a courier had arrived with letters from Algiers,
which he had delivered to the Kait. I got Bourgeois and Mardulin to
carry me to his house, though certainly nothing of less importance
would have induced me to be thus dragged across the public place of
Mascara. The Kait was touched with pity at my deplorable condition.
He told me that the courier brought a letter from Algiers, which, no
doubt, would effect my deliverance. I asked to see it, and my joy was
inexpressible on beholding General Rapatel’s seal. Guess, then, what
was my disappointment when the Kait told me that he dared not open
it, but would send it at once to the Sultan, and that Fleury should
accompany the courier in order to read it, as I was too weak and ill
to bear the fatigue of the journey.
Just as the courier was about to start, four new prisoners arrived;
these were Monsieur Pic a settler, his German servant formerly a
_chasseur_, a _disciplinaire_, and Madame Laurent a _cantinière_.
M. Pic’s servant, who had received a ball in his hip, was left at
Mascara, while the Kait sent his three companions to the Sultan with
the courier and Fleury. I especially charged the latter to ask the
Sultan to exchange the four new prisoners against the four Arabs who
were to have served as ransom for Meurice.
On the 18th thirty Beni-Amers,—men, women, and children, arrived at
Mascara, loaded with chains. They had been taken on the road to Oran,
whither they were going to place themselves under the protection of
the French. Abd-el-Kader ordered the two chiefs to be hung as an
example to others: the rest were thrown into prison.
Fleury returned to Mascara with the other prisoners and a soldier
called Devienne, who had been taken by the Arabs near Tlemsen. The
Arabs who escorted them told them that they must take off the haicks
which had been given to them by the Bey of Milianah, and appear before
the Sultan in their Christian dresses. The prisoners obeyed, and the
haicks disappeared.
After questioning the prisoners, and rewarding the Arabs who had
brought them, Abd-el-Kader gave each of them two bits of money,
and bade them fear nothing. Fleury then read the letter in which
the Governor agreed to give fifteen Arabs in exchange for the six
Christians, and the Sultan promised to send us all to Algiers at once.
He also sent his command to the Kait to clothe us all afresh with red
trowsers and new haicks, which the latter executed as far as he was
able, but the Sultan’s store contained but one piece of cloth, which
was only sufficient for three pairs of trowsers.
The Kait promised that we should set out for Algiers as soon as the
two Italian prisoners, Crescenso and Francesco, had arrived from
Tekedemta, whither he had already sent to fetch them. That evening,
when we were all assembled, I begged the four new prisoners to tell us
how they had fallen into the hands of the Arabs.
M. Pic and his servant were going towards Buffarik with a cartload of
sand, when some Arabs rode towards them, crying “Run! run!” Thinking
that the Arabs meant this as a friendly warning to them to escape
from some impending danger, the servant took to his heels, and M. Pic
was about to follow him when the Arabs fired at them, and wounded the
servant in the hip. They then took the horse out of the cart, mounted
their two prisoners upon it, and carried them to the Bey of Milianah.
The _disciplinaire_ was returning rather drunk, from a merry-making at
a blockhouse near Buffarik, when he was surprised by some Arabs, who
took him to their tribe near the Queen’s Tomb.[6]
Madame Laurent, in company with Madame Lafôret another _cantinière_,
was going to Mahelma to see her husband, when they were seized and
carried to the tents of the same tribe; where for two months they were
subjected to every sort of horrible ill usage, under which they both
fell sick, and Madame Lafôret soon perished.
Madame Laurent got worse and worse, and at last her master sold her to
another Arab, who kept her for two months, at the end of which time,
finding her as ill as ever and utterly unable to work, he took her to
the Bey of Milianah.
The _disciplinaire_ with whom she had never been allowed to have any
communication, had also fallen sick and was carried to the Bey.
On their arrival at Mascara, these prisoners were in the most abject
state of misery and dirt. Fleury cut off Madame Laurent’s long hair
which was covered with vermin, and she bought a comb with the money
the Sultan had given her. The Kait lodged her with his women, but
she soon returned to us in a rage, as the Arab women had struck and
insulted her, and she was forced to take refuge from their malice with
us.
Our days were passed in the following manner. At daybreak Mardulin
woke us, lighted the fire, and went to market to buy with his
own savings figs, eggs, and white bread for us, and snuff for M.
Lanternier. We then breakfasted; after which we cleaned the house
by turns. When the weather was fine we went to sit upon the terrace
of the Casabah, and hunted the vermin on our clothes: only M. Pic’s
servant, whose wound did not heal, stayed within.
One day, while I was discussing with Mardulin how to obtain from the
French Government his pardon and permission to return—a favour he so
well deserved for his devotion and kindness to us, we overheard the
following conversation among the other prisoners. They were talking
about their return to Algiers: and in spite of their rags and vermin
they had forgotten their miserable condition, and already fancied
themselves free. “I hope, gentlemen,” said M. Pic, “that when you
pass through Buffarik on your return to Algiers, you will do me the
honour of stopping to breakfast with me. Madame Pic will be extremely
flattered by the compliment, and should any confusion reign in the
meal, be so good, gentlemen, as not to attribute it to the slightest
indifference on our part to the comfort of our guests, but to the joy
which will no doubt disturb my wife, who of course believes me to be
dead, and will feel considerable emotion at our meeting.”
“Gentlemen,” began M. Lanternier, “I will not be outdone; you must
all give me the pleasure of your company at dinner at my village of
Adel-Ibrahim. It is true, I am old, but to celebrate the day of our
release I will take care that not even the youngest among you shall
eat and drink more than I.”
“_Ah ça_,” broke in Madame Laurent; “I trust, gentlemen, that I
need not put up with the disgrace of being unable to offer you any
civility. But first, I wish to know if there is a carriage road from
Buffarik to Algiers.”
“_Petite mère_,” answered the deserter, “you shall have a car whereon
to make your triumphal entry into Algiers.”
“Be quiet you rogues,—I shall have the honour of receiving you at my
canteen, and of offering each of you a glass of wine. The celebrated
and unfortunate captives of the Bedouins shall have the privilege of
drinking whatever they please gratis, like in the Champs Elysées on
the birthday of Louis XVIII. I shall have the honour of waiting upon
you myself, gentlemen; and I beg you to believe that my dress will be
more carefully arranged and composed of better materials than it is at
this present, most amiable and unfortunate captives of the barbarians.”
“Long live Madame Laurent!” exclaimed all the prisoners at once; “the
amiable captives will all assemble at your canteen at Algiers.” “And
at night,” added M. Lanternier, “we will all sup together with due
honours.” “And you, Lieutenant,” said Madame Laurent turning to me,
“will you do us the honour to be of the party?” “Certainly, _petite
mère_,” replied I; “and long live Madame Laurent.”
This is but one specimen of the conversations which continually arose
on this subject.
After taking a few turns on the terrace we returned to our house,
and as soon as the evening began to close in, Bourgeois brought the
kitchen fire into our room in a chafing dish, and one of the soldiers
went to fetch our supper and oil for our lamp at the house to which
he was directed by one of the Kait’s slaves; for the inhabitants
of the town were forced to supply us by turns: meanwhile some of
the party smoked, and others played at cards or chess with those I
had manufactured. When we had eaten our kuskussu we called on M.
Lanternier for a story, and listened with the deepest interest to Tom
Thumb, Little Red Riding Hood, the Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, or
some other fairy tale, which he told with great fluency and grace. The
_disciplinaire_, who had a very fine voice, sang Provençal songs with
great taste and feeling. One by one we fell asleep, and thus ended our
day.
One afternoon our talk was interrupted by the noise of cannon and
muskets, and of tumultuous voices. We went out to discover the cause,
and were shocked at seeing the heads of fourteen slaughtered Spahis
which the children were kicking about before the door of our house.
They were afterwards put into a sack and sent to adorn Abd-el-Kader’s
tent. This hideous spectacle made me sick.
On the 24th, two of the Italian fishermen, Crescenso and Francesco,
arrived from Tekedemta: Berthoumiau had died of cold and ill usage,
and had been buried there. The account of their sufferings was
terrible. Their first enquiry was after little Benedicto, but the boy
did not remember his friends or his country; only when they mentioned
his mother Maria he seemed to feel some emotion and his memory to
revive. “My mother,” said the boy, “is there,” pointing towards the
tent of Abd-el-Kader’s wife; and away he ran to play with the Arab
children.
[6] Vide page 73.