THE TEMPLE BENEATH THE WATERS
Now, had I but had the luck to know it, my two captors were themselves
of this guild of the ferrymen whose rights they so stoutly stood by;
and I could have obtained my freedom at any hour of the night for
two-pence: the statutory passage money of which I had unwittingly
defrauded them. But upon this twopence saved were to depend many
events I could well have spared, together, too, with much I yet thank
Heaven for; so small a matter doth our fate require (as a rudder) to
steer us by along what course she will....
The sun came up, as I say, in a little fresh scud of wind, and athwart
the golden dancing waters went the good ship the _Saracen's Head_, fair
and free; while I, her supercargo, remained behind in this
evil-smelling tent of half-naked and infidel Moors; cursing the
mischance that had led me thither, and altogether discouraged.
The thought of Idonia, that amid all the distractions of my late
captivity on board the ship had been predominant over all, affected me
more than ever now, as I sat in this pure light of dawn, in a perfect
silence save for the little lapping of the waves. I remembered the
wild look of love that her eyes had held, when she said: "Free, oh,
free!" and: "Denis, Denis, do not let me go!" I caught again the
drooping lassitude of her posture, when, spent by the varying terrors
of the night, she had swooned in my arms. For the thousandth time I
reviewed the dangers that threatened her, the bitter cold of the rain,
insults of the soldiers, her wandering wits and the nearness of the
river. To this was added a fearful burden of doubt whether I should at
all be suffered to return home, to seek her; knowing as I did that not
two or three, but many men that had set foot upon this coast, had been
sold as slaves or slain outright; while others, to escape the seeming
worst, abjuring their faiths (as Nelson the Yeoman's son had done), had
embraced the false religion of this country and by that currish means
gained favour and furtherance in their servitude. It seemed to me a
strange thing, as I sat in this place where all around was peace and
grave silence, that so small an interval might separate me from such
intolerable cruelties as we in England had oftentimes heard tell of as
continually practised by the men of these parts; and I in particular
had listened to this sort of tales, by the mariners of our Company
narrated, when, as I was used, I went to meet them and bring them to
Osborne the Governor. But there is (I find) a surprising declension
from the amusement got by hearing of the customs of other nations, to
that is got by going where they are practised; and I settled it in my
mind at that time (nor have I ever exchanged the opinion) that what
lieth beyond the West Country is of very small account; always
excepting the City of London and the Berkshire downs.
Now when the sun had been risen about an hour, I perceived some stir to
grow in the town, and men to begin going about their daily business.
From the petty harbour I saw a barque or two warping their way out, and
was marvellous surprised when, presently, that great boat that had
rowed, as we all supposed, to the attack of the _Saracen's Head_,
returned very peaceably to the quayside laden with a fine catch of
fish; by the which it manifestly appeared that they were no robbers,
but a company of Moorish fisherfolk that had gone before daybreak to
cast their seines; and as the sequel showed, to good purpose.
I laughed aloud at the error into which I had fallen, and the more when
I imagined with what consternation these simple men would have received
Master Attwood's cannon shot, had he prosecuted his intention and fired
it.
My two guards looked upon me with some anxiety, when they saw me
laughing in this manner, and spoke together in a low voice; after which
the one of them got up softly and went away. Something perturbed, I
questioned the other man, by signs, that being our only method of
converse, whither it was he went; who answered, similarly, that he was
gone to see if the king were yet awake, and ready to administer justice
in my cause. I should have sought to learn more, had I not chanced to
observe upon one of the ships that lay by the wharf, a flag hauling up,
at which sight I was filled with an excessive joy; for it was the
English flag; and the ship, when I had more particularly noted her, one
of our Turkey Company's merchant vessels, namely, the _Happy
Adventure_, seventy tons burden and very sound craft.
Leaping to my feet, I made signs to my Moor that these were friends of
mine who would speak for my general probity, and at the same time
offered him three or four pieces of silver (all I had) the better to
enforce my request.
Never have I seen a man so metamorphosed as he, who, expecting at the
utmost to receive his legal two-pence, had suddenly thrust upon him a
handful of crowns. From a petty evader of duties, I became in his eyes
a fountain of generosity, and prince of swimmers. He fell prone on his
face before me in the sand, and covered my shoes with kisses, naming me
in his language his eternal benefactor, the light of his life, the
supporter of his age (or if not these then what you shall please, for I
understood nothing of it all save his cringing and kissing of my toe).
Now while he was thus engaged, his companion returned together with him
they called their king, but was only an ordinary Moor to see to,
extremely fat (which is perhaps a sign of pre-eminence in these parts)
and abominably filthy. He had two curved swords stuck in his waist,
and wore a patched green cloak.
But when he saw who it was approached, my newly purchased friend left
kissing me, and did obeisance to his king, very reverently saluting him
with his hands raised to his forehead; and the king in his turn bade
him, as well as he could for lack of breath, be at peace. Which done,
a long debate ensued among the three of them wherein my gratuity was
displayed and commented upon, with a great show of delight by the Moor,
with astonishment by the king, and with an uncontrolled disappointment
by the Moor that had gone to bring him. By the greedy looks with which
he, and soon the king too, regarded this chiefest feature of the case,
I understood that my acquittal was likely to depend upon the nature of
the evidence (that is the amount of the bribe) I could bring in, to
satisfy my second accuser, and after him the Judge. But satisfy them
in this kind I could not, for as I have said, I had imprudently parted
with my entire wealth to my first accuser, who, as I am assured, would
have been perfectly content with half a groat. The fat king, without
the least disguise, but pointing to my unlucky crown-pieces, told off
upon his fingers the rate at which I might obtain my discharge, while
the ferryman, whom anger seemed to have robbed of speech, convulsively
gripped at the haft of a very dangerous long knife he had, as if to
demonstrate the province of effective law.
What course I might have followed herein I am not careful to imagine;
enough that it was decided for me by one of the ship's company of the
_Adventure_, who, observing us, came over a little way to see what
should be the occasion of this argument. To him then, without delay, I
dispatched my Moorish friend I had suborned, praying the mariner to
hasten to my assistance. And no sooner did he see the English pieces
in the fellow's hand than he understood it was a countryman of his in
peril, and so called together the rest of his crew, or at least such as
were within hail. A little after, therefore, I was set free, the whole
company coming about me, and thrusting away the poor fat king, that
they told me was but a petty chieftain, of no authority at all, except
that he took the half of the harbour dues; which being a mere pittance,
however, he was fain to eke out the stipend with the selling of sweet
oil and justice, as either was called for.
But when they heard I was employed by the Turkey Company, as they were,
and moreover was acquainted with Sir Edward Osborne, whom every one
greatly honoured, there was no end to their protestations of
friendship; and in especial the master of that voyage, one Captain
Tuchet, offered to carry me with him to England; albeit he must first,
he said, finish his trading in these waters, as he had engaged to do.
I thanked him very heartily for his kindness, and, at his request,
opened with him at large of my imprisonment on board the _Saracen's
Head_, and of all matters I have above set down, which he heard very
patiently and advised himself of the principal outrages that were
either committed or intended by Spurrier and the rest. He was a short,
squat man, of a very heavy appearance and so dull an eye that I had set
him down for almost a fool before he showed me pretty convincingly that
he was not, but rather of a nature at once astute and undaunted, he
being indeed at all points a commander and worthy of trust.
"So you tell me that these gentlemen purpose to join themselves to a
certain pirate of note," he said, blinking his thick-lidded eyes, as we
leaned over the rail of his high deck. "And where might he be found,
prythee?"
"It was upon some island, as I remember, to the northward of Sicily," I
answered.
"'Tis as I thought then," said he, "and having a part of our cargo to
discharge at Amalfi, we will read our instructions something more
liberally than we be wont to do, and shape our course toward--well,
should we chance to make this island of yours upon the way, there's no
harm done, Master Supercargo;" and he blinked again.
"You will give them chase?" cried I.
"We be men peaceably inclined at all times," replied Tuchet, closing
his eyes altogether, "and I should be sorry if resistance to our
demands led to bloodshed."
"But my uncle..." I said and hesitated.
"Is a reasonable villain by all accounts," replied the Captain, and so
for that while dismissed me.
The news that we were to alter our course in order to the end I have
named, soon spread amongst the crew, who one and all rejoiced at the
prospect of fighting it offered them; that being a luxury not often to
be indulged in upon a merchant ship and therefore the more highly
prized. From the mate I learned that there was an infinite number of
such secret nooks and fastnesses by pirates and desperate thieves
infested, in this sea, and that to any ordinary man it would appear an
absurd thing to attempt, from amongst so many, to discover the
particular refuge that Spurrier might affect. "So that were it not for
some hint we have to go upon, which our Captain thinks sufficient, we
might indeed run far astray; though now, if we do, I shall greatly
admire it."
"Upon what place hath he fixed as likely?" I asked.
"'Tis a little rock among the AEolian Islands," he answered me, "for it
is indeed hardly more than a bare rock. The people name it the Three
Towers, because of certain watch-towers formerly set up against the
Saracens and yet remaining: as you may see them likewise in Amalfi, and
other places too. It hath a fair anchorage and haven and a flat strip
of good land where they used to cultivate vines before the robbers took
the place and killed the islanders. There was a pleasant village there
among the vineyards, and a temple, nigh perfect, of the old heathen
gods. But now all is in ruins, except that those men have retained for
their safeguard, or for the storage of their treasure."
"You seem to know their lurking-place pretty well," said I, with a
smile.
He let the jest pass, it being none to him as I soon learned.
"I should know it, master," he replied, "having lived there, and there
married and had children. 'Twas those devils of pirates drove me forth
... but not my wife. My children they slew in the room where the
wine-press stood. I think if we fall in with that company, sir, by how
much soever their number exceed ours, we shall yet get the better of
them, God helping us."
All that day we held our course eastward, with a pretty strong wind
following, so that we had got about seventy or eighty miles from the
port by sunset. The night also continuing fair, with lucky weather, we
made a further good progress, by which the Captain hoped, within two or
three days at the most, we should make the Island of Tre Torre (that
is, the Three Towers aforesaid), and therefore set every one to the
preparing of his weapon, and the hauling up of the powder from the
magazine.
For my part, while these preparations were making, I was full of heavy
thoughts, for it must needs be in this imminent battle that my uncle
and I should be opposites, who but lately were become friends.
I doubted indeed whether Spurrier would grant him liberty to fight; but
the alternative was rather to be feared, namely that, unwilling to be
cumbered with the ward of prisoners at such a time, the Captain would
rid himself of him before the fight should begin. But either way I
certainly could not refuse to draw my sword against these pirates
merely because my uncle was kept prisoner by them, and especially since
our quarrel was like to extend to all such robbers as should choose to
take sides with Spurrier against us. It appeared indeed a mad
impossible enterprise we undertook, and had it not been for the extreme
faith all our crew had in Mr. Tuchet, I might perhaps have gone the
length of protesting against the risk we ran.
However I did not, and am glad that I refrained, for no man loveth to
be thought a coward, though some that are not be content to appear so
in a noble cause; which I think is the greatest degree of courage a man
can attain to.
Now, about the fourth morning, when the watch was changed, I being one
of those appointed to serve that turn, we remarked that the sky, which
until then had been quite clear, was now spread over with a thin haze,
such as ordinarily intendeth an excessive heat; and indeed as the day
wore on it became oppressively hot, the vapour remaining the while, or
rather withdrawing to an unusual height, so that there was no mist upon
the waters, but merely a white sky for a blue one. At noonday this
strange whiteness of the heavens became charged with a dull copper
colour particularly to the eastward, and the wind died away suddenly,
leaving us becalmed.
Tuchet summoned the mate to him, to the upper deck, and held him long
in consultation of this mystery, presently calling me too to join them
there, when he put two or three brief questions to me as touching the
rig and burden of the _Saracen's Head_, which, when I had answered, he
resumed his conference with the mate, jerking his finger impatiently
toward some object far out to sea.
I followed the direction of his finger, and at last perceived right
upon the clear line of the horizon a grey blot, that might have been a
rock or ship, or indeed anything, so great was the distance of it from
us.
"I cannot tell," said the mate; "but I think 'tis not so big."
"Tush!" said the Captain. "Consider it more closely."
Again I strained my eyes for any indication of sail or hull that should
resolve my doubt; but even as I gazed the thing was lost as completely
as though the sea had opened to swallow it.
"Why, 'tis gone!" I cried.
Neither of the men spoke for a while, but after a full half minute the
mate said in a low voice--
"Yonder comes the eagre," meaning, as I learned afterwards, that great
wave that sometimes comes with the high tide, and is otherwise named
the Bore; the cause of it none knoweth certainly, though it is said to
follow upon an uncommon meeting of tides, or else is rolled back by
earthquakes and such-like horrid disturbances and visitations of the
Almighty.
"Strike sail, lads," shouted the Captain, "and close up all hatches;
there's tempest at hand."
We did what we could, but the time was brief enough, so that before we
had well concluded the wave struck us. The ship seemed to be lifted
like a plaything and tossed about as lightly as though a giant had put
forth his hand from the deep and flung us. Three men were washed
overboard at the first assault and our mizzen mast burst asunder, which
falling, grievously hurt one that stood by, who a little after died.
Meanwhile the calm that had previously held us bound, was exchanged for
a furious hurricane worse almost to withstand than the shock of the
eagre-wave itself. The sky was now as black as night, with great
hurrying clouds urged on as it seemed by the pitiless goad of lightning
that lacerated them as they thundered by. Wave after wave swept over
us as we rose and fell, abject and waterlogged, now lying low in the
lane of waters, now impelled to the summit from which we looked forth
as from a falling tower in whose ruin we were presently to be
involved....
I cannot relate all that followed, for a spar struck me senseless, and
when I recovered we were riding in an untroubled bay, under a lee
shore. Too sick and weak to question those that stood about me, I
nevertheless could not but note the amazing beauty of the scene. Upon
an eminence a grove of palm trees stood out against the blue of the
sky, while upon the slope of this hill and below it to the water's edge
extended the buildings of a city, dazzling white and magnificently
builded with long arcades and lofty gateways and tiled domes. At first
I supposed we had been carried by the storm backward to that Moorish
port where I was held captive, but soon I perceived that this place
greatly exceeded it in splendour and apparent wealth. The city, in
fact, was Argiers, whither we had been carried wide of our course by
the stress of the storm: but being here our Captain thought fit to make
good our ship that was pretty near stove in. Some nine or ten days in
all we stayed, during which I not only regained my health but took an
infinite pleasure in going about in the town, which was like nothing I
had ever seen or imagined, so white it was, and so strangely supported
upon deep arches that caught the shade at all hours; and having high
towers with balconies, from which a man called these poor infidels to
prayer. The flies were abominable, and the stench incredibly
offensive; but saving these things, Argiers is a good town, and the
people of it (that is, the men, for I saw no women) very grave and
orderly.
Our masts and timbers made good at length, Mr. Tuchet called the crew
aboard, and bade them cast off the hawser that held us, which was soon
done, and we departed. And because of the privilege extended to me and
the favour of the Captain, I left the common seamen and went upon the
deck that the Captain used, who spoke cheerily to me, saying he hoped
we should meet with no more disasters on this voyage. I laughed and
said I hoped not neither, and asked him when he thought we should come
to Amalfi; for it never entered my mind that he would prosecute his old
purpose of going against the pirates.
"To Amalfi?" said Tuchet, scratching his grey stubble beard. "Oh,
about a week hence, Mr. Denis, if we get done with your uncle by
Thursday, as I expect to do."
Nothing deterred him when he had once resolved upon any course, and I
am assured that had we lost half our complement of men and all our
ammunition, he would have gone into it with his fists. The Thursday
then, having doubled the Cape of Marsala, which is the westward point
of Sicily, we came amongst the AEolian Islands to the very hour Tuchet
had named; and towards evening we clearly descried the little rocky
islet of the Three Towers; whereat every man grasped his weapon, and
the gunner ran out his long brass piece. 'Twas no time for the conning
over of moral sentences but rather of rapid silent preparation; yet I
could not but feel the solemnity of this our slowly sailing onward
through the still autumn evening, whose outgoing seemed so sweetly
attuned to that praise for which the Scripture saith it was created,
but which for us meant no more than an unlucky light to shoot by. For,
as more than one stout fellow whispered, our ship having the sun behind
it was a mark for any fool to hit, while we upon our part could
distinguish nought upon that barren rock but the crumbled watch-towers
that crowned it.
Without a word, we stole on. It was dangerous navigation, for there
were said to be sunken reefs to the westward (that is the nearest to us
as we came from the west), where the rock divided into two horns or
spurs, that, jutting out into the sea, enclosed the little parcel of
flat land where the vineyards used to be and the ruined temple. The
harbourage lay a little to the southward behind the right-hand spur I
have noted, and was therefore not yet to be seen; though we,
approaching so closely, must have been perfectly visible to any one
that lay concealed amidst the innumerable lurking-places and caves of
the rock.
The mate, who knew the island but too well, had gone forward, but now
returned to us, that is to Tuchet and me, upon the high deck. His face
was very white.
"The shore hath sunk," he said.
"What do you mean?" cried Tuchet, turning about sharply.
"Vineyard and all gone; our cottage and the garden where my boys
played.... The eagre hath whelmed them."
"But the wave hath long since receded, man; it cannot be! You have
mistaken the place belike."
"Mistaken!" repeated the mate with a hard laugh. "I tell you the whole
island hath been disturbed; its foundations shaken--Lo, there!" he
cried out. "A whole cliff hath gone down in the earthquake; and there
is driftwood under the headland, of wrecked ships."
And even as he had said, so it was.
For the late upheaval had had its origin in the recesses of this barren
rock, which it had burst open as a robber bursts forth from his ambush,
and loosed that charging hurricane upon the sea. And indeed not this
island of Tre Torre only, but all these islands to the northward of
Sicily be so eaten under by fire, and liable to sudden calamity
therefrom, as none may properly be named habitable, though the most of
them be inhabited in despite of almost constant threatenings, until, as
this place was, they be at length in a night destroyed.
We sailed about the place in our ship, but found no living soul, and
night soon after falling, we were fain to use the shattered remnant of
the pirates' harbour, where we lay till the morning, very sad and
perplexed.
But a great while before full day I rose up alone and went ashore, in
the hope to light upon some vestiges of my uncle, or if not of him,
then of any of that infamous crew of the _Saracen's Head_. From the
one of the watch-towers that I found to be the least shaken I surveyed
the rock over every part, but could discover nothing more than that we
had before espied, namely, the few broken boards of a ship and spars
strewn about the sweep of ground betwixt the two promontories, and so
descended slowly to where they lay. And having descended but a little
of the broken path that led, as I judged, to the submerged hamlet
amidst the vineyards, I looked out upon the waters of the bay; and on
the sudden, clear beneath them, saw the hamlet, house by house, and the
pergolas of hanging vines. So translucent and untroubled was the water
at that hour that scarce anything the least was hid, but even the grass
between the stones I saw, yet fresh and waving, and the rusted tools
abandoned in the fields. An untended way led further off to the
temple, of which I could dimly perceive the pillars, between which
great silver fish swam in and out, and upon its steps the seaweed
slightly stirred.
But caught in the weed on the steps of the temple I saw a drowned man
lying, and when I had gone down to the edge of the shore, I knew him
for my uncle....
Of the rest we could find at first no trace at all, but (having sent
down divers into the deep water about the northward headland) we at
length recovered the bodies of Spurrier and Attwood and one or two
beside. When the ship had split, idly trusting to such pieces of the
wreck as they could lay hold of, they had evidently been dashed against
the rock, and so perished. But the prisoner in the hold had been
carried forward, as it seemed, almost into safety, but at the last had
been let slip. There was no hurt upon his body when we raised it, and
the features were unclouded by any premonition of his fate.