The Pirate City: An Algerine Tale

In deference to Francisco’s anxiety to be out of the city, which he was wont to style with great emphasis the Pirates’ Nest, Bacri hastened his preparations, and soon led them to the roof of the house of Jacob Mordecai, from which they scrambled to that of a friendly neighbour, and crossed over, with the care of burglars and the quiet steps of cats, to the other side. Here a difficulty met them, in the shape of a leap which was too long for Francisco’s heavy person to venture.

He might, indeed, have taken it with ease on level ground and in daylight; but, like his son Mariano on a somewhat similar occasion, he felt it difficult to screw up his courage to the point of springing across a black chasm, which he was aware descended some forty or fifty feet to the causeway of the street, and the opposite parapet, on which he was expected to alight like, a bird, appeared dim and ghostly in the uncertain light.

Twice did the courageous man bend himself to the leap, while the blood rushed with apoplectic violence to his bald head; and twice did his spirit fail him at the moment of need!

“Oh, Bacri!” he said in a hoarse whisper, wiping the perspiration from his brow, as he stood on the giddy height, “if there were only a damsel in distress on the opposite side, or a legion of Turks defying me to come on, I could go over, methinks, like a rocket, but to be required to leap in cold blood upon next to nothing over an unfathomable abyss, really—. Hast never a morsel of plank about thee, Jacob?”

Fortunately for all parties, Jacob had a flower stand on his roof, to which he returned with Mariano, who wrenched a plank therefrom, and brought it to the point of difficulty.

After this they met with no serious obstruction. Sometimes descending below the streets and passing through cellars, at others crossing roofs or gliding along the darkest sides of dark walls and passages, they traversed the town without being challenged, and gained the southern wall near the point at which Mariano had crossed it on a former occasion.

Here the Jew bade them God-speed, and left them.

“I hope thou art sure of the road, Mariano?” said Francisco anxiously.

“Trust me, father; I know it well. Only have a care that you tread lightly and make no noise.—Come.”

Leading them to the point on the ramparts where poor Castello’s head still stood withering in the night-wind, Mariano bade them remain in shadow while he attached the rope to the spike.

The sentinel could be dimly seen, for there was no moon, pacing to and fro within two hundred yards of them. They watched and lay still while he sauntered towards them, and glided noiselessly and quickly to the rope while his back was turned.

Thus one by one they descended the wall, crossed the ditch, ascended the slope on the other side, without having been observed, and, ere long, were safe among the rocks and fastnesses of the Sahel hills.

Chapter Eighteen.

In which Soles are beaten and Men are sold—With Plots and Counterplots

Comfortably ensconced in the palace of the Deys—elected by a majority of his comrades—the Aga Hamet proceeded to enjoy his high position, and to exercise the authority of ruler of the pirate city.

The day after his ascension of what we may call the dangerous throne, he sent for Hadji Baba the story-teller.

“Thou art a witty fellow, it seems?” said the Dey, when Baba made his appearance.

“So it has been said of me, and so I once thought,” replied the jester humbly; “but I have come to doubt the worth of my own wit, since it has led me to dwell in a palace.”

“How so, knave? What mean you?”

“In truth, I know not,” replied Baba. “My wit is scarce sufficient to make my meaning plain even to myself. Only I feel that the brilliancy of the wit of those who dwell in palaces is too much for me. ’Twere better, methinks, if I had remained on my shoemaker’s bench.”

“’Twere indeed better for thee to have done so, good fellow, if thou canst say nothing better than that,” replied Hamet angrily, for he was a stupid as well as an ambitious man. “Let’s have something better from thee, else the bastinado shall drive sense from thy heels into thy head.”

“Nay, then, it is hard,” returned Baba, with a smile, “to be asked to talk sense when I was hired by thy late master—”

“My late master!” roared the Dey.

“Surely I said ‘my late master,’ did I not?” returned Hadji Baba, rubbing his forehead as if he were confused—as, in truth, the poor fellow was, by the terrible scenes that had lately been enacted in the palace. “As I meant to say, then,—it is hard for me to talk sense when my late master hired me expressly to talk nonsense.”

“H’m, yes, very true,” replied the Dey, looking wise. “Let me, then, hear some of thy nonsense.”

“Ah, your highness, that is easily done,” said Baba, with sudden animation. “What shall be the subject of my discourse?—the affairs of state?”

The Dey nodded.

“Let me, then, make a broad statement of a nonsensical kind, which, in its particular applications may be said to be endless. A throne won by treachery, violence, and bloodshed cannot stand long in—”

“Villain!” shouted the Dey.

“Nay, I do but jest,” said Baba, with a look of simplicity.

“Jest or no jest, thou shalt smart for it,” cried the Dey, whose anger had been greatly roused.—“Ho! seize him and give him the bastinado, and afterwards bring him hither again.”

Two chaouses, who were in attendance in a neighbouring room, at once entered, and, seizing the unfortunate story-teller, hurried him down to an apartment in the palace which was reserved for punishments of various kinds, including strangulation. Here they stripped off Baba’s embroidered shoes and white hose.

“We have long been fellow-servants under this roof,” said Hadji Baba, as they were about to begin.

“That is true,” replied one of the chaouses sternly.

“I shall be forgiven, and depend on it thou shalt not be forgotten,” said Baba quietly.

The executioner, who knew that the story-teller had been a man of influence and power in the previous reign, hesitated.

“We have our orders, Hadji Baba,” said he, remonstratively, “and you know that it is as much as our lives are worth to fail in our obedience.”

“I bid you not to fail in the performance of your duty, but I counsel you to lay on lightly,” returned the jester, with a grim smile.

“And how if the Dey should expect to hear thy cries, and afterwards to see thee limp into his presence?” asked the man in a tone of indecision.

“Depend on’t he shall both see and hear,” exclaimed Baba, with a laugh. “Thinkest thou that my head is not equal to the saving of my feet? Lay on lightly, so that there may be somewhat to show; but see thou dost not over-do it. I will engage to let the tyrant hear on the deafest side of his head, and will limp into his presence with most unfeigned sincerity.”

“Well, then, I begin,” said the man, applying a few strokes with a lithe rod to the soles of the jester’s feet.

Baba was true to his word. He suddenly gave vent to a yell so appalling that the very executioner, accustomed though he was to such sounds, quailed for a moment, and said anxiously—

“Did I hit you too hard?”

“Hard!” echoed Baba, mingling a roar of laughter with his next yell. “Fear not, good comrade; go on, do thy duty—ha! ha!—ho–o–o! Stop! Why, it is worse than I had imagined,” he added, as the man delivered a cut that was rather sharp. “But go on,” cried Hadji Baba, with another yell; “I must have something to show, and he shall smart for it.”

He followed up this remark with a series of amateur shrieks and howls so terrible that the hardened chaouses, being accustomed only to the genuine display of suffering, were overcome, and entreated him to desist.

The excitement of the exercise, the conflict of varied feelings, the smarting of his soles, the indignation of his soul, and the absurdity of the deception, had such an effect on Hadji Baba’s spirit, that he experienced no difficulty whatever in limping like a confirmed cripple, and trembling like an aspen leaf when led into the presence of the tyrant.

“Ha!” exclaimed the Dey, “I think I have cured thee. Thou wilt talk no more nonsense, I warrant.”

“Not a word, your highness, not a syllable,” exclaimed the jester, falling on his knees, as the executioners retired. “Even though your highness were to hold the reins of power with a hand of gentleness and benignity, which I doubt not you will, I would not repeat such nonsense for the world.”

“Gentleness and benignity,” laughed the Dey, catching at the words, and paying little regard to what followed; “truly that were a novel feature in my character, as thou knowest well.—Now, listen, rascal: as thy feet are in good walking trim, I have an errand for thee. Go, tell Sidi Hassan that I want him, and see thou find him quickly, else another beating awaits thee.”

“Your highness shall be obeyed,” said the jester, with a profound obeisance, as he turned and limped out of the room.