The Middy and the Moors by Robert Michael Ballantyne (free e books to read .txt) 📕

We must return now to the residence of Ben-Ahmed at Mustapha.

When his son Osman—who had seen Hester only once and that for but a few minutes—discovered that the fair slave had fled, his rage knew no bounds. He immediately sent for Peter the Great and sternly asked him if he knew how the English girl had escaped. Their intercourse, we may remark, was carried on in the same curious manner as that referred to in connection with Ben-Ahmed. Osman spoke in Lingua Franca and Peter replied in his ordinary language.

“Oh yes, massa, I know,” said the latter, with intense earnestness; “she escaped ober de wall.”

“Blockhead!” exclaimed the irate Osman, who was a sturdy but ill-favoured specimen of Moslem humanity. “Of course I know that, but how did she escape over the wall?”

“Don’ know dat, massa. You see I’s not dere at de time, so can’t ’zactly say. Moreober, it was bery dark, an’ eben if I’s dar, I couldn’t see peepil in de dark.”

“You lie! you black scoundrel! and you know that you do. You could tell me much more about this if you chose.”

“No, indeed, I don’t lie—if a slabe may dar to counterdick his massa,” returned Peter humbly. “But you’s right when you say I could tell you much more. Oh! I could tell you heaps more! In de fuss place I was sotin’ wid de oder slabes in de kitchen, enjoyin’ ourselves arter supper, w’en we hear a cry! Oh my! how my heart jump! Den all our legs jump, and out we hoed wid lanterns an—”

“Fool! don’t I know all that? Now, tell me the truth, has the English slave, George Fos—Fos—I forget his name—”

“Geo’ge Foster,” suggested the negro, with an amiable look.

“Yes; has Foster had no hand in the matter?”

“Unpossible, I t’ink,” said Peter. “You see he was wid me and all de oder slabes when de girl hoed off, an’ I don’t t’ink eben a Englishman kin be in two places at one time. But you kin ax him; he’s in de gardin.”

“Go, fetch him,” growled the young Moor, “and tell four of my men to come here. They are waiting outside.”

The negro retired, and, soon after, four stout Moorish seamen entered. They seemed worthy of their gruff commander, who ordered them to stand at the inner end of the room. As he spoke he took up an iron instrument, somewhat like a poker, and thrust it into a brazier which contained a glowing charcoal fire.

Presently Peter the Great returned with young Foster. Osman did not condescend to speak directly to him, but held communication through the negro.

Of course our hero could throw no light on the subject, being utterly ignorant of everything—as Peter had wisely taken the precaution to ensure—except of the bare fact that Hester was gone.

“Now, it is my opinion,” said Osman, with a savage frown, “that you are both deceiving me, and if you don’t tell the truth I will take means to force it out of you.”

Saying this he turned to the brazier and pulled out the iron poker to see that it was becoming red-hot. The countenance of the negro became very grave as he observed this, and the midshipman’s heart sank within him.

“So you deliberately tell me,” said the Moor abruptly, as he wheeled round and confronted Peter the Great, “that you have no knowledge as to where, or with whom, this girl is?”

“No, massa,” answered the negro, with solemn sincerity. “If you was to skin me alive I not able to tell you whar she is or who she is wid.”

Peter said no more than this aloud, but he added, internally, that he would sooner die than give any further information, even if he had it to give.

Osman made a motion with his hand as a signal to the four seamen, who, advancing quickly, seized the negro, and held him fast. One of the men then stripped off the poor man’s shirt. At the same moment Osman drew the red-hot iron from the fire, and deliberately laid it on Peter’s back, the skin of which hissed and almost caught fire, while a cloud of smoke arose from it.

The hapless victim did not struggle. He was well aware that resistance would be useless. He merely clenched his teeth and hands. But when Osman removed the iron and applied it to another part of his broad back a deep groan of agony burst from the poor fellow, and beads of perspiration rolled from his brow.

At first George Foster could scarcely believe his eyes. He was almost paralysed by an intense feeling of horror. Then there came a tremendous rebound. Rage, astonishment, indignation, fury, and a host of cognate passions, met and exploded in his bosom. Uttering a yell that harmonised therewith, he sprang forward, hit Osman a straight English left-hander between the eyes, and followed it up with a right-hander in the gullet, which sent the cruel monster flat on the floor, and his head saluted the bricks with an effective bump. In his fall the Moor overturned the brazier, and brought the glowing fire upon his bosom, which it set alight—his garments being made of cotton.

To leap up with a roar of pain and shake off the glowing cinders was the work of a moment. In the same moment two of the stout seamen threw themselves on the roused midshipman, and overcame him—not, however, before one of them had received a black eye and the other a bloody nose, for Moors do not understand the art of self-defence with the fists.

“Down with him!” shouted Osman, when he had extinguished the flames.

He seized a supple cane, or wand, as the seamen threw Foster down, and held his feet in the air, after tearing off his shoes.

Wild with fury, Osman brought the cane down on the poor youth’s soles. It was his first taste of the bastinado. The agony took him by surprise, and extorted a sharp yell. Next moment his teeth were in the calf of one of the men’s legs, and his right hand grasped the baggy trousers of the other. A compound kick and plunge overturned them both, and as they all fell into a heap, the cheek of one seaman received a stinging blow that was meant for the middy’s soles.

Things had reached this crisis, and Peter the Great, having hurled aside his two assailants, was on the point of rushing to the rescue of his friend, when the door burst open, and Ben-Ahmed stood before them quivering with indignation.

“Is this your return for my forbearance? Be-gone!” he shouted to his son in a voice of thunder.

Osman knew his father too well to require a second bidding. He left the room angrily, and a look from Ben-Ahmed sent the four sailors after him.

The Moor was too well accustomed to his wild son’s ways to require any explanation of the cause of the fracas. Just giving one glance at his slaves, to make sure that neither was killed, he left the room as hastily as he had entered it.

“My poor friend,” exclaimed the middy, grasping the negro’s hand with a gush of mingled enthusiasm and pity, “I trust you have not been much injured by that inhuman brute?”

“Oh, bress you! no. It do smart a bit,” returned Peter, as he put on his shirt uneasily, “an’ I’s used to it, Geo’ge, you know. But how’s your poo’ feet?”

“Well, I’m not vary sure,” replied Foster, making a wry face as he sat down to examine them. “How it did sting, Peter! I owe a heavy debt of gratitude to old Ben-Ahmed for cutting it short. No, the skin’s not damaged, I see, but there are two or three most awful weals. D’you know, I never before this day felt sorry that I wasn’t born a dog!”

“Why’s dat, Geo’ge?”

Because then I should have been able to make my teeth meet in yon fellow’s leg, and would have held on! Yes, I don’t know what I would not have given just at that time to have been born a mastiff, or a huge Saint Bernard, or a thoroughbred British bull-dog, with double the usual allowance of canines and grinders!

The negro threw back his head and began one of his silent laughs, but suddenly stopped, opened his eyes wide, pursed his lips, and moved his broad shoulders uneasily.

“I mus’ laugh easy for some time to come,” he remarked.

“Poor fellow!” said Foster, “I fear you must. I say—how my soles do sting!”

“Oh yes, I knows,” returned Peter, with a remarkably intelligent nod. “But come. We mus’ go an’ see what massa’s a-goin’ to do, for you bery sure he won’t rest quiet till he’s turned