The Pirate City by Robert Michael Ballantyne (suggested reading TXT) 📕

said Jacob Mordecai sadly, "though it may well be that another insurrection shall follow close on its heels; but it is probable that there will be some degree of peace now for a time, and the guarded condition of the town will favour your escape."

"How so, Signor Mordecai?" asked Francisco; "it has hitherto been my belief as well as experience that a town in a state of siege was the reverse of favourable to anything implying freedom of action."

"Thou art right, friend," returned Jacob, with a smile, "and that absence of freedom will keep the streets clear of all who might otherwise interrupt thee, while, as to the guarded corners, my brother Bacri knows a variety of passages above and under ground, through which he will guide you past them to the city wall."

"Then let us be gone without delay," urged Francisco, "for, good sirs, my neck has for some time past felt sundry twinges, as though the bow-string were already around it."

"Half an hour must elapse ere we can venture forth with safety," said Bacri. "'Tis well that you have brought the knotted rope with you. Mariano knows how to use it. He will explain the mode of escape which you must follow, while I hold private converse with my brother."

So saying the kindly Jew bowed his tall form to his friends with the air of a king, and accompanied Jacob Mordecai into an inner room.

At the end of the time specified--which had appeared an age to the impatient trio--Bacri returned to the skiffa with two coarse burnouses similar to the one worn by Mariano. He directed Francisco and Lucien to put these on, after exchanging their varied habiliments for the jacket, short drawers, and red fez or cap, worn by Moors of the middle class. He then produced some brown ochre, with which he stained their hands and their legs below the knee--these latter parts being usually uncovered in Moors who did not belong to the wealthy classes.

"Why not paint our faces too?" asked Mariano, amused at the figure they cut, despite the dangers which rendered the disguise necessary.

"Because neither the painting of your faces," replied Bacri, "nor the shaving of your heads--which latter would be essential to the converting of you into genuine Moors--would constitute any disguise were your voices to be heard or your features to be scrutinised. You must be careful to pull the hoods of your burnouses well forward on your faces. All that you can hope to gain by your costume is to avoid attracting the attention of any whom you should chance to meet, or whom you may have to pass at a distance. If any one speaks to you after you reach the open country, refuse to answer. If he should insist on it, you must either run or fight, for which latter purpose I provide you with these short swords, which you will find better suited to your hands than the curved weapons of the Turks."

"Signor Bacri," said Francisco, examining the straight short weapon handed to him, "I thank thee for all thy kindness to me and my boys-- especially for these swords, for assuredly unless thou canst also furnish me with a pair of young and active legs, I am like to have more of fighting than running hereafter. However, let us not waste more time in speech, for, as I have said, my neck already itches most uncomfortably."

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