Books: A Modern Telemachus

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This gave Lanty an idea. A little round box lay near, which, as he
remembered, contained a Jack-in-the-box, or Polichinelle, which the
poor little Chevalier had bought at the fair at Tarascon. This he
contrived to secrete and hand to Victorine. 'Keep the secret,' he
said, 'and you will find your best guardian in that bit of a box.' And
when that very evening an Arab showed some intentions of adding her to
his harem, Victorine bethought herself of the box, and unhooked in
desperation. Up sprang Punch, long-nosed and fur-capped, right in the
bearded face.

Back the man almost fell; 'Shaitan, Shaitan!' was the cry, as the
inhabitants tumbled pell-mell out of the hovel, and Victorine and Punch
remained masters of the situation.

She heard Lanty haranguing in broken Arabic and lingua Franca, and
presently he came in, shaking with suppressed laughter. 'If ever we
get home,' said he, 'we'll make a pilgrimage to Tarascon! Blessings on
good St. Martha that put that sweet little imp in my way! The rogues
think he is the very genie that the fisherman let out of the bottle in
Mademoiselle's book of the Thousand and One Nights, and thought to see
him towering over the whole place. And a fine figure he would be with
his hook nose and long beard. They sent me to beg you fairly to put up
your little Shaitan again. I told them that Shaitan, as they call him,
is always in it when there's meddling between an espoused pair--which
is as true as though the Holy Father at Rome had said it--and as long
as they were civil, Shaitan would rest; but if they durst molest you,
there was no saying where he would be, if once you had to let him out!
To think of the virtue of that ugly face and bit of a coil of wire!'

Meantime Hebert, having ascertained that both the Jew and Hassan were
going away, the one to Constantina, the other to Algiers, wrote, and so
did Estelle, to the Consul at Algiers, explaining their position and
entreating to be ransomed. Though only nine years old, Estelle could
write a very fair letter, and the amazement of the Arabs was unbounded
that any female creature should wield a pen. Marabouts and merchants
were known to read the Koran, but if one of the goats had begun to
write, their wonder could hardly have been greater; and such crowds
came to witness the extraordinary operation that she could scarcely
breathe or see.

It seemed to establish her in their estimation as a sort of
supernatural being, for she was always treated with more consideration
than the rest of the captives, never deprived of the clothes she wore,
and allowed to appropriate a few of the toilette necessaries that were
quite incomprehensible to those around her.

She learnt the names for bread, chestnuts, dates, milk, and water, and
these were never denied to her; and her little ingenuities in nursery
games won the goodwill of the women and children around her, though
others used to come and make ugly faces at her, and cry out at her as
an unclean thing. The Abbe was allowed to wander about at will, and
keep his Hours, with Estelle to make the responses, and sometimes
Hebert. He was the only one that might visit the other two captives;
Lanty was kept hard at work over the crop of chestnuts that the clan
had come down from their mountains to gather in; and poor Victorine,
who was consumed by a low fever, and almost too weak to move, lay all
day in the dreary and dirty hut, expecting, but dreading death.

Some days later there was great excitement, shouting, and rage. It
proved that the Bey of Constantina had sent to demand the party,
threatening to send an armed force to compel their surrender; but,
alas! the hope of a return to comparative civilisation was instantly
quashed, for the sheyk showed himself furious. He and Eyoub stood
brandishing their scimitars, and with eyes flashing like a panther's in
the dark, declaring that they were free, no subjects of the Dey nor the
Bey either; and that they would shed the blood of every one of the
captives rather than yield them to the dogs and sons of dogs at
Constantina.

This embassy only increased the jealousy with which the prisoners were
guarded. None of them were allowed to stir without a man with a
halbert, and they had the greatest difficulty in entrusting a third
letter to the Moor in command of the party. Indeed, it was only
managed by Estelle's coaxing of the little Abou Daoud, who was growing
devoted to her, and would do anything for the reward of hearing her
sing life Malbrook s'en va-t'-n guerre.

It might have been in consequence of this threat of the Bey, much as
they affected to despise it, that the Cabeleyzes prepared to return to
the heights of Mount Araz, whence they had only descended during the
autumn to find fresh pasture for their cattle, and to collect dates and
chestnuts from the forest.

'Alas!' said Hubert, 'this is worse than ever. As long as we were near
the sea, I had hope, but now all trace of us will be lost, even if the
Consul should send after us.'

'Never fear, Maitre Hubert,' said Estelle; 'you know Telemaque was a
prisoner and tamed the wild peasants in Egypt.'

'Ah! the poor demoiselle, she always seems as if she were acting a
comedy.'

This was happily true. Estelle seemed to be in a curious manner borne
through the dangers and discomforts of her surroundings by a strange
dreamy sense of living up to her part, sometimes as a possible martyr,
sometimes as a figure in the mythological or Arcadian romance that had
filtered into her nursery.

CHAPTER VI--A MOORISH VILLAGE

'Our laws and our worship on thee thou shalt take,
And this shalt thou first do for Zulema's sake.'
SCOTT.

When Arthur Hope dashed back from the party on the prow of the wrecked
tartane in search of little Ulysse, he succeeded in grasping the child,
but at the same moment a huge breaker washed him off the slipperily-
sloping deck, and after a scarce conscious struggle he found himself,
still retaining his clutch of the boy, in the trough between it and
another. He was happily an expert swimmer, and holding the little
fellow's clothes in his teeth, he was able to avoid the dash, and to
rise on another wave. Then he perceived that he was no longer near the
vessel, but had been carried out to some little distance, and his
efforts only succeeded in keeping afloat, not in approaching the shore.
Happily a plank drifted so near him that he was able to seize it and
throw himself across it, thus obtaining some support, and being able to
raise the child farther above the water.

At the same time he became convinced that a strong current, probably
from a river or stream, was carrying him out to sea, away from the bay.
He saw the black heads of two or three of the Moorish crew likewise
floating on spars, and yielding themselves to the stream, and this made
him better satisfied to follow their example. It was a sort of rest,
and gave him time to recover from the first exhaustion to convince
himself that the little boy was not dead, and to lash him to the plank
with a handkerchief.

By and by--he knew not how soon--calls and shouts passed between the
Moors; only two seemed to survive, and they no longer obeyed the
direction of the current, but turned resolutely towards the land, where
Arthur dimly saw a green valley opening towards the sea. This was a
much severer effort, but by this time immediate self-preservation had
become the only thought, and happily both wind and the very slight tide
were favourable, so that, just as the sun sank beneath the western
waves, Arthur felt foothold on a sloping beach of white sand, even as
his powers became exhausted. He struggled up out of reach of the sea,
and then sank down, exhausted and unconscious.

His first impression was of cries and shrieks round him, as he gasped
and panted, then saw as in a dream forms flitting round him, and then--
feeling for the child and missing him--he raised himself in
consternation, and the movement was greeted by fresh unintelligible
exclamations, while a not unkindly hand lifted him up. It belonged to
a man in a sort of loose white garment and drawers, with a thin dark-
bearded face; and Arthur, recollecting that the Spanish word nino
passed current for child in lingua Franca, uttered it with an accent of
despairing anxiety. He was answered with a volley of words that he
only understood to be in a consoling tone, and the speaker pointed
inland. Various persons, among whom Arthur saw his recent shipmates,
seemed to be going in that direction, and he obeyed his guide, though
scarcely able to move from exhaustion and cold, the garments he had
retained clinging about him. Some one, however, ran down towards him
with a vessel containing a draught of sour milk. This revived him
enough to see clearly and follow his guides. After walking a distance,
which appeared to him most laborious, he found himself entering a sort
of village, and was ushered through a courtyard into a kind of room.
In the centre a fire was burning; several figures were busy round it,
and in another moment he perceived that they were rubbing, chafing, and
otherwise restoring his little companion.

Indeed Ulysse had just recovered enough to be terribly frightened, and
as his friend's voice answered his screams, he sprang from the kind
brown hands, and, darting on Arthur, clung to him with face hidden on
his shoulder. The women who had been attending to him fell back as the
white stranger entered, and almost instantly dry clothes were brought,
and while Arthur was warming himself and putting them on, a little
table about a foot high was set, the contents of a cauldron of a kind
of soup which had been suspended over the fire were poured into a large
round green crock, and in which all were expected to dip their spoons
and fingers. Little Ulysse was exceedingly amazed, and observed that
ces gens were not bien eleves to eat out of the dish; but he was too
hungry to make any objection to being fed with the wooden spoon that
had been handed to Arthur; and when the warm soup, and the meat
floating in it, had refreshed them, signs were made to them to lie down
on a mat within an open door, and both were worn out enough to sleep
soundly.

It was daylight when Arthur was awakened by poor little Ulysse sitting
up and crying out for his bonne, his mother, and sister, 'Oh! take me
to them,' he cried; 'I do not like this dark place.'

For dark the room was, being windowless, though the golden sunlight
could be seen beyond the open doorway, which was under a sort of
cloister or verandah overhung by some climbing plant. Arthur,
collecting himself, reminded the child how the waves had borne them
away from the rest, with earnest soothing promises of care, and
endeavouring to get back to the rest. 'Say your prayers that God will
take care of you and bring you back to your sister,' Arthur added, for
he did not think it possible that the child's mother should have been
saved from the waves; and his heart throbbed at thoughts of his promise
to the poor lady.

'But I want my bonne,' sighed Ulysse; 'I want my clothes. This is an
ugly robe de nuit, and there is no bed.'

'Perhaps we can find your clothes,' said Arthur. 'They were too wet to
be kept on last night.'

So they emerged into the court, which had a kind of farmyard
appearance; women with rows of coins hanging over their brows were
milking cows and goats, and there was a continuous confusion of sound
of their voices, and the lowing and bleating of cattle. At the
appearance of Arthur and the boy, there was a general shout, and people
seemed to throng in to gaze at them, the men handsome, stately, and
bearded, with white full drawers, and a bournouse laid so as first to
form a flat hood over the head, and then belted in at the waist, with a
more or less handsome sash, into which were stuck a spoon and knife,
and in some cases one or two pistols. They did not seem ill-disposed,
though their language was perfectly incomprehensible. Ulysse's clothes
were lying dried by the hearth and no objection was made to his
resuming them. Arthur made gestures of washing or bathing, and was
conducted outside the court, to a little stream of pure water
descending rapidly to the sea. It was so cold that Ulysse screamed at
the touch, as Arthur, with more spectators than he could have desired,
did his best to perform their toilettes. He had divested himself of
most of his own garments for the convenience of swimming, but his
pockets were left and a comb in them; and though poor Mademoiselle
Julienne would have been shocked at the result of his efforts, and the
little silken laced suit was sadly tarnished with sea water, Ulysse
became such an astonishing sight that the children danced round him,
the women screamed with wonder, and the men said 'Mashallah!' The
young Scotsman's height was perhaps equally amazing, for he saw them
pointing up to his head as if measuring his stature.

He saw that he was in a village of low houses, with walls of unhewn
stone, enclosing yards, and set in the midst of fruit-trees and
gardens. Though so far on in the autumn there was a rich luxuriant
appearance; roots and fruits, corn and flax, were laid out to dry, and
girls and boys were driving the cattle out to pasture. He could not
doubt that he had landed among a settled and not utterly uncivilised
people, but he was too spent and weary to exert himself, or even to
care for much beyond present safety; and had no sooner returned to his
former quarters, and shared with Ulysse a bowl of curds, than they both
feel asleep again in the shade of the gourd plant trained on a
trellised roof over the wall.

When he next awoke, Ulysse was very happily at play with some little
brown children, as if the sports of childhood defied the curse of
Babel, and a sailor from the tartane was being greeted by the master of
the house. Arthur hoped that some communication would now be possible,
but, unfortunately, the man knew very little of the lingua Franca of
the Mediterranean, and Arthur knew still less. However, he made out
that he was the only one of the shipwrecked crew who had managed to
reach the land, and that this was a village of Moors--settled
agricultural Moors, not Arabs, good Moslems--who would do him no harm.
This, and he pointed to a fine-looking elderly man, was the sheyk of
the village, Abou Ben Zegri, and if the young Giaours would conform to
the true faith all would be salem with them. Arthur shook his head,
and tried by word and sign to indicate his anxiety for the rest of his
companions. The sailor threw up his hands, and pointed towards the
sea, to show that he believed them to be all lost; but Arthur insisted
that five--marking them off on his fingers--were on gebal, a rock, and
emphatically indicated his desire of reaching them. The Moor returned
the word 'Cabeleyzes,' with gestures signifying throat-cutting and
slavery, also that these present hosts regarded them as banditti. How
far off they were it was not possible to make out, for of course
Arthur's own sensations were no guide; but he knew that the wreck had
taken place early in the afternoon, and that he had come on shore in
the dusk, which was then at about five o'clock. There was certainly a
promontory, made by the ridge of a hill, and also a river between him
and any survivors there might be.

This was all that he could gather, and he was not sure of even thus
much, but he was still too much wearied and battered for any exertion
of thought or even anxiety. Three days' tempest in a cockle-shell of a
ship, and then three hours' tossing on a plank, had left him little but
the desire of repose, and the Moors were merciful and let him alone.
It was a beautiful place--that he already knew. A Scot, and used to
the sea-coast, his eye felt at home as it ranged to the grand heights
in the dim distance, with winter caps of snow, and shaded in the most
gorgeous tints of colouring forests beneath, slopes covered with the
exquisite green of young wheat. Autumn though it was, the orange-
trees, laden with fruit, the cork-trees, ilexes, and fan-palms, gave
plenty of greenery, shading the gardens with prickly pear hedges; and
though many of the fruit-trees had lost their leaves, fig, peach, and
olive, and mulberry, caper plants, vines with foliage of every tint of
red and purple, which were trained over the trellised courts of the
houses, made everything have a look of rural plenty and peace, most
unlike all that Arthur had ever heard or imagined of the Moors, who, as
he owned to himself, were certainly not all savage pirates and slave-
drivers. The whole within was surrounded by a stone wall, with a deep
horse-shoe-arched gateway, the fields and pastures lying beyond with
some more slightly-walled enclosures meant for the protection of the
flocks and herds at night.

He saw various arts going on. One man was working in iron over a
little charcoal fire, with a boy to blow up his bellows, and several
more were busied over some pottery, while the women alternated their
grinding between two mill stones, and other domestic cares, with
spinning, weaving, and beautiful embroidery. To Arthur, who looked on,
with no one to speak to except little Ulysse, it was strangely like
seeing the life of the Israelites in the Old Testament when they dwelt
under their own vines and fig-trees--like reading a chapter in the
Bible, as he said to himself, as again and again he saw some allusion
to Eastern customs illustrated. He was still more struck--when, after
the various herds of kine, sheep, and goats, with one camel, several
asses, and a few slender-limbed Barbary horses had been driven in for
the night--by the sight of the population, as the sun sank behind the
mountains, all suspending whatever they were about, spreading their
prayer carpets, turning eastwards, performing their ablutions, and
uttering their brief prayer with one voice so devoutly that he was
almost struck with awe.

'Are they saying their prayers?' whispered Ulysse, startled by the
instant change in his play-fellows, and as Arthur acquiesced, 'Then
they are good.'

'If it were the true faith,' said Arthur, thinking of the wide
difference between this little fellow and Estelle; but though not two
years younger, Ulysse was far more childish than his sister, and when
she was no longer present to lead him with her enthusiasm, sank at once
to his own level. He opened wide his eyes at Arthur's reply, and said,
'I do not see their idols.'

'They have none,' said Arthur, who could not help thinking that Ulysse
might look nearer home for idols--but chiefly concerned at the moment
to keep the child quiet, lest he should bring danger on them by
interruption.

They were sitting in the embowered porch of the sheyk's court when, a
few seconds after the villagers had risen up from their prayer, they
saw a figure enter at the village gateway, and the sheyk rise and go
forward. There were low bending in salutation, hands placed on the
breast, then kisses exchanged, after which the Sheyk Abou Ben Zegri
went out with the stranger, and great excitement and pleasure seemed to
prevail among the villagers, especially the women. Arthur heard the
word 'Yusuf' often repeated, and by the time darkness had fallen on the
village, the sheyk ushered the guest into his court, bringing with him
a donkey with some especially precious load--which was removed; after
which the supper was served as before in the large low apartment, with
a handsomely tiled floor, and an opening in the roof for the issue of
the smoke from the fire, which became agreeable in the evening at this
season. Before supper, however, the stranger's feet and hands were
washed by a black slave in Eastern fashion; and then all, as before,
sat on mats or cushions round the central bowl, each being furnished
with a spoon and thin flat soft piece of bread to dip into the mess of
stewed kid, flakes of which might be extracted with the fingers.

The women, who had fastened a piece of linen across their faces, ran
about and waited on the guests, who included three or four of the
principal men of the village, as well as the stranger, who, as Arthur
observed, was not of the uniform brown of the rest, but had some colour
in his cheeks, light eyes, and a ruddy beard, and also was of a larger
frame than these Moors, who, though graceful, lithe, and exceedingly
stately and dignified, hardly reached above young Hope's own shoulder.
Conversation was going on all the time, and Arthur soon perceived that
he was the subject of it. As soon as the meal was over, the new-comer
addressed him, to his great joy, in French. It was the worst French
imaginable--perhaps more correctly lingua Franca, with a French instead
of an Arabic foundation, but it was more comprehensible than that of
the Moorish sailor, and bore some relation to a civilised language;
besides which there was something indescribably familiar in the tone of
voice, although Arthur's good French often missed of being
comprehended.

'Son of a great man? Ambassador, French!' The greatness seemed
impressed, but whether ambassador was understood was another thing,
though it was accepted as relating to the boy.

'Secretary to the Ambassador' seemed to be an equal problem. The man
shook his head, but he took in better the story of the wreck, though,
like the sailor, he shook his head over the chance of there being any
survivors, and utterly negatived the idea of joining them. The great
point that Arthur tried to convey was that there would be a very
considerable ransom if the child could be conveyed to Algiers, and he
endeavoured to persuade the stranger, who was evidently a sort of
travelling merchant, and, as he began to suspect, a renegade, to convey
them thither; but he only got shakes of the head as answers, and
something to the effect that they were a good deal out of the Dey's
reach in those parts, together with what he feared was an intimation
that they were altogether in the power of Sheyk Abou Ben Zegri.

They were interrupted by a servant of the merchant, who came to bring
him some message as well as a pipe and tobacco. The pipe was carried
by a negro boy, at sight of whom Ulysse gave a cry of ecstasy, 'Juba!
Juba! Grandmother's Juba! Why do not you speak to me?' as the little
black, no bigger than Ulysse himself, grinned with all his white teeth,
quite uncomprehending.

'Ah! my poor laddie,' exclaimed Arthur in his native tongue, which he
often used with the boy, 'it is only another negro. You are far enough
from home.'

The words had an astonishing effect on the merchant. He turned round
with the exclamation, 'Ye'll be frae Scotland!'

'And so are you!' cried Arthur, holding out his hand.

'Tak tent, tak tent,' said the merchant hastily, yet with a certain
hesitation, as though speaking a long unfamiliar tongue. 'The loons
might jalouse our being overfriendly thegither.'

Then he returned to the sheyk, to whom he seemed to be making
explanations, and presenting some of his tobacco, which probably was of
a superior quality in preparation to what was grown in the village.
They solemnly smoked together and conversed, while Arthur watched them
anxiously, relieved that he had found an interpreter, but very doubtful
whether a renegade could be a friend, even though he were indeed a
fellow-countryman.

It was not till several pipes had been consumed, and the village
worthies had, with considerable ceremony, taken leave, that the
merchant again spoke to Arthur. 'I'll see ye the morn; I hae tell'd
the sheyk we are frae the same parts. Maybe I can serve you, if ye ken
what's for your guid, but I canna say mair the noo.'

The sheyk escorted him out of the court, for he slept in one of the two
striped horse-hair tents, which had been spread within the enclosures
belonging to the village, around which were tethered the mules and
asses that carried his wares. Arthur meanwhile arranged his little
charge for the night.

He felt that among these enemies to their faith he must do what was in
his power to keep up that of the child, and not allow his prayers to be
neglected; but not being able to repeat the Latin forms, and thinking
them unprofitable to the boy himself, he prompted the saying of the
Creed and Lord's Prayer in English, and caused them to be repeated
after him, though very sleepily and imperfectly.

All the men of the establishment seemed to take their night's rest on a
mat, wrapped in a bournouse, wherever they chanced to find themselves,
provided it was under shelter; the women in some penetralia beyond a
doorway, though they were not otherwise secluded, and only partially
veiled their faces at sight of a stranger. Arthur had by this time
made out that the sheyk, who was a very handsome man over middle-age,
seemed to have two wives; one probably of his own age, and though
withered up into a brown old mummy, evidently the ruler at home,
wearing the most ornaments, and issuing her orders in a shrill, cracked
tone. There was a much younger and handsome one, the mother apparently
of two or three little girls from ten or twelve years old to five, and
there was a mere girl, with beautiful melancholy gazelle-like eyes, and
a baby in her arms. She wore no ornaments, but did not seem to be
classed with the slaves who ran about at the commands of the elder
dame.

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