Books: A Modern Telemachus
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Charlotte M. Yonge >> A Modern Telemachus
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'What for suld I do that? He is nae countryman of mine--one side
French and the other Irish. He is naught to me.'
'He is heir to a noble house,' waged Arthur. 'They will reward you
amply for saving him.'
'Mair like to girn at me for a Moor. Na, na! Hae na I dune enough for
ye, Maister Arthur--giving half my beasties, and more than half my
silver? Canna ye be content without that whining bairn?'
'I should be a forsworn man to be content to leave the child, whose
dead mother prayed me to protect him, and those who will turn him from
her faith. See, now, I am a man, and can guard myself, by the grace of
God; but to leave the poor child here would be letting these men work
their will on him ere any ransom could come. His mother would deem it
giving him up to perdition. Let me remain here, and take the helpless
child. You know how to bargain. His price might be my ransom.'
'Ay, when the jackals and hyenas have picked your banes, or you have
died under the lash, chained to the oar, as I hae seen, Maister
Arthur.'
'Better so than betray the dead woman's trust. How no--'
For there was a pattering of feet, a cry of 'Arthur, Arthur!' and
sobbing, screaming, and crying, Ulysse threw himself on his friend's
breast. He was pursued by one or two of the hangers-on of the sheyk's
household, and the first comer seized him by the arm; but he clung to
Arthur, screamed and kicked, and the old nurse who had come hobbling
after coaxed in vain. He cried out in a mixture of Arabic and French
that he WOULD sleep with Arthur--Arthur must put him to bed; no one
should take him away.
'Let him stay,' responded Yusuf; 'his time will come soon enough.'
Indulgence to children was the rule, and there was an easy good-nature
about the race, which made them ready to defer the storm, and acquiesce
in the poor little fellow remaining for another evening with that last
remnant of his home to whom he always reverted at nightfall.
He held trembling by Arthur till all were gone, then looked about in
terror, and required to be assured that no one was coming to take him
away.
'They shall not,' he cried. 'Arthur, you will not leave me alone?
They are all gone--Mamma, and Estelle, and la bonne, and Laurent, and
my uncle, and all, and you will not go.'
'Not now, not to-night, my dear little mannie,' said Arthur, tears in
his eyes for the first time throughout these misfortunes.
'Not now! No, never!' said the boy hugging him almost to choking.
'That naughty Ben Kader said they had sold you for a slave, and you
were going away; but I knew I should find you--you are not a slave!--
you are not black--'
'Ah! Ulysse, it is too true; I am--'
'No! no! no!' the child stamped, and hung on him in a passion of tears.
'You shall not be a slave. My papa shall come with his soldiers and
set you free.'
Altogether the boy's vehemence, agitation, and terror were such that
Arthur found it impossible to do anything but soothe and hush him, as
best might be, till his sobs subsided gradually, still heaving his
little chest even after he fell asleep in the arms of his unaccustomed
nurse, who found himself thus baffled in using this last and only
opportunity of trying to strengthen the child's faith, and was also
hindered from pursuing Yusuf, who had left the tent. And if it were
separation that caused all this distress, what likelihood that Yusuf
would encumber himself with a child who had shown such powers of
wailing and screaming?
He durst not stir nor speak for fear of wakening the boy, even when
Yusuf returned and stretched himself on his mat, drawing a thick
woollen cloth over him, for the nights were chill. Long did Arthur lie
awake under the strange sense of slavery and helplessness, and utter
uncertainty as to his fate, expecting, in fact, that Yusuf meant to
keep him as a sort of tame animal to talk Scotch; but hoping to work on
him in time to favour an escape, and at any rate to despatch a letter
to Algiers, as a forlorn hope for the ultimate redemption of the poor
little unconscious child who lay warm and heavy across his breast.
Certainly, Arthur had never so prayed for aid, light. and deliverance
as now!
CHAPTER VIII--THE SEARCH
'The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks,
The long day wanes, the slow moon climbs. The deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.'
TENNYSON.
Arthur fell asleep at last, and did not waken till after sunrise, nor
did Ulysse, who must have been exhausted with crying and struggling.
When they did awaken, Arthur thinking with heavy heart that the moment
of parting was come, he saw indeed the other three slaves busied in
making bales of the merchandise; but the master, as well as the
Abyssinian, Fareek, and the little negro were all missing. Bekir, who
was a kind of foreman, and looked on the new white slave with some
jealousy, roughly pointed to some coarse food, and in reply to the
question whether the merchant was taking leave of the sheyk, intimated
that it was no business of theirs, and assumed authority to make his
new fellow-slave assist in the hardest of the packing.
Arthur had no heart to resist, much as it galled him to be ordered
about by this rude fellow. It was only a taste, as he well knew, of
what he had embraced, and he was touched by poor little Ulysse's
persistency in keeping as close as possible, though his playfellows
came down and tried first to lure, then to drag him away, and finally
remained to watch the process of packing up. Though Bekir was too
disdainful to reply to his fellow-slave's questions, Arthur picked up
from answers to the Moors who came down that Yusuf had recollected that
he had not finished his transactions with a little village of Cabyle
coral and sponge-fishers on the coast, and had gone down thither,
taking the little negro, to whom the headman seemed to have taken a
fancy, so as to become a possible purchaser, and with the Abyssinian to
attend to the mules.
A little before sundown Yusuf returned. Fareek lifted down a pannier
covered by a crimson and yellow kerchief, and Yusuf declared, with much
apparent annoyance, that the child was sick, and that this had
frustrated the sale. He was asleep, must be carried into the tent, and
not disturbed: for though the Cabyles had not purchased him, there was
no affording to loose anything of so much value. Moreover, observing
Ulysse still hovering round the Scot, he said, 'You may bide here the
night, laddie, I ha tell't the sheyk;' and he repeated the same to the
slaves in Arabic, dismissing them to hold a parting feast on a lamb
stuffed with pistachio nuts, together with their village friends.
Then drawing near to Arthur, he said, 'Can ye gar yon wean keep a quiet
sough, if we make him pass for the little black?'
Arthur started with joy, and stammered some words of intense relief and
gratitude.
'The deed's no dune yet,' said Yusuf, 'and it is ower like to end in
our leaving a' our banes on the sands! But a wilfu' man maun have his
way,' he repeated; 'so, sir, if it be your wull, ye'd better speak to
the bairn, for we must make a blackamoor of him while there is licht to
do it, or Bekir, whom I dinna lippen to, comes back frae the feast.'
Ulysse, being used to Irish-English, had little understanding of
Yusuf's broad Scotch; but he was looking anxiously from one to the
other of the speakers, and when Arthur explained to him that the
disguise, together with perfect silence, was the only hope of not being
left behind among the Moors, and the best chance of getting back to his
home and dear ones again, he perfectly understood. As to the
blackening, for which Yusuf had prepared a mixture to be laid on with a
feather, it was perfectly enchanting to faire la comedie. He laughed
so much that he had to be peremptorily hushed, and they were sensible
of the danger that in case of a search he might betray himself to his
Moorish friends; and Arthur tried to make him comprehend the extreme
danger, making him cry so that his cheeks had to be touched up. His
eyes and hair were dark, and the latter was cut to its shortest by
Yusuf, who further managed to fasten some tufts of wool dipped in the
black unguent to the kerchief that bound his head. The childish
features had something of the Irish cast, which lent itself to the
transformation, and in the scanty garments of the little negro Arthur
owned that he should never have known the small French gentleman.
Arthur was full of joy--Yusuf gruff, brief, anxious, like one acting
under some compulsion most unwillingly, and even despondently, but
apparently constrained by a certain instinctive feudal feeling, which
made him follow the desires of the young Border laird's son.
All had been packed beforehand, and there was nothing to be done but to
strike the tents, saddle the mules, and start. Ulysse, still very
sleepy, was lifted into the pannier, almost at the first streak of
dawn, while the slaves were grumbling at being so early called up; and
to a Moor who wakened up and offered to take charge of the little Bey,
Yusuf replied that the child had been left in the sheyk's house.
So they were safely out at the outer gate, and proceeding along a
beautiful path leading above the cliffs. The mules kept in one long
string, Bekir with the foremost, which was thus at some distance from
the hindmost, which carried Ulysse and was attended by Arthur, while
the master rode his own animals and gave directions. The fiction of
illness was kept up, and when the bright eyes looked up in too lively a
manner, Yusuf produced some of the sweets, which were always part of
his stock in trade, as a bribe to quietness.
At sunrise, the halt for prayer was a trial to Arthur's intense
anxiety, and far more so was the noontide one for sleep. He even
ventured a remonstrance, but was answered, 'Mair haste, worse speed.
Our lives are no worth a boddle till the search is over.'
They were on the shady side of a great rock overhung by a beautiful
creeping plant, and with a spring near at hand, and Yusuf, in leisurely
fashion, squatted down, caused Arthur to lift out the child, who was
fast asleep again, and the mules to be allowed to feed, and distributed
some dried goat's flesh and dates; but Ulysse, somewhat to Arthur's
alarm, did not wake sufficiently to partake.
Looking up in alarm, he met a sign from Yusuf and presently a whisper,
'No hurt done--'tis safer thus--'
And by this time there were alarming sounds on the air. The sheyk and
two of the chief men of El Arnieh were on horseback and armed with
matchlocks; and the whole 'posse of the village were following on foot,
with yells and vituperations of the entire ancestry of the merchant,
and far more complicated and furious threats than Arthur could follow;
but he saw Yusuf go forward to meet them with the utmost cool courtesy.
They seemed somewhat discomposed: Yusuf appeared to condole with them
on the loss, and, waving his hands, put all his baggage at their
service for a search, letting them run spears through the bales, and
overturn the baskets of sponges, and search behind every rock. When
they approached the sleeping boy, Arthur, with throbbing heart, dimly
comprehended that Yusuf was repeating the story of the disappointment
of a purchase caused by his illness, and lifting for a moment the
covering laid over him to show the bare black legs and arms. There
might also have been some hint of infection which, in spite of all
Moslem belief in fate, deterred Abou Ben Zegri from an over-close
inspection. Yusuf further invented a story of having put the little
Frank in charge of a Moorish woman in the adowara; but added he was so
much attached to the Son of the Sea, that most likely he had wandered
out in search of him, and the only wise course would be to seek him
before he was devoured by any of the wild beasts near home.
Nevertheless, there was a courteous and leisurely smoking of pipes and
drinking of coffee before the sheyk and his followers turned homewards.
To Arthur's alarm and surprise, however, Yusuf did not resume the
journey, but told Bekir that there would hardly be a better halting-
place within their powers, as the sun was already some way on his
downward course; and besides, it would take some time to repack the
goods which had been cast about in every direction during the search.
The days were at their shortest, though that was not very short,
closing in at about five o'clock, so that there was not much time to
spare. Arthur began to feel some alarm at the continued drowsiness of
the little boy, who only once muttered something, turned round, and
slept again.
'What have you done to him?' asked Arthur anxiously.
'The poppy,' responded Yusuf. 'Never fash yoursel'. The bairn willna
be a hair the waur, and 'tis better so than that he shuld rax a' our
craigs.'
Yusuf's peril was so much the greater, that it was impossible to object
to any of his precautions, especially as he might take offence and
throw the whole matter over; but it was impossible not to chafe
secretly at the delay, which seemed incomprehensible. Indeed, the
merchant was avoiding private communication with Arthur, only assuming
the master, and ordering about in a peremptory fashion which it was
very hard to digest.
After the sunset orisons had been performed, Yusuf regaled his slaves
with a donation of coffee and tobacco, but with a warning to Arthur not
to partake, and to keep to windward of them. So too did the
Abyssinian, and the cause of the warning was soon evident, as Bekir and
his companion nodded, and then sank into a slumber as sound as that of
the little Frenchman. Indeed, Arthur himself was weary enough to fall
asleep soon after sundown, in spite of his anxiety, and the stars were
shining like great lamps when Yusuf awoke him. One mule stood equipped
beside him, and held by the Abyssinian. Yusuf pointed to the child,
and said, 'Lift him upon it.'
Arthur obeyed, finding a pannier empty on one side to receive the
child, who only muttered and writhed instead of awaking. The other
side seemed laden. Yusuf led the animal, retracing their way, while
fire-flies flitted around with their green lights, and the distant
laughter of hyenas gave Arthur a thrill of loathing horror. Huge bats
fluttered round, and once or twice grim shapes crossed their path.
'Uncanny beasties,' quoth Yusuf; 'but they will soon be behind us.'
He turned into a rapidly-sloping path. Arthur felt a fresh salt breeze
in his face, and his heart leapt up with hope.
In about an hour and a half they had reached a cove, shut in by dark
rocks which in the night looked immeasurable, but on the white beach a
few little huts were dimly discernible, one with a light in it. The
sluggish dash of waves could be heard on the shore; there was a sense
of infinite space and breadth before them; and Jupiter sitting in the
north-west was like an enormous lamp, casting a pathway of light
shimmering on the waters to lead the exiles home.
Three or four boats were drawn up on the beach; a man rose up from
within one, and words in a low voice were exchanged between him and
Yusuf; while Fareek, grinning so that his white teeth could be seen in
the starlight, unloaded the mule, placing its packs, a long Turkish
blunderbuss, and two skins of water, in the boat, and arranging a mat
on which Arthur could lay the sleeping child.
Well might the youth's heart bound with gratitude, as, unmindful of all
the further risks and uncertainties to be encountered, he almost saw
his way back to Burnside!
CHAPTER IX--ESCAPE
'Beside the helm he sat, steering expert,
Nor sleep fell ever on his eyes that watch'd
Intent the Pleiads, tardy in decline,
Bootes and the Bear, call'd else the Wain,
Which in his polar prison circling, looks
Direct towards Orion, and alone
Of these sinks never to the briny deep.'
Odyssey (COWPER).
The boat was pushed off, the Abyssinian leapt into it; Arthur paused to
pour out his thankfulness to Yusuf, but was met with the reply, 'Hout
awa'! Time enugh for that--in wi' ye.' And fancying there was some
alarm, he sprang in, and to his amazement found Yusuf instantly at his
side, taking the rudder, and giving some order to Fareek, who had taken
possession of a pair of oars; while the waters seemed to flash and
glitter a welcome at every dip.
'You are coming! you are coming!' exclaimed Arthur, clasping the
merchant's hand, almost beside himself with joy.
'Sma' hope wad there be of a callant like yersel' and the wean there
winning awa' by yer lane,' growled Yusuf.
'You have given up all for us.'
'There wasna muckle to gie,' returned the sponge merchant. 'Sin' the
gudewife and her bit bairnies at Bona were gane, I hadna the heart to
gang thereawa', nor quit the sound o' the bonny Scots tongue. I wad as
soon gang to the bottom as to the toom house. For dinna ye trow
yersells ower sicker e'en the noo.'
'Is there fear of pursuit?'
'No mickle o' that. The folk here are what they ca' Cabyles, a douce
set, not forgathering with Arabs nor wi' Moors. I wad na gang among
them till the search was over to-day; but yesterday I saw yon carle,
and coft the boatie frae him for the wee blackamoor and the mule. The
Moors at El Aziz are not seafaring; and gin the morn they jalouse what
we have done, we have the start of them. Na, I'm not feared for them;
but forbye that, this is no the season for an open boatie wi' a crew of
three and a wean. Gin we met an Algerian or Tunisian cruiser, as we
are maist like to do, a bullet or drooning wad be ower gude in their
e'en for us--for me, that is to say. They wad spare the bairn, and may
think you too likely a lad to hang on the walls like a split corbie on
the woodsman's lodge.'
'Well, Yusuf, my name is Hope, you know,' said Arthur. 'God has
brought us so far, and will scarce leave us now. I feel three times
the man that I was when I lay down this evening. Do we keep to the
north, where we are sure to come to a Christian land in time?'
'Easier said than done. Ye little ken what the currents are in this
same sea, or deed ye'll soon ken when we get into them.'
Arthur satisfied himself that they were making for the north by looking
at the Pole Star, so much lower than he was used to see it in Scotland
that he hardly recognised his old friend; but, as he watched the
studded belt of the Hunter and the glittering Pleiades, the Horatian
dread of Nimbosus Orion occurred to him as a thought to be put away.
Meantime there was a breeze from the land, and the sail was hoisted.
Yusuf bade both Arthur and Fareek lie down to sleep, for their
exertions would be wanted by and by, since it would not be safe to use
the sail by daylight. It was very cold--wild blasts coming down from
the mountains; but Arthur crept under the woollen mantle that had been
laid over Ulysse, and was weary enough to sleep soundly. Both were
awakened by the hauling down of the mast; and the little boy, who had
quite slept off the drug, scrambling out from under the covering, was
astonished beyond measure at finding himself between the glittering,
sparkling expanse of sea and the sky, where the sun had just leapt up
in a blaze of gold.
The white summits of Atlas were tipped with rosy light, beautiful to
behold, though the voyagers had much rather have been out of sight of
them.
'How much have we made, Yusuf?' began Arthur.
'Tam Armstrong, so please you, sir! Yusuf's dead and buried the noo;
and if I were farther beyant the grip of them that kenned him, my
thrapple would feel all the sounder!'
This day was, he further explained, the most perilous one, since they
were by no means beyond the track of vessels plying on the coast; and
as a very jagged and broken cluster of rocks lay near, he decided on
availing themselves of the shelter they afforded. The boat was steered
into a narrow channel between two which stood up like the fangs of a
great tooth, and afforded a pleasant shade; but there was such a
screaming and calling of gulls, terns, cormorants, and all manner of
other birds, as they entered the little strait, and such a cloud of
them hovered and whirled overhead, that Tam uttered imprecations on
their skirling, and bade his companions lie close and keep quiet till
they had settled again, lest the commotion should betray that the rocks
were the lair of fugitives.
It was not easy to keep Ulysse quiet, for he was in raptures at the
rush of winged creatures, and no less so at the wonderful sea-anemones
and starfish in the pools, where long streamers of weed of beautiful
colours floated on the limpid water.
Nothing reduced him to stillness but the sight of the dried goat's
flesh and dates that Tam Armstrong produced, and for which all had
appetites, which had to be checked, since no one could tell how long it
would be before any kind of haven could be reached.
Arthur bathed himself and his charge in a pool, after Tam had
ascertained that no many-armed squid or cuttlefish lurked within it.
And while Ulysse disported himself like a little fish, Arthur did his
best to restore him to his natural complexion, and tried to cleanse the
little garments, which showed only too plainly the lack of any change,
and which were the only Frank or Christian clothes among them, since
young Hope himself had been almost stripped when he came ashore, and
wore the usual garb of Yusuf's slaves.
Presently Fareek made an imperative sign to hush the child's merry
tongue; and peering forth in intense anxiety, the others perceived a
lateen sail passing perilously near, but happily keeping aloof from the
sharp reef of rocks around their shelter. Arthur had forgotten the
child's prayers and his own, but Ulysse connected them with dressing,
and the alarm of the passing ship had recalled them to the young man's
mind, though he felt shy as he found that Tam Armstrong was not asleep,
but was listening and watching with his keen gray eyes under their
grizzled brows. Presently, when Ulysse was dropping to sleep again,
the ex-merchant began to ask questions with the intelligence of his
shrewd Scottish brains.
The stern Calvinism of the North was wont to consign to utter neglect
the outcast border of civilisation, where there were no decent parents
to pledge themselves; and Partan Jeannie's son had grown up well-nigh
in heathen ignorance among fisher lads and merchant sailors, till it
had been left for him to learn among the Mohammedans both temperance
and devotional habits. His whole faith and understanding would have
been satisfied for ever; but there had been strange yearnings within
him ever since he had lost his wife and children, and these had not
passed away when Arthur Hope came in his path. Like many another
renegade, he could not withstand the attraction of his native tongue;
and in this case it was doubled by the feudal attachment of the
district to the family of Burnside, and a grateful remembrance of the
lady who had been one of the very few persons who had ever done a
kindly deed by the little outcast. He had broken with all his Moslem
ties for Arthur Hope's sake; and these being left behind, he began to
make some inquiries about that Christian faith to which he must needs
return--if return be the right word in the case of one who knew it so
little when he had abjured it.
And Arthur had not been bred to the grim reading of the doctrine of
predestination which had condemned poor Tam, even before he had
embraced the faith of the Prophet. Boyish, and not over thoughtful,
the youth, when brought face to face with apostacy, had been ready to
give life or liberty rather than deny his Lord; and deepened by that
great decision, he could hold up that Lord and Redeemer in colours that
made Tam see that his clinging to his faith was not out of mere honour
and constancy, but that Mohammed had been a poor and wretched
substitute for Him whom the poor fellow had denied, not knowing what he
did.
'Weel!' he said, 'gin the Deacon and the auld aunties had tellt me as
mickle about Him, thae Moors might ha' preached their thrapples sair
for Tam. Mashallah! Maister Arthur, do ye think, noo, He can forgie a
puir carle for turning frae Him an' disowning Him?'
'I am sure of it, Tam. He forgives all who come to Him--and you--you
did it in ignorance.'
'And you trow na that I am a vessel of wrath, as they aye said?'
'No, no, no, Tam. How could that be with one who has done what you
have for us? There is good in you--noble goodness, Tam; and who could
have put it there but God, the Holy Spirit? I believe myself He was
leading you all the time, though you did not know it; making you a
better man first, and now, through this brave kindness to us, bringing
you back to be a real true Christian and know Him.'
Arthur felt as if something put the words into his mouth, but he felt
them with all his heart, and the tears were in his eyes.
At sundown Tam grew restless. Force of habit impelled him to turn to
Mecca and make his devotions as usual, and after nearly kneeling down
on the flat stone, he turned to Arthur and said, 'I canna wed do
without the bit prayer, sir.
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