The Middy and the Moors by Robert Michael Ballantyne (good english books to read txt) 📖

of one of Dinah’s friends—also a negress—who received her with effusive goodwill.

Retiring to the coal-hole—or some such dark receptacle—Dinah held her friend in conversation for about a quarter of an hour, during which time several hearty Ethiopian chuckles were heard to burst forth. Then, returning to the cellar, Dinah introduced her friend to Hester as Missis Lilly, and Hester to Missis Lilly as Miss Geo’giana.

Wondering why her friend had selected for her the name—if she remembered rightly—of one of Blue Beard’s wives, Hester bowed, and was about to speak when Dinah put her flat nose close to hers and sternly said, “Dumb.”

“Moreober,” she continued, “you mustn’t bow like a lady, or you’ll be diskivered ’mediately. You must bob. Sally!”

This last word was shouted. The instant effect was the abrupt stoppage of one of the disagreeable sounds before referred to—a sound as of pounding—and the appearance of a black girl who seemed to rise out of a pit in the floor at the darkest end of the cellar.

“Sally, show dis yar stoopid gal how to bob.”

The girl instantly broke off, so to speak, at the knees for a moment, and then came straight again.

“Now, Geo’giana, you bob.”

Hester entered into the spirit of the thing and broke off admirably, whereat Dinah and Lilly threw back their heads and shook their sides with laughter. Sally so far joined them as to show all her teeth and gums. Otherwise she was expressionless.

“Now you come yar wid me into dis room,” said Dinah, taking Hester’s hand and heading her along a passage which was so profoundly dark that the very walls and floor were invisible. Turning suddenly to the left, Dinah advanced a few paces and stood still.

“You stop where you is, Geo’giana, till I gits a light. Don’t stir,” she said, and left her.

A feeling of intense horror began to creep over the poor girl when she was thus left alone in such a horrible place, and she began almost to regret that she had forsaken the comfortable home of the Moor, and to blame herself for ingratitude. In her agony she was about to call aloud to her negro friend not to forsake her, when the words, “Call upon Me in the time of trouble,” occurred to her, and, falling on her knees, she cast herself upon God.

She was not kept waiting long. Only a minute or two had elapsed when Dinah returned with a candle and revealed the fact that they stood in a small low-roofed room, the brick floor of which was partially covered with casks, packing-cases, and general lumber.

“Dis am to be your room, Geo’giana,” said her friend, holding the candle over her head and surveying the place with much satisfaction.

Poor Hester shuddered.

“It is an awful place,” she said faintly.

“Yes, it am a awrful good place,” said Dinah, with satisfaction. “Not easy to find you yar; an’ if dey did git dis lengt’ widout breakin’ dere legs, dere’s a nice leetil hole yar what you could git in an’ larf to youself.”

She led the poor girl to the other end of the room, where, in a recess, there was a boarded part of the wall. Removing one of the boards, she disclosed an opening.

“Das a small hole, Geo’giana, but it’s big enough to hold you, an’ when you’s inside you’ve on’y got to pull de board into its place, and fix it—so.”

Setting down the candle, the woman stepped into the hole, and went through the performance that would devolve upon Hester in case of emergency.

“But why leave me here at all?” pleaded Hester, when Dinah had exhausted her eulogy of the hiding-place. “Why not take me to your own home?”

“Cause it’s not so safe as dis,” answered Dinah. “P’r’aps in time you may come dere—not now. Moreober, Missis Lilly is a fuss-rate creetur, most as good as myself, if her temper was a leetil more ’eavenly. But she’s a winged serubim wid dem as don’t rile ’er, an’ she’ll be awrful good to you for my sake an’ Peter’s. You see, we was all on us took by the pints at de same time, and we’re all Christ’ns but ob course we don’t say much about dat yar!”

“And am I to be always dumb—never to speak at all?” asked Hester, in a rather melancholy tone.

“Oh! no—bress you! It’s on’y when you’re in de front or outside dat you’s dumb. When you’s back yar you may speak to Lilly an’ Sally much as you like, on’y not too loud; an’ keep your eyes open, an’ your ears sharp always. If you don’t it’s lost you will be. Don’t forgit Osman!”

Hester shuddered again; said that she would never forget Osman, and would be as careful and attentive to orders as possible.

“An’ dey’ll gib you a little work to do—not much—on’y a little. When peepil speak to you, just point to your ears and mout’, an’ shake your head. Das enuff. Dey won’t boder you arter dat. Now, dearie, I must go. I’ll come an’ see you sometimes—neber fear. What’s to become ob you in de long-run’s more’n I kin tell, for it’s Peter de Great as’ll hab to settle dat kestion. You’s in his hands. I knows not’ing, so you’ll hab to be patient.”

Patient, indeed! Little did that poor painted slave think what demands would yet be made upon her patience. Full two months elapsed before she again saw Peter, or heard anything about Ben-Ahmed and her former friends at Mustapha!

Meanwhile, Dinah having departed, she wisely set herself to make the most of her new friends.

Mrs Lilly she soon found to be quite as amiable as Dinah had described her. She and Sally were slaves to the Moor who dwelt in the house which formed the superstructure of their cellars; but, unlike white slaves, they were allowed a good deal of personal liberty; first, because there was no danger of their running away, as they had no place to run to; second, because their master wanted them to buy and sell vegetables and other things, in order that he might reap the profit; and, last, because, being an easy-going man, the said master had no objection to see slaves happy as long as their happiness did not interfere in any way with his pleasure.

“Now, Geo’giana,” said Mrs Lilly, in the course of their first conversation, “my massa he neber come down yar, nor trouble his head about us, as long’s I take him a leetle money ebery day, an’ nobody else hab got a right to come, so you’s pretty safe if dey don’t send de janissaries to make a sarch—an’ if dey do, you know whar to go. I’ll tell massa we make more money if I gits anoder slabe-gal, an’ he’ll agree, for he agrees to eberyt’ing ob dat sort! Den he’ll forgit all about it, an’ den you an’ Sally kin go about town what you like.”

“But I fear, Mrs Lilly, that I won’t be able to help you to make more money,” objected Hester timidly.

“Oh yes, you will. You’ll larn to ’broider de red an’ blue slippers. Das pay well when neatly done, an’ I kin see by de shape ob your fingers you do it neatly. You’s hungry now, I darsay, so go to work at your grub, an’ den I’ll show you what to do.”

Somewhat comforted by the kindly tone and motherly bearing of Mrs Lilly, Hester went into one of the dark cellar-like rooms of the interior of her new home, and found it to be a sort of kitchen, which borrowed its light from the outer room by means of a convenient wall that was white-washed for the purpose of transmitting it. This reflector was not an eminent success, but it rendered darkness visible. At the time we write of, however, the sun having set, the kitchen was lighted by a smoky oil-lamp of classic form and dimness. Here she found Sally busy with her evening meal.

Sally was apparently about as little of a human being as was consistent with the possession of a human form and the power of speech. Most of her qualities seemed to be negative—if we may say so. She was obviously not unamiable; she was not unkind; and she was not sulky, though very silent. In fact, she seemed to be the nearest possible approach to a human nonentity. She may be described as a black maid-of-all-work, but her chief occupation was the pounding of roasted coffee-beans. This operation she performed in the pit in the floor before mentioned, which may be described as a hole, into which you descended by four steps from the front room. As the front room itself was below the level of the street, it follows that the “pit” penetrated considerably deeper into the bowels of the earth. In this pit Sally laboured hard, almost day and night, pounding the coffee-beans in an iron mortar, with an iron pestle so heavy that she had to stand up and use it with both hands. She had got into the habit of relieving herself by an audible gasp each time she drove the pestle down. It was not a necessary gasp, only a remonstrative one, as it were, and conveyed more to the intelligent listener than most of the girl’s average conversation did. This gasp was also one of the disagreeable sounds which had saluted the ears of Hester on her first entrance into the new home.

“Mrs Lilly is very kind,” said Hester, as she sat down at a small table beside her fellow-slave.

Sally stopped eating for a moment and stared. Supposing that she had not understood the remark, Hester repeated it.

“Yes,” assented Sally, and then stopped the vocal orifice with a huge wooden spoonful of rice.

Judging that her companion wished to eat in undisturbed silence, Hester helped herself to some rice, and quietly began supper. Sally eyed her all the time, but was too busy feeding herself to indulge in speech. At last she put down her spoon with a sigh of satisfaction, and said, “Das good!” with such an air of honest sincerity that Hester gave way to an irresistible laugh.

“Yes, it is very good indeed. Did you cook it?” asked Hester, anxious to atone for her impoliteness.

“Yes. I cook ’im. I do all de cookin’ in dis yar ouse—an’ most ob de eatin’ too.”

“By the way, Sally, what is it that you keep pounding so constantly in that—that hole off the front room?”

“Coffee,” answered Sally, with a nod.

“Indeed! Surely not the household coffee. You cannot drink such a quantity!”

Sally stared for a minute; then opened her mouth, shut her eyes, threw back her head, and chuckled.

“No,” she said, with sudden gravity; “if we drink’d it all we’d all bu’st right off. I pounds it, Missis Lilly sells it, an’ massa pockets de money.”

“Do you pound much?” asked Hester, in a tone of sympathy.

“Oh! housefuls,” said Sally, opening her eyes wide. “’Gin at daylight—work till dark, ’cept when doin’ oder t’ings. De Moors drink it. Awrful drinkers am de Moors. Mornin’, noon, an’ night dey swill leetle cups ob coffee. Das de reason dey’s all so brown.”

“Indeed? I never heard before that the brown-ness of their complexion was owing to that. Are you sure?”

“Oh yes; kite sure. Coffee comes troo de skin—das it,” returned Sally, with perfect confidence of tone and manner.

Suddenly she was smitten with a new idea, and stared for some time at her fellow-slave. At last she got it out.

“Missis Lilly say dat you’s dumb. How kin you speak so well if you’s dumb?”

Poor Hester was greatly perplexed. She did not know how far her companion had been let into the secret reason of her being there, and was afraid to answer. At last she made up her mind.

“I am not really dumb, you know; I have only to be dumb when in the street, or when any visitor is in the house here; but when alone with Mrs Lilly or you I am allowed to speak low.”

A gleam of intelligence