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- Author: Robert Michael Ballantyne
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“Is this true, Brown? Did you know my father before meeting him here; and did he really render you some service?”
“Yes, indeed, miss; I have sailed in one o’ your father’s wessels, an’ once I was washed overboard by a heavy sea, and he flung over a lifebuoy arter me, and jumped into the water himself to keep me afloat till a boat picked us up, for I couldn’t swim. Now, look ’ere, miss, if you’ll consent to sail under my orders for a short spell, you’ll have a better chance o’ doin’ your father a sarvice than by returnin’ to that nest o’ pirates. Moreover, you’ll have to make up your mind pretty quick, for we’ve lost too much time already.”
“Go on, Brown, I will trust you,” said Hester, placing her hand in that of the seaman, who, without another word, led her swiftly into the bush.
Now, all this, and a great deal more was afterwards related by Hester herself to her friends; but at the time all that was known to Sally—the only witness of the exploit—was that Hester Sommers had been carried off in the manner related by an apparently friendly British sailor. This she told soon after to Peter the Great, and this was the substance of the communication which Peter the Great, with glaring eyes and bated breath, made to George Foster, who received it with feelings and expressions that varied amazingly as the narrative proceeded.
“Is that all?” he asked, when the negro at length came to a decided stop.
“Das all—an’ it’s enuff too! ’Pears to me you’s not so much cut up about dis leetle business as I ’spected you would be.”
“I am anxious, of course, about Hester,” returned the middy; “but at the same time greatly relieved, first, to know that she is in the hands of a respectable British sailor; and, second, that she is not in the hands of these bloodthirsty piratical Moors. But what about her father? Nothing more, I suppose, is known about his fate?”
“Not’ing, on’y it’s as sure as if we did know it. If his carcass isn’t on de hooks by dis time it’ll soon be.”
As the negro spoke the midshipman started up with flashing eyes, exclaimed angrily, “It shall never be,” and ran out of the bower.
Entering the house, he went straight to Ben-Ahmed’s private chamber, which he entered boldly, without even knocking at the door.
The Moor was seated cross-legs on a mat, solacing himself, as usual, with a pipe. He was not a little surprised, and at first was inclined to be angry, at the abrupt entrance of his slave.
“Ben-Ahmed,” said the middy, with vehemence, “the father of the English girl you are so fond of—and whom I love—is in terrible danger, and if you are a true man—as I firmly believe you are—you will save him.”
The Moor smiled very slightly at the youth’s vehemence, pointed with the mouthpiece of his hookah to a cushion, and bade him sit down and tell him all about it.
The middy at once squatted Ă la Turk, not on the cushion, but on the floor, in front of his master, and, with earnest voice and gesture, related the story which Peter the Great had just told him.
Ben-Ahmed was visibly affected by it.
“But how can I save him?” he asked, with a look of perplexity.
“Did you not once save the life of the Dey?” asked Foster.
“I did. How came you to know that?”
“I heard it from Peter the Great, who aided you on the occasion. And he told me that the Dey has often since then offered to do you some good turn, but that you have always declined.”
“That is true,” said Ben-Ahmed, with the look of a man into whose mind a new idea had been introduced.
“Yes, something may be done in that way, and it would grieve me that the father of my poor little Hester should die. I will try. Go, have my horse saddled, and send Peter to me.”
Our midshipman bounded rather than rose from the floor, and uttered an irresistible, “God bless you,” as he vanished through the doorway on his errand.
“Peter,” he cried—encountering that worthy as he ran—“we’ll manage it! Go to Ben-Ahmed! He wants you—quick! I’m off to fetch his horse.”
Foster was much too anxious to have the thing done quickly to give the order to the head groom. He ran direct to the stable, and, choosing the fleetest of the Moor’s Arab steeds, quickly put on its crimson saddle, with its un-European peaks before and behind, and the other gay portions of harness with which Easterns are wont to caparison their horses.
In a wonderfully short space of time he had the steed round to the front door, and sent another slave to tell his master that it was ready.
The Moor had also caparisoned himself, if we may say so, for the intended visit, and he had evidently done it in haste. Nevertheless, his gait was stately, and his movements were slow, as he gravely mounted the horse and rode away. The impatience of the middy was somewhat relieved, however, when he saw that Ben-Ahmed, on reaching the main road, put spurs to his horse, and rode towards the city at full gallop.
After Ben-Ahmed had departed on his mission to the Dey of Algiers, George Foster and Peter the Great re-entered the house, and in the seclusion of the bower continued to discuss the hopes, fears, and possibilities connected with the situation.
“Dat was a clebber dodge ob yours, Geo’ge,” remarked the negro, “an’ I’s got good hope dat somet’ing will come ob it, for massa’s pretty sure to succeed w’en he take a t’ing in hand.”
“I’m glad you think so, Peter. And, to say truth, I am myself very sanguine.”
“But dere’s one t’ing dat ’plexes me bery much. What is we to do about poo’ Hester’s fadder w’en he’s pardoned? De Dey can spare his life, but he won’t set him free—an’ if he don’t set him free de slabe-drivers ’ll be sure to kill ’im out ob spite.”
The middy was silent, for he could not see his way out of this difficulty.
“Perhaps,” he said, “Ben-Ahmed may have thought of that, and will provide against it, for of course he knows all the outs and ins of Moorish life, and he is a thoughtful man.”
“Das true, Geo’ge. He am a t’oughtful man. Anyhow, we kin do not’ing more, ’cept wait an’ see. But I’s much more ’plexed about Hester, for eben if de sailor am a good an’ true man, as you say, he can’t keep her or his-self alibe on not’ing in de mountains, no more’n he could swim wid her on his back across de Mederainyon!”
Again the middy was silent for a time. He could by no means see his way out of this greater difficulty, and his heart almost failed him as he thought of the poor girl wandering in the wilderness without food or shelter.
“P’r’aps,” suggested Peter, “she may manage to git into de town an’ pass for a nigger as she’s dood before, an’ make tracks for her old place wid Missis Lilly—or wid Dinah.”
“No doubt she may,” cried Foster, grasping at the hope as a drowning man grasps at a plank. “Nothing more likely. Wouldn’t it be a good plan for you to go into town at once and make inquiry?”
“Dessay it would,” returned the negro. “Das just what I’ll do, an’ if she’s not dere, Dinah may gib my int’lec’ a jog. She’s a wonderful woman, Dinah, for workin’ up de human mind w’en it’s like goin’ to sleep. Poo’ Samson hab diskivered dat many times. I’ll go at once.”
“Do, Peter, my fine fellow, and you’ll lay me for ever under the deepest ob—”
He was interrupted by a slave who at the moment approached the bower and said that a man wanted to see Peter the Great.
“To see Ben-Ahmed, you mean,” said Peter.
“No—to see yourself,” returned the slave.
“Sen’ ’im here,” said the negro, with a magnificent wave of the hand.
In a few minutes the slave returned accompanied by a negro, who limped so badly that he was obliged to use a stick, and whose head was bandaged up with a blue cloth. Arrived at the bower, he stood before Peter the Great and groaned.
“You may go,” said Peter to the slave, who lingered as if anxious to hear the news of the visitor. When he was out of hearing, Peter turned to the lame man, looked him sharply in the face, and said—
“You’s bery black in de face, my frind, but you’s much blacker in de h’art. What business hab you to come here widout washin’ your white face clean?”
“Well, you’re a pretty smart chap for a nigger. An’ I dare say you’ll understand that I’d have had some difficulty in fetchin’ this here port at all if I’d washed my face,” answered the lame man, in excellent nautical English.
While he spoke, Foster ran towards him, laid a hand on his shoulder, and looked earnestly into his face.
“You are the British sailor,” he said, “who rescued Hes—Miss Sommers from the janissaries?”
“That’s me to a tee,” replied the sailor, with a broad grin.
“Is Miss Sommers safe?” asked the middy anxiously.
“Ay! safe as any woman can be in this world. Leastwise, she’s in a cave wi’ three o’ the toughest sea-dogs as any man could wish to see—one o’ them bein’ a Maltese an’ the other two bein’ true-blue John Bulls as well as Jack Tars. But Miss Sommers gave me orders to say my say to Peter the Great, so if this nigger is him, I’ll be obleeged if he’ll have a little private conversation wi’ me.”
“Did Miss Sommers say that I was not to hear the message?” asked the middy, in some surprise.
“She made no mention o’ you, or anybody else at all, as I knows on,” returned the sailor firmly, “an’ as my orders was to Peter the Great, an’ as this seems to be him, from Sally’s description—a monstrous big, fine-lookin’ nigger, with a lively face—I’ll say my say to him alone, with your leave.”
“You may say it where you is, for dis yar gen’lem’n is a frind ob mine, an’ a hofficer in the Bri’sh navy, an’ a most ’tickler friend of Hester Sommers, so we all frinds togidder.”
“You’ll excuse me, sir,” said the seaman, touching his forelock, “but you don’t look much like a’ officer in your present costoom. Well, then, here’s wot I’ve got to say—”
“Don’t waste your time, Brown, in spinning the yarn of your rescue of the girl,” said Foster, interrupting; “we’ve heard all about it already from Sally, and can never sufficiently express our thanks to you for your brave conduct. Tell us, now, what happened after you disappeared from Sally’s view.”
The sailor thereupon told them all about his subsequent proceedings—how he had persuaded Hester to accompany him through the woods and by a round about route to a part of the coast where he expected ere long to find friends to rescue him. From some reason or other best known to himself, he was very secretive in regard to the way in which these friends had managed to communicate with him.
“You see I’m not free to speak out all I knows,” he said. “But surely it’s enough to say that my friends have not failed me; that I found them waitin’ there with a small boat, so light that they had dragged it up an’ concealed it among the rocks, an’ that I’d have bin on my way to old England at this good hour if it hadn’t bin for poor Miss Sommers, whom we couldn’t think of desartin’.”
“Then she refused to go with you?” said Foster.
“Refused! I should think she did! Nothing, she said, would indooce her to leave Algiers while her father
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