The Pirate City: An Algerine Tale by R. M. Ballantyne (digital book reader .txt) 📖

Ted Flaggan, and yet Ted thought himself to be an uncommonly sharp deceiver when occasion required.

Having received the caution above referred to, he thrust his hands into his coat-pockets, and with a frowning countenance went off in search of Rais Ali. Mariner-like, he descried him afar on the horizon of vision, as it were, bearing down under full sail along a narrow path between two hedges of aloes and cactus, which led to the house.

By a strange coincidence, Agnes and her friend came bounding out into the shrubbery at that moment, having finished their brief luncheon, and Ziffa chanced to catch sight of the stout mariner as he hastened to meet his friend.

With the intuitive sharpness of an Eastern mind she observed the fact, and with the native acuteness of a scheming little vixen, she guessed that something might turn up. Acting on the thought, she shouted—

“Wait a little, Agnes; I will hide: you shall find me.”

Innocent Agnes obediently waited, while Ziffa ran down the wrong side of the cactus hedge, and kept up with the seaman—a little in rear of him.

“Ho! Ally Babby,” shouted Ted Flaggan, when he was within hail—it might be a hundred yards or so—of his friend, “what d’ee think? that little brown-faced chip of Hadji Baba has been up here eavesdropping, and has got to windward of us a’most. Leastwise she knows enough o’ the Riminis to want to know more—the dirty little spalpeen.”

“Thank you,” thought Ziffa, as she listened.

When Flaggan had varied his remarks once or twice, by way of translating them, Rais Ali shook his head.

“That bad,” said he, “ver’ bad. We mus’ be tremendous cautious. Ziffa’s a little brute.”

“Ha!” thought Ziffa.

“You don’t say so?” observed Flaggan. “Well, now, I’d scarce have thought we had reason to be so fearful of a small thing, with a stupid brown face like that.”

“Brute!” muttered Ziffa inaudibly.

“Oh! she werry sharp chile,” returned Rais, “werry sharp—got ears and eyes from the sole of hers head to de top of hers feets.”

Ziffa said nothing, either mentally or otherwise, but looked rather pleased.

“Well,” continued Rais, “we won’t mention the name of Rimini again nowhars—only w’en we can’t help it, like.”

“Not a whisper,” said Flaggan; “but, be the way, it’ll be as well, before comin’ to that state of prudent silence, that you tell me if the noo hole they’ve gone to is near the owld wan. You see it’s my turn to go up wi’ provisions to-morrow night, and I hain’t had it rightly explained, d’ye see?”

Here Rais Ali described, with much elaboration, the exact position of the new hole to which the Rimini family had removed, at the head of Frais Vallon, and Mademoiselle Ziffa drank it all in with the most exuberant satisfaction.

Shortly afterwards Agnes Langley found her friend hiding close to the spot in the garden where she had last seen her.

That night Hadji Baba made an outrageous disturbance in his household as to the lost diamond ring, and finally fixed, with the sagacity of an unusually sharp man, on his old negro as being the culprit.

Next morning he resolved to have the old man before the cadi, after forenoon attendance at the palace. While there, he casually mentioned to Omar the circumstance of the theft of his ring, and asked leave to absent himself in the afternoon to have the case tried.

“Go,” said Omar gravely, “but see that thou forget not to temper justice with mercy.—By the way, tell me, friend Hadji, before thou goest, what was the meaning of that strange request of thine the other day, and on which thou hast acted so much of late?”

The story-teller turned somewhat pale, and looked anxious.

The strange request referred to was to the effect that the Dey should give him no more gifts or wages, (in regard to both of which he was not liberal), but that instead thereof he, Hadji Baba, should be allowed to whisper confidentially in the Dey’s ear on all public occasions without umbrage being taken, and that the Dey should give him a nod and smile in reply. Omar, who was a penurious man, had willingly agreed to this proposal, and, as he now remarked, Baba had made frequent use of the license.

“Pardon me, your highness,” said Baba; “may I speak the truth without fear of consequences?”

“Truly thou mayest,” replied the Dey; “and it will be well that thou speakest nothing but the truth, else thou shalt have good reason to remember the consequences.”

“Well, then, your highness,” returned Baba boldly, “feeling that my income was not quite so good as my position at Court required, and desiring earnestly to increase it without further taxing the resources of your highness’s treasury, I ventured to make the request which I did, and the result has been—has been—most satisfactory.”

“Blockhead!” exclaimed the irritable Dey, “that does not explain the nature of the satisfaction.”

“Your slave was going to add,” said Hadji Baba hastily, “that my frequent whispering in your ear, and your highness’s gracious nods and smiles in reply, have resulted in my being considered one of the most influential favourites in the palace, so that my good word is esteemed of the utmost value, and paid for accordingly.”

Omar laughed heartily at this, and Hadji Baba, much relieved, retired to have his case tried before the cadi, taking his daughter with him, for she had assured him that she had seen the old servant take it.

The old servant pleaded not guilty with earnest solemnity.

“Are you quite sure you saw him take the ring?” demanded the cadi of Ziffa.

“Quite sure,” replied the girl.

“And you are sure you did not take it?” he asked of the negro.

“Absolutely certain,” answered the old man.

“And you are convinced that you once had the ring, and now have it not?” he said, turning to Hadji Baba.

“Quite.”

“The case is very perplexing,” said the cadi, turning to the administrators of the law who stood at his elbow; “give the master and the servant each one hundred strokes of the bastinado, twenty at a time, beginning with the servant.”

The officers at once seized on the old negro, threw him down and gave him twenty blows. They then advanced to Hadji Baba, and were about to seize him, when he cried out—

“Beware what thou doest! I am an officer of the Dey’s palace and may not be treated thus with impunity.”

The cadi, who either did not, or pretended not, to believe the statement, replied sententiously—

“Justice takes no note of persons.—Proceed.”

The officers threw Baba on his face, and were about to proceed, when Ziffa in alarm advanced with the ring and confessed her guilt.

Upon this the cadi was still further perplexed, for he could not now undo the injustice of the blows given to the negro. After a few minutes’ severe thought he awarded the diamond ring to the old servant, and the two hundred blows to the master as being a false accuser.

The award having been given, the case was dismissed, and Hadji Baba went home with smarting soles, resolved to punish Ziffa severely.

“Spare me!” said Ziffa, whimpering, when her father, seizing a rod, was about to begin.

“Nay, thou deservest it,” cried Baba, grasping her arm.

“Spare me!” repeated Ziffa, “and I will tell you a great secret, which will bring you money and credit.”

The curiosity of the story-teller was awakened.

“What is it thou hast to tell?”

“Promise me, father, that you won’t punish me if I tell you the secret.”

“I promise,” said Baba, “but see that it is really something worth knowing, else will I give thee a severer flogging.”

Hereupon the false Ziffa related all she knew about the hiding-place of the Rimini family. Her father immediately went to the palace, related it to the Dey, and claimed and received the reward.

That night a party of soldiers were sent off to search the head of Frais Vallon, and before morning they returned to town with Francisco and his two sons, whom they threw into their old prison the Bagnio, and loaded them heavily with chains.

Note 1. It is said that the treasure in Algiers about the end of that century amounted to 4,000,000 pounds, most of which was paid by other governments to purchase peace with the Algerines.