The Middy and the Moors by Robert Michael Ballantyne (new books to read TXT) 📖

upside down!"

"Hush! don't laugh so loud!" said Hester, looking anxiously round, and holding up one of her pretty little fingers, "some one may hear you and find us! Strange," she added pensively, "surely you must be under some mistake, for I heard my dear father try to explain it once to a friend, who seemed to me unwilling to understand. I remember so well the quiet motion of his large, firm but sweet mouth as he spoke, and the look of his great, earnest eyes--`A Radical,' he said, `is one who wishes and tries to go to the root of every matter, and put all wrong things right without delay.'"

What George Foster might have said to this definition of a Radical, coming, as it did, from such innocent lips, we cannot say, for the abrupt closing of a door at the other end of the garden caused Hester to jump up and run swiftly out of the bower. Foster followed her example, and, returning to the scene of his labours, threw off his coat and began to dig with an amount of zeal worthy of his friend the incorrigible "hyperkrite" himself.

A few minutes later and Ben-Ahmed approached, in close conversation with Peter the Great.

"Hallo!" exclaimed the latter, in stern tones, as they came up, "what you bin about, sar? what you bin doin'? Not'ing done since I was here more an hour past--eh, sar?"

The midshipman explained, with a somewhat guilty look and blush, that he had been resting in the bower, and that he had stayed much longer than he had intended.

"You just hab, you rascal! But I cure you ob dat," said the negro, catching up a piece of cane that was lying on the ground, with which he was about to administer condign chastisement to the idle slave, when his master stopped him.

"Hurt him not," he said, raising his hand; "is not this his first offence?"

"Yes, massa, de bery fust."

"Well, tell him that the rod shall be applied next time he is found idling. Enough, follow me!"

With a stately step the amiable Moor passed on. With a much more stately port Peter the Great followed him, but as he did so he bestowed on Foster a momentary look so ineffably sly, yet solemn, that the latter was obliged to seize the spade and dig like a very sexton in order to check his tendency to laugh aloud.

Half an hour later the negro returned to him.

"What you bin do all dis time?" he asked in surprise. "I was more'n half t'ink you desarve a lickin'!"

"Perhaps I do, Peter," answered the young slave, in a tone so hearty and cheerful that the negro's great eyes increased considerably in size.

"Well, Geo'ge," he said, with a sudden change in his expression, "I wouldn't hab expeck it ob you; no, I wouldn't, if my own mudder was to tell me! To t'ink dat one so young, too, would go on de sly to de rum-bottle! But where you kin find 'im's more'n I kin tell."

"I have not been at the rum-bottle at all," returned the middy, resting on his spade, "but I have had something to raise my spirits and brace my energies, and take me out of myself. Come, let us go to the bower, and I will explain--that is, if we may safely go there."

"Go whar?"

"To the bower."

"Do you know, sar," replied Peter, drawing himself up and expanding his great chest--"do you know, sar, dat I's kimmander-in-chief ob de army in dis yar gardin, an' kin order 'em about whar I please, an' do what I like? Go up to de bower, you small Bri'sh officer, an' look sharp if you don't want a whackin'!"

The slave obeyed with alacrity, and when the two were seated he described his recent interview with Hester Sommers.

No words can do full justice to the varied expressions that flitted across the negro's face as the midshipman's narrative went on.

"So," he said slowly, when it was concluded, "you's bin an' had a long privit convissation wid one ob Ben-Ahmed's ladies! My! you know what dat means if it found out?"

"Well, Miss Sommers herself was good enough to tell me that it would probably mean flogging to death."

"_Floggin'_ to deaf!" echoed Peter. "P'r'aps so wid massa, for he's a kind man; but wid most any oder man it 'ud mean roastin' alibe ober a slow fire! Geo'ge, you's little better'n a dead man!"

"I hope it's not so bad as that, for no one knows about it except the lady and yourself."

"Das so; an' you're in luck, let me tell you. Now you go to work, an' I'll retire for some meditation--see what's to come ob all dis."

Truly the changes that take place in the feelings and mind of man are not less sudden and complete than the physical changes which sometimes occur in lands that are swept by the tornado and desolated by the earthquake. That morning George Foster had risen from his straw bed a miserable white slave, hopeless, heartless, and down at spiritual zero-- or below it. That night he lay down on the same straw bed, a free man-- in soul, if not in body--a hero of the most ardent character--up at fever-heat in the spiritual thermometer, or above it, and all because his heart throbbed with a noble purpose--because an object worthy of his efforts was placed before him, and because he had made up his mind to do or die in a good cause!

What that cause was he would have found it difficult to define clearly in detail. Sufficient for him that an unknown but stalwart father, with Radical tendencies, and a well-known and lovely daughter, were at the foundation of it, and that "Escape!" was the talismanic word which formed a battery, as it were, with which to supply his heart with electric energy.

He lived on this diet for a week, with the hope of again seeing Hester; but he did not see her again for many weeks.

One morning Peter the Great came to him as he was going out to work in the garden and said--

"You git ready and come wid me into town dis day."

"Indeed," returned Foster, as much excited by the order as if it had been to go on some grand expedition. "For what purpose?"

"You 'bey orders, sar, an' make your mind easy about purpisses."

In a few minutes Foster was ready.

No part of his original costume now remained to him. A blue-striped cotton jacket, with pants too short and too wide for him; a broad-brimmed straw hat, deeply sunburnt face and hands, with a pair of old boots two sizes too large, made him as unlike a British naval officer as he could well be. But he had never been particularly vain of his personal appearance, and the high purpose by which he was now actuated set him above all such trifling considerations.

"Is your business a secret?" asked Foster, as he and his companion descended the picturesque road that led to the city.

"No, it am no secret, 'cause I's got no business."

"You seem to be in a mysterious mood this morning, Peter. What do you mean?"

"I mean dat you an' me's out for a holiday--two slabes out for a holiday! T'ink ob dat!"

The negro threw back his head, opened his capacious jaws, and gave vent to an almost silent chuckle.

"That does indeed mound strange," returned Foster; "how has such a wonderful event been brought about?"

"By lub, Geo'ge. Di'n't I tell you before dat hub am eberyt'ing?"

"Yes; and my dear old mother told me, long before you did, that `love is the fulfilling of the law.'"

"Well, I dun know much about law, 'xcep' dat I b'lieve it's a passel o' nonsense, for what we's got here an't o' no use--leastwise not for slabes."

"But my mother did not refer to human laws," returned Foster. "She quoted what the Bible says about God's laws."

"Oh! das a _bery_ diff'rent t'ing, massa, an' I s'pose your mudder was right. Anyway it was lub what obercame Ben-Ahmed. You see, I put it to 'im bery tender like. `Massa,' says I, `here I's bin wid you night an' day for six year, an' you's nebber say to me yet, "Peter de Great, go out for de day an' enjoy you'self." Now, massa, I wants to take dat small raskil Geo'ge Fuster to de town, an' show him a few t'ings as'll make him do his work better, an' dat'll make you lub 'im more, an' so we'll all be more comfrable.' Das what I say; an' when I was sayin' it, I see de wrinkles a-comin' round massa's eyes, so I feel sure; for w'en dem wrinkles come to de eyes, it is all right. An' massa, he say, `Go'--nuffin more; only `Go;' but ob course das nuff for me, so I hoed; an' now--we're bof goin'."

At this point in the conversation they came to a place where the road forked. Here they met a number of Arabs, hasting towards the town in a somewhat excited frame of mind. Following these very slowly on a mule rode another Arab, whose dignified gravity seemed to be proof against all excitement. He might have been the Dey of Algiers himself, to judge from his bearing and the calm serenity with which he smoked a cigar. Yet neither his occupation nor position warranted his dignified air, for he was merely a seller of oranges, and sat on a huge market-saddle, somewhat in the lady-fashion--side-wise, with the baskets of golden fruit on either side of him.

Going humbly towards this Arab, the negro asked him in Lingua Franca if there was anything unusual going on in the town?

The Arab replied by a calm stare and a puff of smoke as he rode by.

"I 'ope his pride won't bust 'im," muttered Peter, as he fell behind and rejoined his companion.

"Do you think anything has happened, then?"

"Dere's no sayin'. Wonderful geese dey is in dis city. Dey seem to t'ink robbery on the sea is just, an' robbery ob de poor an' helpless is just; but robbery ob de rich in Algiers--oh! dat awrful wicked! not to be tololerated on no account wa'somever. Konsikence is--de poor an' de helpless git some ob de strong an' de clebber to go on dere side, an' den dey bust up, strangle de Dey, rob de Jews, an' set up another guv'ment."

"Rob the Jews, Peter! Why do they do that?"

"Dun know, massa--"

"Please don't call me massa any more, Peter, for I'm _not_ massa in any sense--being only your friend and fellow-slave."

"Well, I won't, Geo'ge. I's a-goin' to say I s'pose dey plunder de Jews 'cause dey's got lots o' money an' got no friends. Eberybody rob de Jews w'en dere's a big rumpus. But I don't t'ink dere's a row jus' now--only a scare."

The scare, if there was one, had passed away when they reached the town. On approaching the Bab-Azoun gate, Peter got ready their passports to show to the guard. As he did so, Foster observed, with a shudder, that shreds of a human carcass were still dangling from