The Middy and the Moors: An Algerine Story

He had barely done so, when the Dey came thundering towards them.

“Stand aside!” he shouted as he came on, for he was a fearless horseman and quite collected, though in such peril.

But Ben-Ahmed would not stand aside. Although an old man, he was still active and powerful. He seized the reins of the horse as it was passing, and, bringing his whole weight and strength to bear, checked it so far that it made a false step and stumbled. This had the effect of sending the Dey out of the saddle like a bomb from a mortar, and of hurling Ben-Ahmed to the ground. Ill would it have fared with the Dey at that moment if Peter the Great had not possessed a mechanical turn of mind, and a big, powerful body, as well as a keen, quick eye for possibilities. Correcting his distance in a moment by jumping back a couple of paces, he opened his arms and received the chief of Algiers into his broad black bosom!

The shock was tremendous, for the Dey was by no means a light weight, and Peter the Great went down before it in the dust, while the great man arose, shaken indeed, and confused, but unhurt by the accident.

Ben-Ahmed also arose uninjured, but Peter lay still where he had fallen.

“W’en I come-to to myself,” continued Peter, on reaching this point in his narrative, “de fus’ t’ing I t’ink was dat I’d been bu’sted. Den I look up, an’ I sees our black cook. She’s a nigger, like myself, only a she one.

“‘Hallo, Angelica!’ says I; ‘wass de matter?’

“‘Matter!’ says she; ‘you’s dead—a’most, an’ dey lef’ you here wid me, wid strik orders to take care ob you.’

“‘Das good,’ says I; ‘an’ you better look out an’ obey your orders, else de bowstring bery soon go round your pritty little neck. But tell me, Angelica, who brought me here?’

“‘De Dey ob Algiers an’ all his court,’ says she, wid a larf dat shut up her eyes an’ showed what a enormous mout’ she hab.

“‘Is he all safe, Angelica,’ says I—‘massa, I mean?’

“‘Oh, I t’ought you meant de Dey!’ says she. ‘Oh yes; massa’s all right; nuffin’ll kill massa, he’s tough. And de Dey, he’s all right too.’

“‘Das good, Angelica,’ says I, feelin’ quite sweet, for I was beginnin’ to remember what had took place.

“‘Yes, das is good,’ says she; ‘an’, Peter, your fortin’s made!’

“‘Das awk’ard,’ says I, ‘for I ain’t got no chest or strong box ready to put it in. But now tell me, Angelica, if my fortin’s made, will you marry me, an’ help to spend it?’

“‘Yes, I will,’ says she.

“I was so took by surprise, Geo’ge, when she say dat, I sprung up on one elber, an’ felled down agin wid a howl, for two o’ my ribs had been broke.

“‘Neber mind de yells, Angelica,’ says I, ‘it’s only my leetle ways. But tell me why you allers refuse me before an’ accep’ me now. Is it—de—de fortin?’ Oh, you should have seen her pout w’en I ax dat. Her mout’ came out about two inch from her face. I could hab kissed it—but for de broken ribs.

“‘No, Peter, for shame!’ says she, wid rijeous indignation. ‘De fortin hab nuffin to do wid it, but your own noble self-scarifyin’ bravery in presentin’ your buzzum to de Dey ob Algiers.’

“‘T’ank you, Angelica,’ says I. ‘Das all comfrably settled. You’s a good gall, kiss me now, an’ go away.’

“So she gib me a kiss an’ I turn round an’ went sweetly to sleep on de back ob dat—for I was awrful tired, an’ de ribs was creakin’ badly.”

“Did you marry Angelica?” asked our middy, with sympathetic interest.

“Marry her! ob course I did. Two year ago. Don’ you know it’s her as cooks all our wittles?”

“How could I know, Peter, for you never call her anything but ‘cook?’ But I’m glad you have told me, for I’ll regard her now with increased respect from this day forth.”

“Das right, Geo’ge. You can’t pay ’er too much respec’. Now we’ll go an’ look at de works.”

The part of the wall which the slaves were repairing was built of great blocks of artificial stone or concrete, which were previously cast in wooden moulds, left to harden, and then put into their assigned places by slave-labour. As Foster was watching the conveyance of these blocks, it suddenly occurred to him that Hester Sommers’s father might be amongst them, and he scanned every face keenly as the slaves passed to and fro, but saw no one who answered to the description given him by the daughter.

From this scrutiny he was suddenly turned by a sharp cry drawn from one of a group who were slowly carrying a heavy stone to its place. The cry was drawn forth by the infliction of a cruel lash on the shoulders of a slave. He was a thin delicate youth with evidences of fatal consumption upon him. He had become faint from over-exertion, and one of the drivers had applied the whip by way of stimulus. The effect on the poor youth was to cause him to stumble, and instead of making him lift better, made him rest his weight on the stone, thus overbalancing it, and bringing it down. In falling the block caught the ankle of the youth, who fell with a piercing shriek to the ground, where he lay in a state of insensibility.

At this a tall bearded man, with heavy fetters on his strong limbs, sprang to the young man’s side, went down on his knees, and seized his hand.

“Oh! Henri, my son,” he cried, in French; but before he could say more a whip touched his back with a report like a pistol-shot, and the torn cotton shirt that he wore was instantly crimsoned with his blood!

The man rose, and, making no more account of his fetters than if they had been straws, sprang like a tiger at the throat of his driver. He caught it, and the eyes and tongue of the cruel monster were protruding from his head before the enraged Frenchman could be torn away by four powerful janissaries. As it was, they had to bind him hand and foot ere they were able to carry him off—to torture, and probably to death. At the same time the poor, helpless form of Henri was borne from the place by two of his fellow-slaves.

Of course a scene like this could not be witnessed unmoved by our midshipman. Indeed he would infallibly have rushed to the rescue of the bearded Frenchman if Peter’s powerful grip on his shoulder had not restrained him.

“Don’t be a fool, Geo’ge,” he whispered. “Remember, we must submit!”

Fortunately for George, the guards around were too much interested in watching the struggle to observe his state of mind, and it is doubtful whether he would have been held back even by the negro if his attention had not at the moment been attracted by a tall man who came on the scene just then with another gang of slaves.

One glance sufficed to tell who the tall man was. Hester Sommers’s portrait had been a true one—tall, handsome, strong; and even in the haggard, worn, and profoundly sad face, there shone a little of the “sweetness” which his daughter had emphasised. There were also the large grey eyes, the Roman nose, the iron-grey hair, moustache, and beard, and the large mouth, although the “smile” had fled from the face and the “lovingness” from the eyes. Foster was so sure of the man that, as he drew near to the place where he stood, he stepped forward and whispered “Sommers.”

The man started and turned pale as he looked keenly at our hero’s face.

“No time to explain,” said the middy quickly. “Hester is well and safe! See you again! Hope on!”

“What are you saying there?” thundered one of the drivers in Arabic.

“What you say to dat feller? you raskil! you white slabe! Come ’long home!” cried Peter the Great, seizing Foster by the collar and dragging him forcibly away, at the same time administering several kicks so violent that his entire frame seemed to be dislocated, while the janissaries burst into a laugh at the big negro’s seeming fury.

“Oh! Geo’ge, Geo’ge,” continued Peter, as he dragged the middy along, shaking him from time to time, “you’ll be de deaf ob me, an’ ob yourself too, if you don’t larn to submit. An’ see, too, what a hyperkrite you make me! I’s ’bliged to kick hard, or dey wouldn’t b’lieve me in arnist.”

“Well, well, Peter,” returned our hero, who at once understood his friend’s ruse to disarm suspicion, and get him away safely, “you need not call yourself a hypocrite this time, at all events, for your kicks and shakings have been uncommonly real—much too real for comfort.”

“Didn’t I say I was ’bleeged to do it?” retorted Peter, with a pout that might have emulated that of his wife on the occasion of their engagement. “D’you s’pose dem raskils don’ know a real kick from a sham one? I was marciful too, for if I’d kicked as I could, dere wouldn’t be a whole bone in your carcass at dis momint! You’s got to larn to be grateful, Geo’ge. Come along.”

Conversing thus pleasantly, the white slave and the black left the Kasba together and descended into the town.

Chapter Seven
The Middy obtains a Decided Advance, and Makes Peter the Great his Confidant

Many months passed, after the events narrated in the last chapter, before George Foster had the good-fortune to meet again with Hugh Sommers, and several weeks elapsed before he had the chance of another interview with the daughter.

Indeed, he was beginning to despair of ever again seeing either the one or the other, and it required the utmost energy and the most original suggestions of a hopeful nature on the part of his faithful friend to prevent his giving way altogether, and having, as Peter expressed it, “anoder fit ob de blues.”

At last fortune favoured him. He was busy in the garden one day planting flowers, when Peter came to him and said—

“I’s got news for you to-day, Geo’ge.”

“Indeed,” said the middy, with a weary sigh; “what may your news be?”

“You ’member dat pictur’ ob de coffee-house in de town what you doo’d?”

“Yes, now you mention it, I do, though I had almost forgotten it.”

“Ah! but I not forgit ’im! Well, yesterday I tuk it to massa, an’ he bery much pleased. He say, bring you up to de house, an’ he gib you some work to do.”

“I wish,” returned Foster, “that he’d ask me to make a portrait of little Hester Sommers.”

“You forgit, Geo’ge, de Moors neber git deir portraits doo’d. Dey ’fraid ob de evil eye.”

“Well, when are we to go up?”

“Now—I jist come for you.”

Throwing down his garden tools, Foster followed the negro to the house, and was ushered into a small chamber, the light of which was rendered soft and mellow by the stained glass windows through which it passed. These windows were exceedingly small—not more than a foot high by eight inches broad—and they were placed in the walls at a height of nine feet or more from the ground. The walls of the room were decorated with richly-coloured tiles, and the floor was of white marble, but the part that attracted our hero most was the ceiling, which was arched, according to Moorish form, and enriched with elaborate designs in stucco—if not in white marble, the difference being difficult to distinguish. On the marble floor lay several shawls, richly embroidered in coloured silk and gold, a pair of small scarlet slippers, covered with gold thread, a thin veil, and several cushions of different sizes. On one of these last reposed a little tame gazelle, whose bright eyes greeted the two slaves with an inquiring look as they entered.

From all these things Foster judged that this was one of the women’s apartments, and wondered much that he had been admitted into such a jealously-guarded sanctuary, but relieved his mind by setting it down to that eccentricity for which Ben-Ahmed was noted.

He had just arrived at this conclusion when a door opened, and Ben-Ahmed himself entered with the sketch of the coffee-house in his hand.

“Tell him,” said the Moor to Peter, “that I am much pleased with this drawing, and wish him to make one, a little larger in size, of this room. Let him put into it everything that he sees. He will find paper in that portfolio, and all else that he requires on this ottoman. Let him take time, and do it well. He need not work in the garden while thus employed.”

Pointing to the various things to which he referred, the Moor turned and left the apartment.

“Now, Geo’ge, what you t’ink ob all dat?” asked Peter, with a broad grin, when he had translated the Moor’s orders.

“Really I don’t know what to think of it. Undoubtedly it is a step upwards, as compared with working in the garden; but then, don’t you see, Peter, it will give me much less of your company, which will be a tremendous drawback?”

“Das well said. You’s kite right. I hab notice from de fus’ dat you hab a well-constitooted mind, an’ appruciates de value ob friendship. I lub your smood face, Geo’ge!”

“I hope you love more of me than my smooth face, Peter,” returned the middy, “otherwise your love won’t continue, for there are certain indications on my upper lip which assure me that the smoothness won’t last long.”

“Hol’ your tongue, sar! What you go on jabberin’ so to me when you’s got work to do, sar!” said Peter fiercely, with a threatening motion of his fist. “Go to work at once, you white slabe!”

Our hero was taken aback for a moment by this sudden explosion, but the presence of a negro girl, who had entered softly by a door at his back, at once revealed to him the truth that Peter the Great had donned the garb of the hypocrite. Although unused and very much averse to such costume, he felt compelled in some degree to adopt it, and, bowing his head, not only humbly, but in humiliation, he went silently towards his drawing materials, while the girl placed a tumbler of water on a small table and retired.

Turning round, he found that Peter had also disappeared from the scene.

At first he imagined that the water was meant for his refreshment, but on examining the materials on the ottoman he found a box of water-colour paints, which accounted for its being sent.

Although George Foster had never been instructed in painting, he possessed considerable natural talent, and was intensely fond of the art. It was, therefore, with feelings of delight which he had not experienced for many a day that he began to arrange his materials and set about this new and congenial work.

Among other things he found a small easel, which had a very Anglican aspect about it. Wondering how it had got there, he set it up, with a sheet of paper on it, tried various parts of the room, in order to find out the best position for a picture, and went through that interesting series of steppings back and puttings of the head on one side which seem to be inseparably connected with true art.

While thus engaged in the profound silence of that luxurious apartment, with its “dim religious light,” now glancing at the rich ceiling, anon at the fair sheet of paper, he chanced to look below the margin of the latter and observed, through the legs of the easel, that the gorgeous eyes of the gazelle were fixed on him in apparent wonder.

He advanced to it at once, holding out a hand coaxingly. The pretty creature allowed him to approach within a few inches, and then bounded from its cushion like a thing of india-rubber to the other end of the room, where it faced about and gazed again.

“You gaze well, pretty creature,” thought the embryo artist. “Perhaps that’s the origin of your name! Humph! you won’t come to me?”

The latter part of his thoughts he expressed aloud, but the animal made no response. It evidently threw the responsibility of taking the initiative on the man.

Our middy was naturally persevering in character. Laying aside his pencil, he sat down on the marble floor, put on his most seductive expression, held out his hand gently, and muttered soft encouragements—such as, “Now then, Spunkie, come here, an’ don’t be silly—” and the like. But “Spunkie” still stood immovable and gazed.

Then the middy took to advancing in a sitting posture—after a manner known to infants—at the same time intensifying the urbanity of his look and the wheedlement of his tone. The gazelle suffered him to approach until his fingers were within an inch of its nose. There the middy stopped. He had studied animal nature. He was aware that it takes two to love as well as to quarrel. He resolved to wait. Seeing this, the gazelle timidly advanced its little nose and touched his finger. He scratched gently! Spunkie seemed to like it. He scratched progressively up its forehead. Spunkie evidently enjoyed it. He scratched behind its ear, and—the victory was gained! The gazelle, dismissing all fear, advanced and rubbed its graceful head on his shoulder.

“Well, you are a nice little beast,” said Foster, as he fondled it; “whoever owns you must be very kind to you, but I can’t afford to waste more time with you. Must get to work.”

He rose and returned to his easel while the gazelle trotted to its cushion and lay down—to sleep? perchance to dream?—no, to gaze, as before, but in mitigated wonder.

The amateur painter-slave now applied himself diligently to his work with ever-increasing interest; yet not altogether without an uncomfortable and humiliating conviction that if he did not do it with reasonable rapidity, and give moderate satisfaction, he ran the chance of being “whacked” if not worse!

Let not the reader imagine that we are drawing the longbow here, and making these Moors to be more cruel than they really were. Though Ben-Ahmed was an amiable specimen, he was not a typical Algerine, for cruelty of the most dreadful kind was often perpetrated by these monsters in the punishment of trivial offences in those days. At the present hour there stands in the great square of Algiers an imposing mosque, which was designed by a Christian slave—an architect—whose head was cut off because he had built it—whether intentionally or accidentally we know not—in the form of a cross!

For some hours Foster worked uninterruptedly with his pencil, for he believed, like our great Turner in his earlier days, (though Turner’s sun had not yet arisen!) that the preliminary drawing for a picture cannot be too carefully or elaborately done.

After having bumped himself against the wall twice, and tripped over an ottoman once—to the gazelle’s intense surprise—in his efforts to take an artistic view of his work, Foster at last laid down his pencil, stretched himself to his full height, with his hands in the air by way of relaxation, and was beginning to remember that midday meals were not unknown to man, when the negress before mentioned entered with a small round brass tray on which were two covered dishes. The middy lowered his hands in prompt confusion, for he had not attained to the Moors’ sublime indifference to the opinion or thought of slaves.

He was about to speak, but checked the impulse. It was wiser to hold his tongue! A kindliness of disposition, however, induced him to smile and nod—attentions which impelled the negress, as she retired, to display her teeth and gums to an extent that no one would believe if we were to describe it.

On examination it was found that one of the dishes contained a savoury compound of rice and chicken, with plenty of butter and other substances—some of which were sweet.

The other dish contained little rolls of bread. Both dishes appeared to Foster to be made of embossed gold—or brass, but he knew and cared not which. Coffee in a cup about the size and shape of an egg was his beverage. While engaged with the savoury and altogether unexpected meal, our hero felt his elbow touched. Looking round he saw the gazelle looking at him with an expression in its beautiful eyes that said plainly, “Give me my share.”

“You shall have it, my dear,” said the artist, handing the creature a roll, with which it retired contentedly to its cushion.

“Perhaps,” thought the youth, as he pensively sipped his coffee, “this room may be sometimes used by Hester! It obviously forms part of the seraglio.”

Strange old fellow, Ben-Ahmed, to allow men like me to invade such a place.

The thought of the ladies of the harem somehow suggested his mother and sister, and when poor George got upon this pair of rails he was apt to be run away with, and to forget time and place. The reverie into which he wandered was interrupted, however, by the gazelle asking for more. As there was no more, it was fain to content itself with a pat on the head as the painter rose to resume his work.

The drawing was by this time all pencilled in most elaborately, and the middy opened the water-colour box to examine the paints. As he did so, he again remarked on the familiar English look of the materials, and was about to begin rubbing down a little of one of the cakes—moist colours had not been invented—when he observed some writing in red paint on the back of the palette. He started and flushed, while his heart beat faster, for the writing was, “Expect me. Rub this out. H.S.”

What could this mean? H.S? Hester Sommers of course. It was simple—too simple. He wished for more—like the gazelle. Like it, too, he got no more. After gazing at the writing, until every letter was burnt into his memory, he obeyed the order and rubbed it out. Then, in a disturbed and anxious frame of mind, he tried to paint, casting many a glance, not only at his subject, but at the two doors which opened into the room.

At last one of the doors opened—not the one he happened to be looking at, however. He started up, overturned his stool, and all but knocked down the easel, as the negress re-entered to remove the refreshment-tray. She called to the gazelle as she went out. It bounded lightly after her, and the young painter was left alone to recover his composure.

“Ass that I am!” he said, knitting his brows, clenching his teeth, and putting a heavy dab of crimson-lake on the ceiling!

At that moment the other door opened, yet so gently and slightly that he would not have observed it but for the sharp line of light which it let through. Determined not to be again taken by surprise, he became absorbed in putting little unmeaning lines round the dab of lake—not so busily, however, as to prevent his casting rapid furtive glances at the opening door.

Gradually something white appeared in the aperture—it was a veil. Something blue—it was an eye. Something quite beyond description lovely—it was Hester herself, looking—if such be conceivable—like a scared angel!

“Oh, Mr Foster!” she exclaimed, in a half-whisper, running lightly in, and holding up a finger by way of caution, “I have so longed to see you—”

“So have I,” interrupted the delighted middy. “Dear H–ah—Miss Sommers, I mean, I felt sure that—that—this must be your room—no, what’s its name? boudoir; and the gazelle—”

“Yes, yes—oh! never mind that,” interrupted the girl impatiently. “My father—darling father!—any news of him.”

Blushing with shame that he should have thought of his own feelings before her anxieties, Foster dropped the little hand which he had already grasped, and hastened to tell of the meeting with her father in the Kasba—the ease with which he had recognised him from her description, and the few hurried words of comfort he had been able to convey before the slave-driver interfered.

Tears were coursing each other rapidly down Hester’s cheeks while he was speaking; yet they were not tears of unmingled grief.

“Oh, Mr Foster!” she said, seizing the middy’s hand, and kissing it, “how shall I ever thank you?”

Before she could add another word, an unlucky touch of Foster’s heel laid the easel, with an amazing clatter, flat on the marble floor! Hester bounded through the doorway more swiftly than her own gazelle, slammed the door behind her, and vanished like a vision.

Poor Foster! Although young and enthusiastic, he was not a coxcomb. The thrill in the hand that had been kissed told him plainly that he was hopelessly in love! But a dull weight on his heart told him, he thought as plainly, that Hester was not in the same condition.

“Dear child!” he said, as he slowly gathered up the drawing materials, “if that innocent, transparent, almost infantine creature had been old enough to fall in love she would sooner have hit me on the nose with her lovely fist than have kissed my great ugly paw—even though she was overwhelmed with joy at hearing about her father.”

Having replaced the easel and drawing, he seated himself on an ottoman, put his elbows on his knees, laid his forehead in his hands, and began to meditate aloud.

“Yes,” he said, with a profound sigh, “I love her—that’s as clear as daylight; and she does not love me—that’s clearer than daylight. Unrequited love! That’s what I’ve come to! Nevertheless, I’m not in wild despair. How’s that? I don’t want to shoot or drown myself. How’s that? On the contrary, I want to live and rescue her. I could serve or die for that child with pleasure—without even the reward of a smile! There must be something peculiar here. Is it—can it be Platonic love? Of course that must be it. Yes, I’ve often heard and read of that sort of love before. I know it now, and—and—I rather like it!”

“You don’t look as if you did, Geo’ge,” said a deep voice beside him.

George started up with a face of scarlet.

“Peter!” he exclaimed fiercely, “did you hear me speak? What did you hear?”

“Halo! Geo’ge, don’t squeeze my arm so! You’s hurtin’ me. I hear you say somet’ing ’bout plotummik lub, but what sort o’ lub that may be is more’n I kin tell.”

“Are you sure that is all you— But come, Peter, I should have no secrets from you. The truth is,” (he whispered low here), “I have seen Hester Sommers—here, in this room, not half an hour ago—and—and I feel that I am hopelessly in love with her—Platonically, that is—but I fear you won’t understand what that means—”

The midshipman stopped abruptly. For the first time since they became acquainted he saw a grave expression of decided disapproval on the face of his sable friend.

“Geo’ge,” said Peter solemnly, “you tell me you hab took ’vantage ob bein’ invited to your master’s house to make lub—plo—plotummikilly or oderwise—to your master’s slabe?”

“No, Peter, I told you nothing of the sort. The meeting with Hester was purely accidental—at least it was none of my seeking—and I did not make love to her—”

“Did she make lub to you, Geo’ge—plo—plotummikilly.”

“Certainly not. She came to ask about her poor father, and I saw that she is far too young to think of falling in love at all. What I said was that I have fallen hopelessly in love, and that as I cannot hope that she will ever be—be mine, I have made up my mind to love her hopelessly, but loyally, to the end of life, and serve or die for her if need be.”

“Oh! das all right, Geo’ge. If dat’s what you calls plo—plotummik lub—lub away, my boy, as hard’s you kin. Same time, I’s not kite so sure dat she’s too young to hub. An’ t’ings ain’t allers as hopeless as dey seems. But now, what’s dis you bin do here? My! How pritty. Oh! das real bootiful. But what’s you got in de ceiling—de sun, eh?”

He pointed to the dab of crimson-lake.

Foster explained that it was merely a “bit of colour.”

“Ob course! A cow wid half an eye could see dat!”

“Well—but I mean—it’s a sort of—a kind of—tone to paint up to.”

“H’m! das strange now. I don’t hear no sound nowhar!”

“Well, then, it’s a shadow, Peter.”

“Geo’ge,” said the negro, with a look of surprise, “I do t’ink your plo-plotummik lub hab disagreed wid you. Come ’long to de kitchen an’ hab your supper—it’s all ready.”

So saying, he went off with his friend and confidant to the culinary region, which was also the salle à manger of the slaves.