‘We could go whenever you choose. The inner harbour is only a few steps from the Gate of Woe.’
‘Then the children can come too. I shall confide this to the good Fatima’s care’ –
tapping the wrapped-up gun – ‘and then we can go.’
The street was extremely narrow and the balconies almost touched overhead: parts of it were encumbered with sheep, goats, horsemen, and Algerine children playing a game that required a great deal of running and screeching. Many of them looked remarkably like Mona and Kevin, who were of the black-haired Irish, and they wore the same kind of tunics. Then, working past three heavily-laden and exceptionally ill-natured camels, Stephen, Jacob and the children were suddenly through the gate, and there was the great sky above them and the sea stretching away and away, windwhitened still, but much less so. And just this side of its northern limit, Ringle beating in for the shore, just visible from the inner harbour’s wall, and recognizable to one who knew her very well.
The children shied extremely at the sight of the galleys that filled the inner port; they fell silent, and each grasped one of Stephen’s hands. The Reis, a formidable great redbearded figure, was markedly affable to Jacob, showing him the arrangement and the ordering of his handsome craft: he would almost certainly set out for Sardinia when the sailmaker brought the new lateen.
‘They do not mean to row, then?’ asked Stephen, when this had been explained to him.
‘Oh no: they only use their oars when the wind does not serve: at present it serves perfectly for any voyage to a little north of east, to north itself, and a little north of west, particularly as the seas are diminishing every half hour.’
‘Dear Amos, pray ask him whether that vessel on the horizon that is turning so valiantly into the wind will eventually reach this port.’
Jacob’s question to the Reis was interrupted by the coming of the coal-black sailmaker with two pale Sclavonians, lightly chained but heavily burdened; but eventually, when the new lateen was bent to its long, long tapering yard, Abdul looked out to sea, smiled at the sight of her coming about so briskly on the larboard tack, and said, ‘The little American schooner
–
I have seen her before, the frigate’s tender: yes, with the wind lessening like this, she may get in by moonrise – in the early part of the night at all events.’
Stephen said, ‘Jacob, if I do not mistake, she will soon be almost exactly in the galley’s path, steering for Sardinia: if the Reis would put us aboard her I will give him any sum you think proper. These few hours are so very precious.’
‘I am so nearly certain of it that I shall hurry back, settle with Fatima, and bring our belongings,’ said Jacob. He made the request, with joined hands, received an amiable smile, and hurried away.
Orders, cries, in much the same peremptory tone usual ir. the Royal Navy but sometimes with an additional Moorish howl; and as soon as Jacob, helped by Achmet, had put their
meagre luggage aboard, the galley began its smooth glide towards the harbour’s mouth: the silent children stood pressed against Stephen’s side, for although this was not
a raiding voyage with the galley full of boarders but an ordinary mercantile carrying and fetching of goods, the diminished crew was still made up of right corsairs, for whom an habitual brutish ferocity of expression was as much a part of their equipment as the knives and pistols in their belts.
The open sea. The Reis put the helm amidships, loosed the sheet and attended to Jacob’s further explanation. His red beard opened in a laugh and he said, ‘If your friend will guarantee that the schooner will not fire upon us, I will put you aboard for the love of God.’
When this was relayed to him, Stephen bowed repeatedly to the Reis and said to Jacob, ‘Could I climb on to some eminence and wave, let us say a handkerchief, when we are nearer, to show our peaceable intent?’
‘By all means, if you can find a suitable eminence and remain firmly attached to it in spite of all this heinous pitching.’
Stephen gazed about the unfamiliar rigging: there was a sort of box abaft the masthead, but there seemed no way up to it but levitation. The shrouds, to be sure, had ratlines so that one could climb, as on a ladder, but there was a shocking gap between the topmost ratline and the box, practicable perhaps for an ape or a hardened corsair, but not for a doctor of physic. ‘I shall stand in the prow, watching with my pocket-glass, and when we are close enough, I shall make antic gestures.’
The bows of a galley running before the wind did not prove much of a vantage-point, particularly as the children, who would not be left, tangled themselves in the woolded bumpkin; so all three wedged themselves fairly comfortably along what forward rail the galley possessed, and Stephen showed them the wonders of his little telescope.
This occupied them until the two vessels were so close that he could distinctly make out William Reade’s gleaming steel hook holding him to the starboard shrouds of Ringle’s foremast. Stephen inwardly prayed that nothing might go wrong now, and waved his handkerchief: the young master’s mate standing behind the schooner’s captain with a much more powerful glass, instantly reported this and Reade waved back. Stephen told the children to stand up – their presence would explain the situation – and only by the grace of God did he prevent them from tumbling into the sea as the galley pitched.
However their good stout shirts held fast and he hauled them in, gasping and ashamed.
The tedious hours that had dragged by with so little apparent gain since the morning suddenly hastened their pace – faces could be seen and recognized, voices heard. Stephen hurried aft, untied his parcel, wrapped the gun in some shirts and a pair of long woollen drawers and clasped the Vizier’s gorgeous robe to his bosom. As the two vessels kissed gently together, the Ringles made the galley fast and thrust across a brow for their unreliable surgeon, who, before venturing upon it, crabwise with a child in each hand, presented the splendid garment to Abdul with a flow of heartfelt thanks, translated by Jacob.
‘Why, sir, and here you are!’ cried Reade, hehving him in-board. ‘How very happy I am to see you, and how happy the Commodore will be. He has been fairly eating his heart out in Mahon. Good-bye, sir,’ – this to Abdul Reis – ‘and many, many thanks to you and your beautiful galley.’
These last words and the Reis’s reply were lost as the two vessels separated, Ringle heading for Minorca and the galley for Sardinia, but they went on waving until they were out of sight.
‘These children,’ said Stephen, ‘are Mona and Kevin Fitzpatrick, from Munster –
Mona, make your bob to the Captain: Kevin, make your leg.’ This in Irish. ‘And corsairs picked them up in a boat off the coast, carried them back and sold them in the slavemarket here. I bought them, and
I mean to send them home in the next ship commanded by
a friend and bound for the Cove of Cork. As soon as we are
aboard Surprise Poll will look after them: but where can we
stow them here? And what can we feed them on?’
‘Oh, we have plenty of milk, fresh eggs and vegetables – well, fairly fresh, we having beaten into this hellish wind so long: but edible – and as for sleeping, we will sling a cot in the cabin: these two will fit into it with room to spare.’
‘Perhaps they could now be given something in the galley, and be shown the heads. I perceive a certain uneasiness familiar to me from my youth.’
‘By all means,’ said Reade. ‘Do they speak English?’
‘Scarcely a word; but they have picked up a surprising amount of Arabic,’ said Stephen, looking at Jacob, who nodded.
‘Then I shall pass the word for Berry: he has children of his own and he was a slave in Morocco for some years.’ The word was passed, the children led away by a kindly seaman, rather old; and Stephen said, ‘But may I be forgiven, William: first things first, for all love. Tell me about Surprise and the Commodore.’
‘The coffee is ready, sir: should you like to drink it in the cabin?’ asked his steward.
‘Certainly.
Doctors,
shall we go below?’ He collected his wits as he poured the
coffee, and then said, ‘Late in the afternoon of the day that horrible blow began the Commodore was far out in the offing helping a disabled ship – Lion, totally dismasted but for about ten foot of the mizen – and we could just distinguish his signal calling us out. So we slipped moorings, struck topgallantmasts down on deck, roused out our heavy-weather canvas and cleared the harbour. Very soon we were reduced to a storm forestaysail and a few other scraps. When we arrived, guided by minuteguns, we could scarcely see fifty yards for the sand and the flying spray, but we did make out that Surprise had managed to pass Lion a tow to get her head round a little so that she might recover some of her wreckage and set up a jury-rig to give her at least steerage-way. I passed under his lee for orders, and while he was telling me what to do, a heavy Dutchman, part of a scattered convoy, came hurtling down under little more than bare poles, saw us at the last moment, clapped his helm a-lee, severed the tow and struck Surprise just abaft the starboard cathead, carrying away her bowsprit, heads, her forefoot, much of her gripe and starting God knows how many butt-ends.’