Story 2—Chapter I.
Greek Pirates and Turkish Brigands. A Tale of Adventure by Sea and Land.
In Beyrout Harbour.
“It’s a thundering shame our sticking here so long; and I’m sick of the beastly old place,” said Tom Aldridge in a grumbling tone, as he leant over the bulwarks listlessly, crumbling bits of biscuit into the sea to attract the fish, which would not be attracted, and gazing in an idle way at the roof of the pacha’s palace, that glittered under the rays of the bright Syrian sun. “I’m sick of the place, Charley!” he repeated, more venomously than before.
“So am I, Tom,” said Charley Onslow, his fellow-midshipman on board the Muscadine, an English barque of some seven or eight hundred tons, that lay, along with several foreign vessels of different rig, in the bay of Beyrout—as pretty a harbour as could be picked out in a score of voyages, and about the busiest port in the whole of the Levant.
“So am I, Tom,” said Charley with the utmost heartiness. “I am as tired of it as I am of the eternal dates and coffee, coffee and dates, on which these blessed Arab beggars live, and which everybody makes a point of offering to one, if a chap goes ashore for a minute; while, on board, we’ve nothing now to do but to check off the freight as it comes alongside before it’s lowered in the hold, and look out at the unchanging picture around us, which is so familiar that I believe I could paint it with my eyes shut if I were an artist. Talk of the beauty of Beyrout, indeed! To my taste, it’s the most monotonous hole I was ever in in my life, and I hate it!”
And yet, in spite of Charley Onslow’s peevish criticism, the scene around him and his companion was charming enough.
The Muscadine was anchored out in the roads, close to the jutting promontory on which the lazaretto buildings were lately erected, that stretched out like an arm into the harbour; and the view from her deck presented a beautiful panorama of the semi-European, semi-Oriental town, nestling on the very edge of the blue waters of the Mediterranean, and surrounded by gently-undulating hills, that were terraced with symmetrical rows of trim olive-trees and vineyards, rising tier upon tier, the one above the other; amidst which, occasionally peeped out slily the white cupola of some suburban villa belonging to one of the wealthy merchants of the port, or the minaret of a Moslem mosque, standing out conspicuously against the shrubbery of foliage formed of different tints of green, from the palest emerald shade to the deepest indigo, that culminated finally in the cedar-crowned heights of the mountains of Lebanon in the purple distance.
It was not a quiet scene either, as might have been imagined from the idle ennui of both the young sailors, whom it seemed to have well-nigh bored to death. On the contrary, to an unprejudiced looker-on it was quite the reverse of being inactive.
In the foreground the harbour was lively enough, with boats and caravels, and other Turkish craft of all sizes and shapes, darting here and there like great white-winged dragon-flies, as they were wafted swiftly one moment by some passing whiff of air, or lying still on the surface of the sea as the wind fell and they were temporarily becalmed, until another gust came from the hills to rouse them out of their noontide sluggishness.
Amongst them, too, were ships’ boats belonging to the different vessels, anchored, like the Muscadine, out in the roads, being pulled to and from the shore, anon laden with merchandise, anon returning for more; while, of course, the dingy black smoke and steady paddle-beat of the inevitable steamer, that marks the progress of Western civilisation in the East, made themselves seen and heard, to complete the picture and make the contrast the more striking.
“Tom,” said Charley presently, after the two had remained silent for some time, still standing in the shade of the awning aft, that protected them from the burning heat of the sun, which was at its most potent point, it being just mid-day.
“Yes,” said the other grumpily, as if disinclined even for conversation.
“It has just gone eight bells.”
“Can’t I hear as well as you, Charley? What’s the use of bothering a fellow? Do leave me alone.”
“I only wanted to say, Tom, that the skipper said we might go ashore this afternoon if we liked, as soon as the second mate came on board; and there he is coming off in the jolly-boat now.”
“I don’t care whether Tompkins comes off or not,” replied Tom Aldridge in the same peevish tone as he had spoken at first. “What’s the good of going ashore?”
“Oh, lots of good,” said Charley Onslow more cheerily. “Better than stopping here cooped-up like a fowl and being grilled in the sun.”
“Well, I can’t see the difference between getting roasted ashore and roasted on board, for my part,” retorted Tom. “It’s six of one and half-a-dozen of the other.”
“You lazy duffer!” said Charley laughing; “you are incorrigible. But do come along with me, Tom. We haven’t landed now for two days, and I can’t stand the Muscadine any longer.”
“I suppose you’ll have your way, as you always do,” grumbled the other, turning away at last from his listless contemplation of the prospect with which he had owned himself so disgusted. “I don’t know how it is, Charley, but you seem to manage me and everybody here just as you like; you can come round the skipper even, when you set your mind to it, and that is what no one else can do!”
“You forget Mr Tompkins.”
“I don’t count him at all,” said Tom Aldridge indignantly. “He’s a sneak, and gets his way by wheedling and shoe-scraping! But you, Charley, go to work in quite a different fashion. Why, I’m hanged if you don’t cheek a fellow when you want to get something out of him. It’s your Irish impudence that does it, my boy, I expect.”
“Sure, an’ it’s a way we have in the ould counthry,” said Charley, putting on the brogue so easily that it seemed natural to him—which indeed it was, as he was born not twenty miles from Cork, in the neighbourhood of which is situated the far-famed “Blarney stone,” that is supposed to endow those who kiss it with the “gift of the gab;” and Charley must have “osculated it,” as a Yankee would say, to some purpose.
“Be jabers, thin, ye spalpeen,” laughed Tom—who had got out of his grumpy state quickly enough; for his disposition was almost as light-hearted as that of his friend, and it was only the heat and the confinement on board ship when in harbour that had previously oppressed his spirits—“let us look smart, and be off. Here’s that fellow Tompkins just coming up the side, and I don’t want any more of his company than I can help! Tell him we’re going by the captain’s permission, Charley. I don’t want to say a word to him after that row this morning. You are still on speaking terms with him, and I’m not. And while you are settling matters with the old sneak, I’ll get the dinghy ready, and fetch up the bottle of brandy I promised that jolly old Turk at the coffee-shop.”
“You’d better water it a bit, Tom,” said Charley, as the other was diving down the companion-stairs. “It’s awfully strong; and you know Mohammedans are not accustomed to it.”
“Not a drop of it, my boy,” replied he, disappearing for a moment from view, and his voice receding in the distance. “I promised the old infidel that he should have the real stuff, and I’ll let him see that a giaour can keep his word.”
In a second or two he came up again, the bottle, however, concealed in the pocket of his reefer of light blue serge. And hauling in the painter of the boat, which was floating astern, while Charley was still confabulating with the second officer, who had come on board in the meantime, he sat himself down in her, and waited patiently till his chum had done with the obnoxious Mr Tompkins, who seemed to have a good deal to say, and that of a not very pleasant character. “Bother the chap!” said Charley, when he was at length released, and, shinning down a rope, sat down in the stern-sheets of the dinghy, as Tom Aldridge took up the sculls and shoved off from the ship. “He’s got as much to say as Noah’s great-grandmother. And the gist of it all, fault-finding, of course.”
“What can you expect from a pig, eh?” said Tom, philosophically, when the boat was well clear of the Muscadine, setting to work leisurely and pulling to shore, while Charley reclined at his ease on the cushions which he had taken the trouble to fix up for himself, and—did nothing, as usual.
It was the general sort of “division of labour” amongst them.
However, they were fast friends, and, as Tom didn’t complain, nobody else has any right to find fault.
“A grunt, I suppose,” replied Charley, in answer to Tom’s conundrum. “At least, from a Welsh pig, like Tompkins. An Irish one, bedad! would have better manners.”
“Bravo, Charley!” exclaimed Tom, bursting out into a laugh in which his companion as heartily joined. “You stick to your country, at all events, which is more than can be said for our leek-eating friend. He always wishes to deny that he belongs to the land of the Cymri and hails from Swansea, as he does. The sneak! I’m sure a decent Welshman would be ashamed to own him. But, don’t let us worry ourselves any longer about Tompkins; it’s bad enough to have him with us on board, without lugging him ashore, too; hang him!”
“Ay, ay, so say I,” sang out Charley, in the best accord.
And then, after a few more vigorous strokes from the sculls, propelled by Tom’s muscular arms, the bow of the dinghy stranded on the sandy shore, and the two boys landed in the highest glee, without a trace of the ill-humour and despondency in which they had been apparently plunged not an hour or so before.