"Harken, my friend," the commodore said sharply, "I mean what I say. We're not going to have the rector bothered. We don't know your business in America, and we're not inquiring into it. In return, we ask you to let us mind our own affairs. If you know what's good for you, you'll stop hounding the minister for his secret. Science be blowed! Art be hanged!"
Alexander and I, David Forsyth, listened with eyes popping. Orphans we were, adopted by Dr. Eccleston, our mother's rector. My father—as brave a sailor as ever drew breath, Commodore Barney often assured us—had been killed on board the commodore's schooner Hyder Ally, while protecting the shipping in the Delaware River from British frigates during the Revolutionary War. My mother, while father was at sea, had helped to nurse the sick people of Baltimore, and had herself died of the pestilence. Dr. Eccleston, a widower, assumed the care of Alexander and myself.
Alexander, springing up like Jack's bean-vine, yet growing in brawn and manliness as his height increased, was my elder by a number of years. He was much taller than I, yet I was growing too and had hopes of reaching, by the time I was sixteen, the chalk mark on our wall that showed Alexander to be five feet, ten inches high.
It was on a dock in Baltimore that this talk took place. The Egyptian Murad had come to our city from Washington. What his business was no one could tell. Some said that he was a Turkish diplomat. Others said that he was a spy for the Barbary rulers. He attended services at the rector's church, and had told someone that he was a native of Alexandria, Egypt. He had embraced the Christian religion, he said, and had been so persecuted by the indignant Moslems that he had left Egypt for America. He appeared to have plenty of means, and, because there was such an air of romance about him, the people of Baltimore accepted him without much questioning, and were, indeed, rather proud that they had a man of mystery among them.
Our presence on the pier was due to the arrival of Alexander's ship, The Three Friends, from England. Alexander, after begging Dr. Eccleston in vain to permit him to make a sea voyage, had taken French leave. When news reached our house that The Three Friends had come into port, and that Alexander was one of the crew, we hurried down to greet him. The rector was angry and affectionate. The commodore was proud of the boy. As for me, I regarded Alexander as Ulysses was doubtless regarded by the boys of his home town when he returned from his wanderings.
It was the cargo of The Three Friends that caused the discussion, and that led the rector to open a closed chapter in his life. The ship had brought flower-patterned silken gowns, crimson taffetas, pearl necklaces, and other exquisite articles esteemed by women; and silk stockings, brilliant scarfs, beaver hats and scarlet cloaks for the men. The people welcomed these articles. The men had raised tobacco, caught fish, and gathered furs that they might buy for their families these rare luxuries from Europe. There were also, in the cargo, chairs of Russian leather, damask napkins, superb clocks, silver candlesticks and tankards, and a wealth of treasure of this nature.
Alexander's special gift for the commodore was a pipe. To the rector he gave a curious-shaped little bottle.
"I found it in a curio shop in London," he said. "The proprietor told me that it had been found in an Egyptian tomb."
Dr. Eccleston turned pale. Then, recovering himself, he took the present and held it towards us with what seemed to be real appreciation. I learned later that his pallor was due to the memories the queer little bottle awakened.
"Bless me!" he said, "it's a lacrimatory—a tear-bottle! I found many a one while I was excavating in Egypt. Some say that they are made to hold the tears of mourners, but scholars will tell you that they are after all but receptacles for perfume and ointments."