When Abd-el-Kader heard of Meurice’s death, he sent the most positive orders that we were to have everything we might want; and the Kait asked me what I wished for. I asked for three fowls, and for permission for Lanternier to join us. As the Kait wished to keep me alive, I obtained both my requests. It is impossible to describe the joy of poor Lanternier, who immediately set about curing me by continued and violent friction and the application of red-hot bricks to my legs, which were so completely benumbed that even when the skin was burnt I did not feel it.
All this time the Sultan was encamped to the south of Oran, at a place where there are several marabouts and some mineral springs. He had sent Milud-ben-Arrach with the cavalry to Milianah to collect tribute from the Hadjutes of the neighbouring tribes. He was to have gone among the Hadjutes himself during the month of September, but had been prevented by the revolt of the Beni-Flitas.
I heard one day that a courier had arrived with letters from Algiers, which he had delivered to the Kait. I got Bourgeois and Mardulin to carry me to his house, though certainly nothing of less importance would have induced me to be thus dragged across the public place of Mascara. The Kait was touched with pity at my deplorable condition. He told me that the courier brought a letter from Algiers, which, no doubt, would effect my deliverance. I asked to see it, and my joy was inexpressible on beholding General Rapatel’s seal. Guess, then, what was my disappointment when the Kait told me that he dared not open it, but would send it at once to the Sultan, and that Fleury should accompany the courier in order to read it, as I was too weak and ill to bear the fatigue of the journey.
Just as the courier was about to start, four new prisoners arrived; these were Monsieur Pic a settler, his German servant formerly a chasseur, a disciplinaire, and Madame Laurent a cantinière. M. Pic’s servant, who had received a ball in his hip, was left at Mascara, while the Kait sent his three companions to the Sultan with the courier and Fleury. I especially charged the latter to ask the Sultan to exchange the four new prisoners against the four Arabs who were to have served as ransom for Meurice.
On the 18th thirty Beni-Amers,—men, women, and children, arrived at Mascara, loaded with chains. They had been taken on the road to Oran, whither they were going to place themselves under the protection of the French. Abd-el-Kader ordered the two chiefs to be hung as an example to others: the rest were thrown into prison.
Fleury returned to Mascara with the other prisoners and a soldier called Devienne, who had been taken by the Arabs near Tlemsen. The Arabs who escorted them told them that they must take off the haicks which had been given to them by the Bey of Milianah, and appear before the Sultan in their Christian dresses. The prisoners obeyed, and the haicks disappeared.
After questioning the prisoners, and rewarding the Arabs who had brought them, Abd-el-Kader gave each of them two bits of money, and bade them fear nothing. Fleury then read the letter in which the Governor agreed to give fifteen Arabs in exchange for the six Christians, and the Sultan promised to send us all to Algiers at once. He also sent his command to the Kait to clothe us all afresh with red trowsers and new haicks, which the latter executed as far as he was able, but the Sultan’s store contained but one piece of cloth, which was only sufficient for three pairs of trowsers.
The Kait promised that we should set out for Algiers as soon as the two Italian prisoners, Crescenso and Francesco, had arrived from Tekedemta, whither he had already sent to fetch them. That evening, when we were all assembled, I begged the four new prisoners to tell us how they had fallen into the hands of the Arabs.
M. Pic and his servant were going towards Buffarik with a cartload of sand, when some Arabs rode towards them, crying “Run! run!” Thinking that the Arabs meant this as a friendly warning to them to escape from some impending danger, the servant took to his heels, and M. Pic was about to follow him when the Arabs fired at them, and wounded the servant in the hip. They then took the horse out of the cart, mounted their two prisoners upon it, and carried them to the Bey of Milianah.
The disciplinaire was returning rather drunk, from a merry-making at a blockhouse near Buffarik, when he was surprised by some Arabs, who took him to their tribe near the Queen’s Tomb.[6]