The Pirate City: An Algerine Tale

by R. M. Ballantyne

“Never mind, Ally Babby,” was his friend’s consolatory remark as they left the house and returned to their hammocks; “it can’t damage your good looks, an’ ’ll prove a mighty source of amazement to the muskaities.”

Meanwhile the consul accompanied Mariano a short way on his return to town, so that the latter might not be delayed.

“I hope there is no fear of an outbreak occurring before I can get into town to-morrow,” said the consul, as they were about to part. “It is impossible that I can demand an audience of the Dey before breakfast without creating suspicion. Tell Bacri, however, that he may depend on my doing my utmost without delay to avert the evil. And now, how do you mean to return to him—for it occurs to me that although you may scale the walls easily enough, you won’t be able to retrace your way to the house of the Jew who favoured your escape?”

“Bacri had foreseen that,” replied the youth, “and has arranged to meet and guide me from a street leading south from the Bagnio, which is known to both of us.”

“He runs great risk in doing this,” said the consul; “however, he knows the outs and ins of the city well. Good-bye, and God speed you on your way.”

Mariano, who was impatient to return, at once darted away like a deer, and was soon lost to view among the aloes and cactuses that clothed the slopes of the Sahel hills.

Not long afterwards the grey light of day began to tip the domes and minarets of the pirate city, and with it began the soft hum of a general awakening—for Mohammedans are early risers, and even pirates deemed it consistent with their calling to commence the day with formal—not to say ostentatious—prayers. Any one traversing the streets at that early hour might have seen men at the fountains busy with their prescribed ablutions, while elsewhere others were standing, kneeling, or prostrating themselves, with their faces turned carefully in the direction of Mecca, their holy city.

It must not be supposed, however, as we have already remarked, that all the men of the town were pirates. That the town existed by means of piracy, and that all its chief men from the Dey downwards were pure and simple robbers, is quite consistent with the fact that there were many honest enough traders and workmen whose lot had been cast there, and whose prayers were probably very heartfelt and genuine—some of them, perchance, being an appeal for deliverance from the wretches who ruled them with a rod of iron—indeed, we might almost say, a rod of red-hot iron. Whatever the nature of their prayers, however, they were early in presenting, and remarkably particular in not omitting, them.

Down at the Marina there was a group of Christian slaves who were not behind their task-masters in this respect. In an angle of the fortifications the Padre Giovanni was kneeling by the side of a dying slave. The man had been crushed accidentally under a large piece of the rock with which the bulwarks of the harbour were being strengthened. He had been carried to the spot where he lay, and would have been left to die uncared for if Blindi Bobi had not chanced to pass that way. After administering such consolation as lay in a little weak wine and water from his flask, the eccentric but kind-hearted man had gone off in search of the Padre, who was always ready to hasten at a moment’s notice to minister to the necessity of slaves in sickness. Too often the good man’s services were of little avail, because the sick slaves were frequently kept at work until the near approach of death rendered their labours worthless; so that, when Giovanni came to comfort them, they were almost, if not quite, indifferent to all things.

On the present occasion he was too late to do more than pray that the dying man might be enabled, by the Holy Spirit, to trust in the salvation wrought out—and freely offered to sinners, even the chief—by Jesus Christ.