Day after day passed by, and no account could we gain of poor Captain Stenning. It was very clear, also, that if we did, we should not be able to obtain his liberation by force. At last one day the captain sent for me.
“Williams,” said he, “I have had news of one of the Dolphin’s people, if not of Captain Stenning himself. I must myself go and see him, and I want a companion in whom I have perfect confidence. As you are a steady, sensible man, with good nerve, I shall be glad to take you with me, if you are willing to accompany me. I should probably have taken Poplar, but his figure is so conspicuous that he would have been remarked.”
I was much pleased with the way in which he spoke of me, and I told him that I was ready to follow wherever he chose to lead the way.
“That is the spirit I expected to find in you,” he replied.
“It is, however, right that you should understand that there is considerable danger in the expedition; for if our errand was to be discovered, we should certainly be sacrificed to the fury of the Moors.”
“I’ve no fear about that, sir,” said I. “A man cannot expect to be always able to do what is right without running some risk and taking some trouble.”
Sidy that evening brought us off some Moorish clothes, in which the captain and I rigged ourselves out. We certainly did look two funny figures, I thought, as we turned ourselves round and round in them. Sidy had not forgotten a couple of long knives, to which the captain added a brace of pistols a piece. I was very glad it was dusk when we left the ship, for I should not have liked my shipmates to have seen me with my bare legs and slippers, and a dirty blanket over my head just like an old Irishwoman.
A shore-boat was alongside—a sort of canoe turned up at both ends, and flat-bottomed. An old Moor sat in her. Sidy had bribed him to put us on shore, and to ask no questions. He told him that we were Moors, who had had business on board the brig, and that we desired to land without notice. He accordingly pulled to an unfrequented part of the harbour, and we stepped on shore, as we believed, unnoticed. The captain and Sidy led the way, I following in the character of a servant. Of course, if spoken to, I was to be dumb. We passed along a narrow sandy road, with low stone walls on either side skirting the town, till we arrived at the entrance of a house of somewhat larger dimensions than those of the neighbouring edifices. This, I found, was the residence of a German renegade and a merchant, who had, by Sidy’s means, been bribed to assist us.
We were ushered into his presence as Moorish guests come to visit him. He was seated cross-legged on a cushion at one end of a room, with a large pipe by his side. The apartment was not very finely furnished, seeing that it had little else in it besides a few other cushions like the one he sat on. Certainly he looked exactly like an old Moor, and I could not persuade myself that he was not one. He invited us to sit down; which the captain and Sidy did near him, while I tucked my legs under me at a distance. After he had bowed and talked a little through the interpreter, he clapped his hands, and some slaves brought each of us a pipe—not an unpleasant thing just then to my taste. Again he clapped his hands, and the slaves brought in some low, odd, little tables, one of which was placed before each of us. There was a bowl of porridge, and some plates with little lumps of fried meat, and rice, and dates, but not a drop of grog or liquor of any sort. Afterwards, however, coffee was brought to us in cups scarcely bigger than thimbles; but it did little more than just warm up my tongue. As soon as the slaves had withdrawn, I was not a little surprised to hear the seeming Moor address the captain in tolerable English.
“So you want to find one of your captured countrymen?” said he. “Well, to-morrow morning I start on a journey to visit a friend who has one as a slave. His description answers that of him whom you seek. I will obtain for you a short conversation with him. You must contrive the means of rescuing him. I can do no more.”