The Pirate City Part 26

"W'at noos?" demanded Ali.

"W'y, the noos that the war betwane this Raigincy of Algiers an' Tunis is goin' on raither favourable, and that forty mules were brought in this morning loaded with human heads."

"Oh yes, I heers dat," replied Ali carelessly, as he filled his pipe from Flaggan's tobacco-pouch. "I sees all de hids as I comes up de road dis marnin'. Twinty more mule hims 'xpec' for come in de morrer mornin'."

"You don't mane it!" said Ted. "They seem to be free of their heads away at Tunis.--But there's more noos than that," continued the seaman, calmly scanning the seaward horizon, as he filled his pipe. "Have 'ee heard that the Dey Omar has cut off the head of Sidi Ha.s.san for nothin'

worse than a touch of imperliteness?"

"No, I not heers dat," answered Ali, with a look of interest. "I's werry glad."

"Glad! why so?"

"'Cos Sidi Ha.s.san hims gib me reason to 'xpec' hims cut off _my_ hid soonerer or laterer."

"It's my opinion," said Flaggan, with a peculiar smile, "that if ye go cutting away at one another like that, soonerer or laterer you'll all be like the converse o' the Kilkenny cats, and have nothin' left of 'ee but your heads stickin' on spikes above your gates and walls."

"Pr'aps so," was Ali's complacent reply.

At this point the conversation was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Angela and her sister Paulina, who carried in her arms the little Angelina. Following them at some distance came the amiable Zubby, bearing aloft on her shoulder--as being the place of greatest safety-- Colonel Langley's youngest hope. Master Jim's back-bone had not at that time attained sufficient stiffness to warrant the position, but Zubby never thought of that; and Master Jim consequently complained in a series of yells and wry faces; but Zubby, being ignorant of the state of his feelings, did not mind that. Master Jim soon became purple in the visage, but Zubby, looking up at him, and supposing the effect to be the result of an unusual flow of spirits, rather enjoyed that than otherwise.

"Pr'aps I may be excused for the observation," said Flaggan, removing his pipe for a moment, and gazing over Paulina's shoulder, "but if that youngster ain't being strangulated he looks oncommon--"

A scream from Paulina, as she rushed back and bestowed on Zubby a box on the ear cut short the seaman's observation.

"Have I not told you again and again, girl, _never_ to put the child on your shoulder?"

"Oh, mim, me forgit," exclaimed the penitent Zaharian.

"That will keep you in remembrance, then," said Paulina, giving her another slap.

Her own little one woke up at this point and crowed, being too young, we presume, to laugh.

"Oh, Signor Flaggan," said Angela earnestly, while her sister entered into converse with the interpreter, "have you heers yit 'bout de Signors Rimini?"

Angela had already acquired a very slight amount of broken English, which tumbled neatly from her pretty lips.

"Whist, cushla, whist!" interrupted the seaman, leading the girls slowly aside; "ye mustn't spake out so plain afore that rascal Ally Babby, for though he's a good enough soul whin asleep, I do belave he's as big a thafe and liar as any wan of his antecessors or descendants from Adam to Moses back'ard an' for'ard. What, now, an' I'll tell 'ee. I _have_ heerd about 'em. There's bin no end a' sbirros--them's the pleecemen, you know miss--scourin' the country after them; but don't look so scared-like, cushla, for they ain't found 'em yet, an' that feller Bacri, who, in my opinion, is the honestest man among the whole bilin'

of 'em, he's bin an' found out w'ere they're hidin', an--" here the seaman's voice descended to a hoa.r.s.e whisper, while his eyes and wrinkled forehead spoke volumes--"an' he's put me in commission to go an help 'em!"

"Dear man!" exclaimed Angela.

"Which,--Bacri or me?" asked Flaggan.

"Bacri, o' course," returned Angela, with a little laugh.

Flaggan nodded significantly.

"Yes, he _is_ a dear man w'en you go to his shop; but he's as chape as the most lib'ral Christian w'en he's wanted to go an' do a good turn to any one."

"And yoo sure," asked the girl, with rekindled earnestness in her large black eyes, "dat _all_ Rimini safe--Francisco an' Mar--"

"Ah, all safe,--Mariano inclusive," said the sailor, with an intelligent nod. "I sees how the land lies. Depend on it that young feller ain't likely to part with his skin without a pretty stiffish spurt for it."

Although much of Flaggan's language was incomprehensible to the pretty Sicilian, it was sufficiently clear to her sharp intelligence to enable her to follow the drift of his meaning; she blushed, as she turned away her head with a queen-like grace peculiarly Italian, and said--

"When yoo go hoff--to seek?"

"This werry minit," answered the sailor. "In fact I was just castin'

about in my mind w'en you came up how I could best throw Ally Babby off the scent as to w'ere I was goin'."

"Me manages dat for yoo," said Angela, with a bright significant smile, as she turned and called to the interpreter.

Ali, who was rather fond of female society, at once advanced with a bow of gracious orientality.

"Com here, Ali; yoo most 'xplain de flowers me bring hom yiserday."

The polite Moor at once followed the pretty Italian, leaving Ted Flaggan with her sister.

"You'll excuse me, ma'am, if I bids you raither an abrup' good marnin'.

It's business I have on me hands that won't kape nohow."

Leaving Paulina in some surprise, the blunt seaman put his hands in his pockets, and went off whistling in the direction of Algiers. Turning aside before reaching the town, he ascended the Frais Vallon some distance, meeting with a few Arabs and one or two soldiers, none of whom, however, took much notice of him, as his stalwart figure and eccentric bearing and behaviour had become by that time familiar to most of the inhabitants of the town. It was known, moreover, that he was at the time under the protection of the British consul, and that he possessed another powerful protector in the shape of a short, heavy bludgeon, which he always carried un.o.btrusively with its head in the ample pouch of his pea-jacket.

As he proceeded up the valley, and, gradually pa.s.sing from the broad road which had been formed by Christian slaves, to the narrow path at its somewhat rugged head, which had been made by goats, he grew more careless in his walk and rollicking in his air. At last he began to smile benignantly, and to address to himself a running commentary on things in general.

"You've got a fine time of it here all to yersilf, Mister Flaggan. Ah, it's little the Dey knows what yer after, me boy, or it's the last day ye'd have to call yer own. Well, now, it's more like a drame than anything I knows on. What wid Turks an' Moors an' Jews, an' white slaves of every lingo under the sun, I can't rightly make out to remimber which it is--Europe, Asia, Afriky, or Ameriky--that I'm livin'

in! Never mind, yer all right wid that blissid cownsl at yer back, an'

this purty little thing in yer pokit."

He became silent, and seemed a little perplexed at this point, looking about as if in search of something.

"Coorious; I thought it was here I left it; but I niver had a good mimory for locality. Och! the number of times I was used to miss the way to school in Ould Ireland, though I thravelled it so often and knowed it so well! Surely an' it worn't under this rock I putt it, it must have bin under a relation. Faix, an' it was. Here ye are, me hearty, come along--hoop!"

Saying this, he gave a powerful tug at something under the rock in question, and drew forth a canvas bag or wallet, which had the appearance of being well filled.

Slinging this across his shoulder, Ted Flaggan pursued his way, moralising as he went, until he came to a rugged hollow among the hills, in which was a chaos of large stones, mingled with scrubby bushes. Here he paused again, and the wrinkles of perplexity returned to his brow, as he peered hither and thither.

Presently he observed a sharp-edged rock, which, projecting upwards, touched, as it were, the sky-line behind it. Moving to the right until he brought this rock exactly in line with another prominent boulder that lay beyond it, he advanced for about fifty yards, and then, stopping, looked cautiously round among the bushes.

"It must be hereabouts," he muttered, "for the Jew was werry partikler, an' bid me be partikler likewise, seein' that the hole is well hid, an'

wan is apt to come on it raither--hah!"

Suddenly poor Ted fell headlong into the very hole in question, and would infallibly have broken his neck, if he had not happened to descend on the shoulders of a man who, crouched at the bottom of the hole, had been listening intently to the sound of his approach, and who now seized his throat in a grip that was obviously not that of a child!

The British tar was not slow to return the compliment with a grasp that was still less childlike--at the same time he gasped in much anxiety--

"Howld on, ye spalpeen, it's after yersilf I've come, sure; what, _won't_ ye let go--eh?"

It was quite evident, from the tightening of the grip, that Mariano had no intention of letting go, for the good reason that, not understanding a word of what was said, he regarded the seaman as an enemy. Feeling rather than seeing this, for the hole was deep and dark, Flaggan was under the necessity of showing fight in earnest, and there is no saying what would have been the result had not Lucien suddenly appeared from the interior of a subterranean cavern with which the hole communicated.