Part 33 (1/2)

_Eugenius._ Ay, ay, thou half renegade! Couldst not thou go over with a purse of silver, and try whether the souls of these captives be recoverable? Even if they should have submitted to such unholy rites, I venture to say they have repented.

_Filippo._ The devil is in them if they have not.

_Eugenius._ They may become again as good Christians as before.

_Filippo._ Easily, methinks.

_Eugenius._ Not so easily; but by aid of Holy Church in the administration of indulgences.

_Filippo._ They never wanted those, whatever they want.

_Eugenius._ The corsair then is not one of those ferocious creatures which appear to connect our species with the lion and panther.

_Filippo._ By no means, Holy Father! He is an honest man; so are many of his countrymen, bating the Sacrament.

_Eugenius._ Bating! poor beguiled Filippo! Being unbaptized, they are only as the beasts that perish: nay worse: for the soul being imperishable, it must stick to their bodies at the last day, whether they will or no, and must sink with it into the fire and brimstone.

_Filippo._ Unbaptized! why, they baptize every morning.

_Eugenius._ Worse and worse! I thought they only missed the stirrup; I find they overleap the saddle. Obstinate blind reprobates! of whom it is written ... of whom it is written ... of whom, I say, it is written ... as shall be manifest before men and angels in the day of wrath.

_Filippo._ More is the pity! for they are hospitable, frank, and courteous. It is delightful to see their gardens, when one has not the weeding and irrigation of them. What fruit! what foliage! what trellises! what alcoves! what a contest of rose and jessamine for supremacy in odour! of lute and nightingale for victory in song! And how the little bright ripples of the docile brooks, the fresher for their races, leap up against one another, to look on! and how they chirrup and applaud, as if they too had a voice of some importance in these parties of pleasure that are loath to separate.

_Eugenius._ Parties of pleasure! birds, fruits, shallow-running waters, lute-players, and wantons! Parties of pleasure! and composed of these! Tell me now, Filippo, tell me truly, what complexion in general have the discreeter females of that hapless country.

_Filippo._ The colour of an orange-flower, on which an overladen bee has left a slight suffusion of her purest honey.

_Eugenius._ We must open their eyes.

_Filippo._ Knowing what excellent hides the slippers of this people are made of, I never once ventured on their less perfect theology, fearing to find it written that I should be abed on my face the next fortnight. My master had expressed his astonishment that a religion so admirable as ours was represented should be the only one in the world the precepts of which are disregarded by all conditions of men. 'Our Prophet,' said he, 'our Prophet ordered us to go forth and conquer; we did it: yours ordered you to sit quiet and forbear; and, after spitting in His face, you threw the order back into it, and fought like devils.'

_Eugenius._ The barbarians talk of our Holy Scriptures as if they understood them perfectly. The impostor they follow has nothing but fustian and rodomontade in his impudent lying book from beginning to end. I know it, Filippo, from those who have contrasted it, page by page, paragraph by paragraph, and have given the knave his due.

_Filippo._ Abdul is by no means deficient in a good opinion of his own capacity and his Prophet's all-sufficiency, but he never took me to task about my faith or his own.

_Eugenius._ How wert thou mainly occupied?

_Filippo._ I will give your Holiness a sample both of my employments and of his character. He was going one evening to a country-house, about fifteen miles from Tunis; and he ordered me to accompany him. I found there a s.p.a.cious garden, overrun with wild flowers and most luxuriant gra.s.s, in irregular tufts, according to the dryness or the humidity of the spot. The clematis overtopped the lemon and orange-trees; and the perennial pea sent forth here a pink blossom, here a purple, here a white one, and after holding (as it were) a short conversation with the humbler plants, sprang up about an old cypress, played among its branches, and mitigated its gloom. White pigeons, and others in colour like the dawn of day, looked down on us and ceased to coo, until some of their companions, in whom they had more confidence, encouraged them loudly from remoter boughs, or alighted on the shoulders of Abdul, at whose side I was standing. A few of them examined me in every position their inquisitive eyes could take; displaying all the advantages of their versatile necks, and pretending querulous fear in the midst of petulant approaches.

_Eugenius._ Is it of pigeons thou art talking, O Filippo? I hope it may be.

_Filippo._ Of Abdul's pigeons. He was fond of taming all creatures; men, horses, pigeons, equally: but he tamed them all by kindness. In this wilderness is an edifice not unlike our Italian chapter-houses built by the Lombards, with long narrow windows, high above the ground. The centre is now a bath, the waters of which, in another part of the enclosure, had supplied a fountain, at present in ruins, and covered by tufted canes, and by every variety of aquatic plants. The structure has no remains of roof: and, of six windows, one alone is unconcealed by ivy. This had been walled up long ago, and the cement in the inside of it was hard and polished. 'Lippi!' said Abdul to me, after I had long admired the place in silence, 'I leave to thy superintendence this bath and garden. Be sparing of the leaves and branches: make paths only wide enough for me. Let me see no mark of hatchet or pruning-hook, and tell the labourers that whoever takes a nest or an egg shall be impaled.'

_Eugenius._ Monster! so then he would really have impaled a poor wretch for eating a bird's egg? How disproportionate is the punishment to the offence!

_Filippo._ He efficiently checked in his slaves the desire of transgressing his command. To spare them as much as possible, I ordered them merely to open a few s.p.a.ces, and to remove the weaker trees from the stronger. Meanwhile I drew on the smooth blank window the figure of Abdul and of a beautiful girl.

_Eugenius._ Rather say handmaiden: choicer expression; more decorous.

_Filippo._ Holy Father! I have been lately so much out of practice, I take the first that comes in my way. Handmaiden I will use in preference for the future.