Part 4 (2/2)
A few of these slaves wore ponderous chains as a punishment for having been unruly--the others were unshackled. Among them stood our unfortunate friends Francisco Rimini and his sons Lucien and Mariano-- but ah! how changed! Only two days had elapsed since their arrival, yet their nearest friends might have failed to recognise them, so dishevelled were they, and their faces so covered with dust and perspiration. For their own garments had been subst.i.tuted ragged s.h.i.+rts and loose Turkish drawers reaching to below the knee. Old straw hats covered their heads, but their lower limbs and feet were naked; where not stained by blood and dust, the fairness of their skins showed how little they had been used to such exposure. Lucien's countenance wore an expression of hopeless despair; that of his father, which was wont to look so bluff and hearty, now betrayed feelings of the tenderest pity, as if he had forgotten his own sufferings in those of his children.
Mariano, on the contrary, looked so stubborn and wicked that no one could have believed it possible he had ever been a gay, kindly, light-hearted youth! Poor fellow! his high spirit had been severely tried that day, but evidently not tamed, though the blood on the back of his s.h.i.+rt showed that his drivers had made vigorous attempts to subdue him. During the heat of the day Lucien had grown faint from toil and hunger, and had received a cruel lash from one of their guardians. This had roused Mariano. He had sprung to avenge the blow, had been seized by three powerful men, lashed until he became insensible, and, on recovering, had been forced to continue his toil of carrying stones until not only all the strength, but apparently all the spirit, was taken out of him.
From this condition he was reviving slightly when he reached the market-place, and, as his strength returned, the firm pressure of his lips and contraction of his brows increased.
The slave-drivers were not slow to observe this, and two of them took the precaution to stand near him. It was at this critical moment that the poor youth suddenly beheld Angela Diego led into the market--more interesting and beautiful than ever in her sorrow--to be sold as a slave.
Mariano had been deeply touched by the sorrow and sad fate of the sisters when he first saw them on board the pirate-vessel. At this sight of the younger sister, prudence, which had retained but a slight hold of him during the day, lost command altogether. In a burst of uncontrollable indignation he sent one of his guards cras.h.i.+ng through the open doorway of the mosque, drove the other against the corner of a neighbouring house, rushed towards Sidi Ha.s.san, and delivered on the bridge of that hero's nose a blow that instantly laid him flat on the ground. At the same moment he was seized by a dozen guards, thrown down, bound, and carried off to the whipping-house, where he was bastinadoed until he felt as if bones and flesh, were one ma.s.s of tingling jelly. In this state, almost incapable of standing or walking, he was carried to the Bagnio, and thrown in among the other prisoners.
While Mariano was being conveyed away, Sidi Ha.s.san arose in a half-stupefied condition from the ground. Fortunately he was ignorant of who had knocked him down, and why he had been so treated, or he might have vented his wrath on poor Angela.
Just at that moment he was accosted by Bacri the Jew--a convenient b.u.t.t on whom to relieve himself; for the despised Israelites were treated with greater indignity in Algiers at that time than perhaps in any other part of the earth.
”Dog,” said he fiercely, ”hast thou not business enough of thine own in fleecing men, that thou shouldst interfere with me?”
”Dog though I may be,” returned Bacri, with gravity, but without a touch of injured feeling, ”I do not forget that I promised you four thousand dollars to spare the Christians, and it is that which induces me to intrude on you now.”
”Humph!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Ha.s.san, somewhat mollified; ”I verily believe that thou hast some interested and selfish motive at the bottom. However, that business is thine, not mine.”
”Whether my motive be interested or not you are well able to judge,”
returned Bacri gently, ”for the slaves are poor and helpless; they are also Christians, and you know well that the Jews have no love for the Christians; in which respect it seems to me that they bear some resemblance to the men of other creeds.”
Sidi Ha.s.san felt that there was an intended sarcasm in the last remark, but the thought of the dollars induced him to waive further discussion.
”Do you wish to sell the girl?” said Bacri in a casual way, as though it had just occurred to him.
”Ay, but I must have a good price for her,” replied the Turk.
”Name it,” said the Jew; ”my wife has need of a handmaiden just now.”
Ha.s.san named a sum much larger than he had any expectation the Jew would give. To his surprise, the other at once agreed to it.
”Why, Bacri,” he said, with a smile, as with his right hand he tenderly caressed his injured nose, ”you must have been more than usually successful in swindling of late.”
”G.o.d has recently granted me more than deserved prosperity,” returned the other.
Without further palaver the bargain was struck. Ha.s.san accompanied the Jew to his residence in one of the quaint Moorish houses of the old town. Angela was handed over to Bacri's wife, a pleasant-visaged woman of forty, and Ha.s.san returned home with his pockets well lined, his nose much swelled, and his temper greatly improved.
Bethinking him of the Dey's commands, he set out with Paulina and her infant for the residence of the British consul, which lay a short distance outside the northern wall of the town, not far from the bluff height on which, at the present day, towers the picturesque pile of Notre-Dame d'Afrique.
CHAPTER SIX.
SENDS A GLEAM OF HOPE INTO A GLOOMY REGION.
The short twilight of southern lat.i.tudes was giving place to the shades of night, when Bacri the Jew issued from the low door of his house, and threaded the narrow labyrinth of streets which compose the old town of Algiers.
The greater part of the old, or, as it is styled, the Moorish town, remains almost exactly the same at the present time that it was at the time of which our tale treats. It occupied the face of a steep hill, and was built in the form of a triangle, the apex being a fort, or ”casba,” near the summit of the hill. The base was a street of oriental houses upwards of half a mile in extent, beyond which the sea-wall, well lined with batteries, rose directly from the beach, and was washed by the spray in every breeze. All the houses facing the sea have now been taken down, and their places are occupied by wide handsome streets of French buildings; the beach and the site of the old wall being occupied by splendid quays, wharves, and terraces.
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