Andy now looked like a Greek monk or some pious dervish. He had let his beard grow till it stood out round his face like a jungle, and I felt it was time to take him in hand before he turned quite queer in the head. But he said, “At heart I’ve always been a good-natured fellow. My losses and sorrows have led me to understand people better than before, and I cannot see why we must be forever hurting one another. If you had seen how the renegades and janissaries treated the captive Italian boys and women-I can’t believe that the purpose of this life is witless destruction and slaughter. Brooding over these things has given me headaches that the African sun does nothing to cure. So now I punish my body for all its misdeeds by fasting, and letting the sun scorch my back.”
I seized him by the arm to lead him quickly to the baths and thence to Abu el-Kasim’s house to dress him in proper clothes. But at the gate of the kasbah Andy remembered something, and with a strange look at me he said, “I have something to show you.”
He led me past the stables to the middens, and there gave a whistle. A ragged seven-year-old boy crept from his hiding place and greeted him with a yelp of pleasure, just as a dog welcomes its master. The boy had a red velvet cap upon his head but his eyes were almost closed, so swollen were they by the bites of flies. His arms and legs were thin and crooked, and his dull expression showed him to be feeble minded. Nevertheless Andy took him and tossed him into the air until he howled with delight, then gave him a piece of bread and a bunch of onions from the wallet at his girdle. At length he said to me, “Give him an asper! But it must be newly minted and shiny.”
I did so, in the name of the Compassionate. The boy looked at Andy, who nodded, then disappeared behind the heaps of garbage. He soon returned and after another glance at Andy he gave me in return a dirty pebble. I took it to please him, and pretended to put it in my purse. Then wearying of the game I urged Andy to come away. He patted the boy on the head, nodded to him, and came. As we walked he spoke in a low voice as if to himself, telling how he had rescued the boy from the janissaries at the time of the capture of the kasbah, and given him into the care of the grooms. Thrusting his hand into his wallet he drew out a handful of dirty little pebbles like the one the boy had given me. They were about the size of a finger tip. Showing them to me he remarked, “He’s not ungrateful. Every time I bring him food he gives me one of these, and he will give me as many as I like for really shiny aspers.”
I now began to feel grave fears for Andy’s reason, and said, “Dear Andy, you must have a touch of the sun! You don’t mean you exchange silver aspers for the rubbish that boy gives you, and keep it in your purse?”
I was about to throw away the stone that I’d been given, as the fowl droppings that stuck to it dirtied my fingers. But Andy held my arm urgently and said, “Spit on the stone and rub it on your sleeve!”
I had no wish to soil my fine kaftan, yet I did as he asked, and when I had rubbed the stone it began to shine like a piece of polished glass. A queer thrill ran through me, though I dared not believe I held a jewel in my hand. One of that size would have been worth many thousand ducats.
“Just a piece of glass,” I said doubtfully.
“So I thought. But I happened to show the smallest of these stones to a trustworthy Jew in the bazaar, and he at once offered me fifty ducats for it. This showed me that it was worth at least five hundred, and I put it away again. I laugh sometimes to think what an enormous fortune is rattling about in my purse.”
I still found it hard to believe him until suddenly I remembered the boy’s red velvet cap. I clapped my hand to my forehead and cried, “Allah is indeed merciful! That idiot boy no doubt had time to ransack the empty
I told Andy what the Jewish merchant in Istanbul had confided to me, and suggested that we should return to the boy at once and get the rest of the two hundred from him. Andy said, “It won’t do, for the boy never parts with more than one or two at a time. He’s as cunning as a fox, for all his idiocy, and though I’ve spied upon him once or twice I have never been able to find his hiding place.”
“The matter is somewhat complicated,” I said, “and must be carefully considered. The diamonds being Muley- Hassan’s property form part of Khaireddin’s spoils of war; that’s to say they belong to the Sultan. We should get little reward for finding them; indeed they would only seek to extort the rest of the two hundred stones and suspect us of dishonesty if we were simple enough to hand over no more than those that by the grace of Allah have fallen into our hands. Yet we should be mad to leave the rest of this great fortune lying in the dirt.”
Such was also Andy’s opinion. We dared not breathe a word to anyone of our discovery, but postponed our journey from day to day. Every time we visited the boy he gave us two or three stones, for which we dared not offer more than one asper each, lest the sums he received should attract attention. However, I spoke to the Imam of Jamin’s mosque and left with him a sum sufficient for the support and schooling of the boy. If his intellect proved inadequate for reading and writing he was to be trained in some handicraft by which he could earn his living.
At the end of June, when we had collected one hundred and ninety- seven stones, the boy sadly showed us his empty hands, and though we visited him several times afterward, pleading and threatening, it was clear that either he had lost the three remaining stones or that Muley- Hassan had counted them wrongly. We then washed the boy, dressed him in good clothes, and led him to the Imam of the mosque, though he struggled and resisted with all his strength and would not be quieted even by Andy’s kindly words. Having thus salved our consciences we bade a hasty farewell to Abu el-Kasim, meaning to make for the harbor and take ship for Istanbul.
A distant boom froze us to the spot, and soon flocks of terrified fugitives were streaming into the city shrieking that the Emperor’s fleet had appeared before the fortress of La Goletta. The harbor was thus blockaded, and under cover of the unceasing cannonade the Spaniards landed many troops. My own greed had trapped me. I blamed myself bitterly for not having been content with fewer stones, so that I might have sailed from Tunis while there was yet time.
It was small comfort to learn that the Emperor had arrived at least a fortnight before he was expected, and now held the greater part of Khaireddin’s fleet trapped and helpless within the blockaded harbor. Only fifteen of his lightest galleys were able to seek shelter at other points along the coast.
We hastened to La Goletta to discover how true these reports were, and whether we might yet run the blockade in one of Khaireddin’s vessels. But from the tower we beheld the enemy fleet of not less than three hundred sail spread over the waters as far as the eye could see. Only a cannon-shot away, a large group of German pikemen were pouring ashore, and these at once began to throw up ramparts and palisades to protect their beachhead. To prevent Khaireddin’s fleet from breaking out, the great galleys of the Knights of St. John lay in the forefront; behind them I beheld the terrible carrack that like a floating hill rose high above the other vessels. From its four rows of gaping gun ports protruded the dark mouth of cannon. Doria’s slender war galleys, the sturdy caravels of Portugal, and Neapolitan galleasses covered the calm surface of the sea, and in the midst of them all rode the Emperor’s mighty flagship with its four banks of oars and its gilded pavilion gleaming on the high poop deck.
To Khaireddin’s credit be it said that the hour of danger brought out the best in him. Forgotten was his empty boasting; his bearing was assured, he drew in his belly, and in thunderous tones issued the necessary orders. The command of the Goletta fortress he entrusted to Sinan the Jew with six thousand picked janissaries-almost too large a garrison to be crammed into tower and fortifications. He sent Arabian and Moorish cavalry to oppose the landings and gain time. They could not prevent them, but they could at least keep the Imperial troops on the defensive both day and night.
Not until the camp had been strongly fortified did the invaders mount their guns and open the bombardment of La Goletta, and after this the cavalry dared not venture within range. And now the incessant, appalling din of artillery fire made life within the fort so unendurable that I left Andy on the battlements to watch with joyful wonder the progress of the conflict, and returned in deep dejection to Tunis.
Retreat by land was unthinkable, for the wild Berbers, whose hostility Khaireddin had aroused, controlled the roads and robbed all who sought to flee from the city. Muley-Hassan himself was not far away, though like a cautious man he had not yet joined the Imperial troops, despite his promises. But Charles had no need of his help, for his own army consisted of thirty thousand seasoned German, Spanish, and Italian mercenaries, and his artillery kept the area about La Goletta under continuous and accurate fire, so that many of Sinan’s Turkish janissaries were daily carried up the short way to Paradise. And every day fresh vessels brought warriors from all over Christendom to join the Emperor and in his sight win imperishable glory in the fight against the infidel.
Three weeks of savage warfare ensued, and despite the courage and religious zeal of the Moslem defenders only Abu el-Kasim refused to believe that Allah would give Christians the victory and through them bring Muley- Hassan back to power. And so I saw how even a shrewd, cunning man like Abu could be so blinded by happiness that for the sake of his wife and son he believed to the last only what he wished to believe.
