'Oh for a clergyman! Or if I had a Bible to read you the promises.'
'You shall have one,' said the captain, who had returned to his side. The surgeon muttered that the lad seemed as good as a parson; but Arthur heard him not, and was saying what prayers came to his mind in this stress, when, even as the captain returned, the last struggle came on. Once more Tam looked up, saying, 'Ye'll be good to puir Fareek;' and with a word more, 'Oh, Christ: will He save such as I?' all was over.
'Come away, you can do nothing more,' said the doctor. 'You want looking to yourself.'
For Arthur tottered as he tried to rise, and needed the captain's kind hand as he gained his feet. 'Sir,' he said, as the tears gushed to his eyes, 'he DOES deserve all honour-my only friend and deliverer.'
'I see,' said Captain Beresford, much moved; 'whatever he has been, he died a Christian. He shall have Christian burial. And this fellow?' pointing to poor Fareek, whose grief was taking vent in moans and sobs.
'Christian-Abyssinian, but dumb,' Arthur explained; and having his promise that all respect should be paid to poor Tam's corpse, he let the doctor lead him away, for he had now time to feel how sun-scorched and exhausted he was, with giddy, aching head, and legs cramped and stiff, arms strained and shoulders painful after his three days and nights of the boat. His thirst, too, seemed unquenchable, in spite of drinks almost unconsciously taken, and though hungry he had little will to eat.
The surgeon made him take a warm bath, and then fed him with soup, after which, on a promise of being called in due time, he consented to deposit himself in a hammock, and presently fell asleep.
When he awoke he found that clothes had been provided for him-naval uniforms; but that could not be helped, and the comfort was great. He was refreshed, but still very stiff. However, he dressed and was just ready, when the surgeon came to see whether he were in condition to be summoned, for it was near sundown, and all hands were piped up to attend poor Tam's funeral rites. His generous and faithful deed had eclipsed the memory that he was a renegade, and, indeed, it had been in such ignorance that he had had little to deny.
All the sailors stood as respectfully as if he had been one of themselves while the captain read a portion of the Burial Office. Such honours would never have been his in his native land, where at that time even Episcopalians themselves could not have ventured on any out- door rites; and Arthur was thus doubly struck and impressed, when, as the corpse, sewn in sail-cloth and heavily weighted, was launched into the blue waves, he heard the words committing the body to the deep, till the sea should give up her dead. He longed to be able to translate them to poor Fareek, who was weeping and howling so inconsolably as to attest how good a master he had lost.
Perhaps Tam's newly-found or recovered Christianity might have been put to hard shocks as to the virtues he had learnt among the Moslems. At any rate Arthur often had reason to declare in after life that the poor renegade might have put many a better-trained Christian to shame.
CHAPTER X-ON BOARD THE 'CALYPSO'
'From when this youth? His country, name, and birth declare!' SCOTT.
'You had forgotten this legacy, Mr. Hope,' said Captain Beresford, taking Arthur into his cabin, 'and, judging by its weight, it is hardly to be neglected. I put it into my locker for security.'
'Thank you, sir,' said Arthur. 'The question is whether I ought to take it. I wished for your advice.'
'I heard what passed,' said the captain. 'I should call your right as complete as if you had a will made by a half a dozen lawyers. When we get into port, a few crowns to the ship's company to drink your health, and all will be right. Will you count it?'
The folds were undone, and little piles made of the gold, but neither the captain nor Arthur were much the wiser. The purser might have computed it, but Captain Beresford did not propose this, thinking perhaps that it was safer that no report of a treasure should get abroad in the ship.
He made a good many inquiries, which he had deferred till Arthur should be in a fitter condition for answering, first about the capture and wreck, and what the young man had been able to gather about the Cabeleyzes. Then, as the replies showed that he had a gentleman before him, Captain Beresford added that he could not help asking, 'Que diable allait il faire dans cette galere?'
'Sir,' said Arthur, 'I do not know whether you will think it your duty to make me a prisoner, but I had better tell you the whole truth.'
'Oho!' said the captain; 'but you are too young! You could never have been out with-with-we'll call him the Chevalier.'
'I ran away from school,' replied Arthur, colouring. 'I was a mere boy, and I never was attainted,' explained Arthur, blushing. 'I have been with my Lord Nithsdale, and my mother thought I could safely come home, and that if I came from Sweden my brother could not think I compromised him.'
'Your brother?'
'Lord Burnside. He is at Court, in favour, they say, with King George. He is my half-brother; my mother is a Maxwell.'
'There is a Hope in garrison at Port Mahon-a captain,' said the captain. 'Perhaps he will advise you what to do if you are sick of Jacobite intrigue and mystery, and ready to serve King George.'
Arthur's face lighted up. 'Will it be James Hope of Ryelands, or Dickie Hope of the Lynn, or-?'
Captain Beresford held up his hands.
'Time must show that, my young friend,' he said, smiling. 'And now I think the officers expect you to join their mess in the gunroom.'
There Arthur found the little Chevalier strutting about in an adaptation of the smallest midshipman's uniform, and the centre of an admiring party, who were equally diverted by his consequential airs and by his accounts of his sports among the Moors. Happy fellow, he could adapt himself to any society, and was ready to be the pet and plaything of the ship's company, believing himself, when he thought of anything beyond the present, to be full on the road to his friends again.
Fareek was a much more difficult charge, for Arthur had hardly a word that he could understand. He found the poor fellow coiled up in a corner, just where he had seen his former master's remains disappear, still moaning and weeping bitterly. As Arthur called to him he looked up for a moment, then crawled forward, striking his forehead at intervals against the deck. He was about to kiss the feet of his former fellow-slave, the glittering gold, blue, and white of whose borrowed dress no doubt impressed him. Arthur hastily started back, to the amazement of the spectators, and called out a negative-one of the words sure to be first learnt. He tried to take Fareek's hand and raise him from his abject attitude; but the poor fellow continued kneeling, and not only were no words available to tell him that he was free, but it was extremely doubtful whether freedom was any boon to him. One thing, however, he did evidently understand-he pointed to the St. George's pennant with the red cross, made the sign, looked an interrogation, and on Arthur's reply, 'Christians,' and reiteration of the word 'Salem,' PEACE, he folded his arms and looked reassured.
'Ay, ay, my hearty,' said the big boatswain, 'ye've got under the old flag, and we'll soon make you see the difference. Cut out your poor tongue, have they, the rascals, and made a dummy of you? I wish my cat was about their ears! Come along with you, and you shall find what British grog is made of.'
And a remarkable friendship arose between the two, the boatswain patronising Fareek on every occasion, and roaring at him as if he were deaf as well as dumb, and Fareek appearing quite confident under his protection, and establishing a system of signs, which were fortunately a universal language. The Abyssinian evidently viewed himself as young Hope's servant or slave, probably thinking himself part of his late master's bequest, and there was no common language between them in which to explain the difference or ascertain the poor fellow's wishes. He was a slightly-made, dexterous man, probably about five and twenty years of age, and he caught up very quickly, by imitation, the care he could take of Arthur's clothes, and the habit of waiting on him at meals.
Meantime the Calypso held her course to the south-east, till the chart declared the coast to be that of Djigheli Bay, and Arthur recognised the headlands whither the unfortunate tartane had drifted to her destruction. Anchoring outside the hay, Captain Beresford sent the first lieutenant, Mr. Bullock, in the long-boat, with Arthur and a well- armed force, with instructions to offer no violence, but to reconnoitre; and if they found Mademoiselle de Bourke, or any others of the party, to do their best for their release by promises of ransom or representations of the consequences of detaining them. Arthur was prepared to offer his own piastres at once in case of need of immediate payment. He was by this time tolerably versed in the vernacular of the Mediterranean, and a cook's boy, shipped at Gibraltar, was also supposed to be capable of interpreting.
The beautiful bay, almost realising the description of AEneas' landing- place, lay before them, the still green
