‘First,’ said Stephen, having opened the door for her, ‘may I ask what has become of the schooner Ringle? I have news of the very first consequence that I must communicate to Commodore Aubrey.’
‘Alas: in the last stages of that frightful blow, the Commodore, signalling from an immense distance, called the schooner to him. I gathered from those who had been talking to the corsairs who had managed to get in that a ship of the Royal Navy was dismasted and badly damaged, and Aubrey needed the schooner to help save her and tow her - presumably to Mahon. I am very sorry to give you what is, I fear, very bad news.’
‘It is bad news, about as bad as can be, without some special dispensation. Let me tell you about my mission, and you shall judge. Dr Jacob and I reached the hunting-lodge in the oasis: as you had told me, the Dey was not there but pursuing lions farther on in the Atlas. But as you had foretold, the Vizier was there: I therefore showed him your letter and explained my errand - he is perfectly fluent in French, by the way. He said that the rumour was completely unfounded, putting forward the religious differences and the Dey’s hatred of Bonaparte: finally he suggested that I should speak to Omar Pasha himself and hear his even more convincing denial. This I did, now speaking through Jacob, and the Dey too said it was great nonsense - he reviled Bonaparte and spoke of his necessary downfall. He also spoke of his admiration for Sir Sidney Smith and the Royal Navy; and he invited me to lie in wait with him for a lion the next evening, using one of a very beautiful pair of rifles that he had recently acquired. Nothing of political consequence occurred until the next day when he did indeed kill the lion, but only with his second barrel, so that when the wholly unexpected lioness charged he was unarmed: I shot her dead, at very short range. He was kind enough to say many flattering things, and he said that he should send the Vizier a direct order that no gold should pass through Algiers; and on the return journey to the hunting-lodge, looking by chance in my baggage I found the rifle I had used concealed under my spare shirt. A little later the sirocco began to blow. It rapidly increased in strength and we only reached the hunting-lodge very late: the Vizier was already in bed. Dr Jacob was lodged with a former acquaintance and, I think, fellow-Cainite who showed him the copy of a letter from the Vizier to Sheikh Ibn Hazm -,
‘The ruler who was to provide the pay for the Balkan mercenaries?’
‘Just so. A letter requiring him to recall his caravan and load the treasure aboard one of the Dey’s xebecs at Arzila, just south and west of Tangier: the xebec was already on its way and the captain’s orders were to receive the treasure and repass the Strait by night with the strong eastward current and a favourable wind, steering for Durazzo with the utmost press of sail - it is the fastest xebec in all Barbary. This is the information that I wished to give the Commodore so that he, who knows the Strait so well, might intercept the vessel.’
‘I am very sorry indeed, that you should have found the Commodore out of immediate reach. I am also very sorry to tell you that later this evening or perhaps tomorrow a new Dey will be proclaimed, Omar Pasha having by then been strangled by the executioners sent to the Khadna valley with those squadrons I mentioned earlier - strangled as his predecessor was strangled. He impaled one youth too many. An error in his calculations that I had not reckoned upon.’
Sir Peter touched the bell: the tea appeared: and when Stephen had drunk a sip he asked, ‘Do you suppose the Vizier was privy to this usurpation?’
‘I have no doubt of it at all. In the first place they were wholly incompatible: the Vizier despised Omar Pasha as an illiterate brute and the Dey despised the Vizier as a cotquean, in spite of his numerous harem, his collection of guns and his status as an important shareholder in the larger associations of corsairs. Furthermore, the Vizier privately admired Bonaparte and privately stood to receive a huge commission on Ibn Hazm’s gold. But even in so small a court as that of Algiers privacy, real privacy, scarcely exists. I can do favours on occasion, and I have a number of voluntary informants.’
‘I do not think I know the word cotquean,’ said Stephen.
‘Perhaps it is rather out of use now, but we lived in a remote part of Yorkshire and my grandfather often used it - most of his neighbours were cotqueans, particularly those that did not choose to hunt the fox or hare. He meant that they were somewhat effeminate, given to embroidery and probably to sodomy - little better than Whigs.’
After some moments of reflection Stephen said, ‘I grieve for Omar Pasha. He had some excellent qualities; he was truly generous; and I did him a shameful injustice.’
‘Come in,’ called the consul.
‘Sir,’ said the messenger, ‘you told me to warn you the moment the schooner was seen. Moussa believes she is just hull-up in the north.’
‘Shall we go and see?’ asked Sir Peter. ‘I have a telescope on the roof.’
‘Will your poor leg bear you?’
‘It has done so ever since the Ringle vanished.’
The roof, like almost all the others in the city,
