Compassionate... My impression is that the Vizier was so sure that his friend Mustafa would be elected that he could do whatever he chose to do with impunity; and that he has now delivered himself to you, bound hand and foot.’
Stephen considered, nodded, and then, bringing out another paper he said, ‘And may I beg you to read this as well?’
‘It acknowledges receipt of four English gold coins of adequate weight in payment for two young Franks, male and female, warranted virgin: it is dated, sealed and signed in due form.’
‘Thank you: I did not want them to be snatched away, reclaimed: they have had quite enough to bear as it is.’ He looked with intense admiration at his rifle for a while and then asked when they were to meet Abdul Reis, the corsair.
‘We could go whenever you choose. The inner harbour is only a few steps from the Gate of Woe.’
‘Then the children can come too. I shall confide this to the good Fatima’s care’ - tapping the wrapped-up gun - ‘and then we can go.’
The street was extremely narrow and the balconies almost touched overhead: parts of it were encumbered with sheep, goats, horsemen, and Algerine children playing a game that required a great deal of running and screeching. Many of them looked remarkably like Mona and Kevin, who were of the black-haired Irish, and they wore the same kind of tunics. Then, working past three heavily-laden and exceptionally ill-natured camels, Stephen, Jacob and the children were suddenly through the gate, and there was the great sky above them and the sea stretching away and away, windwhitened still, but much less so. And just this side of its northern limit, Ringle beating in for the shore, just visible from the inner harbour’s wall, and recognizable to one who knew her very well.
The children shied extremely at the sight of the galleys that filled the inner port; they fell silent, and each grasped one of Stephen’s hands. The Reis, a formidable great redbearded figure, was markedly affable to Jacob, showing him the arrangement and the ordering of his handsome craft: he would almost certainly set out for Sardinia when the sailmaker brought the new lateen.
‘They do not mean to row, then?’ asked Stephen, when this had been explained to him.
‘Oh no: they only use their oars when the wind does not serve: at present it serves perfectly for any voyage to a little north of east, to north itself, and a little north of west, particularly as the seas are diminishing every half hour.’
‘Dear Amos, pray ask him whether that vessel on the horizon that is turning so valiantly into the wind will eventually reach this port.’
Jacob’s question to the Reis was interrupted by the coming of the coal-black sailmaker with two pale Sclavonians, lightly chained but heavily burdened; but eventually, when the new lateen was bent to its long, long tapering yard, Abdul looked out to sea, smiled at the sight of her coming about so briskly on the larboard tack, and said, ‘The little American schooner- I have seen her before, the frigate’s tender: yes, with the wind lessening like this, she may get in by moonrise - in the early part of the night at all events.’
Stephen said, ‘Jacob, if I do not mistake, she will soon be almost exactly in the galley’s path, steering for Sardinia: if the Reis would put us aboard her I will give him any sum you think proper. These few hours are so very precious.’
‘I am so nearly certain of it that I shall hurry back, settle with Fatima, and bring our belongings,’ said Jacob. He made the request, with joined hands, received an amiable smile, and hurried away.
Orders, cries, in much the same peremptory tone usual in the Royal Navy but sometimes with an additional Moorish howl; and as soon as Jacob, helped by Achmet, had put their meagre luggage aboard, the galley began its smooth glide towards the harbour’s mouth: the silent children stood pressed against Stephen’s side, for although this was not a raiding voyage with the galley full of boarders but an ordinary mercantile carrying and fetching of goods, the diminished crew was still made up of right corsairs, for whom an habitual brutish ferocity of expression was as much a part of their equipment as the knives and pistols in their belts.
The open sea. The Reis put the helm amidships, loosed the sheet and attended to Jacob’s further explanation. His red beard opened in a laugh and he said, ‘If your friend will guarantee that the schooner will not fire upon us, I will put you aboard for the love of God.’
When this was relayed to him, Stephen bowed repeatedly to the Reis and said to Jacob, ‘Could I climb on to some eminence and wave, let us say a handkerchief, when we are nearer, to show our peaceable intent?’
‘By all means, if you can find a suitable eminence and remain firmly attached to it in spite of all this heinous pitching.’
Stephen gazed about the unfamiliar rigging: there was a sort of box abaft the masthead, but there seemed no way up to it but
