The Pirate City

The Pirate City, by R.M.
Ballantyne

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Title: The Pirate City An Algerine Tale
Author: R.M. Ballantyne
Release Date: June 6, 2007 [EBook #21692]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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PIRATE CITY ***

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THE PIRATE CITY, BY R.M. BALLANTINE.
A Tale of the Pirates of the City of Algiers, and their Defeat by the
British Navy.

The Time of the Action is about 1817.
The Pirate City--by RM Ballantyne
CHAPTER ONE.
OPENS THE TALE.
Some time within the first quarter of the present nineteenth century, a
little old lady--some people would even have called her a dear little old
lady--sat one afternoon in a high-backed chair beside a cottage window,
from which might be had a magnificent view of Sicilian rocks, with the
Mediterranean beyond.
This little old lady was so pleasant in all respects that an adequate
description of her is an impossibility. Her mouth was a perfect study. It
was not troubled with anything in the shape of teeth. It lay between a
delicate little down-turned nose and a soft little up-turned chin, which
two seemed as if anxious to meet in order to protect it. The wrinkles
that surrounded that mouth were innumerable, and each wrinkle was a
distinct and separate smile; so that, whether pursing or expanding, it
was at all times rippling with an expression of tender benignity.
This little old lady plays no part in our tale; nevertheless she merits
passing introduction as being the grandmother of our hero, a Sicilian
youth of nineteen, who, at the time we write of, sat on a stool at her feet
engaged in earnest conversation.
"Grandmother," said the youth in a perplexed mood, "why won't you let
me go into the Church instead of brother Lucien? I'm certain that he
does not want to, though he is fit enough, as far as education goes, and
goodness; but you know well enough that he is desperately fond of
Juliet, and she is equally desperate about him, and nothing could be
more pleasant than that they should get married."
"Tut, child, you talk nonsense," said the old lady, letting a sigh escape
from the rippling mouth. "Your father's dearest wish has always been to
see Lucien enter the Church, and although Juliet is our adopted child,

we do not intend to interfere with the wishes of her uncle the abbot,
who has offered to place her in the convent of Saint Shutemup. As to
you taking Lucien's place,"--here the mouth expanded
considerably--"ah! Mariano, you are too foolish, too giddy; better fitted
to be a sailor or soldier I should think--"
"How!" interrupted Mariano. "Do you then estimate the profession of
the soldier and sailor so low, that you think only foolish and giddy
fellows are fit for it?"
"Not so, child; but it is a school which is eminently fitted to teach
respect and obedience to foolish and giddy fellows who are pert to their
grandmothers."
"Ah! how unfair," exclaimed Mariano, with assumed solemnity; "I give
you good advice, with gravity equal to that of any priest, and yet you
call me pert. Grandmother, you are ungrateful as well as unjust. Have I
not been good to you all my life?"
"You have, my child," said the little old lady; "very good--also rather
troublesome, especially in the way of talking nonsense, and I'm sorry to
find that although your goodness continues, your troublesomeness does
not cease!"
"Well, well," replied the youth, with a sprightly toss of the head,
"Lucien and I shall enjoy at least a few weeks more of our old life on
the blue sea before he takes to musty books and I to the stool of the
clerk. Ah, why did you allow father to give us a good education? How
much more enjoyable it would have been to have lived the free life of a
fisherman--or of that pig," he said, pointing to one which had just
strayed into the garden and lain down to roll in the earth--"what happy
ignorance or ignorant happiness; what concentrated enjoyment of the
present, what perfect oblivion as to the past, what obvious disregard of
the future--"
"Ay," interrupted the little old lady, "what blissful ignorance of the
deeds of ancient heroes, of the noble achievements of great and good
men, of the adventures of Marco Polo, and Magellan, and Vasco de

Gama, over whose voyages you have so often