The Pirate City | Page 6

you have fallen is Sidi Hassan, one of the most noted and daring of the pirates on the Barbary coast. Escape from him is impossible. I know him well, and can assure you that your only hope of receiving anything that deserves the title of good treatment depends on your quiet and absolute subjection to his will. Rebellious or even independent bearing will insure your speedy and severe humiliation. We `dogs of Jews,'" continued Bacri, with a sad smile, "may seem to you to hang our heads rather low sometimes, but I have seen Christian men, as bold as you are, crawl upon the very dust before these Turks of Algiers."
"Our fate, then," said Francisco, "is, I suppose, and as I half suspected, to be slavery in that pirates' nest, Algiers?"
"I fear it is," replied the Jew, "unless Providence permits a storm to set you free; but let me correct your notion of Algiers. A pirates' nest it undoubtedly is, but there are others than pirates in the nest, and some of these are even honest men."
"Ha!" exclaimed the padrone, quickly and with bitterness; "is one of these said honest men a Jew of stalwart frame, and does his connexion with the piratical nest free him from the bonds to which I and my sons are doomed?"
"To both questions I answer yes," replied the Jew.
"Then a fig for your honesty, Master Bacri!" said Francisco, with a toss of his head, in lieu of a snap of his fingers, which in the circumstances was impossible, "for I now believe that you knocked Mariano down simply to save the life of your comrade Sidi Hassan, and that you will pocket your own share of my ship and cargo."
"I have not the power to alter your belief," said the Jew quietly, as he turned away and left the unfortunate captive to his meditations.
As the night advanced the wind continued to abate, and when morning broke, the broad breast of the Mediterranean undulated like a sheet of clear glass, on which was gradually revealed the form of a strange vessel becalmed not far from the prize.
As soon as it was sufficiently light to permit of objects being clearly seen, Sidi Hassan fired a gun and showed the Algerine flag.
"Our luck has changed," he said to his first officer, with an air of satisfaction. "Get the boats ready; we will board at once."
"She shows British colours," said the mate, regarding the vessel in question intently through his glass.
"So she does," returned the captain, "but that device won't go down with me. Board her at once, while I bring our broadside to bear."
The mate, with two boats full of armed men, soon pulled alongside the strange sail, and the pirate-vessel was brought round with her broadside to bear by means of long oars or sweeps. In a short time the boats returned with the mortifying intelligence that the papers were all right, and that the vessel, being in truth a British merchantman, was not a legitimate prize. The corsair therefore sailed away under the influence of a light breeze which had arisen.
At the time of which we write, (about sixty years ago), Algiers was under the dominion of Turkey, but exercised all the rights of an independent state. It may be described as a monstrous blot of barbarism hanging on the skirts of civilisation. It was an anomaly too, for it claimed to be an orthodox power, and was recognised as such by the nations of Europe, while in reality its chief power consisted in consummate impudence, founded on pride and ignorance of the strength of other powers, coupled with the peculiarity of its position and with the fact that the great nations were too much engaged fighting with each other to be at leisure to pay attention to it. Its rulers or Deys were most of them ignorant men, who had risen, in many cases, from the ranks of the janissaries or common Turkish soldiery, and its sole occupation was piracy--piracy pure and simple.
It did not, like other powers, find a pretext for war in the righting of a supposed or real wrong. The birds of the Pirates' Nest were much too simple in their grandeur thus to beat about the bush. They went straight to the point. Without any pretext at all they declared war with a nation when they had a mind to plunder it, and straightway set about making prizes of the merchantmen of that nation; at the same time keeping carefully clear of its cruisers. If there had been a tangible grievance, diplomacy might have set it right--but there never was any grievance, either real or imaginary. If there had been a worthy fleet that would come out and face a foe, courage and power might have settled the question--but there