The Middy and the Moors - Robert Michael Ballantyne (best biographies to read .txt) 📗

Peter the Great left the room with a brave effort to suppress a groan; while our middy followed with an equally valorous determination not to limp. In both efforts they were but partially successful.

As Peter had prophesied, Ben-Ahmed did indeed leave no stone unturned to recover Hester Sommers, but there was one consideration which checked him a good deal, and prevented his undertaking the search as openly as he wished, and that was the fear that the Dey himself might get wind of what he was about, and so become inquisitive as to the cause of the stir which so noted a man was making about a runaway slave. For Ben-Ahmed feared—and so did Osman—that if the Dey saw Hester he might want to introduce her into his own household.

The caution which they had therefore to observe in prosecuting the search was all in favour of the runaway.

As time passed by, Hester, alias Geo’giana, began to feel more at ease in her poor abode and among her new friends, who, although unrefined in manners, were full to overflowing with the milk of human kindness, so that at last the unfortunate English girl began to entertain positive affection for Mrs Lilly and her black handmaiden.

She also began to feel more at ease in traversing the intricate streets of the city, for the crowds that passed her daily had evidently too much to do attending to their own business to bestow more than an indifferent glance at two negro girls. And if the features of one of the two was not according to the familiar negro type, it is probable that all the inhabitants of Algiers were aware of the fact that some of the tribes of black people in the interior of Africa possess the well-formed features and comparatively thin lips of Europeans.

As Hester’s anxieties about herself began to abate, however, her desire to find out where and how her father was became more and more intense. But the poor child was doomed to many months of hope deferred before that desire was gratified.

Peter the Great did indeed make a few efforts to meet with him again—sometimes in company with George Foster, more frequently alone, and occasionally he visited Hester—having been informed by his sister Dinah where to find her—in order to tell of his want of success, and to comfort her with earnest assurances that he would “neber forsake her,” but would keep up a constant look-out for her fadder an’ an eye on herself.

Consideration for the girl’s safety rendered it necessary that these visits should be few and far between, and, of course, owing to the same necessity, our middy was not permitted to visit her at all. Indeed, Peter refused to tell him even where she was hiding, all the information he condescended to give being that she was safe.

“You see, my dear,” said Peter to Hester, in a paternal tone, on the occasion of the first of these visits, “if I was to come yar oftin, massa—spec’ally Osman—would ’gin to wonder, an’ de moment a man ’gins to wonder he ’gins to suspec’, an’ den he ’gins to watch; an’ if it comes to dat it’s all up wid you an’ me. So you mus’ jest keep close an’ say nuffin till de tide ’gins to turn an’ de wind blow fair. De good Lord kin turn wind an’ tide when He likes, so keep your heart up, Geo’giana!”

As he uttered the last word the negro put his great hand on the girl’s shoulder and patted it.

“What a good name Geo’giana am,” he continued, bringing his eyes to bear on the slender little black creature before him; “an’ what a good nigger you would make if on’y you had an elegant flat nose an’ bootiful thick hips. Neber mind, you’s better lookin’ dan Sally, anyhow, an’ no mortal could guess who you was, eben if he was told to look hard at you!”

“But oh, Peter, this is such an anxious, weary life,” began Hester, with a trembling lip.

“Now, hold on dar!” interrupted the negro, almost sternly; “you mus’ not cry, whateber you do, for it washes off de black. You mus’ larn to cumtroul your feelin’s.”

“I will try,” returned Hester, attempting to smile. “But it is not that I am discontented with my lot, for they are as kind to me here as if they were my mother and sister, and I like doing the embroidery work very much—it’s not that. It is the weary waiting, and hoping for, and expecting news of my darling father—news which never comes.”

“Now, don’t you t’ink like dat, Geo’giana, but larn to submit—submit—das de word. De news’ll come all in good time. An’ news allers comes in a heap—suddently, so to speak. It neber comes slow. Now, look yar. I wants you to make me a solum promise.”

“What is that?” asked Hester, smiling in spite of herself at the intensity of her dark friend’s look and manner.

“It am dis. Dat you will neber look surprised, nor speak surprised, no matter howeber much you may feel surprised.”

“You impose a difficult task on me, Peter.”

“Ob course I do, Geo’giana, but as your life—an’ p’r’aps mine, but dat ain’t much—depends on it, you’ll see de needcessity.”

“I will certainly try—for your sake as well as my own,” returned Hester fervently.

“Well, I t’ink you will, but it ain’t easy, an’ I’ll test you some day.”

It was more than a month after that before Peter the Great paid her another visit, and, to the poor girl’s grief, he still came without news of her father. He had been all over the Kasba, he said, and many other places where the slaves worked, but he meant to persevere. The city was big, and it would take time, but “Geo’giana” was to cheer up, for he would neber gib in.

One morning Peter announced to Foster that he was going into town to make purchases, and he wanted his assistance to carry the basket.

“Are we going to make another search for poor Mr Sommers?” asked the middy, as he walked along the road holding one handle of the empty basket.

“No, we’s got no time for dat to-day. I mus’ be back early. Got time on’y for one call on a friend ob mine. Das all.”

As the negro did not seem inclined for conversation, Foster forebore to trouble him, but observed, without remarking on the circumstance, that, instead of taking their accustomed way to the market-place, they passed along many narrow, steep, and intricate streets until they reached what the midshipman conceived to be the very heart of the city.

“Dis am de house ob my friend,” said Peter, stopping in front of an opening which descended into a cellar. “Foller me, Geo’ge, an’ bring down de baskit wid you. Hallo, Missis Lilly! Is you widin?”

“Hi! Das you, Peter de Great?” came in shrill tones from below as they descended.

“Dumb!” exclaimed Peter, with peculiar emphasis on reaching the cellar. “How you do, Missis Lilly? Oberjoyed to see you lookin’ so fresh. Just looked in to ax how you’s gettin’ along.”

Need we say that Peter’s warning word was not thrown away on Hester Sommers, who was seated in her corner embroidering with gold thread a pair of red morocco slippers. But, forewarned though she was, her presence of mind was put to a tremendous test when, all unexpectedly, George Foster descended the steps and stood before her. Fortunately, while the youth was bestowing a hearty nautical greeting on Mrs Lilly—for his greeting was always hearty, as well to new acquaintances as to old friends—Hester had time to bend over her work and thus conceal the sudden pallor followed by an equally sudden flush which changed her complexion from a bluish grey to a burnt sienna. When George turned to glance carelessly at her she was totally absorbed in the slipper.

The negro watched the midshipman’s glance with keen interest. When he saw that only a passing look was bestowed on Hester, and that he then turned his eyes with some interest to the hole where Sally was pounding coffee and gasping away with her wonted energy, he said to himself mentally, “Ho, Dinah, but you am a cleber woman! Geo’ge don’t rignise her more’n if she was a rigler coloured gal! I do b’lieve her own fadder wouldn’t know her!”

He then proceeded to have a talk with Mrs Lilly, and while he was thus engaged the middy, who had an inquiring disposition, began to look round the cellar and take mental-artistic notes of its appearance. Then he went up to Hester, and, taking up one of the finished slippers, examined it.

“Most beautiful! Exquisite!” he said. “Does it take you long to do this sort of thing?”

The girl did not reply.

“She’s dumb!” said Peter quickly.

“Ah, poor thing!” returned Foster, in a voice of pity. “Deaf, too, I suppose?”

“Well, I don’t know as to dat, Geo’ge.”

“Is this one dumb too?” asked the middy, pointing to the coffee-hole.

“Oh dear no!” interposed Lilly. “Sally a’n’t dumb; she’s awrful sharp with ’er tongue!”

“She ought to be deaf anyhow, considering the row she kicks up down there!”

“Come now, Geo’ge, it’s time we was goin’. So pick up de baskit an’ go ahead.”

Bidding Mrs Lilly an affectionate adieu, the two shaves left the cellar, to the intense relief of poor Hester, who scarce knew whether to laugh or cry over the visit. She had been so eagerly anxious to speak to Foster, yet had managed to keep her promise in spite of the peculiarly trying circumstances.

“Peter,” said the middy, when they had got well out of the town on their way home, “what made you say ‘dumb’ so emphatically when you descended into that cellar?”

“Did I say ‘dumb?’” returned the negro, with an inquiring look at the clouds.

“You certainly did.”

“’Phatically, too?”

“Yes, most emphatically.”

“Well, now, das most remarkably strange!”

“Not so strange as my finding Hester Sommers in a coal-hole making golden slippers!”

At this Peter set down the basket, threw back his head, and took a prolonged silent laugh.

“Now dat is de strangest t’ing ob all. Didn’t I t’ink you not rignise her one bit!”

“Peter,” returned the midshipman gravely, “you ought to know from experience that true love pierces every disguise.”

“Das troo, Geo’ge,” said Peter, as he lifted his end of the basket and resumed the journey. “Lub is a wonderful t’ing, an’ I ain’t sure what might come ob it if I was took unawares to see my Angelica arter she’d bin painted white. But dere’s one t’ing as comforts me a leetle, an’ dat is, dat Peter de Great ain’t de biggest hyperkrite in de world arter all, for de way you purtended not to know dat gal, an’ de way she purtended not to know you, hab took de wind out ob my sails altogidder!”