Part 8 (1/2)
Fortunately he met Rais Ali just outside the crowd.
”Come, lad, come,” he cried, seizing that boastful man by the arm, in such a grasp that Rais turned pale with alarm. ”I can't stop here.
Let's git away. Sure it's divls they must be, an' not men!”
Blindly dragging the interpreter along by main force through several streets, Flaggan stopped suddenly at last to recover breath and to wipe the perspiration from his brow.
”Don't ask me wot I've seen,” he said, to Ali's inquiries, ”I can't a-bear to think on it. G.o.d help me! I wish I could wipe it out of me brain intirely. Come along, let's finish our business, an' git out o'
this cursed place.”
Proceeding rapidly and in silence towards the street at the base of the triangular town, which followed the line of ramparts that faced the sea, they discovered the great man of whom they were in search, Sidi Omar, walking up and down with the cadi, or chief judge, to whose daughter he was to be united on the following day.
”It won't do to 'trupt 'em jus' yit. Hold on a littil,” said Rais Ali to his companion.
Ted Flaggan had no objection to ”hold on,” for the sight of the ocean with its fresh breezes cooled his brow, and tended to turn his mind away from the horrible thoughts that filled it.
While they are waiting, let you and me, reader, listen to the conclusion of the converse held between the bridegroom and father-in-law.
The cadi was a stern old Turk, with a long grey beard. The son-in-law elect was, as we have elsewhere said, an ill-favoured elderly man with only one eye. He did not look quite so happy as one would have expected in a bridegroom so near his wedding-day, but that was to be accounted for, to some extent, by the fact that he already possessed four wives, and was naturally somewhat used to weddings.
”No, no,” said he, in a cautious tone, to the judge; ”it won't do to be hasty about it, Achmet is too popular at present.”
”What has that to do with the question?” asked the cadi, in a tone of contempt. ”If our party be strong enough we have only to strike; and I tell you that I believe it to be quite strong enough.”
”I know it,” returned Omar impatiently, ”but I also know that my enemy, Sidi Ha.s.san, is more than usually on the alert just now; I think it well to delay for a time. Besides,” he added, smiling, ”you surely would not have me begin a revolution on the very eve of my marriage!”
”I would have you lose as little time as possible,” replied the cadi.
”But see, if I mistake not, these two men are eyeing us rather narrowly.”
Seeing that they were observed, Rais Ali advanced, and, with a low salaam, delivered his message to Sidi Omar, who gave him the necessary reply, and dismissed him.
Resuming their conference, the two magnates turned to saunter along the street, when Omar observed a dark object like a dog, coiled up in an angle of the parapet. Poking it with his cane, he caused it to uncoil and display the vacant, features of a half-witted negro boy. The poor creature fell on his knees in alarm on seeing the well-known face of Sidi Omar, but sprang to his feet with alacrity, and ran off at full speed on being sternly told to ”be gone.”
Meanwhile Rais Ali led his friend safely through the Bab-el-Oued gate, and, turning his face in the right direction said--
”Now, you git 'ome, fast. Keep 'er steady--a point morer to the westward--so, yoo can't go wrong.”
Instead of obeying orders, Ted Flaggan turned, and, with an amused smile, watched the retreating figure of the interpreter. Then, after sauntering on some distance in a reverie, he stopped and gazed long and earnestly at the pirate city, whose white-washed domes and minarets gleamed in the suns.h.i.+ne like marble, contrasting beautifully with the bright green of the Sahel hills behind, and the intense blue of the sky and sea.
”A whited sepulchre!” muttered the seaman, with a frown, as he turned away and pushed forward at a rapid pace towards the residence of the British consul.
CHAPTER NINE.
DESCRIBES A MOORISH BRIDE, A WEDDING, AND A METAMORPHOSIS, BESIDES INDICATING A PLOT.
On the following morning Mrs Langley set out on horseback for the palace of the cadi, to attend the wedding of his daughter with Sidi Omar, and, true to her promise, turned aside on the way to pay a visit to the imprisoned bride of Rais Ali.
She was accompanied, of course, by the remarkable bridegroom himself, and also by her husband's janissary, Sidi Ha.s.san, as well as by her daughter Agnes, who rode a spirited Arab pony.