Part 35 (1/2)
Many naval officers considered the fortifications of Algiers impregnable. Having seen and studied them, Lord Exmouth thought otherwise. Lord Nelson, founding probably on erroneous information, and not having seen the place, had said that twenty-five line-of-battle s.h.i.+ps would be necessary to subdue it. Our Admiral, with Captain Warde's correct plan in his pocket, knew that there was not room for even half that number of s.h.i.+ps to be laid alongside the town. The Admiralty strongly urged him to take a powerful fleet. Lord Exmouth agreed to that, but decided that it should be a small one. To the surprise of their Lords.h.i.+ps he fixed on _five_ liners, with a few smaller craft, as a sufficient number for the work he had to do. He said--
”If they open fire when the s.h.i.+ps are coming up and cripple our masts, we shall have some difficulty, perhaps, and the loss will no doubt be greater, but if they allow us to take our stations, I am sure of them, for I know that nothing can resist a line-of-battle s.h.i.+p's fire.”
It was usually thought by naval men that a s.h.i.+p could not be thoroughly effective until she had been a considerable time in commission.
Doubtless the thought was correct, and founded on experience; nevertheless, Lord Exmouth proved himself an exception to ordinary naval rulers. He commissioned, fitted, and manned a fleet, and fought and won a great battle within the incredibly brief s.p.a.ce of two months! But more of that hereafter.
Meanwhile the pirates prepared briskly for the coming struggle, and wrought hard at the batteries, while Christian slaves swarmed and toiled night and day on the ramparts of Algiers.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.
IN WHICH RAIS ALI AND TED FLAGGAN PLAY A VIGOROUS PART.
When Colonel Langley's star descended, as has been described, his household was, of course, scattered to the winds. Those who were slaves, meekly--or otherwise--awaited their orders, which were various, according to their condition. Some of them were sent to toil at the fortifications, others to carry material into the town. Those who were free betook themselves to their kindred, and their favourite employments. A few members of the household joined the army of defence.
Among these latter was our friend Rais Ali, who, being a Moor, and having been a pirate, and still being young and strong, was deemed a fit subject to defend his hearth and home.
His hearth, by the way, was defended pretty well by the Moorish lady whom we introduced at the beginning of this volume, with the able a.s.sistance of a small negro whom Rais had purchased for a few s.h.i.+llings in the slave-market.
It must not be supposed that Rais Ali was a willing defender of his home. If he could have delegated that duty to others, he would have preferred it. Had it been possible for him to have retired into a distant part of the Zahara, and there dwelt at ease, while daily telegrams were forwarded to him of the progress of events, he would have considered himself supremely happy; but such was not his fortune, and, being of a philosophical turn of mind, he wisely succ.u.mbed to the inevitable.
It was so fated that Rais Ali was ordered to serve as a gunner at the Fish Market battery, just in front of the mosque Djama Djedid. Bravely did our interpreter proceed daily to his duties, and intensely did he hope that there might never be any occasion for his services.
But whatever fate might decree for him, Rais Ali had a peculiar knack of decreeing a few things for himself which neither fate nor anything else appeared to be able to deprive him of. One of these decrees was that, come what might, he should have his morning cup of coffee; another, that he should have a daily shave; a third, that he should have a bath at least once a week.
As one of the occasions on which he fulfilled his destiny and carried out his own fatal decrees bears on our tale, we will follow him.
Having begun the day, at a very early hour, with his cup of coffee, he proceeded in a leisurely way to a certain street in the town where was kept a Turkish bath. This was not an Anglified Turkish bath, good reader, but a real one; not an imitation, but the actual thing itself fresh from Turkey, managed by Turks, or Moors who were at least half Turks, and conducted in accordance with the strictest rules of Turkish etiquette.
Approaching the door of the bath, he observed a tall dignified and very powerful Arab sauntering in front of it.
Rais Ali seemed troubled by the sight of him, paused, advanced, halted, and again advanced, until the tall Arab, catching sight of him, stalked forward with solemn dignity and held out his hand.
”What for yoo comes here?” demanded Rais rather testily.
The tall Moor slowly bent his hooded head and whispered in his ear--”Faix, it's more than I rightly know mesilf.”
”Yoo's mad,” said Rais, drawing the tall Arab into the porch of the bath, where they could avoid the observation of pa.s.sers-by. ”Did not I tell yoo for to keep close?”
”So ye did, Rais Ally,” said Ted Flaggan, for it was he, ”and it's close I kep' as long as I cu'd, which was aisy enough, seeing that ye brought me purvisions so riglar--like a good feller as ye are; but body o' me, man, I cudn't live in a cave all me lone for iver, an' I got tired o'
lookin' out for that British fleet that niver comes, so I says to mesilf wan fine evenin', `Go out, Ted me boy, an' have a swim in the say--it'll do 'ee good, and there's not much chance of any wan troublin' ye here.'
No sooner said than done. Out I wint round beyont the Pint Pescade, an'
off wid me close an' into the say. Och! but it _was_ plisint! Well, just as I was coming out, who should I see on the rocks above me but a big thief of an Arab? I knew at wance that if I was to putt on close he'd guess, maybe, who I was, so I came out o' the wather an' ran straight at him naked--meanin' to frighten him away like. An' sure enough he tuk to his heels like a Munster pig. I don't know how it is, but I have always had a strong turn for huntin'. From the time whin I was a small gosoon runnin' after the pigs an' cats, I've bin apt to give chase to anything that runned away from me, an' to forgit myself. So it was now. After the Arab I wint, neck an crop, an' away he wint like the wind, flingin' off his burnous as he ran; but I was light, bein' naked, d'ye see, an' soon overhauled him. For a starn-chase it was the shortest I remember. When I came up wid him I made a grab at his head, an his hake--is that what ye calls it?--comed away in me hand, leaving his shaved head open to view, wid the tuft o' hair on the top of it.
”I laughed to that extint at this that he got away from me, so I gave him a finis.h.i.+n' Irish howl, by way o' making him kape the pace goin', an' thin stopped and putt on the hake. By and by I comes to where the burnous was, and putts it on too, an faix, ye couldn't have towld me from an Arab, for the bare legs an' feet and arms was all right, only just a taste over light in colour, d'ee see? Thinks I to mesilf, Ted, me boy, ye cudn't do better than remain as ye are. Wid a little brown dirt on yer face an' limbs, yer own mother wouldn't know ye. An' troth, Rais, I did it; an' whin I lucked at mesilf in a smooth pool on the baich, it was for all the world as if somebody else was luckin' at me.
To be short wid ye, I've bin wanderin' about the country for the last three or four days quite free an' aisy.”
”n.o.body see yoo?” asked Rais in great surprise.
”Och! lots o' people, but few of 'em tuk a fancy to spake to me, an'