CHAPTER 40
IN WHICH THE STORY OF THE CAPTIVE IS CONTINUED.
{verse
SONNET
“Blest souls, that, from this mortal husk set free,
In guerdon of brave deeds beatified,
Above this lowly orb of ours abide
Made heirs of heaven and immortality,
With noble rage and ardour glowing ye
Your strength, while strength was yours, in battle plied,
And with your own blood and the foeman’s dyed
The sandy soil and the encircling sea.
It was the ebbing life-blood first that failed
The weary arms; the stout hearts never quailed.
Though vanquished, yet ye earned the victor’s crown:
Though mourned, yet still triumphant was your fall
For there ye won, between the sword and wall,
In Heaven glory and on earth renown.”
{verse
“That is it exactly, according to my recollection,” said the captive.
“Well then, that on the fort,” said the gentleman, “if my memory serves
me, goes thus:
{verse
SONNET
“Up from this wasted soil, this shattered shell,
Whose walls and towers here in ruin lie,
Three thousand soldier souls took wing on high,
In the bright mansions of the blest to dwell.
The onslaught of the foeman to repel
By might of arm all vainly did they try,
And when at length ’twas left them but to die,
Wearied and few the last defenders fell.
And this same arid soil hath ever been
A haunt of countless mournful memories,
As well in our day as in days of yore.
But never yet to Heaven it sent, I ween,
From its hard bosom purer souls than these,
Or braver bodies on its surface bore.”
{verse
The sonnets were not disliked, and the captive was rejoiced at the tidings
they gave him of his comrade, and continuing his tale, he went on to say:
The Goletta and the fort being thus in their hands, the Turks gave orders
to dismantle the Goletta—for the fort was reduced to such a state that there
was nothing left to level—and to do the work more quickly and easily they
mined it in three places; but nowhere were they able to blow up the part
which seemed to be the least strong, that is to say, the old walls, while all
that remained standing of the new fortifications that the Fratin had made
came to the ground with the greatest ease. Finally the fleet returned victori-
ous and triumphant to Constantinople, and a few months later died my mas-
ter, El Uchali, otherwise Uchali Fartax, which means in Turkish “the scabby
renegade;” for that he was; it is the practice with the Turks to name people
from some defect or virtue they may possess; the reason being that there are
among them only four surnames belonging to families tracing their descent
from the Ottoman house, and the others, as I have said, take their names and
surnames either from bodily blemishes or moral qualities. This “scabby
one” rowed at the oar as a slave of the Grand Signor’s for fourteen years,
and when over thirty-four years of age, in resentment at having been struck
by a Turk while at the oar, turned renegade and renounced his faith in order
to be able to revenge himself; and such was his valour that, without owing
his advancement to the base ways and means by which most favourites of
the Grand Signor rise to power, he came to be king of Algiers, and after-
wards general-on-sea, which is the third place of trust in the realm. He was
a Calabrian by birth, and a worthy man morally, and he treated his slaves
with great humanity. He had three thousand of them, and after his death
they were divided, as he directed by his will, between the Grand Signor
(who is heir of all who die and shares with the children of the deceased) and
his renegades. I fell to the lot of a Venetian renegade who, when a cabin boy
on board a ship, had been taken by Uchali and was so much beloved by him
that he became one of his most favoured youths. He came to be the most
cruel renegade I ever saw: his name was Hassan Aga, and he grew very rich
and became king of Algiers. With him I went there from Constantinople,
rather glad to be so near Spain, not that I intended to write to anyone about
my unhappy lot, but to try if fortune would be kinder to me in Algiers than
in Constantinople, where I had attempted in a thousand ways to escape
without ever finding a favourable time or chance; but in Algiers I resolved
to seek for other means of effecting the purpose I cherished so dearly; for
the hope of obtaining my liberty never deserted me; and when in my plots
and schemes and attempts the result did not answer my expectations, with-
out giving way to despair I immediately began to look out for or conjure up
some new hope to support me, however faint or feeble it might be.
In this way I lived on immured in a building or prison called by the Turks
a bano in which they confine the Christian captives, as well those that are
the king’s as those belonging to private individuals, and also what they call
those of the Almacen, which is as much as to say the slaves of the munici-
pality, who serve the city in the public works and other employments; but
captives of this kind recover their liberty with great difficulty, for, as they
are public property and have no particular master, there is no one with
whom to treat for their ransom, even though they may have the means. To
these banos, as I have said, some private individuals of the town are in the
habit of bringing their captives, especially when they are to be ransomed;
because there they can keep them in safety and comfort until their ransom
arrives. The king’s captives also, that are on ransom, do not go out to work
with the rest of the crew, unless when their ransom is delayed; for then, to
make them write for it more pressingly, they compel them to work and go
for wood, which is no light labour.
I, however, was one of those on ransom, for when it was discovered that I
was a captain, although I declared my scanty means and want of fortune,
nothing could dissuade them from including me among the gentlemen and
those waiting to be ransomed. They put a chain on me, more as a mark of
this than to keep me safe, and so I passed my life in that bano with several
other gentlemen and persons of quality marked out as held to ransom; but
though at times, or rather almost always, we suffered from hunger and
scanty clothing, nothing distressed us so much as hearing and seeing at
every turn the unexampled and unheard-of cruelties my master inflicted
upon the Christians. Every day he hanged a man, impaled one, cut off the
ears of another; and all with so little provocation, or so entirely without any,
that the Turks acknowledged he did it merely for the sake of doing it, and
because he was by nature murderously disposed towards the whole human
race. The only one that fared at all well with him was a Spanish soldier,
something de Saavedra by name, to whom he never gave a blow himself, or
ordered a blow to be given, or addressed a hard word, although he had done
things that will dwell in the memory of the people there for many a year,
and all to recover his liberty; and for the least of the many things he did we
all dreaded that he would be impaled, and he himself was in fear of it more
than once; and only that time does not allow, I could tell you now some-
thing of what that soldier did, that would interest and astonish you much
more than the narration of my own tale.
To go on with my story; the courtyard of our prison was overlooked by
the windows of the house belonging to a wealthy Moor of high position;
and these, as is usual in Moorish houses, were rather loopholes than win-
dows, and besides were covered with thick and close lattice-work. It so hap-
pened, then, that as I was one day on the terrace of our prison with three
other comrades, trying, to pass away the time, how far we could leap with
our chains, we being alone, for all the other Christians had gone out to
work, I chanced to raise my eyes, and from one of these little closed win-
dows I saw a reed appear with a cloth attached to the end of it, and it kept
waving to and fro, and moving as if making signs to us to come and take it.
We watched it, and one of those who were with me went and stood under
the reed to see whether they would let it drop, or what they would do, but as
he did so the reed was raised and moved from side to side, as if they meant
to say “no” by a shake of the head. The Christian came back, and it was
again lowered, making the same movements as before. Another of my com-
rades went, and with him the same happened as with the first, and then the
third went forward, but with the same result as the first and second. Seeing
this I did not like not to try my luck, and as soon as I came under the reed it
was dropped and fell inside the bano at my feet. I hastened to untie the
cloth, in which I perceived a knot, and in this were ten cianis, which are
coins of base gold, current among the Moors, and each worth ten reals of
our money.
It is needless to say I rejoiced over this godsend, and my joy was not less
than my wonder as I strove to imagine how this good fortune could have
come to us, but to me specially; for the evident unwillingness to drop the
reed for any but me showed that it was for me the favour was intended. I
took my welcome money, broke the reed, and returned to the terrace, and
looking up at the window, I saw a very white hand put out that opened and
shut very quickly. From this we gathered or fancied that it must be some
woman living in that house that had done us this kindness, and to show that
we were grateful for it, we made salaams after the fashion of the Moors,
bowing the head, bending the body, and crossing the arms on the breast.
Shortly afterwards at the same window a small cross made of reeds was put
out and immediately withdrawn. This sign led us to believe that some
Christian woman was a captive in the house, and that it was she who had
been so good to us; but the whiteness of the hand and the bracelets we had
perceived made us dismiss that idea, though we thought it might be one of
the Christian renegades whom their masters very often take as lawful wives,
and gladly, for they prefer them to the women of their own nation. In all our
conjectures we were wide of the truth; so from that time forward our sole
occupation was watching and gazing at the window where the cross had ap-
peared to us, as if it were our pole-star; but at least fifteen days passed with-
out our seeing either it or the hand, or any other sign and though meanwhile
we endeavoured with the utmost pains to ascertain who it was that lived in
the house, and whether there were any Christian renegade in it, nobody
could ever tell us anything more than that he who lived there was a rich
Moor of high position, Hadji Morato by name, formerly alcaide of La Pata,
an office of high dignity among them. But when we least thought it was go-
ing to rain any more cianis from that quarter, we saw the reed suddenly ap-
pear with another cloth tied in a larger knot attached to it, and this at a time
when, as on the former occasion, the bano was deserted and unoccupied.
We made trial as before, each of the same three going forward before I
did; but the reed was delivered to none but me, and on my approach it was
let drop. I untied the knot and I found forty Spanish gold crowns with a pa-
per written in Arabic, and at the end of the writing there was a large cross
drawn. I kissed the cross, took the crowns and returned to the terrace, and
we all made our salaams; again the hand appeared, I made signs that I
would read the paper, and then the window was closed. We were all puz-
zled, though filled with joy at what had taken place; and as none of us un-
derstood Arabic, great was our curiosity to know what the paper contained,
and still greater the difficulty of finding some one to read it. At last I re-
solved to confide in a renegade, a native of Murcia, who professed a very
great friendship for me, and had given pledges that bound him to keep any
secret I might entrust to him; for it is the custom with some renegades,
when they intend to return to Christian territory, to carry about them certifi-
cates from captives of mark testifying, in whatever form they can, that such
and such a renegade is a worthy man who has always shown kindness to
Christians, and is anxious to escape on the first opportunity that may present
itself. Some obtain these testimonials with good intentions, others put them
to a cunning use; for when they go to pillage on Christian territory, if they
chance to be cast away, or taken prisoners, they produce their certificates
and say that from these papers may be seen the object they came for, which
was to remain on Christian ground, and that it was to this end they joined
the Turks in their foray. In this way they escape the consequences of the
first outburst and make their peace with the Church before it does them any
harm, and then when they have the chance they return to Barbary to become
what they were before. Others, however, there are who procure these papers
and make use of them honestly, and remain on Christian soil. This friend of
mine, then, was one of these renegades that I have described; he had certifi-
cates from all our comrades, in which we testified in his favour as strongly
as we could; and if the Moors had found the papers they would have burned
him alive.
I knew that he understood Arabic very well, and could not only speak but
also write it; but before I disclosed the whole matter to him, I asked him to
read for me this paper which I had found by accident in a hole in my cell.
He opened it and remained some time examining it and muttering to him-
self as he translated it. I asked him if he understood it, and he told me he did
perfectly well, and that if I wished him to tell me its meaning word for
word, I must give him pen and ink that he might do it more satisfactorily.
We at once gave him what he required, and he set about translating it bit by
bit, and when he had done he said:
“All that is here in Spanish is what the Moorish paper contains, and you
must bear in mind that when it says ‘Lela Marien’ it means ‘Our Lady the
Virgin Mary.'”
We read the paper and it ran thus:
“When I was a child my father had a slave who taught me to pray the
Christian prayer in my own language, and told me many things about Lela
Marien. The Christian died, and I know that she did not go to the fire, but to
Allah, because since then I have seen her twice, and she told me to go to the
land of the Christians to see Lela Marien, who had great love for me. I
know not how to go. I have seen many Christians, but except thyself none
has seemed to me to be a gentleman. I am young and beautiful, and have
plenty of money to take with me. See if thou canst contrive how we may go,
and if thou wilt thou shalt be my husband there, and if thou wilt not it will
not distress me, for Lela Marien will find me some one to marry me. I my-
self have written this: have a care to whom thou givest it to read: trust no
Moor, for they are all perfidious. I am greatly troubled on this account, for I
would not have thee confide in anyone, because if my father knew it he
would at once fling me down a well and cover me with stones. I will put a
thread to the reed; tie the answer to it, and if thou hast no one to write for
thee in Arabic, tell it to me by signs, for Lela Marien will make me under-
stand thee. She and Allah and this cross, which I often kiss as the captive
bade me, protect thee.”
Judge, sirs, whether we had reason for surprise and joy at the words of
this paper; and both one and the other were so great, that the renegade per-
ceived that the paper had not been found by chance, but had been in reality
addressed to some one of us, and he begged us, if what he suspected were
the truth, to trust him and tell him all, for he would risk his life for our free-
dom; and so saying he took out from his breast a metal crucifix, and with
many tears swore by the God the image represented, in whom, sinful and
wicked as he was, he truly and faithfully believed, to be loyal to us and
keep secret whatever we chose to reveal to him; for he thought and almost
foresaw that by means of her who had written that paper, he and all of us
would obtain our liberty, and he himself obtain the object he so much de-
sired, his restoration to the bosom of the Holy Mother Church, from which
by his own sin and ignorance he was now severed like a corrupt limb. The
renegade said this with so many tears and such signs of repentance, that
with one consent we all agreed to tell him the whole truth of the matter, and
so we gave him a full account of all, without hiding anything from him. We
pointed out to him the window at which the reed appeared, and he by that
means took note of the house, and resolved to ascertain with particular care
who lived in it. We agreed also that it would be advisable to answer the
Moorish lady’s letter, and the renegade without a moment’s delay took down
the words I dictated to him, which were exactly what I shall tell you, for
nothing of importance that took place in this affair has escaped my memory,
or ever will while life lasts. This, then, was the answer returned to the
Moorish lady:
“The true Allah protect thee, Lady, and that blessed Marien who is the
true mother of God, and who has put it into thy heart to go to the land of the
Christians, because she loves thee. Entreat her that she be pleased to show
thee how thou canst execute the command she gives thee, for she will, such
is her goodness. On my own part, and on that of all these Christians who are
with me, I promise to do all that we can for thee, even to death. Fail not to
write to me and inform me what thou dost mean to do, and I will always an-
swer thee; for the great Allah has given us a Christian captive who can
speak and write thy language well, as thou mayest see by this paper; with-
out fear, therefore, thou canst inform us of all thou wouldst. As to what thou
sayest, that if thou dost reach the land of the Christians thou wilt be my
wife, I give thee my promise upon it as a good Christian; and know that the
Christians keep their promises better than the Moors. Allah and Marien his
mother watch over thee, my Lady.”
The paper being written and folded I waited two days until the bano was
empty as before, and immediately repaired to the usual walk on the terrace
to see if there were any sign of the reed, which was not long in making its
appearance. As soon as I saw it, although I could not distinguish who put it
out, I showed the paper as a sign to attach the thread, but it was already
fixed to the reed, and to it I tied the paper; and shortly afterwards our star
once more made its appearance with the white flag of peace, the little bun-
dle. It was dropped, and I picked it up, and found in the cloth, in gold and
silver coins of all sorts, more than fifty crowns, which fifty times more
strengthened our joy and doubled our hope of gaining our liberty. That very
night our renegade returned and said he had learned that the Moor we had
been told of lived in that house, that his name was Hadji Morato, that he
was enormously rich, that he had one only daughter the heiress of all his
wealth, and that it was the general opinion throughout the city that she was
the most beautiful woman in Barbary, and that several of the viceroys who
came there had sought her for a wife, but that she had been always unwill-
ing to marry; and he had learned, moreover, that she had a Christian slave
who was now dead; all which agreed with the contents of the paper. We im-
mediately took counsel with the renegade as to what means would have to
be adopted in order to carry off the Moorish lady and bring us all to Christ-
ian territory; and in the end it was agreed that for the present we should wait
for a second communication from Zoraida (for that was the name of her
who now desires to be called Maria), because we saw clearly that she and
no one else could find a way out of all these difficulties. When we had de-
cided upon this the renegade told us not to be uneasy, for he would lose his
life or restore us to liberty. For four days the bano was filled with people,
for which reason the reed delayed its appearance for four days, but at the
end of that time, when the bano was, as it generally was, empty, it appeared
with the cloth so bulky that it promised a happy birth. Reed and cloth came
down to me, and I found another paper and a hundred crowns in gold, with-
out any other coin. The renegade was present, and in our cell we gave him
the paper to read, which was to this effect:
“I cannot think of a plan, senor, for our going to Spain, nor has Lela
Marien shown me one, though I have asked her. All that can be done is for
me to give you plenty of money in gold from this window. With it ransom
yourself and your friends, and let one of you go to the land of the Chris-
tians, and there buy a vessel and come back for the others; and he will find
me in my father’s garden, which is at the Babazon gate near the seashore,
where I shall be all this summer with my father and my servants. You can
carry me away from there by night without any danger, and bring me to the
vessel. And remember thou art to be my husband, else I will pray to Marien
to punish thee. If thou canst not trust anyone to go for the vessel, ransom
thyself and do thou go, for I know thou wilt return more surely than any
other, as thou art a gentleman and a Christian. Endeavour to make thyself
acquainted with the garden; and when I see thee walking yonder I shall
know that the bano is empty and I will give thee abundance of money. Allah
protect thee, senor.”
These were the words and contents of the second paper, and on hearing
them, each declared himself willing to be the ransomed one, and promised
to go and return with scrupulous good faith; and I too made the same offer;
but to all this the renegade objected, saying that he would not on any ac-
count consent to one being set free before all went together, as experience
had taught him how ill those who have been set free keep promises which
they made in captivity; for captives of distinction frequently had recourse to
this plan, paying the ransom of one who was to go to Valencia or Majorca
with money to enable him to arm a bark and return for the others who had
ransomed him, but who never came back; for recovered liberty and the
dread of losing it again efface from the memory all the obligations in the
world. And to prove the truth of what he said, he told us briefly what had
happened to a certain Christian gentleman almost at that very time, the
strangest case that had ever occurred even there, where astonishing and
marvellous things are happening every instant. In short, he ended by saying
that what could and ought to be done was to give the money intended for
the ransom of one of us Christians to him, so that he might with it buy a
vessel there in Algiers under the pretence of becoming a merchant and trad-
er at Tetuan and along the coast; and when master of the vessel, it would be
easy for him to hit on some way of getting us all out of the bano and putting
us on board; especially if the Moorish lady gave, as she said, money enough
to ransom all, because once free it would be the easiest thing in the world
for us to embark even in open day; but the greatest difficulty was that the
Moors do not allow any renegade to buy or own any craft, unless it be a
large vessel for going on roving expeditions, because they are afraid that
anyone who buys a small vessel, especially if he be a Spaniard, only wants
it for the purpose of escaping to Christian territory. This however he could
get over by arranging with a Tagarin Moor to go shares with him in the pur-
chase of the vessel, and in the profit on the cargo; and under cover of this he
could become master of the vessel, in which case he looked upon all the rest
as accomplished. But though to me and my comrades it had seemed a better
plan to send to Majorca for the vessel, as the Moorish lady suggested, we
did not dare to oppose him, fearing that if we did not do as he said he would
denounce us, and place us in danger of losing all our lives if he were to dis-
close our dealings with Zoraida, for whose life we would have all given our
own. We therefore resolved to put ourselves in the hands of God and in the
renegade’s; and at the same time an answer was given to Zoraida, telling her
that we would do all she recommended, for she had given as good advice as
if Lela Marien had delivered it, and that it depended on her alone whether
we were to defer the business or put it in execution at once. I renewed my
promise to be her husband; and thus the next day that the bano chanced to
be empty she at different times gave us by means of the reed and cloth two
thousand gold crowns and a paper in which she said that the next Juma, that
is to say Friday, she was going to her father’s garden, but that before she
went she would give us more money; and if it were not enough we were to
let her know, as she would give us as much as we asked, for her father had
so much he would not miss it, and besides she kept all the keys.
We at once gave the renegade five hundred crowns to buy the vessel, and
with eight hundred I ransomed myself, giving the money to a Valencian
merchant who happened to be in Algiers at the time, and who had me re-
leased on his word, pledging it that on the arrival of the first ship from Va-
lencia he would pay my ransom; for if he had given the money at once it
would have made the king suspect that my ransom money had been for a
long time in Algiers, and that the merchant had for his own advantage kept
it secret. In fact my master was so difficult to deal with that I dared not on
any account pay down the money at once. The Thursday before the Friday
on which the fair Zoraida was to go to the garden she gave us a thousand
crowns more, and warned us of her departure, begging me, if I were ran-
somed, to find out her father’s garden at once, and by all means to seek an
opportunity of going there to see her. I answered in a few words that I
would do so, and that she must remember to commend us to Lela Marien
with all the prayers the captive had taught her. This having been done, steps
were taken to ransom our three comrades, so as to enable them to quit the
bano, and lest, seeing me ransomed and themselves not, though the money
was forthcoming, they should make a disturbance about it and the devil
should prompt them to do something that might injure Zoraida; for though
their position might be sufficient to relieve me from this apprehension, nev-
ertheless I was unwilling to run any risk in the matter; and so I had them
ransomed in the same way as I was, handing over all the money to the mer-
chant so that he might with safety and confidence give security; without,
however, confiding our arrangement and secret to him, which might have
been dangerous.
