straight to the captain with an air of good-humoured sang froid which was peculiar to him, Foster said—
“Captain, don’t you think I’ve had these bits of rope-yarn on my wrists long enough? I’m not used, you see, to walking the deck without the use of my hands; and a heavy lurch, as like as not, would send me slap into the lee scuppers—sailor though I be. Besides, I won’t jump overboard without leave, you may rely upon that. Neither will I attempt, single-handed, to fight your whole crew, so you needn’t be afraid.”
The stern Moor evidently understood part of this speech, and he was so tickled with the last remark that his habitual gravity gave place to the faintest flicker of a smile, while a twinkle gleamed for a moment in his eye. Only for a moment, however. Pointing over the side, he bade his prisoner “look.”
Foster looked, and beheld in the far distance a three-masted vessel that seemed to bear a strong resemblance to a British man-of-war.
“You promise,” said the captain, “not shout or ro–ar.”
“I promise,” answered our middy, “neither to ‘Shout’ nor ‘ro–ar’—for my doing either, even though like a bull of Bashan, would be of no earthly use at this distance.”
“Inglesemans,” said the captain, “niver brok the word!” After paying this scarcely-deserved compliment he gave an order to a sailor who was coiling up ropes near him, and the man at once proceeded to untie Foster’s bonds.
“My good fellow,” said the midshipman, observing that his liberator was the man whom he had knocked down the night before, “I’m sorry I had to floor you, but it was impossible to help it, you know. An Englishman is like a bull-dog. He won’t suffer himself to be seized by the throat and choked if he can help it!”
The Turk, who was evidently a renegade Briton, made no reply whatever to this address; but, after casting the lashings loose, returned to his former occupation.
Foster proceeded to thank the captain for his courtesy and make him acquainted with the state of his appetite, but he was evidently not in a conversational frame of mind. Before a few words had been spoken the captain stopped him, and, pointing down the skylight, said, sharply—
“Brukfust! Go!”
Both look and tone admonished our hero to obey. He descended to the cabin, therefore, without finishing his sentence, and there discovered that “brukfust” consisted of two sea-biscuits and a mug of water. To these dainties he applied himself with infinite relish, for he had always been Spartan-like as to the quality of his food, and hunger makes almost any kind of dish agreeable.
While thus engaged he heard a hurried trampling of feet on deck, mingled with sharp orders from the captain. At first he thought the sounds might have reference to taking in a reef to prepare for a squall, but as the noise rather increased, his curiosity was roused, and he was about to return on deck when Peter the Great suddenly leaped into the cabin and took hurriedly from the opposite locker a brace of highly ornamented pistols and a scimitar.
“What’s wrong, Peter?” asked Foster, starting up.
“We’s a-goin’ to fight!” groaned the negro.
“Oh! I’s a awrful hyperkrite! You stop where you am, massa, else you’ll get whacked.”
Despite the risk of being “whacked,” the youth would have followed the negro on deck, had not the hatch been slammed in his face and secured. Next moment he heard a volley of musketry on deck. It was instantly replied to by a distant volley, and immediately thereafter groans and curses showed that the firing had not been without effect.
That the pirate had engaged a vessel of some sort was evident, and our hero, being naturally anxious to see if not to share in the fight, tried hard to get out of his prison, but without success. He was obliged, therefore, to sit there inactive and listen to the wild confusion overhead. At last there came a crash, followed by fiercer shouts and cries. He knew that the vessels had met and that the pirates were boarding. In a few minutes comparative silence ensued, broken only by occasional footsteps and the groaning of the wounded.
Chapter Two
Among Pirates—Enslaved
When George Foster was again permitted to go on deck the sight that he beheld was not calculated to comfort him in his misfortunes.
Several Moorish seamen were going about with bared legs and arms, swishing water on the decks and swabbing up the blood with which they were bespattered. Most of these men were more or less wounded and bandaged, for the crew of the merchantman they had attacked had offered a desperate resistance, knowing well the fate in store for them if captured.
The said merchantman, a large brig, sailed close alongside of the pirate vessel with a prize crew on board. Her own men, who were Russians, had been put in chains in the fore part of their vessel under the forecastle, so as to be out of sight. Her officers and several passengers had been removed to the pirate’s quarter-deck. Among them were an old gentleman of dignified bearing, and an elderly lady who seemed to be supported, physically as well as mentally, by a tall, dark-complexioned, noble-looking girl, who was evidently the daughter of the old gentleman, though whether also the daughter of the elderly lady young Foster could not discover, there being little or no resemblance between them. The memory of his mother and sister strongly inclined the sympathetic midshipman to approach the party and offer words of consolation to the ladies. As he advanced to them for that purpose, a doubt as to which language he should use assailed him. French, he knew, was the language most likely to be understood, but a girl with such magnificent black eyes must certainly be Spanish! His knowledge of Spanish was about equal to that of an ill-trained parrot, but what of that? Was he not a Briton, whose chief characteristic is to go in for anything and stick at nothing?
We do not venture to write down what he said, but when he had said it the blank look of the elderly lady and the peculiar look of the girl induced him to repeat the speech in his broken—his very much broken—French, whereupon the old gentleman turned to him gravely and said—
“My vife is Engleesh, an’ my datter is Danish—no, not joost—vell, she is ’af-an’-’af. Speak to dem in your nattif tong.”
“You are not English, anyhow, old boy,” thought Foster, as he turned with a mingled feeling of confusion and recklessness to the elderly lady.
“Pardon me, madam,” he said, “but from the appearance of—of—your—”
He was interrupted at this point by the captain, who, flushed and blood-bespattered from the recent fight, came aft with a drawn scimitar in his hand, and sternly ordered the young midshipman to go forward.
It was a humiliating position to be placed in; yet, despite the “stick-at-nothing” spirit, he felt constrained to obey, but did so, nevertheless, with an air of defiant ferocity which relieved his feelings to some extent. The said feelings were utterly ignored by the pirate captain, who did not condescend even to look at him after the first glance, but turned to the other captives and ordered them, in rather less stern tones, to “go below,” an order which was promptly obeyed.
On reaching the fore part of the vessel, Foster found several of the crew engaged in bandaging each other’s wounds, and, from the clumsy way in which they went to work, it was very clear that they were much more accustomed to inflict wounds than to bandage them.
Now it must be told that, although George Foster was not a surgeon, he had an elder brother who was, and with whom he had associated constantly while
