The Hundred Days (28 page)

‘I am so sorry,’ said the consul. ‘So very sorry:
but at least it shows that some hopes of approaching exist. Let us sleep on
that, and conceivably the morning will find her snugly in her berth by the
mole.’

‘Sir Peter,’ called a head at foot-level, the
speaker standing precariously on the wind-shaken ladder, ‘Dr Jacob sends his
compliments and could he be received?’

‘Sir Peter,’ said Stephen, ‘I ask your pardon for
interfering, but my colleague, though an excellent physician (God forgive us
both he added mentally) and linguist, is no mariner. Pray let us go down and
speak to him in safety.’

‘By all means,’ said the consul, and he gave
Stephen a hand over the dreadful gulf between the parapet of the roof and the ladder-head.

‘Sir Peter,’ cried Jacob, starting up, ‘I do beg
your pardon for this intrusion, but I thought you would like to know that the
lot has fallen on Ali Bey.’

‘Not on Mustafa? I am amazed.’

‘So was he, sir: and I fear it is the bowstring for
him - he was led away. But I ventured to come in this informal manner to tell
you that Ali is to be proclaimed immediately after the evening prayer.’

‘I am very much obliged to you indeed, Dr Jacob.
And as I said, I am amazed: of all the candidates Ali was the most in favour of
the Allies and opposed to Bonaparte. Perhaps I had misread the situation...’ He
pondered, and then went on, ‘And I should be still more obliged if you and Dr
Maturin would go on my behalf - it is still generally understood that my health
keeps me withindoors - to be the first to congratulate the new Dey. We have all
the proper ceremonial garments here. And after that I hope you will both stay
with Lady Clifford and me until the wretched south wind dies enough for your
ships to come in. These blasts are very rare, but once they have set in
doggedly they usually last six or seven days. Though now I come to think of it,
I shall go with you. I shall take a stick and you two will support me: that
will be a capital stroke.’

Jacob glanced at Stephen, saw assent in his eye,
and having coughed he said, ‘Sir, we should be very happy to support you, as
being your known physicians. But as for your
exceedingly kind and handsome invitation, for my part may I be allowed to
decline? Having uttered all the necessary words of congratulation, I should
like to retire to an obscure lodging-house near the Gate of Woe, a house in
which some of my less presentable Algerine and Berber friends would excite no
comment, whereas they might well compromise an official residence.’

‘By all means,’ said the consul. ‘And Mr Maturin
shall do just as he pleases - dining and spending the night with us, and
walking about with you by day, meeting your no doubt very interesting friends:
and I am sure watching barometer and the horizon with as much zeal as Isabel
and myself, or even more... the divan will take place at about seven, I
suppose?’

‘Just so: within the half hour following the
proclamation.’

The city, in a state of intense yet still somewhat
restrained excitement, grew wonderfully calm for the evening prayer - aimost
nothing but the voice of the south wind in the palm trees - but the last pious
words were barely said, the little prayer-carpets were hardly rolled, before
the enormous roaring blast of the Algerine batteries saluted the sky; and as
the last echoes died away thousands upon thousands of janissaries and of all
those citizens who valued their well-being bawled out the name of Ali,
competing with countless harsh trumpets and with drums of every pitch.

The city now settled down to open merriment and joy
and endless conversation across the narrow streets or the full width of the few
great squares; and Sir Peter’s coach and four made its slow but discreetly
magnificent way to the palace. Here the consul’s physicians were handed out,
gorgeous in their robes, and they supported Sir Peter into the council-chamber,
where the new Dey greeted him - the first representative of any foreign state
to appear - with great kindness, sending for a particular deeply-cushioned seat
for him, and listening with grave satisfaction to Jacob’s fluent, sonorous and
no doubt elegant Turkish congratulation, interspersed with Persian verse and
proverb. An excellent speech and above all one that did not last too long: when
it was finished, and when Stephen had presented the ritual sabre, the Dey
returned thanks, calling the blessing of Heaven and
peace on King George. He then clapped his hands and four powerful black men
carried Sir Peter in his padded chair to the carriage amidst a triple blast of
trumpets sustained beyond anything that Stephen had heard in his life.

By this time it was dark and the steady horses made
their way through fireworks, cheering crowds, bonfires with children leaping
over them, and great numbers of muskets being fired into the air, the smoke
alas still racing northward, perhaps even faster than before.

‘Lord,’ said Stephen, as he and Jacob, having
changed into more everyday clothes, walked downstairs to dinner at the
consulate, ‘such an overwhelming wealth of colour, light, noise and emotion I
do not think I have ever known before: nor had I known that there were anything
like so many people in all Africa Minor. Yet in spite of the dreadful
underlying anxiety about Surprise and Ringle - the dreadfully swift passage of
time - I do not find that the tumult has quite destroyed my appetite.’

‘Even if it had done so, I believe my news would
deal with the situation. Sidi Hafiz, whom I have known these many, many years,
told me that great masses of the Russian horse, foot and artillery were blocked
by floods in Podolia: the vanguard is waiting for them, so that the dangerous
proximity - the time when our Assassins, our Bonapartist Balkan Moslems, can
strike at both, causing hopeless confusion, ill-will, delay, mistrust and the
like - is postponed for at least a week. This came in a wholly reliable
overland message from Turkey.’

‘Thank Heaven for that,’ cried Stephen. ‘I have
been watching the calendar, seeing this wretched month advance so briskly ...
and every change in that vile moon’s shape has
wrenched my heart.’

‘You have indeed grown much thinner these last
days.’

‘I shall eat like a lion tonight, however. A whole
week gained! Thank you so very much for telling me, dear Amos. Perhaps they
will give us mutton.’

Lady Clifford’s dinner did indeed include mutton:
boiled mutton in the English manner, with caper sauce. It was well enough in
its way for those used to such dishes (and after several other delights it was
followed by a really stout, solid pudding, of which the same might be said),
but it could not really compare with the tender lamb, roasted or grilled on
skewers in Jacob’s obscure quarters near the Gate of Woe. Stephen ate there
daily when he was not staring at the horizon or walking about Algiers with Jacob; but in the evening
he returned to the consulate to dine with the Cliffords. It was on one of these
days, these as it were free days which a kind fate had added to their calendar,
that Jacob and he were passing through the now active, reanimated slavemarket
when Jacob, catching sight of an acquaintance, begged Stephen to wait for him.
By heredity Jacob was a jewel-merchant, and the profession, still slumbering in
his bosom, was always ready to awake: he had retained not only an intimate
knowledge of gem-stones but a fervent love for some of them, and he wished this
acquaintance to exchange a small, exquisite jasper bowl for some few of the
paper of moderate diamonds that he habitually carried, very well hidden, to
provide for such a deal. ‘I shall not be long,’ he said. ‘Let us meet at the
blue-domed coffee-house, there in the far corner.’

‘Certainly,’ said Stephen; and he was wandering
slowly through this ultimate unhappiness and desolation, rendered just
tolerable from being so customary, a fact of every day, like a cattle market,
when he heard a voice lost in misery say, ‘Oh for the love of God,’ in Irish:
not at all loud, with no strong emphasis. He turned and saw two small children,
a boy and a girl, ugly, dirty, and thin. They were far too young for the usual
chains, but they were tied together, left arm to right arm, by a piece of
string.

The cheerful merchant called out to Stephen, first
in Arabic, then in a mostly Spanish lingua franca, that he should have them for
a trifle - they were perfectly healthy and in a very few years, if fed
moderately, they would be capable of severe labour: even now, ha, ha, they
could be put to scare crows, and they could always be used for pleasure.

‘I shall speak to them,’ said Stephen, and this he
did. They were twins, said the boy, Kevin and Mona Fitzpatrick, from
Ballydonegan, where their father worked for Mr MacCarthy: they had gone to
Dursey Island with Cousin Rory in the boat for crabs: somehow with the great
wind and the rain from the north the boat came adrift while Rory was with his
sweetheart and they were swept out to sea. In the morning the corsairs, the
Moors, took them aboard. They had been raiding along the coast but they had
brought away only one man, Sean Kelly: and the gentleman there - nodding at the
merchant - had sold him yesterday. Sean had told them that the people of
Dungarvan and somewhere to the north had killed two dozen Moors.

A person with a somewhat bookish, secretarial look
- a person whom Stephen might well have seen among the new Dey’s retinue -
spoke privately to the merchant, who listened with obvious respect: and when he
had gone Stephen said, in the usual indifferent horse-coper’s tone, ‘I should
like to know what kind of a price such goods fetch in this city.’ The merchant
replied, ‘Four guineas for the boy, sir - the usual redemption fee - and I will
throw in the girl for the honour of your custom.’

‘Very well,’ said Stephen, feeling in his pocket.
‘But you must give me a receipt.’

The merchant bowed, wrote on a piece of paper,
sealed it, received the coins, cut the piece of string, and formally passed the
children over with the customary blessing and a second bow. Stephen returned
the civility, told the children that he had bought them, and bade each take a
hand. This they did without a word, and he led them across the market to the
blue dome.

‘Amos,’ he said, ‘do you think that the people of
this house would have something suitable for children? I have just bought these
two.’

‘Have they teeth?’

‘Kevin and Mona, have you teeth?’

They nodded very gravely, and showed them: fine
healthy teeth, with the gaps usual at their age.

‘Then I shall call for yoghurt, sugared, and soft
bread. Pray what was the language in which you spoke to them?’

‘It was Irish, the language spoken by many if not by
most of the people in Ireland.’

Jacob waved his hand, gave his order, and asked,
‘Do these children speak no English?’

‘I will ask them when there is a little food in
their bellies. They might weep if they were questioned before.’

 How it
vanished, the yoghurt and the great soft flap of bread: within minutes the
children looked far more nearly human. And on being asked, after a second
helping, Mona said that although she did not know much, she could say most of a
Hail Mary. Kevin only hung his head.

‘Do you think that kind woman by the Gate of Woe
would wash these children, clothe them in modest decency, and even brush their
hair?’

‘Fatima? I am sure of it. She might find them
shoes, too.’

‘I doubt they have ever worn shoes.’ He asked them
and they both shook their heads. ‘Not even for Mass?’ Renewed shaking, and a hint of tears. ‘I know what might
answer very well,’ said Stephen. ‘Those shoes we call espardenyas, made of
sailcloth with soft cord soles and ribbons to attach them. Are they to be had,
do you think? I should not like to carry them to the consulate barefoot.’

‘Certainly they are to be had. At the southern
corner of this very square they’re to be had.’

In these shoes (red for the one, blue for the
other) they hobbled with ludicrous pride to Amos Jacob’s dubious lair: by the
time they reached it they were walking quite easily and their starved little
faces were more nearly human, even ready to smile. Fatima, a capable,
intelligent woman, looked at them with more sorrow than disapproval: after a longish
pause she brought them back washed, clothed, brushed, fed yet again and almost
unrecognizable, but perfectly willing to be friendly.

‘They are brisker by far,’ said Stephen ‘- do you
notice that the sound of the wind is less? - but they
will never walk up all those infernal steps. Would there be carriages to be
had, do you suppose?’

‘Certainly there are carriages to be had, and I
will send Achmet for one, if you wish.’

‘Pray be so kind.’

‘And certainly I have noticed a lessening in the
perpetual roar: it clenched one’s innermost man, diaphragm, solar plexus, pericardium into a hard knot that is now perceptibly looser.
If we take a carriage, we shall have to go a great way round to reach the
consulate, and for two thirds of the journey we shall be gazing over the
sea...’

Sea there was, a vast extent of white-flecked sea
with its horizon growing more and more distant as they rose: but the whole of
it was still empty even by the time they reached the consulate. Stephen left
the wondering children with Jacob under the palms and walked in: he was told
that Sir Peter was at a consular meeting, but smiling at the news he sent his
name up to Lady Clifford.

‘Oh Dr Maturin,’ she cried, ‘I am so sorry Sir
Peter is not at home: he is at one of those odious conferences that go on and
on for ever, and all to no purpose.’

‘I grieve for him, upon my word,’ said Stephen.
‘But my errand is rather to you than to him. I bought a couple of children this
morning in the slave-market, a boy and a girl, twins, of I suppose six or
seven. Although they do not speak a word of English beyond the Hail Mary they
are literally distressed British subjects. They were picked up by an Algerine
corsair that had been raiding the Munster coast - picked up in a
drifting boat, brought here and sold. May I beg you to shelter them for two or
three days, while I make arrangements to send them home?’