The day after the execution of the sentence on the Moor, the north wind was blowing with increasing violence.
The waves hurled themselves with fury against the girdle of rocks through which opened the narrow passage which led into the road of Tolari.
About eleven o’clock in the morning, Captain Simon, mounted on the platform of the rambade, was talking with Captain Hugues about the punishment which occurred the day before, and of the courage of the Moor.
Suddenly they saw a polacre, her sails almost torn away, flying before the tempest with the rapidity of an arrow, and about to enter the dangerous pass of which we have spoken.
Sometimes the frail vessel, rising on the crest of the towering waves, would show the edge of her keel running with foam like the breast of a race-horse.
Again, sinking in the hollow of the waves, she would plunge with such violence that her stem would be almost perpendicular.
Soon they could distinguish on the deluged deck two men enveloped in brown mantles with hoods, who were employing every possible effort to hold the whip-staff of the rudder.
Five other sailors, squatting at the prow, or holding on to the rigging, awaited the moment to aid in the manoeuvre.
So, by turns carried to the top of the waves and plunged in their depths, the polacre was hastening with frightful speed to tie narrow entrance of the channel, where the waves were dashing with fury.
“By St Elmo!” cried Captain Simon, “there’s a ship gone to destruction!”
“She is lost,” replied Hugues, coldly; “in a few minutes her rigging and hull will be nothing but a wreck, and her sailors will be corpses. May the Lord save the souls of our brothers!”
“Why did he dare venture in this passage at such a time?” said the gunner.
“If a man is to be shipwrecked it is better to perish with a feeble hope. When a man hopes, he prays, and dies a Christian; when he despairs, he blasphemes, and dies a pagan.
“Look, look, Simon, there is the little boat going into the breakers; it is all up with her!”
At that moment the commander, who had been informed of the approach of the vessel and of her desperate condition, appeared on deck with all the chevaliers, officers, and others who manned the galley.
After carefully examining the polacre and the breakers, Pierre des Anbiez called out, in a loud and solemn voice:
“Let the two long-boats be ready and equipped to gather the corpses on the beach: no human power can save this unfortunate ship. Only God can help her.” While the overseers superintended the execution of this order, the commander, turning to the chaplain, said:
“My brother, let us say the prayers for the dying, for these unfortunate men. Brothers, on your knees. Let the crew uncover.”
It was a grand and imposing spectacle.
All the chevaliers, clothed in black, were kneeling bareheaded on the deck; the bell for prayer dolefully tolled a funeral knell amid the wild shrieks of the tempest.
The slaves were also on their knees and uncovered.
In the rear, in the middle of a group of chevaliers dressed in black, Father Elzear in his white cassock could be distinguished.
Prayers for the dying were said with as much solemnity as if they were being recited in a church on land, or in a cloister.
It was not a mere form; these monk-soldiers were sad and contemplative. As sailors they saw a vessel without hope; as Christians they prayed for the souls of their brothers. In fact the polacre seemed in danger of going down every moment. The furious waves, rushing into the channel on their way to the sea, broke the current and whirled and tossed in every direction. Her sails, by which she might have made steady headway, were blown under the enormous rocks; her rudder was useless, and she was at the mercy of the wind and waters which rushed back and forth in unabating rage.
The prayers and chants continued without cessation.
Above all the other voices could be heard the manly, sonorous voice of the commander. The slaves on their knees looked in sullen apathy on this desperate struggle of man against the elements.
Suddenly, by an unhoped-for chance, either because the polacre was of such perfect construction, or because she responded finally to the action of her rudder, or because the little triangular sail that she hoisted caught some current of the upper air, the gallant little vessel steadied herself, resumed her headway, and cleared the dangerous passage with the rapidity and lightness of a sea-gull.
A few minutes after she was out of danger, calmly sailing the waters of the road.
This manoeuvre was so unforeseen, so wonderful, and so well executed, that for a moment astonishment suspended the prayers of the chevaliers.
The commander, amazed, said to the officers, after a few moments of breathless silence:
“My brothers, let us thank the Lord for having heard our prayers, and let us sing a song of thanksgiving.”
While the galley resounded with this pious and solemn invocation, the polacre, The Holy Terror to the Moors, for it was she, was beating about in the road with very little sail, in order to approach the black galley.
She was but a little distance from her when a cannon-shot, sent from the rambade of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows, signalled her to hoist her flag and lie to.
A second cannon-shot ordered her to send her captain on board the black galley. Whatever interest this vessel inspired in the commander when she was in danger, her perils past, she must conform to the established rules for visiting ships.
Soon the polacre lay to, and her little boat, equipped with two rowers and steered by a third sailor, approached the stem of the galley.
The man who was at the helm left the whip-staff, slowly climbed the stairs of the first seat of rowers, and stood before the commander and his chevaliers, who had gathered together in the rear of the galley. The sailor in question was no other than our old acquaintance, the worthy Luquin Trinquetaille. His hooded mantle, his boots, and his breeches of coarse wool were running with water.
As he set foot on the deck of the galley he respectfully allowed his hood to fall back on his shoulders, and it could be easily seen that his good, honest face was still excited by the terrible experience through which he had just passed.
The commander, in his visits to Maison-Forte, had often seen Luquin, and was agreeably surprised to recognise a man who could give him some news of his brother, Raimond V.
“The Lord has rescued your ship from a great peril,” said the commander to him. “We have already prayed for your soul, and the souls of your companions.‘’
“May all of you be blessed, M. Commander; we had need of it, for our situation was awful; never since I have been at sea did I ever take part in such a frolic.”
The commander replied to the captain, sternly, “The trials that the Lord sends us are not frolics. How is my brother Raimond?”
“Monseigneur is well,” replied Trinquetaille, a little ashamed of having been reproved by the commander. “I left him in good health, day before yesterday, when I left Maison-Forte.”
“And how is Mlle, des Anbiez?” asked Father Elzear, who had come near.
“Mlle, des Anbiez is very well, father,” replied Luquin.
“Where did you sail from, and where are you going?” asked the commander.
“M. Commander, yesterday I came out of La Ciotat, with three fishing-boats, all armed, in order to cruise two or three leagues from the coasts to discover the pirates.”
“The pirates?”
“Yes, M. Commander. A pirate chebec appeared three days ago; Master Peyrou discovered it. All the coast is alarmed; they expect a descent from the pirates, and they are right, because a tartan from Nice, that I met before this squall, told me that on the east of Corsica had been seen three vessels, and one of them is the Red Galleon of Pog-Reis, the renegade.”
“Pog-Reis!” exclaimed the commander.
“Pog-Reis!” repeated the chevaliers, who surrounded the commander.
“Pog-Reis!” again said Pierre des Anbiez, with an expression of savage satisfaction, as if at last he was about to meet an implacable enemy he had long sought, but who, by some fatality, had always escaped him.
“What were you going to do at Tolari?” asked the commander of Trinquetaille.
“To speak truly, M. Commander, I was not going for pleasure. Surprised by the squall yesterday, I was beating about as I could, but the weather became so violent, and thinking my polacre doomed, I made a vow to Our Lady of Protection, and risked entering the pass, that I was acquainted with, for I have anchored there many a time, coming from the coasts of Sardinia.”
“The Lord grant that this north wind may stop blowing!” said the commander; then, addressing his expert pilot, he said, “What do you think of the weather, pilot?”
“M. Commander, if the wind increases until sunset, there is a chance that it will cease at the rising of the moon.”
“If that is so, and you can put out to-night without danger,” said the commander to Trinquetaille, “go to La Ciotat and inform my brother of my arrival.”
“And that will be a great joy to Maison-Forte, M. commander, although your arrival there may be useless, for a vessel from Marseilles, that I met, told me that soldiers had been sent to La Ciotat with the captain of the company of the guards attending the Marshal of Vitry. They said that these troops were to be sent to Maison-Forte, in consequence of the affair of the recorder Isnard.”
“And what is that?” asked the commander of Luquin.
The captain then told how Raimond V., instead of submitting to the orders of the Governor of Provence, had had his emissary chased by bulls.
As he listened to the narration of this imprudent pleasantry on the part of Raimond V., the commander and Father Elzear looked at each other sadly, as if they deplored the foolish and rash conduct of their brother.
“Go below to the refectory, and the head waiter will give you something to warm and strengthen you,” said the commander to Luquin.
The captain obeyed this order with gratitude, and returned to the prow, followed by a few curious sailors, anxious to learn all the news of Provence.
The commander entered his chamber with his brother, and said to him:
“As soon as the weather will permit, we will depart for Maison-Forte. I fear much that Raimond may be the victim of his rashness concerning the creatures of the cardinal. The Lord grant that I may meet Pog-Reis, and that I may be able to prevent the evil which he is no doubt preparing for this shore, which is so defenceless, and for the unfortunate city of La Ciotat.”
About the same time that The Holy Terror to the Moors was making her marvellous entrance into the road of Tolari, and the sad and black galley of Malta was standing toward her, three vessels of very different character were anchored in Port Mage, quite a good road situated on the northeast of the island of Port-Cros, one of the smallest of the Hyères islands.
Port-Cros, about six or seven leagues from La Ciotat, was at this time of year thickly populated, inasmuch as the season for tunnies and sardines brought many fishermen there who made it a temporary home.
Two galleys and a chebec were at anchor in the bay of which we speak. The tempest had not diminished in violence, but the waters of Port Mage, protected by the high lands on the northwest side, were very tranquil, and reflected in their calm azure the brilliant colours which shone from the Red Galleon of Pog-Reis and the green galley of Trimalcyon. The chebec, commanded by Erebus, had nothing remarkable in its exterior.
The fears of the watchman and the suspicions of Reine were only too well founded. The three unknown men of the gorges of Ollioules were no other than pirate captains, not natives of Barbary, but renegades.
During one of their cruises, they got possession of a Holland vessel, and found on board a Muscovite lord, his son, and preceptor. After having sold them as slaves in Algiers, they took their papers and had the audacity to disembark at Cette, and, coming to Marseilles by land, to present themselves to the Marshal of Vitry under borrowed names. The marshal, deceived by the very boldness of this artifice, received them hospitably.
After a sojourn quite profitably employed in making inquiries concerning the departures and arrivals of vessels of commerce, the three corsairs returned to Cette, and at that point were not distant from the coast of Provence.
They contemplated an important attack on this seashore, and had been keeping themselves sometimes in one of the numerous bays of the island of Corsica, and sometimes in one of the little deserted harbours on the coasts of France or of Savoy; for, at this period, the shores were so badly guarded that pirates risked such positions without fear, and too often without danger.
There was as much difference in the aspect of the two pirate galleys of which we speak, and that of the commander, as there could be between a solemnly attired nun and a silly Bohemian girl glittering in satin and spangles. One was as silent and somber as the others were gay and blustering.
We prefer to conduct the reader on board the Sybarite, a galley of twenty-six oars commanded by Trimalcyon, and anchored a few cable lengths from the Red Galleon of Pog-Reis.
The construction of the pirate galleys resembled very much that of the galleys of Malta; but the ornamentation and splendour of the furniture and accommodation inside differed greatly from them.
The crew was composed of slaves, whether Christians, negroes, or even Turks, as the renegades took little pains as to the manner of recruiting the service of their vessels.
Although they were chained to their benches, as were the crews on the galleys of Malta, the slaves of the Sybarite seemed to partake of the joyous atmosphere which surrounded them.
Instead of having a ferocious, morose, or dejected air, their countenances expressed a vulgar indifference or a cynical insolence. They appeared robust and capable of enduring the severest fatigue, but the fear inspired by their undisciplined character could be seen in the heroic appointments of repression which surrounded them.
Two pieces of ordnance and several blunderbusses on pivot, constantly turned on the crew, were disposed in such a manner that they could sweep the galley from one end to the other.
The spahis, or select soldiers charged with superintending the crew, always wore long pistols in their belts, and carried a battle-axe in their hands.
The uniform of these spahis consisted of red mantles, gaiters of embroidered morocco, and a coat of mail underneath a jacket which was trimmed with yellow lace.
Their scarlet fez was surmounted by a turban of coarse white muslin, loosely rolled in the antique style which, it was said, ran back to the time of the soldiers of Hai-Keddin-Barberousse.
The costume of the crew was not uniform, as plunder and pillage were the principal means by which worn-out garments were replaced. Some of them wore breeches and doublets upon which could be seen the marks of the gold or silver lace which had once adorned them, and which had been removed for the profit of the reis or the captain. Others were clothed in the coats of soldiers, and some even wore the black felt garments taken from the soldiers of religion.
Notwithstanding the heterogeneous appearance of the crew, the galley of Trimalcyon-Reis was kept with scrupulous cleanliness. Its sea-green colour, relieved with fillets of purple, was, at the stern, richly set off in gold, and, in fact, a red flag, on which was embroidered in white the two-edged scimitar, called Zulfekar, was the only sign by which the Sybarite could be recognised as a pirate vessel.
Not far distant lay at anchor the Red Galleon of Pog-Reis, which had a severer and more warlike appearance, and near the entrance of the bay the Tsekedery, or light vessel commanded by Erebus, carried the same standard.
The coasts of France were then, as we have said, in such a deplorable state of defence that these three vessels had been able, without the slightest obstacle, to put into port, in order to escape the storm which raged the day before.
If the exterior of the Sybarite was splendid, her interior offered all the refinements of the most elaborate luxury, in which there was a happy combination of the customs of the West and the East.
A dwarf negro, fantastically attired, had just struck three resounding blows on a Chinese gong placed at the stem near the helm. At this signal a band of musical instruments performed some martial airs. It was the dinner-hour of Trimalcyon, and the chamber of the stem had been converted temporarily into a dining-room.
The partitions were hidden under rich tapestries of poppy-coloured Venetian brocatelle with handsome designs in green and gold.
Pog and Trimalcyon were seated at table.
Trimalcyon had the same characteristic corpulence, the same bright complexion, shrewd eye, joyous countenance, and red, sensual lips. His long, soft cloak of blue velvet disclosed, in opening, a buff-skin of extreme elasticity, covered over with a steel net so finely wrought that it was as flexible as the thinnest material. This habit of wearing continually a defensive armour proved in what confident security the captain of the Sybarite was accustomed to live.
Pog-Reis, sitting opposite his companion, had also the same haughty, sarcastic manner. He wore an Arabian yellek of black velvet embroidered with black silk, on which hung at full length his heavy red beard; his green and red cap of the Albanian fashion covered half his white forehead, which was deeply furrowed with wrinkles.
Two female slaves of great beauty, one a mulattress, the other a Circassian, dressed in light, thin gowns of Smyrna material, performed, with the aid of the dwarf negro, the table service of Trimalcyon.
On revolving shelves were displayed magnificent pieces of plate, unmatched and incomplete it is true, but of the most beautiful workmanship, some of silver, some of gilt, and others of gold set with precious stones. In the midst of this plate, the fruit of robbery and murder, were placed, in sacrilegious derision, sacred vessels, carried away either from the churches on the seashore or from Christian ships.
A very penetrating and very sweet perfume burned in a censer hanging from one of the rafters of the ceiling. Seated on a luxurious divan, the captain of the Sybarite said to his guest:
“Excuse this poor hospitality, my comrade. I would prefer to replace these poor girls with Egyptian slaves, who, equipped with ewers of Corinthian metal, would sprinkle, as they sang, rose-scented snow-water on our hands.”
“You do not lack vases and ewers, Trimalcyon,” said Pog, throwing a significant glance at the sideboard.
“Ah, well, yes, there are vases of gold and silver, but what is that compared to the Corinthian metal of which antiquity speaks: a metal made of a mixture of gold, silver, and bronze, and so marvellously wrought that a large ewer and basin only weighed one pound? By Sardanapalus! comrade, some day I must make a descent on Messina. They say that the viceroy possesses several antique statuettes of that precious metal. But take some of this partridge pudding spiced with wild aniseed; I had it served on its silver gridiron burning hot. Or do you prefer these imitations of pea-fowl eggs? You will find there, instead of the yellow, a very fat tit-lark, well yellowed, and, instead of the white, a thick sauce of cooked cream.”
“Your fine vocabulary of gormandising ought to win for you the esteem of your cook. You appear to me to be made, both of you, for the purpose of understanding each other,” said Pog, eating with disdainful indifference the delicate dishes served by his host.
“My cook,” replied Trimalcyon, “understands me well enough, in fact, although sometimes he has his discouragements; he regrets France, from which country I carried him off unawares. I have tried to console him, for a long time, with everything,—silver, money, attention,—nothing succeeds however, so I have finished where I ought to have begun, with a severe bastinado, and am quite well satisfied with it, and he is too, I suppose, since he cooks wonderfully, as you see. Give us something to drink, Orangine!” called Trimalcyon to the mulattress, who poured out a glorious glass of Bordeaux wine. “What is that wine, Crow-provender?” asked he of the negro dwarf, holding his glass up to his eyes to judge its colour.
“My lord, it was taken, in the month of June, from a Bordeaux brigantine on its way to Genoa.”
“H’m, h’m,” said Trimalcyon, tasting it, “it is good, very good, but there is the inconvenience of supplying ourselves as we do, friend Pog: we never have the same quality, so if we get accustomed to one kind of wine, we meet with cruel disappointments. Ah! our trade is not a bed of roses. But you do not drink! Fill Seigneur Fog’s glass, Swan-skin,” said Trimalcyon, to the white Circassian, pointing to his guest’s cup.
Pog, as a refusal, placed his finger over his glass.
“At least, let us drink to the success of our descent upon La Ciotat, comrade.”
Pog replied to this new invitation by a movement of contemptuous impatience.
“As you please, comrade,” said Trimalcyon, without the slightest indication of being offended by the refusal and haughty manner of his guest, “it is just as well not to trust myself to your invocations; the devil knows your voice, and he always thinks you are calling him. But you are wrong to disdain that ham, it is from Westphalia, I think,—is it not, you scoundrel?”
“Yes, my lord,” said the dwarf, “it came from that Dutch fly-boat, arrested as it sailed out of the strait of Sardinia. It was destined for the Viceroy of Naples.” At that moment the flourishes of the musicians ceased; a noise, at first quite indistinct, but increasing by degrees, soon became loud and threatening. The clanking of chains and complaints of the galley-slaves could be heard, and, finally, rising above the tumult, the voices of the spahis and the cracking of the coxswain’s whip.
Trimalcyon seemed so accustomed to these cries, that he continued to drink a glass of wine that he was carrying to his lips, and carelessly remarked, as he set his glass on the table:
“There are some dogs that want to bite; fortunately their chains are good and strong. Crow-provender, go and see why the musicians have stopped playing. I will have them given twenty blows of the cowhide if they stop again, instead of blowing their trumpets. I am too good. I love the arts too much. Instead of selling these do-nothings in Algiers, I have kept them to make music, and that is the way they behave! Ah! if they were not too feeble for the crew, they should find out what it is to handle the oar.”
“They are certainly too weak for that, my lord,” said the negro dwarf; “the comedians that you captured with them on that galley from Barcelona are still at the house of Jousouf, who bought them. He cannot get two pieces of gold for a single one of the singing, blowing cattle.”
Pog-Reis seemed thoughtful and oblivious of what was passing around him, although the murmurs of dissatisfaction increased to such violence that Trimalcyon said to the dwarf:
“Before you go out, place here by me, on the divan, my pistols and a stock of arms. Well, now go and see what is the matter. If it is anything serious, let Mello come and tell me. At the same time, inform those blowers of trumpets that I will make them swallow trumpets and buccinæ if they stop playing a moment.”
“My lord, they say they have not wind enough to play two hours together.”
“Ah, they lack wind, do they! Ah, well, tell them that if they give me that reason again I will have their stomachs opened, and by means of a blacksmith’s bellows put them in such a condition that they will not lack wind.”
At this coarse and brutal pleasantry, Orangine and Swan-skin looked at each other in astonishment.
“You can tell them besides,” added Trimalcyon, “that as they are not worth one piece of gold in the slave market, and as it costs me more to keep them than they are worth, I shall think nothing of gratifying my caprice on them.”
The negro went out.
“What I like in you,” said Pog, slowly, as he awakened from his reverie, “is that you are a stranger to every sentiment, I will not say of virtue, but of humanity.”
“And what in the devil do you say that to me for, friend Pog? You see that, as inhuman as I am, I do not forget who you are, and who I am. You say ‘tu’ to me, and I answer ‘vous’ to you.”
Just then two shots were fired and resounded through the galley.
“The devil! there is Mello who is also saying ‘tue,’” added Trimalcyon, smiling at his odious play upon words and looking toward the door with imperturbable calmness. The two women slaves fell on their knees with signs of agonising terror.
Suddenly the trumpets burst forth with an energy which doubtless violated all the laws of harmony, but which proved at least that the threats conveyed by the negro dwarf had taken effect, and that the unhappy musicians believed Trimalcyon capable of torturing them.
After two more shots, there was a cry,—a terrible roar uttered by all the slaves at once.
The tumult was then succeeded by a profound silence. “It seems it was nothing after all,” said the captain of the Sybarite, addressing Pog, who had again fallen into a reverie. “But tell me, comrade,” continued he, “in what do you discover that I have nothing human in me? I love the arts, and letters and luxury. I plunder with discretion, taking only what suits me. I enjoy to the utmost all of the five senses with which I am provided. I fight with care, preferring to attack one who is weaker rather than one who is stronger than myself, and my commerce consists in taking from those who have with the least possible chance of loss. Yes, once again I ask you, comrade, where in the devil do you see inhumanity in that?”
“Come, you excite my shame as well as my pity. You have not even the energy of evil. There is always in you the pedantry of the college.”
“Fie, fie upon you, my comrade; do not talk of the college, of that sad time of meagre cheer and privations without number. I would be at this moment as dry as a galley mast, if I had continued spitting Latin, while now,” said the insolent knave, striking his stomach, “I have the rotundity of a prebendary; and all that, thanks to whom? To Yacoub-Reis, who, twenty years ago, made me a slave as I was going by sea to Civita-Vecchia, to try my clerical fortune in the city of the clergy. Yacoub-Reis gave me mind, activity, and courage. I was young, he taught me his trade. I renounced my religion, I took the turban, and so from one thing to another, from pillage to murder, I came at last to be commander of the Sybarite. Commerce goes well! I expose myself in extreme cases, and when it is necessary I fight like another, but I take care of my skin, it is true, because I intend before long to retire from business, and repose from the fatigues of war in my retreat in Tripoli, with several Madames Trimalcyon. Again I ask, is not all that very human?”
These words appeared to make little impression on the silent companion of the captain of the Sybarite, who contented himself with saying, with a shrug of the shoulders:
“The wild boar to his lair!”
“Sardanapalus! speaking of wild boars, how I would like to have those that figured in the epic feasts of Trimalcyon, my patron!” cried the unmannerly boor, without appearing to take offence at the contempt of his guest. “Those were worthy wild boars, that they served whole with caps on their heads, and insides stuffed with puddings and sausages imitating the entrails, or perhaps enclosing winged thrushes that would fly up to the ceiling. Those are luxuries I shall realise some day or other. Sardanapalus! I have worked twenty years just to give myself some day a feast worthy of Roman antiquity!”
The negro dwarf opened the door.
The pirate then thought only of the tumult which had so suddenly ceased.
“Ah, well, rascal, what about that noise? Why did not Mello come? Was it, then, nothing?”
“No, my lord, a Christian quarrelled with an Albanian slave.”
“And then?”
“The Albanian stabbed the Christian.”
“And then?”
“The Christians cried ‘Death to the Albanian,’ but the Christian who was wounded knocked the Albanian down and almost killed him.”
“And then?”
“Then the Albanians and the Moors, in their turn, roared against the Christians.”
“And then?”
“To prevent the crew killing each other, and to satisfy everybody, patron Mello blew the wounded Christian’s and the wounded Albanian’s brains out.”
“And then?”
“My lord, seeing that, everybody became quiet.”
“And the musicians?”
“My lord, I spoke to them about the blacksmith’s bellows, and before I had finished my sentence, they blew so hard on their trumpets and shells, I became almost deaf. I was about to forget, my lord, that Mello signalled the long-boat of Seigneur Erebus, who is coming now to the galley.”
Pog started.
Trimalcyon cried, “Quick, Swan-skin, Orangine, a cover for the most beautiful youth who ever captured poor merchant ships.”
Before continuing this narrative, some explanation is necessary concerning Erebus and Seigneur Pog, the silent and sarcastic man.
In the year 1612, twenty years before the period of which we write, a Frenchman, still young, arrived at Tripoli, with one servant.
The captain of the vessel which brought him to Tripoli had frequent opportunity to observe that his passenger was very expert in matters pertaining to navigation; he concluded finally that the traveller was an officer on the vessels and galleys of the king, and he was not mistaken.
Seigneur Pog—we continue to give him this assumed name—was an excellent sailor, as we shall soon see.
Upon his arrival at Tripoli, Pog, after having, according to the custom of Barbary, bought the protection of Bey Hassan, hired a house in the suburbs of the city, not far from the sea. He lived there during one year with his valet in profound solitude.
Some French merchants, established at Tripoli, exhausted their powers of conjecture on the singular taste of their compatriot, who came, as they thought, through mere caprice, to inhabit a wild and deserted coast.
Some attributed this eccentricity to a violent, desperate grief; others saw, if not an unpardonable folly, a monomania, at least, in his strange determination.
These last suppositions did not lack foundation.
At certain periods of the year, Pog, it was said, was subject to such attacks of despair and rage that belated herdsmen, passing his solitary house at night, would hear furious and frantic cries.
Three or four years passed in this manner.
To distract his mind from gloomy thoughts, and to recuperate his health, Pog made long voyages at sea in a small vessel, but a very smooth and swift-sailing ship which he himself managed with rare skill. His crew consisted of two young slave Moors.
One day, one of the most famous and cruel corsairs of Tripoli, named Kemal-Reis, came near perishing with his galley, which ran aground on the Coast a short distance from the house of Pog.
Pog was just returning from one of his voyages. Recognising the galley of Kemal-Reis, he set sail toward her, and rendered her the most efficient aid.
One of Pog’s slaves reported later that he had heard him say, “Man would be too happy if all the wolves and tigers were destroyed.” So the saving of Kemal-Reis, dreaded for reason of his cruelties, was due to the bitter misanthropy of Pog. Instead of yielding to an impulse of natural generosity, he desired to preserve to humanity one of its most terrible scourges.
A short time after this event Kemal-Reis visited the isolated house of the Frenchman, and, by degrees, a sort of intimacy was established between the pirate and the misanthrope.
One day the newsmongers of Tripoli learned with astonishment that Pog had embarked on board the galley of Kemal-Reis. They supposed the Frenchman to be very rich, and that he had freighted the Tripolitan vessel in order to take a voyage of pleasure on the coast of Barbary and Egypt and Syria.
To the great astonishment of the public, Kemal-Reis returned a month after his departure, with his galley filled with French slaves, captured from the coasts of Languedoc and Provence, and the rumour was current in Tripoli that the favourable results of this audacious enter-prise were owing to the information and advice given by Pog, who knew better than any one else the weak points on the seashore of France. This rumour soon acquired such probability that our consul at Tripoli deemed it his duty to inform against Pog, and to instruct the ministers of Louis XIII. of what had happened.
And here we make the statement, once for all, that in 1610, as well as in 1630 and in 1700, the abduction of inhabitants from our coasts by the regencies of Barbary was almost never considered a cause for a declaration of war against these powers. Our consuls assisted at the disembarking of the captives and generally acted as mediators for their ransom.
If any measures were taken against Pog, it was because he had, as a Frenchman, assisted with his own hand in an attack upon his country.
The information given by the consul was in vain, to the great scandal of our compatriots and of Europeans established at Tripoli. Pog made a solemn abjuration, renounced the cross, assumed the turban, and henceforth remained unmolested.
Kemal-Reis had everywhere proclaimed that the new renegade was one of the best captains whom he had ever known, and that the regency of Barbary could not have made a more useful acquisition. From that moment Pog-Reis equipped a galley and directed his operations solely against French vessels, and especially against the galleys of Malta, commanded by the chevaliers of our nation. Several times he ravaged the coasts of Languedoc and Provence with impunity. It must be said, however, that this fury for plunder and destruction only seized Pog, so to speak, periodically, and by paroxysms, and his rage seemed to reach its height about the end of the month of December.
During that month he showed himself without pity, and it is related, with a shudder of horror, that several times he had the throats of a great number of captives cut,—a frightful and bloody holocaust which he offered, doubtless, on some painful and dreaded anniversary. The month of December passed, his mind, obscured by a bloodthirsty madness, became more calm, when, returning to Tripoli, and shutting himself up in his solitude, he remained sometimes two or three months without putting to sea. Then, his desperate soul again possessed by some bitter resentment, he equipped his galley anew, and recommenced his atrocious career.
Among the French captives whom he had taken in his first expedition with Kemal-Reis, and whom he had generously abandoned to this corsair, upon the sole condition that liberty should never be restored to them, was one whom he retained,—a child of four or five years carried away from the coast of Languedoc, with an old woman who died during the passage. This child of unparagoned beauty was Erebus.
Pog named him thus, as if he wished by the fatal name to predestinate the unfortunate child to the career to which his evil designs devoted him.
In the intensity of his hatred of the human race, Pog had the infernal desire to destroy the soul of this unfortunate child, by giving him the most pernicious education. He devoted himself to this task with abominable perseverance. As Erebus advanced in years, Pog, without reason for his absurd eccentricities, alternately expended upon the boy a furious aversion and cruelty, and impulsive demonstrations of solicitude,—these last being the only sentiments af kindness he had felt for many years. By degrees, these spasmodic expressions of sympathy discontinued, and Pog soon included Erebus in the common execration with which he pursued mankind, and adhered to his fatal resolution with deadly persistence. Far from leaving the boy’s mind uneducated, he took particular pains in developing it. Among the numerous slaves which his avocation of rapine brought in his way, Pog-Reis easily found professors and teachers of all sorts, and what he failed to find he purchased from other corsairs or obtained by other means.
For instance, having learned that a celebrated Spanish painter, named Juan Pelieko, lived in Barcelona, he employed every stratagem to draw him out of the city, and at last succeeded in capturing him and taking him to Tripoli. When this artist had perfected Erebus in his art, Pog had him put in chains, in which servitude he remained until he died.
In his impious and cruel course of experiment, Pog, desiring to force his victim through every degree in the scale of iniquity, from vice to crime, took pleasure in making the child acquainted with all kinds of sin, and in giving him opportunities for culture and accomplishments. He argued that with ordinary intelligence a man was only an ordinary villain, but that various resources enabled him to achieve the most wonderful results in audacious wickedness. Through this abominable system, the arts, instead of elevating the soul of Erebus, were designed to develop a passion for sensual pleasures, and to materialise an otherwise exalted nature.
When the wonders of painting and music do not lift the soul into the infinite realm of the ideal, when one seeks only a melody more or less agreeable to the ear, or a form more or less attractive to the eye, then the arts deprave rather than ennoble mankind.
Surely, Pog must have had a terrible vengeance to wreak upon humanity, his misanthropy must have partaken of the nature of madness, that he could have been guilty of the sacrilegious cruelty of thus degrading a pure young soul!
No scruple or regret made him hesitate. As a tender father would seek to guard his child’s mind from dangerous thoughts, and to encourage in his young heart all noble and generous instincts, Pog, on the other hand, left no means untried to corrupt this unhappy child, and to excite his bad passions.
It is with certain moral organisations as with physical natures,—they can be injured and enfeebled, but not completely ruined, so healthy and vigorous is their vital germ. Thus it was with Erebus. By a special providence, the pernicious teachings of Pog had not yet, so to speak, essentially altered the heart of the poor boy.
The singular instinct of contradiction peculiar to youth saved him from many dangers. The very facility with which he could, scarcely adolescent, have yielded to every excess, the odious temptations they dared set before him, sufficed to preserve him from precocious dissipations.
In a word, the natural exaltation of his sentiments urged him to cultivate the sweet, pure, and noble emotions from which they endeavoured to remove him, but unfortunately the fatal influence of Pog had not been absolutely vain. The ardent character of Erebus retained a sad evidence of the perversity of his education.
If in some moments he had passionate yearnings toward good, if he struggled against the detestable counsels of his tutor, the habit of a warlike and adventurous life which he had led from the age of twelve or thirteen years, the impetuosity of his character, and the transport of his passions, often dragged him into grievous excess. From his earliest youth, Pog had taken him along in the various incursions into the shore, and the courage and natural daring of Erebus had been valiantly exhibited in several combats.
Instructed by experience and by practice, he had learned with great facility the avocation of sailor and mariner, and the constant aim of Pog had been to inculcate in him a profound and relentless hatred of the chevaliers of Malta, who were represented to him as the murderers of his family, and the secret of this murder Pog had faithfully promised to reveal to him some day.
Yet nothing was more false. Pog had no knowledge of the parents of the child, left an orphan at such an early age, but he wished to perpetuate in his victim his own hatred of the chevaliers of religion.
Erebus renewed his vows, and an ardent desire for vengeance developed in his young soul against the soldiers of Christ, whom he believed to be the murderers of his family. In other respects, Erebus gave less satisfaction to Pog. Cruelty in cold blood was revolting to him, and sometimes he was deeply moved at the sight of human suffering. Pog had often observed that irony and sarcasm were a powerful and infallible arm in combating the natural nobility of the youth’s character, and by comparing him to a clergyman, or a tonsured Christian, or accusing him of weakness and cowardice, he often provoked the unhappy boy to culpable acts.
The scene in the rocks of Ollioules, where Erebus saw Reine for the first time, is a striking proof of that constant struggle between his natural inclinations and the bad passions that Pog excited in his heart.
The first impulse of Erebus was to hasten to the rescue of Raimond V. and to respond with almost filial veneration to the old man’s outburst of gratitude,—in fact, to believe himself rewarded for his generous conduct by the satisfaction of his conscience and the grateful looks of the young girl; but a bitter sarcasm from Pog, a coarse jest from Trimalcyon, changed these noble emotions into sensual desire and a profound disdain for the courageous action by which he had just honoured himself.
Yet, in spite of the cynical bantering of the two pirates, the enchanting beauty of Reine made a profound impression upon Erebus.
He had never loved, his heart had never taken part in the coarse pleasures which he had sought among the slaves that the hazard of war had thrown into his hands.
Pog and Trimalcyon were not long in perceiving a certain change in the character of Erebus.
Some indiscreet words enlightened Pog as to the powerful influence of this first love upon the young man, and he began to fear the consequences of this passion, in elevating the heart of Erebus,—a love which would make the young man blush for the abominable life he was leading, and awaken in him the most generous sentiments. Pog, therefore resolved to kill this love by possession, and proposed to Erebus to abduct Reine by force.
He encountered a lively resistance in the young pirate. Erebus thought the proposed abduction atrocious; he wished to be loved or to make himself loved.
Pog then suggested another plan. He flattered the self-love of Erebus beyond measure, by proving to him that he must have made a profound impression on the heart of the young girl, but that it was necessary, by mysterious means, to preserve and increase the remembrance that she would necessarily hide from the knowledge of her father. Then, when he was sure of being loved, he was to appear, offer to carry her away, and withdraw if she did not accept his proposal.
This plan, which Pog intended to modify at its conclusion, satisfied Erebus. We have seen how it was partly executed at Maison-Forte.
A Moor who had accompanied the young pirate at sea from his childhood, and who was warmly attached to him, was to introduce himself secretly into the castle of Anbiez.
This man was the Bohemian whom we have seen at Maison-Forte. He had accompanied Erebus at the time of the audacious journey of the three pirates in Provence. When they reached the port of Cette again, where they had left their chebec, they embarked and rejoined their galleys, which were anchored in the islands of Majorca, then open to all the pirates of the Mediterranean.
There, Erebus, Pog, Trimalcyon, and Hadji—such was the name of the Bohemian—contrived their plans.
The day of the adventure in the gorges of Ollioules Hadji had described the old gentleman whom Erebus had just saved, and the young girl, to his hosts in Marseilles, who gave him the name of Raimond V. and his young daughter, for the Baron des Anbiez was well known in Provence.
During his sojourn at Majorca, Erebus, who in his leisure occupied himself in the art of painting, made as a souvenir the miniature of which we have spoken, and a skilful goldsmith enamelled the little dove on some objects intended for Reine. Finally, Erebus added a portrait of himself, which was placed in the medallion ornamenting the guzla of the Bohemian.
These preparations completed, the Moor departed, taking with him, as a means of correspondence with the two pirates, two pigeons raised on board the chebec of Erebus, and habituated to seek and to recognise this vessel, which they regained with a jerk of the wing as soon as they perceived it, at a distance beyond the power of the eye of man.
At the end of fifteen days, the two galleys and the chebec began to cruise and beat about in view of the coasts of Provence.
As we have said, the month of December was Pog’s gloomy month, the period in which his cruel instincts were exasperated to a ferocious monomania.
He had dared present himself under an assumed name to the Marshal of Vitry, only to examine at leisure the state of the coast and the fortifications of Marseilles, as he had the audacious design of surprising and ravaging the city, and burning the port. He counted on his understanding with some Moors established in Marseilles, to make himself master of the boom of the harbour.
However absurd or impossible it may appear, this attack, or rather this surprise, might have been successful. Pog did not despair of it If the arrangements that he had manipulated failed at his signal, he was sure at least of being able to lay waste a coast which was without defence, and the little city of La Ciotat, for reason of its proximity to Maison-Forte, must in this case share the fate of Marseilles.
In the tumult of the battle, Reine des Anbiez could easily be carried off.
We have seen that the manoeuvres of the Bohemian succeeded.
A long time hidden among the rocks which bordered upon Maison-Forte, he had several times seen Reine in the balcony of the window of her oratory, and had observed that this window often remained open. Thanks to his agility, the Bohemian had introduced himself there twice in the evening,—the first time with the crystal vase containing a Persian amaryllis, a bulbous plant which blooms in a few days; the second time with the miniature.
Certain of having established these mysterious antecedents sufficiently well to excite the curiosity of Reine, and thus force her to think of Erebus, Hadji, thinking he could present himself at Maison-Forte without awakening suspicion, was returning to the house of Raimond V., and on the way met the recorder Isnard and his retinue.
Fifteen days after his arrival at Maison-Forte, the chebec, at the setting of the sun, began to cruise at large. Hadji then sent one of the pigeons as the bearer of a letter, informing Erebus that he was loved, and Pog where he could attempt a landing, in case he should be compelled to renounce his intention of surprising Marseilles.
The watchman’s eagle intercepted this correspondence by devouring the messenger. Unhappily, Hadji had another emissary. The next day, at sunset, the chebec appeared again, and a letter carried by the second pigeon announced to Erebus that he was loved, and to Pog that the most favourable moment for a descent upon La Ciotat was Christmas Day, a time when all the Provençals were occupied with their family feasts and merrymaking.
The tempest began to blow the very evening of the day on which Erebus received this intelligence. He rejoined the two galleys which were cruising off the coast of Hyères; the weather becoming more and more violent, the three vessels put into Port Mage, on the island of Port-Cros. As we have said, they had been anchored there since the day before, impatiently waiting for the wind to change, as the celebration of Christmas would occur the day after the morrow. Before attempting anything at La Ciotat, Pog wished to assure himself that his enterprise on Marseilles was not possible.
Now that we are acquainted with the fatal ties which bound Erebus to Pog, we will follow the young adventurer on the galley of Trimalcyon.
He slowly ascended on board the Sybarite and entered the apartment where dinner was being served.