“It is more than that, I think,” said she. “It is the price at which I am to be wed; the price at which Stephen is to commit this mid-summer madness.”
And she laughed again, whilst Lady Mary and Vallancey realised — the latter in utter dismay and fear — that she had overheard all that had passed between them.
“Lucy!” he cried, and checked there, not knowing what to add.
“But the price need not be paid, and so you will be saved, Stephen, from this monstrous wedding.” As she spoke her fingers tightened over the paper and crumpled it into her palm. “And since there is to be no wedding, my lady the wedding-gift will not be needed.”
And she flung the crumpled pardon into the blazing fire. Then her laughter shrilled higher with the hysteria of a heart surcharged.
With an oath Vallancey sprang to rescue that precious document. But a fluttering film of ash was all that remained — a symbol of the life which his wantonness had forfeited.
Hoofs rattled on the cobbles of the yard, and a heavy knock fell upon the door.
THE SWORD OF ISLAM
I
Ordinarily Dragut Reis — who was dubbed by the Faithful “The Drawn Sword of Islam” — loved Christians as the fox loves geese. But in that summer Of 1550 his feelings acquired a far deeper malignancy; they developed into a direct and personal hatred that for intensity was second only to the hatred which the Christians bore Dragut.
The allied Christian forces, under the direction of their emperor, had smoked him out of his stronghold of Mehedia; they had seized that splendid city, and were in the act of razing it to the ground as the neighbouring Carthage had been razed of old.
Dragut reckoned up his losses with a gloomy, vengeful mind. He had lost his city; and from the eminence of a budding Basha in the act of founding a kingdom he had been cast down once more to be a wanderer upon the seas.
He had lost three thousand men, and amongst them the very flower of his fiery corsairs. He had lost some twelve thousand Christian slaves — the fruit of many a desperate raid by land and water. He had lost his lieutenant and nephew, Hisar, who was even now a captive in the hands of his inveterate enemy, Andrea Doria. It is little wonder that he lost his temper, too. But he recovered it quickly, that he might set about recovering the rest. He was not the man to waste his days in brooding over what was done. Yesterday and to-day are but as pledges in the hands of destiny.
So he returned thanks to Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful, that he was still alive and free upon the seas, with three galleasses, twelve galleys, and five brigantines; and bent his energetic, resourceful, knavish mind to the matter of making good his losses. Meanwhile, he had been warned by the Sultan of Constantiaople, the Exalted of Allah, that the Emperor Charles, not content with the mischief he had already wrought, had, in letters to the Grand Seignior, avowed his intent to pursue to the death “the pirate Dragut, a corsair odious to both God and man.” He knew, moreover, that the emperor had entrusted the task to the greatest seaman of the day — to the terrible Admiral of Genoa, Andrea Doria, and that the Genoese was already at sea upon his quest.
Now, once already had Dragut been captured by the navy of Genoa, and for four years, which it afforded him little satisfaction to remember, he had toiled at an oar aboard the galley of the admiral’s nephew, Gianettino Doria. He had known exposure to heat and cold; naked had he been broiled by the sun, and frozen by the rain; he had known aching muscles, hunger and thirst; filthy crawling things, and the festering sores begotten of the oarsman’s bench; and his shoulders were still a criss-cross of scars where the bos’ns’ whips had lashed him to revive his flagging energies.
All this had Dragut known, and he was not minded to renew the knowledge. It behoved him, therefore, to make ready fittingly to receive the admiral.
And by way at once of replenishing his coffers, venting a little of his vengeful heat, and marking his contempt for his Christian pursuers, he had made a sudden swoop upon the south-western littoral of Sicily. Beginning at Gergenti, he carried his raid as far north as Marsala, leaving ruin and desolation behind him. At the end of a week he stood off to sea again with the spoils of six townships and some three thousand picked captives of both sexes.
He would teach the infidel Christian dog to allude to him as “the pirate Dragut, a corsair odious to both God and man.” He would so, by the beard of Mahomet!
He put the captives aboard a couple of galleys, in charge of his lieutenant, Othmani, and dispatched them straight to Algiers, to be sold there in the slave market. With the proceeds Othmani was to lay down fresh keels. Until these should be ready to reinforce his little fleet, Dragut judged it well to avoid encounters with the Genoese admiral, and with this intent he kept a southward course along the coast towards Tripoli. Towards sunset of the day on which Othmani’s galleys set out alone for Algiers, a fresh breeze sprang up from the north and blew into the corsair’s range of vision a tiny brown-sailed felucca, as it might have blown a leaf in autumn. It was hawk-eyed Dragut himself who, lounging in the poop of his galley, first sighted this tiny craft.
He pointed it out to Biretta, the renegade Calabrian gunner, who was near him.
“In the name of Allah,” quoth he, “what walnut-shell is this that comes so furiously after us?”
Biretta, a massive, sallow fellow, laughed.
“The fury is not hers, but of the wind,” said he. “She goes wherever it blows her. She’ll be an Italian craft.”
II
“Then the wind that blows her is the wind of Destiny. Haply she’ll have news of Italy.”
He turned on his heel and gave an order to a turbaned officer below. Instantly the brazen note of a trumpet rang out, clear above the creak and dip of oars. As instantly the rowers came to rest, and from the side of each galley six-and-twenty massive yellow oars stood out, their wet blades glistening in the evening sunlight.
Thus the Moslem fleet waited, rocking gently on the little swell that had arisen, and its quality was blazoned by the red and white ensign charged with a blue crescent, which floated from the masthead of Dragut’s own galley.
On came the little brown-sailed felucca, hopelessly driven by what Dragut accounted the breeze of Destiny. At last, when she was in danger of being blown past them, Dragut crossed to meet her. As the galley’s long prow ran alongside of her, grappling hooks were deftly flung to seize her at mast and gunwale, and but for these she must have been swept over by those gigantic oars.
From the prow, Dragut himself, a tall and handsome figure in gold-embroidered scarlet surcoat that descended to his knees, his snowy turban heightening the swarthiness of his hawk face, with its square-cut black beard, stood to challenge the crew of that ill-starred felucca.
There were aboard of her six scared knaves, something betwixt seamen and lackeys, whom the corsair’s black eyes passed contemptuously over. He addressed himself to a couple who were seated in the stern-sheets — a tall and very elegant young gentleman, obviously Italian, and a girl, upon whose white, golden-headed loveliness the corsair’s bold eyes glowed pleasurably.
“Who are you?” he demanded shortly in Italian.
The willowy young man answered for the twain, very composedly, as though it were a matter of everyday life with him to be held in the grappling-hooks of a Barbary pirate.
“My name is Ottavio Brancaleone. I am from Genoa on my way to Spain.”
“To Spain!” quoth Dragut and he laughed. “You steer an odd course for Spain, or do you look to find it in Egypt?”
“We have lost our rudder,” the gentleman explained, “and we were at the mercy of the wind.”
“I trust you have found it as merciful as you hoped,” said Dragut. He leered at the girl, who, in affright, shrank nearer her companion. “And the girl, sir? Who is she?”
“My-my sister.”
“Had you told me different you had been the first Christian I ever knew to speak the truth,” said Dragut, quite amiably. “Well well, ’tis plain you’re not to be t
rusted to sail a boat of your own. Best come aboard and see if you can do better at an oar.”
“I’ll not be trespassing on your hospitality,” said Brancaleone with that amazing coolness of his.
Dragut wasted no time in argument. It was not his way. Of the grinning, turbaned corsairs who swarmed like ants upon the prow, he flung a half-score down into the felucca. Brancaleone had time to stab but one of them before they overpowered him.
The prize proved far less insignificant than at first Dragut had imagined. For in addition to the eight slaves acquired — and the girl was fit to grace a sultan’s harem — they found a great chest of newly minted ducats, which it took six men to heave aboard the galley, and a beautifully chiselled gold coffer full of gems of price. They found something more. On the gold coffer’s lid was engraved the owner’s name — Amelia Francesca Doria.
Dragut snapped down the lid with a prayer of thanks to Allah the One, and strode into the poop cabin, where the girl was confined.
“Madonna Amelia,” he called softly, to test her identity. She looked up at once. “Will you tell me what is your kinship with the Admiral of Genoa?”
“I am his granddaughter, sir,” she answered, with something fierce behind her outward softness, “and be sure that he will terribly avenge upon you any wrong that is done to me.”
Dragut nodded and smiled.
“We are old friends, the admiral and I,” said he, and went out again.
A mighty Nubian bearing a torch — for night had now descended with African suddenness — lighted him to the galley’s waist, where, about the mainmast, lay huddled the seven pinioned prisoners.
With the curved toe of his scarlet slipper the corsair touched Messer Brancaleone.
“Tell me, dog,” said he, “all that you know of Messer Andrea Doria.”
“That is soon told,” answered Brancaleone. “I know nothing, nor want to.”
“Therein, of course, you lie,” said Dragut, “for one thing, you know his granddaughter.”
Brancaleone blinked, and recovered.
III
“True, and several others of his family. But I conceived your question to concern his movements. I know that he is upon the seas, that he is seeking you, and that he has sworn to take you alive, and that when they take you — as I pray God they will — they will so deal with you that you shall implore them of their Christian charity to hang you.”
“And is that all you know?” quoth Dragut, unruffled. You did not, peradventure, sight this fleet of his as you were sailing?”
“I did not.”
“Do you think that with a match between your fingers you might remember?”
“I might invent,” said the Italian. “I have told you the truth, Messer Dragut. Torture could but gain you falsehood.”
The corsair looked searchingly into that comely young face, then he turned away as if satisfied. But as he was departing Messer Brancaleone called him back. The Italian’s imperturbability had suddenly departed. Anxiety amounting almost to terror sounded in his voice, “What fate do you reserve for Madonna Amelia?” he asked.
Dragut considered him, and smiled a little. He had no particular rancour against his prisoner; indeed, he was inclining to admiration for the cool courage which the man had shown. At the same time, there was no room for sentiment in the heart of the corsair. He was quite pitiless. He had been asked a question, and he answered it without malice.
“Our lord the Sublime Suleyman,” said he, “is as keen a judge of beauty as any living man. I do the girl the honour of accounting her a gift worthy even of the Exalted of Allah. So I shall keep her safe against my next voyage to Constantinople.”
And then Brancaleone’s little lingering self-possession left him utterly. From his writhing lips came a stream of vituperation, expressions of his impotent rage, which continued even after the Nubian had struck him upon the mouth and Dragut had taken his departure.
Next day a slave on Dragut’s galley who had been taken ill at his oar was, in accordance with custom, unshackled and heaved overboard. Brancaleone, stripped to his delicate white skin, was chained in the fellow’s empty place. There were seven men to each oar, and Brancaleone’s six companions were all Christians and all white — or had been before exposure had tanned them to the colour of mahogany. Of these, three were Spaniards, two were Italian, and the other was a Frenchman. All were indescribably filthy and unkempt, and it was with a shudder that the delicately nurtured Italian gentleman wondered was he destined to become as they?
Up and down the gangway between the rowers’ benches strode two Moslem bo’suns, armed with long whips of bullock-hide, and it was not long ere one of them, considering that Brancaleone was not putting his share of effort into his task, sent that cruel lash to raise a burning weal upon his tender flesh. He was sparingly fed with his half-brutalized companions upon dried figs and dates, and he was given a little tepid water to drink when he thirsted, which was often. He slept in his shackles on the rowers’ bench, which was but, some four feet wide, and, despite the sheepskins with which that bench was padded, it was not long ere the friction of his constant movement began to chafe and blister his flesh.
In the scorching noontide of the second day he collapsed, fainting upon his oar. He was unshackled and dragged out upon the gangway. There a bucket of sea-water was flung over him to revive him, and the too-swift healing action of the salt upon his seared flesh was a burning agony. He was put back to his oar again with the warning that did he permit himself a second time the luxury of swooning he would have the whole ocean in which to revive.
On the third day they sighted land, and towards evening the galleys threaded their way one by one through the shoals of the Boca de Cantara into the spacious lagoon on the north-east side of the Island of Jerbah, and there came to rest.
It was Dragut’s intent to lie snug in that remote retreat until Othmani should be ready with the reinforcements that were to enable the corsair to take the seas once more against the Admiral of Genoa. But it would seem that already the admiral was closer upon his heels than he had supposed, and that, trackless as are the ocean ways, yet Andrea Doria had by some mysterious means, contrived to gather information as he came that had kept him upon the invisible spoor of his quarry.
IV
Not a doubt but that the folk on that ravaged Sicilian seaboard would be eager to inform the redoubtable admiral of the direction in which the Moslem galleys had faded out of sight. Perhaps even that empty felucca left tossing upon the tideless sea had served as an index to the way the corsairs had taken, and perhaps from the mainland, from Monastir, or one of the other cities now in Christian hands, a glimpse of Dragut’s fleet had been caught and Doria had been warned. Be that as it may, not a week had Dragut been anchored at Jerbah when one fine morning brought a group of friendly islanders with the alarming news that a fleet of galleys was descending upon the island from the north.
The news took Dragut ashore in a hurry with a group of officers. From the narrow spur of land at the harbour’s mouth he surveyed the advancing ships. What already he had more than feared became absolute certainty. Two-and-twenty royal galleys were steering straight for the Boca de Cantara, and the foremost was flying the admiral’s ensign. Back to his fleet went Dragut for cannon and slaves, and so feverishly did these toil under the lash of his venomous tongue, and of his bosuns’ whips, that within an hour he had erected a battery at the mouth of the harbour and fired a salute straight into the Genoese line as the galleys were in the very act of dropping anchor. Thereupon the fleet of Doria stood off out of range, and hung there, well content to wait, knowing that all that was now required on their part was patience. The fox was trapped, and the sword of Islam was like to be sheathed at last.
Forthwith the jubilant Doria sent word to the Emperor that he held Dragut fast, and he dispatched messengers to the Viceroys of Sicily and Naples asking for reinforcements with which, if necessary, to force the issue. He meant this time to leave nothing to chance.
<
br /> Dragut, on his side, employed his time in fortifying the Boca de Cantara. A fort arose there, growing visible under the eyes of the Genoese, and provoking the amusement of that fierce veteran, Doria. Sooner or later, Dragut must decide him to come forth from his bottle-necked refuge, and the longer he put off that evil day the more overwhelming would be the numbers assembled to destroy him.
Never since Gianettino Doria had surprised him in the road of Goialatta, off the coast of Corsica, on that famous occasion when he was made prisoner, had Dragut found himself in so desperately tight a corner. He sat under the awning of the poop of his galley, and cursed the Genoese with that astounding and far-reaching fluency in which the Moslem is without rival upon earth. He pronounced authoritatively upon the evil reputation of Doria’s mother and the inevitably shameful destiny of his daughters and their female offspring. He foretold how dogs would of a certainty desecrate the admiral’s grave, and he called perfervidly upon Allah to rot the bones and destroy the house of his arch-enemy. Then, observing that Allah remained disdainfully aloof, he rose up one day in a mighty passion, and summoned his officers.
“This skulking here will not avail us,” he snarled at them, as if it were by their contriving that he was trapped. “By delay we but increase our peril. What is written is written. Allah has bound the fate of each man about his neck. Betide what may, to-night we take the open sea.”
“And by morning you’ll have found the bottom of it,” drawled a voice from one of the oars.
Dragut, who was standing on the gangway between the rowers’ benches, whipped round with an oath upon the speaker. He encountered the languid eyes of Messer Brancaleone. The repose of the last few days had restored the Italian’s vigour, and certain thoughts that lately he had been thinking had revived his courage.
“Are you weary of life?” quoth the infuriated corsair. “Shall I have you hanged ere we go out to meet your friends out yonder?”
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 474
