Swords From the Sea

by Harold Lamb

  Platina pronounced the strange names badly and indifferently. His questions might have been only casual politeness-the inevitable questions of Europeans regarding the inexplicable happenings in the barbaric young republic that had rebelled against the authority and the protection of England. But Paul's guarded answers provoked a gesture of impatience. "Satan and all the saints, your American business in the Mediterranean will soon be settled, Monsieur Davies! Have you not heard that His Majesty the Bey of Tripoli will agree to a peace, and release all your captive seamen for half a million of your American dollars?"

  Paul had not heard it. It was like a lash across the head. A half million dollars. Before he thought, he echoed the words of his brother's letter: "We'll give the Barbary powers nothing more, except the fire of our frigates!"

  His boast had a brittle sound. Platina cocked his oiled head, as if at an unexpected sound. "I seem to recall that your new vessels of war have already fired their guns twice against Tripoli, without effect."

  Silently Paul acknowledged the truth of that ... The guns had not broken down the massive stone walls ... His own gunboat had drifted dismasted, yet continuing to fire with the twelve-pounder ... He set his teeth, determined to say nothing more. Platina, pleased, savored the boy's uneasiness and asked gently: "Will those same frigates fire on Tripoli again, where more than three hundred of your seamen are captive? The Bey has good hostages against attack. Will your frigates endeavor to run themselves up on the coast, again? I think not, Monsieur Davies."

  When Paul made no answer, the secretary regarded him thoughtfully. "I believe His Excellency will wish to talk with you at supper. I shall provide you with a suitable coat and neckcloth." And with a word to Marie Anne, he retired past the bowing doorman.

  "You are very ignorant," Paul heard the girl say, "but you could be more courteous to those who might aid you."

  Hortense had been solicitous about him; her brat of a sister seemed bent on tormenting him.

  "When empires are at stake-" she mimicked the slurring rapid French of Platina-"and Egypt is a prize to be won, you expect us to be concerned about a handful of tobacco-growing Yankees and the trade of their sea captains!"

  Paul exploded: "Your Platina was concerned enough! "

  "To gain information, yes. He earns his pilaf and wine efficiently." She prodded the word at Paul. "Moreover, Monsieur Davies, tonight Hortense complains that lawless soldiery is astir in the Arab quarter. Naturally, we wish to be informed about that."

  From the doorway sauntered a half-dozen servants, heavily armed as the bashi-bazouk who had struck down Paul. Below the steps they separated, moving out into the darkness of the garden.

  As Paul watched them, the girl taunted him again. "Alors, have you not heard that in France before the beginning of the spring campaign, Napoleon's jeunes braves have all assembled at the Channel resorts, such as Boulogne?"

  "Napoleon's-daring young men?"

  "Ah, you take interest! Yes." Marie Anne counted on her fingers demurely. "The marshals, Murad, Berthier, Massena, Ney-and I forget the others. But where they go, the Grand Army will follow. Do you perceive the meaning of that?"

  Napoleon's army assembling on the Channel! Would even the Emperor dare invade England? Surprised, he stared at her, and she nodded as if to a child who had mastered a lesson. "Now you perceive that the life of one foolish stray Yankee is worth less than one tiny bit of information-in His Excellency's garden."

  If she had wanted to anger him, she had succeeded in doing so. "In this same garden, Mademoiselle D'Aliermont, do they habitually post an armed night guard?"

  It was her turn to be surprised. Her fingers tensed on the wineglass no one had thought to fill for her. "No," she said at last, softly.

  "Thank you for that."

  This terrace, then, was a trap, baited by the comely elder sister, who seemed to serve as the eyes of the Spaniards. Under the bare pretense of hospitality, his hosts meant to use him as suited them best. So Paul reasoned-not thinking that the taunts of the odd girl had led him to reason so. When he stood up, measuring the distance to the nearest guards, she watched him curiously and shook her head.

  Twisting the ring on her finger, as if chatting intimately with him, Marie Anne warned him: "Do you want your head broken again? These blacks have their orders, and even in the street they would track you down. I do not think Platina has made up his mind about you. Perhaps they will let you go. Perhaps they will keep you and entertain you with hashish in the wine you drink, so your stupid head will be filled with fine fancies, and your stubborn tongue will be loosed. Platina suspects you are no chance traveler." Amused, she laughed up at him. "So do I. Paul, you know best what you are."

  She waited judging him silently.

  "You have relieved your conscience," he assured her. "Good-bye."

  Before he could step from the table, Marie was up with her hand on his arm. "If you want to leave, I will show you a way. I promise."

  Again she waited, not urging him. Thinking that she, at least, had been honest, Paul nodded. "If you will."

  Walking a little before him to guide him, yet holding to his arm, Marie Anne seemed to move unwillingly as if carrying out a duty imposed on her-past the servitor at the door, past the others who carried candelabra and dishes in the long hall, up the winding stair, from one dim cor ridor to another above. They were observed, Paul knew, but no one interfered with the girl.

  Somewhere near in the dimness a woman snickered. Pushing open a door, Marie Anne drew him after her and closed the door. A heavy bolt rasped. "Platina wanted me," she whispered, "to coax and flatter you into a better mood. They will think I am very successful."

  There was a lilt of gladness in her voice. Under a cross on the bare wall a small candle glimmered in red glass. Picking up something bulky from the clothing hanging behind a curtain, Marie stopped abruptly before the candle.

  "Holy Mary of the Seas, give aid to me," she whispered, and put out the candle. Then in the darkness she pulled at his hand.

  He found that in truth she had a way of leaving, unseen. Across the matting of a veranda, over the railing, and down the twisted tentacles of an aged bougainvillea-not so difficult a descent as the swaying shrouds of a brig-through a narrow door in the mud-brick wall of the garden that she locked after them, tossing the key back over the wall.

  Out in the crowded alley she no longer led Paul; dropping behind, she directed him where the robed figures and veiled women moved, into a covered way where fires burned and voices clamored in argument, stray soldiers elbowing Moslems. Sighting stalls on either hand where the folk knelt on clean rugs to inspect lengths of cloth or bits of jewelry, Paul thought this labyrinth to be the souk, the market. A good place to hide his tracks ... At a stand where meat sizzled on spits over glowing coal, he felt the ache of hunger.

  For the first time in the crowd Marie stepped to his side. She had turned her shawl, with the dark side out, covering her head and face. On her shoulder she bore a small bundle. In that fashion she had followed him, as women followed their men, attracting no attention.

  "If you are hungry," she cried, "we can eat here. Wait."

  Still gripping her bundle, she selected a loose slab of bread from a stand, taking a handful of rice from another, adding bits of smoking meat to the pile, tossing back copper coin in payment. They had an hour, she explained, before His Excellency would descend to the diningroom, and Platina and Hortense would go look for them. After that, it would be hard for them, because the Spaniards might send searchers into every alley and mosque of Alexandria.

  It seemed to Paul that she was arguing against her own anxiety. Al though she took some rice and sugared fruit, she only pretended to eat. By now he appreciated how skilled she was at pretending.

  "Paul," she said in a breath, "I am not going back. If I have helped you, then do one thing for me."

  Munching his laden bread, he nodded. "A passage on a ship, Marie Anne?"

  Her head went back, and he felt her eyes
searching his face. "That was clever. Yes. I cannot pay the fortune they ask-even if there were a place left. But-"

  "How old are you?"

  "Eighteen, truly-"

  "Say fifteen. You are young to be running away from your sister."

  "Not from Hortense. She says a roof is a roof, and there are worse. But I will not spend another night under that roof."

  Marie Anne must have packed her bundle of belongings days before. And she must have tested carefully the escape route from the veranda. She meant what she said.

  "Have you any place to go, mademoiselle?"

  Impatiently she shook her head, throwing away the fruit at which she had been nibbling. "Have you ever waited like a beggar for your place at somebody's table, set with silver plate? On my veranda I would think about a ship coming in with a white clean deck and seagulls swooping over the filled sails. The men who worked the sails had kind eyes." Her own eyes brightened, and her supple lips parted as she coaxed Paul. "Then today at noon for the first time I saw a strange ship anchored far out, an American ship, and you-"

  "The Argus is a vessel of war," he began to explain, "and cannot take passengers."

  "I know. But English officers are embarking their wives and families. Have you a sister, Paul?"

  "Only brothers."

  "I thought so. Paul, the thing I would like you to do is not too difficult. Please listen, and think how it might easily be done."

  He listened, knowing at once that it could not be done. How carefully she had planned it! For him to take her out to the Argus, pretending that she was betrothed to marry him. To request passage for her to a safe port.

  Reading his face even as she begged, she whispered: "It will be so easily done. I have a ring, and I would be no trouble on shipboard. I promise. Paul, what have you to do except to say a few words? You do not even have to pretend to like me. And then you can forget it-as you say-because we will not see each other again, ever! And the American officers-they would find a place for the betrothed of a countryman."

  Ironically, Marie had made her request to the one man who could not carry it out. Paul almost laughed, thinking of shrewd, cautious Isaac Hull, newly in command of the brig, faced by a Lieutenant Bainbridge who was presumed to be in Sicily on sick leave-with a request for accommodation for a mysterious French bride-to-be.

  "The commandant of the brig," he said carefully, "would not do it. I know him."

  "Well, then we will go to the man who can order him to do it."

  Staring at her, Paul wondered if she were not even then trying to get information from him. "Who?" he demanded.

  "Your agent who is here-Eaton."

  He could not believe she had spoken the name of the person he had to find and meet. In a flash he realized that in her he had a guide to Eaton; and a pretext for approaching him.

  Sensing a new mood in him, Marie was explaining all in a breath: "The one the Arabs call Drub-Devil, because he would beat even a devil-"

  "How far away is he?"

  "A half-hour's ride." Marie no longer coaxed. Some dread in the depth of her hardened and hurried her words. "All our spies, and those of Tripoli, swear that he is in the city with money to spend to raise an armed force to go against Tripoli. And do not tell me that your ships will not obey him. They must."

  As Paul pondered, he was aware of something familiar in the throng that pushed past them, going from stall to stall. The towering doorkeeper of the Spaniards stood still, a biscuit's toss away. Apparently the black had not sighted the two fugitives from His Excellency's table; but as Paul watched him, he turned back quickly into the dimness of the souk. When Paul nudged the girl and nodded at the retreating figure she exclaimed: "He saw us!"

  Gathering up her bundle, whispering to Paul to follow, she slipped into the crowd, almost running from the arcade into an alley. There she called: "Arabaji-arabaji!"

  Out of the darkness a shabby chaise rattled up, the native driver hauling in two thin horses, who required no urging to stop.

  "I lied to you," Marie told him unexpectedly when the vehicle started off with them at a sluggish canter. "My friends of the legation no doubt were looking for us long since. But I wanted those few minutes to talk to you."

  She had contrived to feed him and put her case to him quickly enough. Soon, she assured him, they would be safe enough, with William Eaton.

  "You seem very sure you can find him."

  "Why not?" She laughed a little. "Even your Drub-Devil cannot walk away from his villa through a battalion of Turkish infantry with orders to keep him jailed."

  To Paul it was fantastic that this child should know so much of the doings of a great town-as fantastic as that he should be riding with her in this hired rig-or that Marie should be holding out a ring to him, pressing it into his hand. Saying: "Now is your chance to plight your troth to Marie Anne D'Aliermont. I assure you that my family was honorable, once. And my heart has not been touched by the fine eyes of any other man." Excitement edged her voice; she seemed to beg him to be merry with her. "So will you pledge marriage with me? Say it! It is not as hard taking sulphur and salts, sir."

  "It's not true."

  "What I am telling you is true."

  "About any betrothal. I'm-I can't lie to Eaton." Her head turned as if he had struck her. "Marie, I'll do my best to get you a passage on some vessel. I promise that."

  Her hand withdrew, and she seemed to draw away from him. After a moment she asked quietly, "Do you wish me to request entrance here?"

  Their rig had slowed to a walk where trees loomed over a courtyard wall. At the open gateway Marie slipped down, and following her, he found her questioning an officer whose epaulets shone faintly in the starlight. Not a word of their speech did he understand. But when Marie put something that clinked faintly into the hand of the officer, his answers became more fluent.

  No light showed within the gate. When Marie turned back to their carriage she seemed puzzled.

  "Gone," she said. And: "Your Drub-Devil got away after all. The Ak- inpasha-the major swears that your clever Eaton went out only for a walk, with all eight of his Marine escort, who presented their muskets when the Akinpasha stopped them. But I think they bribed him, and told him a good story."

  "We could wait for him inside."

  Dubiously Marie shook her head. "The Turks have been waiting all day and part of this night. Where could they have gone, that no one saw them? "

  Not out to the Argus, Paul reflected. And certainly nine Americans in uniform could not have wandered the streets without being observed. His own experience had shown-he remembered the omniscient Eugene Leitensdorfer, who had been in touch with Eaton.

  "The people at my lodging," he told Marie, "might help us."

  Chapter Four

  Yet the coffee-house was as deserted as the villa. When they had steered toward Pompey's pillar above the cemetery, and thence into his street, he found Seliin and even the drum gone from the public room. He saw that the muskets had disappeared from the kitchen, the sergeant from the back door, the bread from the stove. Only the native woman remained, setting a place for him at the table. She moved sluggishly, her face swollen as if she had been weeping.

  Clumsily he tried to question her about Eugene. Out of her answers he caught only a phrase she repeated, something about Arabs, he thought.

  Returning to the carriage, he found Marie waiting inside the empty courtyard. There, he noticed, she could see into the inn. She had not trusted him beyond her sight.

  Putting his valise and book beneath the seat of the chaise, he said irritably: "My companions have absconded like Eaton. And Eugene's native wench says only one word, like a parakeet-"

  With a flash of temper, Marie whirled on him.

  "She is not a wench or a parakeet, but Eugene's wife, in Alexandria. I do not know how many other wives he has in what places. But she is a better Christian than I am, and I think he has left her again. What was the word she tried to tell you?"

  "It sounded like bo
orja arab."

  "Burj al Arab. That means the Arab's Tower. It is the place, Monsieur, where the caravans come in from the desert." Her anger made the words echo clearly. "It is also far out of the city, near the sea, perhaps five leagues from here ... Well, what is your pleasure now?"

  The silence of the street weighed on him. He heard only the broken sound of the woman's sobbing. Evidently Eugene had taken with him after nightfall all the skulkers who had kept hidden during the day-and William Eaton had departed somewhere out of sight with his Marine escort. It might be only coincidence, but Paul had no other trace of the man he sought.

  Frowning, he tried to guess the actions of the naval agent-a quicktempered sergeant in the Revolutionary War, who had taught school in Connecticut to educate himself-usually in trouble with his superiors, calling them "abject chameleons" when he had been obliged as Consul in Tunis to make the yearly payments of tribute to the corsair Beys, whom he called "insatiable as death." Now that war had come at last, he was straining to raise an armed force in Egypt with the aid of a friendly Arab prince, and with that force to strike those same Beys by land ... Yes, Eaton might well have enlisted even Leitensdorfer's batch of irregulars, who had set out for the Arab's Tower ...

  "Hadjali," Marie told him, "saw you enter this place. He is what we call a renegade, because he protects himself by serving the Barbary powers-as Hortense and I earn our keep by being useful and pleasant to the Spaniards. Both Hortense and Hadjali saw you leave here, while they were observing the antics of the talented Eugene. In consequence, at any moment a search may arrive to find you communing with the stars-"

  "Can you tell our driver to take me out the Arab's Tower?"

  It exasperated Paul that he had to call upon this brat of a girl to help him at every turn. He had not thought she would take her seat beside him again, as she did, reminding him that she had no other place to go, and that he had made her a promise.

  When the gleam of water opened before the chaise, and the lantern of a sentry was lifted to light the carriage, Marie covered her face against the light, and the guard waved them on. "He took us for an English milord, and a girl of the streets," she explained. "And at least, Hadjali will not be certain we went this way."