For four days they trekked through jungles and across wide stretches of open ground covered with coarse scrub. The going was hard, for the jungle paths were tortuous, and at time obstructed by fallen trees, steep gullies and small rivers. Their progress was difficult to estimate but Roger judged it to be from twelve to fifteen miles a day, and he could tell from the sun that they were moving roughly in a north-westerly direction.
From time to time Immu sent one of his warriors as a runner to inform the Chief of the next village of their approach; so that when they arrived in it they were provided with a meal and huts in which to sleep either for the night or during the hottest hours of the day. At every village they entered, the entire population turned out to crowd about them, eyes goggling with curiosity, and, as they always arrived semi-exhausted from a long trudge in the damp heat, this proved particularly trying; but Immu generally managed to drive the people off after a while, presumably by telling them that Roger was a powerful Witch Doctor, and they were then able to relax in the grateful shade of one of the huts.
On the morning of the fifth day, they came out of a belt of forest on high ground to see a magnificent panorama spread before them. A gentle slope some six miles long led down to the sea. The slope, which formed a deep belt right along the coast, was almost entirely covered by plantations from which came more strongly than ever the spicy smell of cloves. Beyond them the sun sparkled on an azure sea dotted with small coral atolls, and in the hazy distance another coastline could be seen. As they were facing west, Roger had no doubt that the far shore was the coast of Africa, and that Bill Bodkin had been right in his belief that it was upon the fabulous Isle of Cloves that they had been cast ashore.
But it was not upon the coast that their eyes were riveted. In the very centre of it there stood a town. It had battlemented walls above which rose several large buildings with domes and turrets, and beyond them a big ship with all sail set was tacking out across the bay.
Immu made it clear that he and his party would go no farther; so Roger carried out his part of the bargain. First he showed him how the pistol worked, then gave it to him with half the powder, two flints, and six of the dozen bullets, which were all that he had with him. The farewells could be only by smiles and gestures. Five minutes later the negro warriors and carrier women had disappeared along the jungle track. Then, although the hottest hours of the day were approaching, Roger, Clarissa and Bodkin were so eager to reach the town that they at once set off down hill towards it.
The sun’s rays were so intense that they were forced to rest every half-mile or so in the shade of palms and, even then, the six-mile walk proved most fatiguing. But they derived one benefit from making the journey in the midday hours; no one was working in the plantations, so it was not until they were covering the last mile that they attracted the attention of the natives.
Once that happened, a crowd quickly gathered, but it was of a very different type from those which had surrounded them in the villages. These people were considerably lighter in colour, most of them had straight hair, good noses and better-formed features and, except for the children, they all wore some form of loose garment. Yet they showed nearly as much excitement and curiosity as had the negroes, as they pranced along beside the three strangers, calling to one another and pointing at Clarissa’s pale gold hair.
Dusty, perspiring and footsore, they at last reached a great gate set between two towers in the wall of the town. The sight of the approaching crowd had brought out from it a guard with spears. Their officer wore a round brass helmet which rose to a sharp spike on top and had pieces of chain-mail dangling from its rim on either side to protect his ears and cheeks.
He spoke to them in what they took to be Arabic, and Roger tried out his Persian on him, but neither understood the other. Roger then tried Latin, and the smatterings he had of Greek and Spanish, but all proved equally useless. With a shrug the officer ordered his men to put them in the gate-house and, as soon as they were inside it, the door was slammed upon them.
It was a stone apartment in the base of one of the towers that flanked the gate; its floor was a little below ground-level and it was unfurnished except for a rough wooden table. After the heat and glare of the sun they were glad of the cool semi-darkness, and sank wearily down on a stone bench that ran along one wall; but this was not the sort of reception they had hoped for and, as soon as they had recovered a little from their fatigue, they began to speculate on how long it would be until they were taken before the Portuguese Governor.
Over two hours elapsed and they started up from a fitful doze when the door opened and the officer came in. He was followed by a short, very fat, man, but fat in quite a different way from Kobo, for the negro Chief’s bulk had been largely due to huge muscles, whereas this man gave the impression, even though he was wearing flowering robes, of being soft, and when he spoke it was in a high falsetto. Although Roger had never met a eunuch, he felt sure the fat man was one; but all that concerned him was that he had spoken in Persian. Thanking God for the hours he had spent learning that language while in the Minerva, he introduced himself and the others. In response, the eunuch said he was called Khunsa Bajazet.
Roger then gave a brief account of their misadventures and asked to be taken to the European quarter of the town.
Bajazet replied that there was no such quarter; upon which Roger said, ‘Am I not right in supposing this to be the Isle of Cloves, and that on the island there is a Portuguese trading station?’
At that the eunuch began to laugh, and his several chins quivered like a jelly. When he had done laughing, he piped: ‘Indeed it is the Isle of Cloves, and this is the city of Zanzibar; but there are no Portuguese here. We drove them out over sixty years ago.’
Endeavouring to conceal his sudden alarm at this news, Roger asked, ‘Then who rules here now?’
‘His Highness the Vali Abdul ben Mazuri,’ came the response. ‘He is Viceroy for the Sultan of Muscat, who by Allah’s grace is the Sovereign Lord of all this part of the world.’ As the eunuch pronounced the name of Allah, he bowed; then he added, ‘Come to the light, all of you, so that I can see you better.’
A gesture with which he accompanied his words conveyed their meaning to Clarissa and Bodkin; so all three of them accompanied him to the door. There he turned and, with little pig’s eyes encased in rolls of fat, surveyed each of them critically in turn. Pointing to Roger’s sword, and the gold embroidered belt from which it hung, he said:
‘It seems that in spite of your rags you are a rich man; so you may be of some value to us.’ Then stretching out a fat hand he took Clarissa by the arm, half turned her and, taking the ends of her fair hair between his fingers, gently fluffed it out.
As she drew swiftly away, Roger said in a carefully controlled voice, ‘Doubtless, Sir, you mean no harm; but in our country to touch a lady so is considered an act of rudeness.’
Bajazet shrugged his sloping shoulders and replied with a sneer, ‘But this, Infidel, is not your country. It is the Isle of Cloves; and cloves are not the only thing we export from it. The greater part of our wealth comes from the sale of slaves. But I’ll have no need to export you. For you three Roumis I’ll get a fine price here.’
Turning to the officer he put into his hand a small canvas bag from which there came the clink of coin, then he waddled out into the street. The officer signed to the others to follow and shouted an order to his men. As Roger and Bodkin emerged into the daylight, the guards fell upon them. Taken by surprise they had no chance to resist, even if there had been anything to gain by doing so. Their weapons were taken from them and their wrists were bound.
Meanwhile the eunuch had been helped into a litter. Clarissa was swiftly lifted into it beside him and its curtains were drawn. Roger and Bodkin were attached to it by the cords that tied their wrists and, when it moved off, two of the armed guards followed with spears at the ready to prick them should they try to break away or dally.
The little procession wound its way
through narrow, cobbled streets thronged with people of every shade from coal-black to pale coffee. The negroes were mostly naked to the waist, but many of the lighter skinned Arabs, Indians and Persians were clad in handsome robes of striped cotton, wool and silk. There were many donkeys, mostly heavy-laden with goods, others carrying men and women. All the women were in shapeless garments and wore the veil. Nearly everyone paused to stare at the prisoners, some shouted abuse and now and then an urchin threw a piece of garbage at them before darting off into an alley.
After a slow progress of a quarter of an hour, they turned up a steep slope and at its top went through a tall gateway where more guards, all wearing the pointed brass helmets, stood aside to let them pass. Entering a wide court, they crossed it and, from the doorway of a building on its far side, several servants ran out. Some of them helped the eunuch to alight; others, on his orders, took charge of the prisoners. They were hurried down a short passage and locked into a small empty cell-like room.
As soon as they were alone, Clarissa asked what the eunuch had said, and what was to become of them. Roger was so distressed that he had not the heart to tell her outright but, after a while, he decided that it would be no kindness to allow their harsh face to be sprung upon her as a surprise; so he broke it to her and Bodkin as gently as he could that the town was a Mohammedan stronghold, and that they were to be sold into slavery.
The eunuch’s rough treatment of them had to some extent prepared Clarissa for ill-tidings but, when she grasped to the full the awful implications of what Roger was saying, she burst into tears, and there was no way in which he could comfort her.
Presently some of the eunuch’s servants returned, untied their hands and set before them bowls of water to wash in and of fruits to stay their hunger and thirst. Silently they cleaned themselves up as well as they could and ate a few of the fruits; then, in tongue-tied misery, they settled down again on the floor with their backs against the wall, to await further developments.
In vain Roger racked his brain for a way out of this situation which, faced frankly, held grimmer prospects for them than a sudden death; for they were threatened not only with temporary degradation and hardship, but with a life sentence. Had they been captured by Barbary pirates from Morocco, Algeria or Tunis, they might, sooner or later, have escaped across the Mediterranean; but here, thousands of miles from any Christian country, they were as far removed from sanctuary as though they had been transported to another planet. Month after month, and for as many years as they escaped fatal accident or disease, they must labour under the blistering equatorial sun upon such tasks as were set them, and submit to beatings and all other shames that might be put upon them.
All he could do was to strive to recall everything that Droopy Ned had told him about the Mohammedan religion, and what he had learned of Eastern customs while studying Persian on the voyage out; so that should an opportunity arise he could use them to win the good will of the master to whom he could only hope the eunuch would sell all three of them together.
Darkness fell and about an hour afterwards, Bajazet came to the cell with servants carrying torches. The eunuch was in a most evil temper and did not disguise the reason for it. Roughly ordering them to get up he said to Roger:
‘My unlucky star must be in the ascendant today. The arrival of three Roumis in the city has come to the ears of His Highness, and learning that I had you here he has ordered me to bring you before him. This is a misfortune for both of us. It is certain that he will regard you as his property, and state slaves are far more harshly treated than those who are owned privately.’ Glancing at Clarissa, he added, with a heavy sigh, ‘And to think that I could have sold her to a merchant of my acquaintance for at least five thousand dinars, whereas now she’ll go to the Vali’s harem and I’ll get nothing.’
Pleasing as it was to know that the eunuch was to be deprived of the handsome sum he had hoped to make out of their misfortune, Roger felt that he was right in his assertion that they would have fared better in his hands than in those of the Vali, particularly as far as Clarissa was concerned. Either way there was no escape for her from becoming the concubine of an Arab and perhaps one whose approaches would make her shudder with repulsion, but a rich merchant might later have raised her to the status of wife and given her all the amenities that went with such a position; whereas as one of a large harem all the chances were that, after her Lord had enjoyed her for a while, she would remain for ever a prisoner, wasting her life in the company of a score or more of other jealous neglected women.
Naturally he kept these gloomy thoughts to himself; but he told Clarissa and Bodkin that they were to be taken before the Vali, and the three of them obeyed the eunuch’s order to follow him. He led them out across the court, down a long arcade, then through a beautifully carved doorway, at which two guards were standing, and into another, smaller court.
Its four sides were colonnades each of a dozen arches formed by slender pillars of various coloured marbles. The walls beyond them were covered shoulder high with brighly painted tiles, and between and above the arches stonework fretted like lace gave the whole a delightfully light and airy appearance. From the centre of each arch hung a brass lantern with many little panes of different coloured glass, diffusing a warm, gentle light. In the middle of the court a fountain played into a sunken marble basin, and the floor was a mosaic of black and white marble squares.
At its far end, opposite the doorway, there was a group of people. In the centre Abdul ben Mazuri sat cross-legged on a broad divan with many cushions. Below him on his left, half lying on more cushions and leaning on the side of the divan, there reposed a young woman. She was wearing voluminous trousers caught in at the ankles, and a bright red sleeveless Turkish jacket. On her bare arms there were several jewelled bangles and, although her face was veiled, she was, judging by its upper half, very beautiful. A little to the right of the divan an elderly grey-bearded man was seated on a leather pouf. In the background stood two more men. One, wearing a brass corselet and plumed helmet, was obviously the Captain of the Guard; the other, who wore only a leopard-skin about his middle and held resting against his shoulder a gleaming scimitar, was a huge negro.
As they advanced, Roger’s gaze was riveted on the Vali. He was a well-made man, probably in his early forties. He had a black beard and moustache, a full red mouth, a hooked nose and piercing black eyes. Upon his head he wore a green turban, showing that he had made the pilgrimage to Mecca; in its centre there was a splendid diamond, and rising from it an aigrette. He was dressed in a loose silk robe, from which protruded the hilt of a dagger heavily damascened with gold. Round his neck there were four ropes of pearls.
‘Down on your knees!’ piped the eunuch in his high falsetto.
Clarissa and Bodkin did not understand the order, so the one made a low curtsey and the other an awkward bob. Roger ignored it, and made his most graceful bow. Then, before anyone else could speak, he got out the few sentences of Persian that he had been preparing on their way there.
‘Noble Vali, may the peace and blessing of Allah—praised be his name and that of his Prophet—be upon you. I too am a lord in my own country but, as it says in the Holy Koran, “the fate of every man is bound about his brow”. It was decreed that I should come before you in rags and craving your protection. Yet Allah is the Merciful, the Compassionate. By His will I have been spared this unworthy trinket; so that on arriving at your court I may not be found lacking in politeness.’
With his last sentence he produced from his fob pocket the diamond brooch that he usually wore in his cravat. It was a beautiful jewel worth several hundred pounds, and had been given to him by Georgina; so he was loath to part with it, but he knew that now was the time to do so, for if he did not it would certainly be taken from him later.
Holding it in the palm of his hand, he flashed it for a moment so that it sparkled in the light of the lanterns; then taking a swift step forward, he laid it on the divan beside Abdul ben Mazuri’s left
knee and within easy reach of his lovely houri’s hand.
At the first sight of it she had smiled, and he had seen her big doe-like eyes light up with excitement. As he was desperately hoping she would, she reached out for it. The Vali made a quick gesture to stop her, but he was too late. Her slender brown fingers had closed upon the jewel.
With an angry mutter, the Vali gave her a sharp slap on her bare shoulder with his ivory fan. Her thinly pencilled brows creased in swift dismay and uncertainty. Throwing herself forward she kissed his slipper, but she still held on to her prize. Frowning, Abdul ben Mazuri looked over her head at Roger. Upon Roger’s face there was a broad smile. The eagle features of the Arab relaxed, and a moment later he too was smiling.
Without a word said both men knew the implications of the little scene that had just taken place. Had the girl not touched the brooch, the Vali could have refused the gift and sent Roger to the slaves’ quarters, then ordered the jewel to be brought to him. But by picking up the brooch the girl had accepted it on her lord’s behalf; and honour would not permit a noble Arab to make a slave of a man who had just made him a present.
Suddenly Abdul ben Mazuri began to laugh. With a heavily beringed hand he turned his favourite’s lovely face up towards his own, pinched her ear and caressed her cheek. Her eyes, which had begun to brim with tears, smiled again and chattering in Arabic her delighted thanks that she might keep the brooch, she pinned it in her dark hair.
Turning back to Roger, the Vali pointed at Bill Bodkin and asked in Persian, ‘Who is that man?’
‘He is my servant, Illustrious One,’ Roger replied, ‘and I crave your gracious permission to keep him with me.’
Abdul ben Mazuri nodded. ‘So be it,’ and Roger breathed a sigh of relief. Not only had his trick to save himself worked, but everything was going magnificently. Yet, next moment, he knew that he had counted his chickens before they were hatched. The Vali’s dark eyes were resting on Clarissa, and he said:
The Rape of Venice Page 21
