_ CHAPTER XXXVI. AN ALMOST MIRACULOUS CONVERSION
It was a long story which Captain Penn Sharp told of his relations with Ali-Noury Pacha; and his visitor was so incredulous at first that he appeared to have solemnly resolved not to accept anything as the truth. But the character of the speaker left its impress all along the narrative; and Captain Ringgold was compelled to believe, just as the hardened sinner is sometimes forced to accept the truth when presented to him by the true evangelist, though his teeth were set against it.
"You gentlemen with millions in your trousers pockets are subject to perils which we of moderate means are not exposed to," the commander of the Blanche began.
"That means you, and not me," suggested the visitor.
"You have the reputation of being a rich man, whether you are one or not. My wife is rich, and I am only well off; but never mind that now," replied Captain Sharp. "I saw General Noury, as we will call him after this if you do not object, for that is the name by which he chooses to be known, in Gibraltar several times, and I knew all about your affair with him there; but I did not get acquainted with him, for I despised him as much as you did.
"I sailed from the Rock, and took my wife to a great many of the ports of Europe, and some in Africa, including Egypt; but I am not going to tell you about our travels. We went from Alexandria to Malta, Syracuse, and to Messina; and it was at this last port that I fell in with General Noury. His steamer, I forget her name,"--
"The Fatime; but Felix McGavonty always called her the Fatty."
"The Fatty anchored within a cable's length of me before I had been there two hours, and the Pacha went ashore at once. That night my wife was sick, and I went to the city to procure a certain medicine for her. I happened into a shop where no one could speak English, and I don't speak anything else. I was just going off to find another place where they did speak English, when a gentleman rose from a chair with some difficulty and offered his services.
"It was General Noury. He had been drinking, but was not very badly off. He was as polite as a dancing-master, and helped me out so that I got what I wanted. He spoke Italian as though he had known it in his babyhood. I was very much obliged to him, and thanked him with all my might. He left before my package was ready, and I soon followed him.
"As I entered the street that leads from the Corso Cavour to the shore I heard the yells of a man in trouble. I always carried my revolver with me, and I had handled a good many rough villains in my day. I started at a run, and soon reached the scene of the fight. I found two men had attacked one; and though the latter was bravely defending himself, he was getting the worst of it. I saw that he was going under, and I fired just as the man attacked dropped on the pavement.
"My shot brought down one of the bandits, and the other rushed towards me. He had brought down his victim, and he wanted to get rid of me so that he could go through his pockets. I fired at him, and he dropped the long knife with which he was going to stick me on the pavement. There it is over the window;" and the captain pointed to it. "He was wounded; and then he ran away, for he did not like to play with a revolver. Before I could get to him, the other assassin got on his feet and followed him, though he moved with no little labor and pain; but my business was not with him, and I let him go.
"The man who had been attacked was trying to get on his feet, and when I came up to him I found it was General Noury. He had been stabbed in the shoulder, and he was bleeding very freely. With my assistance he walked to my boat, and my men placed him in the stern-sheets. I found that he was bleeding badly, and I was no surgeon. The Hotel Vittorio was on the other side of the street, and some one there could tell me in English where to find a doctor.
"Two gentlemen at the door were smoking. They were talking in English, and I told them what I wanted. They were both Americans, and one of them was a doctor. He volunteered to go with me. He said the patient had a bad wound. He went back to the hotel for his case of instruments, and then went on board of the Viking with his patient. It would make your dinner very late if I should give you all the details of the general's case. Dr. Henderson stopped the flow of blood, and attended to his patient for three weeks on board of the steam-yacht.
"When he was in condition to be moved to the Fatty, he did not wish to go. My wife had nursed him as she would have nursed her own brother, and as she had her uncle in Cuba. When he was convalescent he treated her with the most profound respect. Mazagan came on board to see him, and told me he had just come from Athens. But the general was plainly disgusted with him, and wanted to get rid of him. He gave him the command of the Fatty, and ordered him to wait for him at Gibraltar.
"Dr. Henderson was travelling for pleasure, and he liked it so well that he wanted more of it; but he had spent all his money, and had no more at home. He came on board of the Viking, and lived there. His friend had left, and he was alone. He had been a very skilful practitioner in New York City, but his thirst for travel would not permit him to wait long enough to save sufficient money from his abundant income.
"Of his own free will and accord General Noury told me that he was leading a miserable life in spite of the wealth that he possessed, the honors that crowned him in Morocco, and the leisure that was always at his command when the army was not in the field. As he summed it up himself, his vices had got the better of him. He could not respect himself. I could see that there was something left of him. I went to work on him. I am not an evangelist myself, and I did not take him on that tack.
"I have no doubt that I had saved his life; and no man was ever more grateful for the service I had rendered him. My wife was such a houri as he had never seen in a harem. We both talked with him about the beauty of a good and useful life. In a word, we redeemed him. My wife is a sincere Christian, and she did more of it than I did. He was absolutely penitent over his sins, his dissipation, the wrongs towards others he had committed, though he was still a Mohammedan; but a great deal of the prophet's creed would pass for Christianity. We both saw that it would be useless to attack his religion; for he was a Moslem to the marrow of his bones.
"More than anything else he was penitent over his relations with you and your party. The general was certainly infatuated over the beauty of Miss Blanche; but it was as an artist runs mad over a picture. He solemnly assured me he never had an unworthy thought in regard to her. He looked upon her as a beautiful child, whose image haunted him day and night. If you had permitted him to see her, that was all he wanted. No such thought had ever entered his head as that of putting her in his harem, even if he had succeeded through his agents in capturing her; though he was urged forward to this by the insults you heaped upon him.
"I mean that you spoke the truth to him, nothing more, as I did. He desires to beg your forgiveness, and he would cross the Atlantic for the purpose of doing so. We stayed at Messina three weeks, and at the end of that time General Noury was quite well again. He gave Dr. Henderson a hundred thousand francs, and wanted me to take five times that amount; but I positively refused to take a cent from him. To shorten up the story, we became fast friends, including my wife. He had sent the Fatty off, and I invited him to remain on board of the Viking. He was in a hurry to get to Gibraltar; and I soon found that he had a reason for going there.
"He told me that the Fatty was old and slow, and more than a year before he had ordered the finest steam-yacht that could be built; and the Blanche was the result of the order. He named her after the highest ideal he had ever been able to obtain of human loveliness; but he had written this letter from Madeira, before he had had any trouble with you. Ruth and I were ready to go to England by this time, and we conveyed the general to Gibraltar. He had received a letter from his English agent informing him that the Blanche was finished.
"He ordered his man of business to ship the best English ship's company he could gather together at liberal wages, and proceed to Gibraltar. We found her there. He insisted that I should sell the Viking, for which he found a customer, and take the command of the Blanche. My wife should have any and all the accommodations on board she desired, and we would make the voyage around the world, an idea he borrowed from you, Captain Ringgold.
"I accepted the offer because I liked the general, and my wife was more pleased with the plan than I was. I was to have my own way about everything, and he acted in princely style. My first business was to improve his reputation in Gibraltar. He gave a very large sum to the charities of the city; and where the officers and soldiers had benefit associations he filled up their coffers. He did not drink a drop of spirits or wine, and would have signed a total-abstinence pledge if I had asked him to do so. I am not quite old enough to be his father; but if he had been my son I could have had no more influence over him.
"The general came to me to know how he should settle his accounts with Mazagan, informing me that the villain had offered him twenty-five thousand francs for the Fatty, and claimed the fifty thousand due him. I told him he had made a bad bargain with the wretch, but as he had promised he must perform. The vessel was worth at least double what he offered; but I advised him to take it, for money was no object to him compared with getting rid of this villain. Mazagan took possession of the Fatty, and that was the last of her."
"No, it wasn't," interposed Captain Ringgold; and he gave a brief account of the "Battle of Khrysoko," with the events leading to it.
"Good for Captain Scott!" exclaimed the commander of the Blanche. "I am glad she has gone to the bottom, for that is the best place for her. We sailed from Gibraltar to Madeira, where the general made himself solid with the people there in the same manner as at the Rock. He apologized to everybody he had insulted, and he was quite a lion before we left the port. Then we went to Mogadore; and there he scattered his harem, on the plea that he was going around the world; but he told me it would never be gathered together again, that or any other.
"The general would have gone to New York in the Blanche if you had been there, for the sole purpose of apologizing to you, and begging you to forgive him for all the injuries he had done or had attempted to do you. It is only five o'clock, and now you must see General Noury. I was going to the Guardian-Mother this evening to make an appointment for him; for I thought you would be busy all day."
"I am quite ready now to meet him, and to give him my hand," replied Captain Ringgold. "I must say that this is the greatest conversion on record, considering that the Pacha is still a Mohammedan."
"I think so myself; but my wife will never be satisfied till she has made him a convert to the Christian religion," replied Captain Sharp, as he led the way to the cabin of the general.
They were promptly admitted; and the owner of the Blanche started back, and stood with clasped hands gazing at Captain Ringgold.
"General Noury, this is Captain Ringgold, commander of the Guardian-Mother," said Captain Sharp.
"Most sincerely, I am very glad to see you, General Noury," added the visitor, advancing with extended hand to the Pacha, for such he was still in spite of the change in his name.
"I feel more like throwing myself on my knees before you, after the Oriental manner, than taking you by the hand," replied the general, though he took the hand tendered to him. "I have grievously wronged and insulted you, and I ask to be forgiven with the most sincere and long-continued sorrow for the injuries I have done you."
"General Noury, I am happy to take by the hand as my friend one who has passed from the darkness into the light; and as my own religion teaches me to forgive those who have wronged me, I am glad to make the past, as it lies between us, a total blank."
"And my religion teaches me to seek the forgiveness of those I have injured, or tried to injure. We will not differ over our faith, different as they are; and on my part there shall henceforth be nothing else to make us at variance."
"And nothing on my part," responded Captain Ringgold, again pressing the hand of the Pacha.
The general was invited to visit the Guardian-Mother, and dine with the party in the cabin. Captain Ringgold was then conducted to the after part of the ship, and there found Mrs. Sharp, who was delighted to see him. The Pacha presently came out of his cabin dressed in evening costume, but in European style, and the trio embarked in the barge. As they approached the anchorage of the ship, strains of martial music came from her deck, which the commander could not explain. It appeared that some of the invited officers had sent a regimental band on board as a compliment to the steamer and her passengers.
The long absence of the commander had begun to excite some uneasiness, for he had not been seen since the middle of the forenoon. The addition of even three more guests to the crowded table upset the calculations of the accomplished steward, and he was obliged to add another table. While he was doing so, the captain told his passengers "of the mighty things that had happened." He could not tell the whole story; but he begged all on board to receive the Pacha kindly and politely, for he had forgiven everything, and he honored him for the bravery and resolution with which he had put his vices behind him. "Get thee behind me, Satan!" was the way he phrased it.
The general was then presented to all the party, passengers as well as invited guests. It may have required an effort on the part of the former to carry out the instructions of the commander; but the Pacha declared that he was delighted with his reception. He was placed on the right of Captain Ringgold, as the guest of honor, and treated with distinguished consideration by all the people from the shore.
The dinner was Mr. Melancthon Sage's crowning effort, as he had been ordered to make it. Not a word was said, or an allusion made, to the scenes of the past in which the trouble had bubbled up. The commander made a speech, and proclaimed his temperance principle so originally that the military guests hardly missed the wine to which they were accustomed. Some of them spoke, mostly of the ship and her agreeable passengers; but all agreed the Pacha made the speech of the evening, which was a comparison between his own country and those in which he had spent so large a portion of his life. In the first place, he was a very handsome man; his English was perfect; and he had a poetic nature, which developed itself in the flowery language he used.
It was a very delightful occasion, and everybody enjoyed it without any drawbacks. The Maud was at the gangway to take the party ashore; for the Parsee merchants had invited the military officers to make use of her. By eleven o'clock all were gone in that direction. Captain Ringgold had intended to sail for Bombay the next day; but the extraordinary event which had transpired at Aden decided him to remain another day.
The party from the Blanche, attended by the commander, were put on board of their steamer, in the barge. On her return Captain Ringgold was very anxious to ascertain what impression had been made upon the passengers by His Highness the Pacha. They insisted that he was not the same man at all, and that they had been pleased with him. Had he really reformed his life? Mrs. Belgrave had heard from Mrs. Sharp a fuller account of the conversion of the sinner in a high place, and she believed it.
Louis Belgrave sat at the side of Miss Blanche, and she had little knowledge of the intentions of the Pacha so far as she was concerned. He had treated her with the most scrupulous politeness and reserve, and she admitted that she "rather liked him." Mrs. Blossom declared that he was still a heathen, and wondered that Mrs. Sharp had not converted him to Christianity while she was about it, as she would have done if she had had the opportunity. But the good woman would probably have lost her case if she had tried to do too much at once.
The next day the intercourse between the two steamers was renewed; and the Pacha was decidedly a lion, though he conducted himself with extreme modesty. The impression he continued to make was decidedly in his favor. He assumed nothing on account of his wealth, his lofty station, or anything else. The passengers dined that day in the cabin of the Blanche, with about all the guests whose acquaintance the general had made on board the Guardian-Mother.
In the afternoon it was decided by the unanimous vote of the company on board of the Guardian-Mother that the two steamers should sail the next day for Bombay together. The "Big Four" had been properly noticed by the Pacha, and they had all made friends with him. He had talked with Louis a good deal, for he had become very well acquainted with him at Mogadore; and Scott even thought it possible such a man, "made of money," might yet buy a steamer for him.
The Maud, with the Parsee merchants and all the friendly officers, followed the two magnificent steamers to sea the next day, and both vessels fired salutes for them at parting. The party were going to India; new sights, different from anything they had ever seen before, were to open upon them, and it is more than possible that the young men on board would fall into some stirring adventures as they proceeded. The company of the Blanche was likely to bring with it some attractions, and to change somewhat the order of events on board both vessels. But the narrative of the voyage will be found in "ACROSS INDIA; OR, LIVE BOYS IN THE FAR EAST."
[THE END]
Oliver Optic's Book: Asiatic Breezes: Students on The Wing
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