Joseph Wilmot, or, The Memoirs of a Man-Servant — page 213: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

200 JOSEPH WILMOT; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A MAN-SERVANT. which I could not have obtained by myself alone. However, suspicion has been excited earlier than I | thought ; and Notaras is having himself conveyed on board his ship.” “But what is now your purpose ?” I inquired. one, I wish you would give me some more detailed _ explanations ; for you only vouchsafe comparatively concise answers to my questions.” ““T will endeavour to satisfy you, sir,’ an- _swered Cosmo. “ The officer on board the schooner “ Have you given information to the authorities? yesterday told you truly enough, that corsairs do you propose to give it ?” “Tt is useless,’ responded Cosmo. that schooner, sir she is moored in such a way that the guns of the citadel, if fired upon her, would send their shot through all that forest of been known. masts belonging to the mass of shipping there. She knows she is therefore safe from that quarter : moments would enable her to place her hull com- pletely under that rocky island—and then a few minutes would suffice for her to set her sails and run out of the harbour. She rides at a single anchor; and if she had not time to heave it up, her cable could be slipped, and away she goes !” ° «But what means that barge full of soldiers ?” I inquired. “From the first moment you assured me yon schooner was a pirate, I had made up my mind that the troops in that barge meditated an attack “Which the pirates. would cnly laugh at, sir,” answered Cosmo. “The instant the barge got nnoder the ship’s side with a visibly hostile pur- pose, a weight would be tossed in from the schooner’s deck, and she would go to the bottom.” “ For the last quarter of an hour,” I observed, “ she has kept one of her ports open.” “Yes,” replied Cosmo,—“as a gentle intima- | tion that if the barge attempts to cut out the boat conveying Captain Notaras, it will be sunk in the twinkling of an eye. But really the soldiers in that barge have no such intention: they are merely conveying a posse of refractory galley- slaves from the prison to the citadel. Look, Mr. Wilmot! the barge now takes the curve neces- occasionally appear in the Mediterranean—chiefly *“ Observe | in the Levant. For the last two years those waters have been scoured by one more terrible than all others that for many a long year have It has however been principally ‘in the night-time that trading vessels have been boarded, ransacked of everything worth carrying or even if fired upon, you observe that a very few off, and then suffered to proceed on their way. Suppose, for instance, a trader of Greece, Turkey, _France, England, Spain, or any other country, pursuing its way to some port on the Levantine or neighbouring shore,—it perceives during the day- time, or usually towards sunset, a schooner painted in gay colours and which approaches nigh enough to hailit. If the trader be a Turk, the schooner runs up the colours of Greece: if the trader be a Greek, the schooner displays the Turkish colours —and then they separate.” * But wherefore this difference of colours for each varying occasion >” I inquired. “Because the Turkish sailors know very well,” replied Cosmo, “that there is no such elegant- looking schooner engaged in their own trade: but they have not the same knowledge in respect to Greek vessels. Therefore when the schooner hoists Greek colours, they set it down asa Greek, and are satisfied. Reverse the description—and it applies equally to the hoisting of Turkish colours to a Greek vessel, or of French colours to an English one —and so forth. The consequence was that for two whole years—indeed until very lately—the gaily painted schooner was never suspected to be any- thing but an honest trader, wherever it was met. No matter that it was never heard of as discharg- _lng or taking in a cargo at any particular port sitated by the line of shipping yonder—and the | where legitimate commerce is carried on: vesseis boat containing Captain Notaras, quilly towards the schooner. Let us retfirn to | the hotel. Those fellows on toard the corsair will only be detecting us with their glasses ; and their suspicion for after all it can be nothing more than bare suspicion on their part will be strengthened. They are desperate men—and a | rifle-ball is soon sent whizzing about one’s ears.” *“T confess that after all you have told me,” I proceeds tran- | that trdded to one port were told by those on board the schooner when hailed at sea, that she traded to another port.” “Then the schooner has only been recently painted black ?” I observed. “She is constantly changing her hues like a chamelion,” answered Cosmo. “I will illustrate what I mean. Suppose a Turkish trader bound from Constantinople to Candia:—when off the observed, as we walked together in the direction | coast of Asia Minor, she falls in, we will say, in of the hotel, “TIT am totally at a loss to conceive the afternoon, with a schooner with red and white how you purposed to act, even if suspicion had stripes along her sides, and with beautiful white not been thus prematurely. aroused. Doubtless you | canvas spread. The Turk is hailed, and answers came from Ostia in the first instance to watch this that she is bound for Candia: the schooner runs ship ?” up Greek colours, and replies that she is for Alex- “Precisely so,’ answered Cosmo. “She has/andria. They separate: the schooner is the best been cruising for some few weeks near the Italian | sailer—she tacks—and is soon out of sight. In coast ; and she was boarded a little while back by | the middle of the night, as the Turk is pursuing an Austrian frigate - e| its way, a vessel comes within hail: she is rigged “ They fought 2” I said inquiringly. as a schooner—but her hull is jet black; and in- “Oh, no!” responded Cosmo. “The Austrian | stead of beautiful white canvas, she has dingy merely ‘fired a gun to bring the schooner to—and then sent a boat to take an officer on board and see her papers. These were all correct enough ; and though the officer had his suspicions, yet there was nothing to warrant a capture.” “Being ignorant of all matters of this sort,” I observed, “but yet being interested in the present tan-coloured sails flowing from her spars. The work of piracy is effected—the plunder is accom- plished,—the sailors of the schooner all wearing black masks, so that their countenances are com- pletely concealed. She bears away; and the un- fortunate Turkish captain scarcely dares suspect in his bewilderment that he has been victimised by Giook Me eee SS (EO)