CHAPTER XXXVI.
We learn what hath become of Moll; and how she nobly atoned for our sins.
"Barbary—Barbary!" gasps Dawson, thunderstruck by this discovery. "My Moll in Barbary?"
"She sailed three days ago," says the Don, laying down his pipe, and rising.
Dawson regards him for a moment or two in a kind of stupor, and then his ideas taking definite shape, he cries in a fury of passion and clenching his fists:
"Spanish dog! you shall answer this. And you" (turning in fury upon Sidi), "you—I know your cursed traffic—you've sold her to the Turk!"
Though Sidi may have failed to comprehend his words, he could not misunderstand his menacing attitude, yet he faced him with an unmoved countenance, not a muscle of his body betraying the slightest fear, his stoic calm doing more than any argument of words to overthrow Dawson's mad suspicion. But his passion unabated, Dawson turns again upon Don Sanchez, crying:
"Han't you won enough by your villany, but you must rob me of my daughter? Are you not satisfied with bringing us to shame and ruin, but this poor girl of mine must be cast to the Turk? Speak, rascal!" adds he, advancing a step, and seeking to provoke a conflict. "Speak, if you have any reason to show why I shouldn't strangle you."
"You'll not strangle me," answers the Don, calmly, "and here's my reason if you would see it." And with that he tilts his elbow, and with a turn of the wrist displays a long knife that lay concealed under his forearm. "I know no other defence against the attack of a madman."
"If I be mad," says Dawson, "and mad indeed I may be, and no wonder,—why, then, put your knife to merciful use and end my misery here."
"Nay, take it in your own hand," answers the Don, offering the knife. "And use it as you will—on yourself if you are a fool, or on me if, being not a fool, you can hold me guilty of such villany as you charged me with in your passion."
Dawson looks upon the offered knife an instant with distraction in his eyes, and the Don (not to carry this risky business too far), taking his hesitation for refusal, claps up the blade in his waist-cloth, where it lay mighty convenient to his hand.
"You are wise," says he, "for if that noble woman is to be served, 'tis not by spilling the blood of her best friends."
"You, her friend!" says Dawson.
"Aye, her best friend!" replies the other, with dignity, "for he is best who can best serve her."
"Then must I be her worst," says Jack, humbly, "having no power to undo the mischief I have wrought."
"Tell me, Señor," says I, "who hath kidnapped poor Moll?"
"Nobody. She went of her free will, knowing full well the risk she ran—the possible end of her noble adventure—against the dissuasions and the prayers of all her friends here. She stood in the doorway there, and saw you cross the garden when you first came to seek her—saw you, her father, distracted with grief and fear, and she suffered you to go away. As you may know, nothing is more sacred to a Moor than the laws of hospitality, and by those laws Sidi was bound to respect the wishes of one who had claimed his protection. He could not betray her secret, but he and his family did their utmost to persuade her from her purpose. While you were yet in the town, they implored her to let them call you back, and she refused. Failing in their entreaties, they despatched a messenger to me; alas! when I arrived, she was gone. She went with a company of merchants bound for Alger, and all that her friends here could do was to provide her with a servant and letters, which will ensure her safe conduct to Thadviir."
"But why has she gone there, Señor?" says I, having heard him in a maze of wonderment to the end.
"Cannot you guess? Surely she must have given you some hint of her purposes, for 'twas in her mind, as I learn, when she agreed to leave England and come hither."
"Nothing—we know nothing," falters Dawson. "'Tis all mystery and darkness. Only we did suppose to find happiness a-wandering about the country, dancing and idling, as we did before."
"That dream was never hers," answers the Don. "She never thought to find happiness in idling pleasure. 'Tis the joy of martyrdom she's gone to find, seeking redemption in self-sacrifice."
"Be more explicit, sir, I pray," says I.
"In a word, then, she has gone to offer herself as a ransom for the real Judith Godwin."
We were too overwrought for great astonishment; indeed, my chief surprise was that I had not foreseen this event in Moll's desire to return to Elche, or hit upon the truth in seeking an explanation of her disappearance. 'Twas of a piece with her natural romantic disposition and her newly awaked sense of poetic justice,—for here at one stroke she makes all human atonement for her fault and ours,—earning her husband's forgiveness by this proof of dearest love, and winning back for ever an honoured place in his remembrance. And I bethought me of our Lord's saying that greater love is there none than this: that one shall lay down his life for another.
For some time Dawson stood silent, his arms folded upon his breast, and his head bent in meditation, his lips pressed together, and every muscle in his face contracted with pain and labouring thought. Then, raising his head and fixing his eyes on the Don, he says:
"If I understand aright, my Moll hath gone to give herself up for a slave, in the place of her whose name she took."
The Don assents with a grave inclination of his head, and Dawson continues:
"I ask your pardon for that injustice I did you in my passion; but now that I am cool I cannot hold you blameless for what has befallen my poor child, and I call upon you as a man of honour to repair the wrong you've done me."
Again the Don bows very gravely, and then asks what we would have him do.
"I ask you," says Dawson, "as we have no means for such an expedition, to send me across the sea there to my Moll."
"I cannot ensure your return," says the Don, "and I warn you that once in Barbary you may never leave it."
"I do not want to return if she is there; nay," adds he, "if I may move them to any mercy, they shall do what they will with this body of mine, so that they suffer my child to be free."
The Don turns to Sidi, and tells him what Dawson has offered to do; whereupon the Moor lays his finger across his lips, then his hand on Dawson's breast, and afterwards upon his own, with a reverence, to show his respect. And so he and the Don fall to discussing the feasibility of this project (as I discovered by picking up a word here and there); and, this ended, the Don turns to Dawson, and tells him there is no vessel to convey him at present, wherefore he must of force wait patiently till one comes in from Barbary.
"But," says he, "we may expect one in a few days, and rest you assured that your wish shall be gratified if it be possible."
We went down, Dawson and I, to the sea that afternoon; and, sitting on the shore at that point where we had formerly embarked aboard the Algerine galley, we scanned the waters for a sail that might be coming hither, and Dawson with the eagerness of one who looked to escape from slavery rather than one seeking it.
As we sat watching the sea, he fell a-regretting he had no especial gift of nature, by which he might more readily purchase Moll's freedom of her captors.
"However," says he, "if I can show 'em the use of chairs and benches, for lack of which they are now compelled, as we see, to squat on mats and benches, I may do pretty well with Turks of the better sort who can afford luxuries, and so in time gain my end."
"You shall teach me this business, Jack," says I, "for at present I'm more helpless than you."
"Kit," says he, laying hold of my hand, "let us have no misunderstanding on this matter. You go not to Barbary with me."
"What!" cries I, protesting. "You would have the heart to break from me after we have shared good and ill fortune together like two brothers all these years?"
"God knows we shall part with sore hearts o' both sides, and I shall miss you sadly enough, with no Christian to speak to out there. But 'tis not of ourselves we must think now. Some one must be here to be a father to my Moll when she returns, and I'll trust Don Sanchez no farther than I can see him, for all his wisdom. So, as you love the dear girl, you will stay here, Kit, to be her watch and ward, and as you love me you will spare me any further discussion on this head. For I am resolved."
I would say nothing then to contrary him, but my judgment and feeling both revolted against his decision. For, thinks I, if one Christian is worth but a groat to the Turk, two must be worth eightpence, therefore we together stand a better chance of buying Moll's freedom than either singly. And, for my own happiness, I would easier be a slave in Barbary with Jack than free elsewhere and friendless. Nowhere can a man be free from toil and pain of some sort or another, and there is no such solace in the world for one's discomforts as the company of a true man.
But I was not regardless of Moll's welfare when she returned, neither. For I argued with myself that Mr. Godwin had but to know of her condition to find means of coming hither for her succour. So the next time I met Don Sanchez, I took him aside and told him of my concern, asking him the speediest manner of sending a letter to England (that I had enclosed in mine to the Don having missed him through his leaving Toledo before it arrived).
"There is no occasion to write," says he. "For the moment I learnt your history from Sidi I sent a letter, apprising him of his wife's innocence in this business, and the noble reparation she had made for the fault of others. Also, I took the liberty to enclose a sum of money to meet his requirements, and I'll answer for it he is now on his way hither. For no man living could be dull to the charms of his wife, or bear resentment to her for an act that was prompted by love rather than avarice, and with no calculation on her part."
This cheered me considerably, and did somewhat return my faith in Don Sanchez, who certainly was the most extraordinary gentlemanly rascal that ever lived.
Day after day Dawson and I went down to the sea, and on the fifth day of our watching (after many false hopes and disappointments) we spied a ship, which we knew to be of the Algerine sort by the cross-set of its lateen sails,—making it to look like some great bird with spread wings on the water,—bearing down upon the shore.
We watched the approach of this ship in a fever of joy and expectation, for though we dared not breathe our hopes one to another, we both thought that maybe Moll was there. And this was not impossible. For, supposing Judith was married happily, she would refuse to leave her husband, and her mother, having lived so long in that country, might not care to leave it now and quit her daughter; so might they refuse their ransom and Moll be sent back to us. And, besides this reasoning, we had that clinging belief of the unfortunate that some unforeseen accident might turn to our advantage and overthrow our fears.
The Algerine came nearer and nearer, until at length we could make out certain figures moving upon the deck; then Dawson, laying a trembling hand on my sleeve, asked if I did not think 'twas a woman standing in the fore part; but I couldn't truly answer yes, which vexed him.
But, indeed, when the galley was close enough to drop anchor, being at some distance from the shore because of the shoals, I could not distinguish any women, and my heart sank, for I knew well that if Moll were there, she, seeing us, would have given us some signal of waving a handkerchief or the like. As soon as the anchor was cast, a boat was lowered, and being manned, drew in towards us; then, truly, we perceived a bent figure sitting idle in the stern, but even Dawson dared not venture to think it might be Moll.
The boat running on a shallow, a couple of Moors stepped into the water, and lifting the figure in their arms carried it ashore to where we stood. And now we perceived 'twas a woman muffled up in the Moorish fashion, a little, wizen old creature, who, casting back her head clothes, showed us a wrinkled face, very pale and worn with care and age. Regarding us, she says in plain English:
"You are my countrymen. Is one of you named Dawson?"
"My name is Dawson," says Jack.
She takes his hand in hers, and holding it in hers looks in his face with great pity, and then at last, as if loath to tell the news she sees he fears to hear, she says:
"I am Elizabeth Godwin."
What need of more to let us know that Moll had paid her ransom?