Ernest Alby

Prison at Mascara—Death of Meurice—Lanternier joins us—Four new prisoners—Their adventures—Our way of passing our time—Conversation of the prisoners—Fourteen heads—The Italians.

During the afternoon of the 5th a mule was brought to convey Meurice to Mascara, and I asked for another for myself; but in spite of my illness it was refused me. I revenged myself by pouring several pitchers of water into the chests containing cartridges which stood in our tent; and I flatter myself that I watered them so thoroughly as to prevent their ever being of much use to my persecutors.

I had no sooner accomplished my revenge than Ben Faka returned with the Kait of Mascara who was to escort us to the town, and we immediately started, accompanied by Fleury, Bourgeois, and little Benedicto. I was so overpowered by illness and fatigue that at length even the Kait took pity on me, and seeing that I was totally unable to walk, ordered Bourgeois and Fleury to lift me up on the mule behind Meurice.

The Kait conducted us to a small house next door to that in which he administers justice, and informed us that this was to be our dwelling. It consisted of two small rooms on the ground floor, and one above which was accessible only by an external staircase in the court. We took up our quarters in the upper room, as it seemed rather less damp than the others. It was quite bare of any sort of furniture, and received a little light and a good deal of cold wind through two loop-holes looking into the court. A plank about three feet wide, fixed against the wall, seemed intended to serve as a bed.

The Kait gave us a piece of an old camel hair tent and two rugs to cover us. The two soldiers had the tent, and Meurice and I the rugs.

The Sultan’s artillery was just passing through Mascara on its road to Tekedemta, and Jean Mardulin who belonged to it, came to visit us; he found us so ill and miserable that he proposed to stay and take care of us,—an offer which we accepted with joy and gratitude. He had scraped together a little money, which he generously placed at our disposal.

Meurice begged for an interview with Lanternier, but the Kait replied, that he had received strict orders from Abd-el-Kader not to allow him to communicate with the other prisoners. We, however, sent him a share of our rations every day by Mardulin.

So far were we from recovering our health that I had now entirely lost the use of my legs, and my headaches daily increased in violence. I begged the Kait twenty times to let me be bled; and at length he sent me the same barber who had operated on Meurice. The barber cupped me on the back of my head, which relieved me very much.

On the morning of the 12th the weather was detestable, the rain fell in torrents, and we suffered even more than usual from cold and damp. Meurice stretched out his hand towards me, as we lay side by side; I took it, and asked him how he felt. He replied that he was no better and felt very cold. I crept closer to him and offered him my haick; but he refused it, saying that he did not suffer more than the day before, but that he felt he had not long to live. “You,” said he, “are young and strong; you will return to Algiers, where you will see my wife—poor Clarisse! tell her how much I loved her, and that my last thought was of her.” He then covered his head with his haick, and for half an hour uttered not a single groan. At the end of that time I took hold of his arm and asked him how he felt: he made no answer, and I uncovered his face—he was dead.

I will not attempt to describe the feelings which crowded upon me as I lay with Meurice’s body by my side. Night was come, and I called the other prisoners, and bade them examine whether our poor companion was really dead. They went to fetch the Kait, who, now that it was too late, ordered a fire for us. Had this been granted us a few days earlier, Meurice might have been saved. Bourgeois and Mardulin undressed the body, rolled it in a rug, and laid it in the opposite corner of the room. They gave me his clothes. The vermin on the haick were so thick that it stood on end; but misery by degrees blunts all our sensibilities, both moral and physical. I rolled myself in his clothes, and at least was warmer.

The next afternoon Mardulin and Bourgeois, assisted by a couple of Jews, whom the Kait had appointed for the purpose, removed the body. They dug a hole just outside the wall of the town, on the road to El Borgj, sewed the body in a ragged piece of old haick, and buried it there.

The weather that night was terrific; the rain fell in torrents, and the wind blew a perfect gale; nevertheless, at sunrise an Arab came to inform the Kait that the corpse of the Christian was half out of the earth. In spite of the weather the Arabs had dug up the body, in order to steal the ragged piece of haick in which Mardulin had sewn it. The Kait affected to be very angry, and promised us that he would punish the thieves; but he made no attempt to discover them. Mardulin immediately went to the spot where he had buried Meurice, enlarged the hole, and replaced in it our unfortunate companion, whom these barbarians would not suffer to rest in peace, even after death.

When Abd-el-Kader heard of Meurice’s death, he sent the most positive orders that we were to have everything we might want; and the Kait asked me what I wished for. I asked for three fowls, and for permission for Lanternier to join us. As the Kait wished to keep me alive, I obtained both my requests. It is impossible to describe the joy of poor Lanternier, who immediately set about curing me by continued and violent friction and the application of red-hot bricks to my legs, which were so completely benumbed that even when the skin was burnt I did not feel it.

All this time the Sultan was encamped to the south of Oran, at a place where there are several marabouts and some mineral springs. He had sent Milud-ben-Arrach with the cavalry to Milianah to collect tribute from the Hadjutes of the neighbouring tribes. He was to have gone among the Hadjutes himself during the month of September, but had been prevented by the revolt of the Beni-Flitas.

I heard one day that a courier had arrived with letters from Algiers, which he had delivered to the Kait. I got Bourgeois and Mardulin to carry me to his house, though certainly nothing of less importance would have induced me to be thus dragged across the public place of Mascara. The Kait was touched with pity at my deplorable condition. He told me that the courier brought a letter from Algiers, which, no doubt, would effect my deliverance. I asked to see it, and my joy was inexpressible on beholding General Rapatel’s seal. Guess, then, what was my disappointment when the Kait told me that he dared not open it, but would send it at once to the Sultan, and that Fleury should accompany the courier in order to read it, as I was too weak and ill to bear the fatigue of the journey.

Just as the courier was about to start, four new prisoners arrived; these were Monsieur Pic a settler, his German servant formerly a chasseur, a disciplinaire, and Madame Laurent a cantiniÈre. M. Pic’s servant, who had received a ball in his hip, was left at Mascara, while the Kait sent his three companions to the Sultan with the courier and Fleury. I especially charged the latter to ask the Sultan to exchange the four new prisoners against the four Arabs who were to have served as ransom for Meurice.

On the 18th thirty Beni-Amers,—men, women, and children, arrived at Mascara, loaded with chains. They had been taken on the road to Oran, whither they were going to place themselves under the protection of the French. Abd-el-Kader ordered the two chiefs to be hung as an example to others: the rest were thrown into prison.

Fleury returned to Mascara with the other prisoners and a soldier called Devienne, who had been taken by the Arabs near Tlemsen. The Arabs who escorted them told them that they must take off the haicks which had been given to them by the Bey of Milianah, and appear before the Sultan in their Christian dresses. The prisoners obeyed, and the haicks disappeared.

After questioning the prisoners, and rewarding the Arabs who had brought them, Abd-el-Kader gave each of them two bits of money, and bade them fear nothing. Fleury then read the letter in which the Governor agreed to give fifteen Arabs in exchange for the six Christians, and the Sultan promised to send us all to Algiers at once. He also sent his command to the Kait to clothe us all afresh with red trowsers and new haicks, which the latter executed as far as he was able, but the Sultan’s store contained but one piece of cloth, which was only sufficient for three pairs of trowsers.

The Kait promised that we should set out for Algiers as soon as the two Italian prisoners, Crescenso and Francesco, had arrived from Tekedemta, whither he had already sent to fetch them. That evening, when we were all assembled, I begged the four new prisoners to tell us how they had fallen into the hands of the Arabs.

M. Pic and his servant were going towards Buffarik with a cartload of sand, when some Arabs rode towards them, crying “Run! run!” Thinking that the Arabs meant this as a friendly warning to them to escape from some impending danger, the servant took to his heels, and M. Pic was about to follow him when the Arabs fired at them, and wounded the servant in the hip. They then took the horse out of the cart, mounted their two prisoners upon it, and carried them to the Bey of Milianah.

The disciplinaire was returning rather drunk, from a merry-making at a blockhouse near Buffarik, when he was surprised by some Arabs, who took him to their tribe near the Queen’s Tomb.[6]

Madame Laurent, in company with Madame LafÔret another cantiniÈre, was going to Mahelma to see her husband, when they were seized and carried to the tents of the same tribe; where for two months they were subjected to every sort of horrible ill usage, under which they both fell sick, and Madame LafÔret soon perished.

Madame Laurent got worse and worse, and at last her master sold her to another Arab, who kept her for two months, at the end of which time, finding her as ill as ever and utterly unable to work, he took her to the Bey of Milianah.

The disciplinaire with whom she had never been allowed to have any communication, had also fallen sick and was carried to the Bey.

On their arrival at Mascara, these prisoners were in the most abject state of misery and dirt. Fleury cut off Madame Laurent’s long hair which was covered with vermin, and she bought a comb with the money the Sultan had given her. The Kait lodged her with his women, but she soon returned to us in a rage, as the Arab women had struck and insulted her, and she was forced to take refuge from their malice with us.

Our days were passed in the following manner. At daybreak Mardulin woke us, lighted the fire, and went to market to buy with his own savings figs, eggs, and white bread for us, and snuff for M. Lanternier. We then breakfasted; after which we cleaned the house by turns. When the weather was fine we went to sit upon the terrace of the Casabah, and hunted the vermin on our clothes: only M. Pic’s servant, whose wound did not heal, stayed within.

One day, while I was discussing with Mardulin how to obtain from the French Government his pardon and permission to return—a favour he so well deserved for his devotion and kindness to us, we overheard the following conversation among the other prisoners. They were talking about their return to Algiers: and in spite of their rags and vermin they had forgotten their miserable condition, and already fancied themselves free. “I hope, gentlemen,” said M. Pic, “that when you pass through Buffarik on your return to Algiers, you will do me the honour of stopping to breakfast with me. Madame Pic will be extremely flattered by the compliment, and should any confusion reign in the meal, be so good, gentlemen, as not to attribute it to the slightest indifference on our part to the comfort of our guests, but to the joy which will no doubt disturb my wife, who of course believes me to be dead, and will feel considerable emotion at our meeting.”

“Gentlemen,” began M. Lanternier, “I will not be outdone; you must all give me the pleasure of your company at dinner at my village of Adel-Ibrahim. It is true, I am old, but to celebrate the day of our release I will take care that not even the youngest among you shall eat and drink more than I.”

“Ah Ça,” broke in Madame Laurent; “I trust, gentlemen, that I need not put up with the disgrace of being unable to offer you any civility. But first, I wish to know if there is a carriage road from Buffarik to Algiers.”

“Petite mÈre,” answered the deserter, “you shall have a car whereon to make your triumphal entry into Algiers.”

“Be quiet you rogues,—I shall have the honour of receiving you at my canteen, and of offering each of you a glass of wine. The celebrated and unfortunate captives of the Bedouins shall have the privilege of drinking whatever they please gratis, like in the Champs ElysÉes on the birthday of Louis XVIII. I shall have the honour of waiting upon you myself, gentlemen; and I beg you to believe that my dress will be more carefully arranged and composed of better materials than it is at this present, most amiable and unfortunate captives of the barbarians.”

“Long live Madame Laurent!” exclaimed all the prisoners at once; “the amiable captives will all assemble at your canteen at Algiers.” “And at night,” added M. Lanternier, “we will all sup together with due honours.” “And you, Lieutenant,” said Madame Laurent turning to me, “will you do us the honour to be of the party?” “Certainly, petite mÈre,” replied I; “and long live Madame Laurent.”

This is but one specimen of the conversations which continually arose on this subject.

After taking a few turns on the terrace we returned to our house, and as soon as the evening began to close in, Bourgeois brought the kitchen fire into our room in a chafing dish, and one of the soldiers went to fetch our supper and oil for our lamp at the house to which he was directed by one of the Kait’s slaves; for the inhabitants of the town were forced to supply us by turns: meanwhile some of the party smoked, and others played at cards or chess with those I had manufactured. When we had eaten our kuskussu we called on M. Lanternier for a story, and listened with the deepest interest to Tom Thumb, Little Red Riding Hood, the Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, or some other fairy tale, which he told with great fluency and grace. The disciplinaire, who had a very fine voice, sang ProvenÇal songs with great taste and feeling. One by one we fell asleep, and thus ended our day.

One afternoon our talk was interrupted by the noise of cannon and muskets, and of tumultuous voices. We went out to discover the cause, and were shocked at seeing the heads of fourteen slaughtered Spahis which the children were kicking about before the door of our house. They were afterwards put into a sack and sent to adorn Abd-el-Kader’s tent. This hideous spectacle made me sick.

On the 24th, two of the Italian fishermen, Crescenso and Francesco, arrived from Tekedemta: Berthoumiau had died of cold and ill usage, and had been buried there. The account of their sufferings was terrible. Their first enquiry was after little Benedicto, but the boy did not remember his friends or his country; only when they mentioned his mother Maria he seemed to feel some emotion and his memory to revive. “My mother,” said the boy, “is there,” pointing towards the tent of Abd-el-Kader’s wife; and away he ran to play with the Arab children.