'Until sunset,' said Tapling implacably.
Duras called to his Negro attendant, who had been crouching huddled up under the donkey's belly to take advantage of the shade it cast. With an effort Duras hoisted his ponderous weight onto the donkey's hind quarters. He wiped his face again and looked at them with a trace of bewilderment.
'Wait for me,' were the last words he said as the donkey was led away back into the city gate.
'He is afraid of the Bey,' said Tapling watching him go. 'I would rather face twenty Beys than Admiral Sir John Jervis in a tantrum. What will he do when he hears about this further delay, with the Fleet on short rations already? He'll have my guts for a necktie.'
'One cannot expect punctuality of these people,' said Hornblower with the easy philosophy of the man who does not bear the responsibility. But he thought of the British Navy, without friends, without allies, maintaining desperately the blockade of a hostile Europe, in face of superior numbers, storms, disease, and now famine.
'Look at that!' said Tapling pointing suddenly.
It was a big grey rat which had made its appearance in the dry storm gutter that crossed the waterfront here. Regardless of the bright sunshine it sat up and looked round at the world; even when Tapling stamped his foot it showed no great signs of alarm. When he stamped a second time it slowly turned to hide itself again in the drain, missed its footing so that it lay writhing for a moment at the mouth of the drain, and then regained its feet and disappeared into the darkness.
'An old rat, I suppose,' said Tapling meditatively. 'Senile, possibly. Even blind, it may be.'
Hornblower cared nothing about rats, senile or otherwise. He took a step or two back in the direction of the longboat and the civilian officer conformed to his movements.
'Rig that mains'l so that it gives us some shade, Maxwell,' said Hornblower. 'We're here for the rest of the day.'
'A great comfort,' said Tapling, seating himself on a stone bollard beside the boat, 'to be here in a heathen port. No need to worry in case any men run off. No need to worry about liquor. Only about bullocks and barley. And how to get a spark on this tinder.'
He blew through the pipe that he took from his pocket, preparatory to filling it. The boat was shaded by the mainsail now, and the hands sat in the bows yarning in low tones, while the others made themselves as comfortable as possible in the sternsheets; the boat rolled peacefully in the tiny swell, the rhythmic sound as the fendoffs creaked between her gunwale and the jetty having a soothing effect while city and port dozed in the blazing afternoon heat. Yet it was not easy for a young man of Hornblower's active temperament to endure prolonged inaction. He climbed up on the jetty to stretch his legs, and paced up and down; a Moor in a white gown and turban came staggering in the sunshine along the waterfront. His gait was unsteady, and he walked with his legs well apart to provide a firmer base for his swaying body.
'What was it you said, sir, about liquor being abhorred by the Moslems?' said Hornblower to Tapling down in the sternsheets.
'Not necessarily abhorred,' replied Tapling, guardedly. 'But anathematized, illegal, unlawful, and hard to obtain.'
'Someone here has contrived to obtain some, sir,' said Hornblower.
'Let me see,' said Tapling, scrambling up; the hands, bored with waiting and interested as ever in liquor, landed from the bows to stare as well.
'That looks like a man who has taken drink,' agreed Tapling.
'Three sheets in the wind, sir,' said Maxwell, as the Moor staggered.
'And taken all aback,' supplemented Tapling, as the Moor swerved wildly to one side in a semicircle.
At the end of the semicircle he fell with a crash on his face; his brown legs emerged from the robe a couple of times and were drawn in again, and he lay passive, his head on his arms, his turban fallen on the ground to reveal his shaven skull with a tassel of hair on the crown.
'Totally dismasted,' said Hornblower.
'And hard aground,' said Tapling.
But the Moor now lay oblivious of everything.
'And here's Duras,' said Hornblower.
Out through the gate came the massive figure on the little donkey; another donkey bearing another portly figure followed, each donkey being led by a Negro slave, and after them came a dozen swarthy individuals whose muskets, and whose presence at uniform, indicated that they were soldiers.
'The Treasurer of His Highness,' said Duras, by way of introduction when he and the other had dismounted. 'Come to fetch the gold.'
The portly Moor looked loftily upon them; Duras was still streaming with sweat in the hot sun.
'The gold is there,' said Tapling, pointing. 'In the sternsheets of the longboat. You will have a closer view of it when we have a closer view of the stores we are to buy.'
Duras translated this speech into Arabic. There was a rapid interchange of sentences, before the Treasurer apparently yielded. He turned and waved his arms back to the gate in what was evidently a prearranged signal. A dreary procession immediately emerged — a long line of men, all of them almost naked, white, black, and mulatto, each man staggering along under the burden of a sack of grain. Overseers with sticks walked with them.
'The money,' said Duras, as a result of something said by the Treasurer.
A word from Tapling set the hands to work lifting the heavy bags of gold onto the quay.
'With the corn on the jetty I will put the gold there too,' said Tapling to Hornblower. 'Keep your eye on it while I look at some of those sacks.'
Tapling walked over to the slave gang. Here and there he opened a sack, looked into it, and inspected handfuls of the golden barley grain; other sacks he felt from the outside.
'No hope of looking over every sack in a hundred ton of barley,' he remarked, strolling back again to Hornblower. 'Much of it is sand, I expect. But that is the way of the heathen. The price is adjusted accordingly. Very well, Effendi.'
At a sign from Duras, and under the urgings of the overseers, the slaves burst into activity, trotting up to the quayside and dropping their sacks into the lighter which lay there. The first dozen men were organized into a working party to distribute the cargo evenly into the bottom of the lighter, while the others trotted off, their bodies gleaming with sweat, to fetch fresh loads. At the same time a couple of swarthy herdsmen came out through the gate driving a small herd of cattle.
'Scrubby little creatures,' said Tapling, looking them over critically, 'but that was allowed for in the price, too.'
'The gold,' said Duras.
In reply Tapling opened one of the bags at his feet, filled his hand with golden guineas, and let them cascade through his fingers into the bag again.
'Five hundred guineas there,' he said. 'Fourteen bags, as you see. They will be yours when the lighters are loaded and unmoored.'
Duras wiped his face with a weary gesture. His knees seemed to be weak, and he leaned upon the patient donkey that stood behind him.
The cattle were being driven down a gangway into another lighter, and a second herd had now appeared and was waiting.
'Things move faster than you feared,' said Hornblower.
'See how they drive the poor wretches,' replied Tapling sententiously. 'See! Things move fast when you have no concern for human flesh and blood.'
A coloured slave had fallen to the ground under his burden. He lay there disregarding the blows rained on him by the sticks of the overseers. There was a small movement of his legs. Someone dragged him out of the way at last and the sacks continued to be carried to the lighter. The other lighter was filling fast with cattle, packed into a tight, bellowing mass in which no movement was possible.
'His Nibs is actually keeping his word,' marvelled Tapling. 'I'd 'a settled for the half, if I had been asked beforehand.'