Chapter Four: The Ruffian Riding Rantipole

Sir Chesterhill and the Magistrate are the lone survivors of an unfortunate safari and find themselves in Porto Farina where Templeton is struck with a particular malaise at the hands of a dolymop!

Chapter Four: The Ruffian Riding Rantipole

After our lengthy Saharan misadventure, the good Magistrate Templeton, and I, Sir Harold Chesterhill of Hereford, located a nearby colony, albeit under French precedent.  On the outskirts of Porto Farina, a local blackfoot tradesman immediately recognized a pair of British gentlemen, and promptly offered his variety of fine cheeses, mustache wax, and flags of surrender.  After we gorged ourselves on crumbed camembert and drank several bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon, we decided to inquire where we might acquire fresh regalia as our own clothes were nonexistent after several weeks on a bufotoxin carousel.

After stealing all of our new attire from a tailor and giving him a proper horsewhipping for his objection, we made off to the local maison de tolérance, but naturally, being under French dominion and not a single Church of England in sight, we knew finding a proper toffer would be a feat.  As we pursued the femmes galantes, giving careful examinations of their quims and coolers with our monocles, puffing hard on our Peruvian flake, I informed the dame de maison, that my dear friend, the Magistrate, had acquired a rather diverse palette and if she had anything of, dare I say, more exotic stock, what?

The Abbess sent for the one known as La Brute, and with that all the local denizens fled at the name alone; windows were slammed shut, salesmen dove into oversized pots, and men jumped into the arms of their women.  The Magistrate perfumed and powdered himself in preparation to romance the finest parisian prostitute.  As he lay on a bed of petals with a rose within his teeth, the Abbess’ manservants appeared pulling something unseen by chains.  By the roar and the shaking of the floor tiles, the Magistrate knew he was in a real treat.

Once the creature caught sight of her target, she was released and rushed Templeton.  He opened up his arms for her warm and enchanting embrace, only to be snatched up twirled over her head as she shouted obscenities in her devil’s tongue.  She then threw his potbellied body down hard and began to ritually smother and pummel him, and in a particularly ferocious pelvic thrust, I heard the majority of his bones snap in place and there was evidence that he ejected the better part of the digested fine cheese onto the bedding.  It was difficult to determine if the terrible odours I was experiencing were from the excreta or the landscape of valleys and caverns that decorated the chassis of La Brute.

Unbeknownst to us, it was at this time, that a rather large fleet of Barbary Corsairs sailed into port and were hellbent on dismembering any and all Europeans, French and human alike.  As was the custom, most of the defensive militia and the governor himself had sought refuge when La Brute was on the warpath, leaving Porto Farina quite defenseless.  It was to the Magistrates favour however, as a war band of pirates swept through the den of iniquity and startled La Brute to such a degree that she dismounted Templeton’s ruined body where she promptly tore out the throats of four of the pirates before succumbing to the twenty or so harpoons in her corpulence.  

Seeing that the esteemed Magistrate Templeton was suffering from a particular malaise, I helped him to a glass of dry sherry and a serviette with an extra allowance of ether so that he might find his constitution once again.  Within seconds of consuming several hearty whiffs of the devil’s nepenthe, the Magistrate was up and about, sword fighting pirates, swinging from chandeliers, making widows of wives and what not.  Myself, I learned from the late Maharaja of Kafiristan the art of Ottoman impaling and was making quick work of the meaters who slew the great La Brute.  We worked our way through the Barbary marauders with not a single member of the Governor’s militia to be found; no doubt they were halfway to bloody Timbuktu!  

Nearly surrounded, we located the Basillica dedicated to Saint Jean-Marie Janvier the Eunuch so that we might seek refuge from the pirates and raid any golden idols housed therein.  Having been accustomed to the Roman Catholic Church, I knew this was the place of hedonistic chants and bestial tongueings  before writhing bodies in an effort to attain occult communication with the Pope, Son of God, Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam and such; if we Chesterhills weren’t Church of England for seven straight generations, I might find myself having a tussle or two between the pews in this holiest of houses! Bully!  As it were, indeed we found quite a few golden icons and stashed them away in my waistcoat just as the freebooters rammed the door down and flooded the basilica.  

The Magistrate and I knew it high time we made our escape.  We were able to find the a secret covey entrance in the Bishops chambres hidden behind a flowing trousseau.  We followed the tunnels until they lead just outside the burning ruin of Porto Farina.  With smoke, fire, and French massacre in the air, we dusted ourselves off, took a whiff of our ether serviettes, and strolled into the Saharan dust fields in a most terrible way, toward Kairouan once more.

Author's Note

Bully!