The Turkish fleet did not escape absolutely scathless after its inglorious departure from Nauplia. Although unmolested by the Greeks, it sailed north, and anchored inside the island of Tenedos.
Kanaris persuaded the people of Psara to fit out two fire-ships. He took the command of one, and both sailed for the Turkish fleet, which they approached at daybreak. Two line-of-battle ships were anchored to windward of the rest of the fleet. Kanaris undertook the destruction of the ship to leeward, that being the most difficult operation. He succeeded as well as he had done on two previous occasions. He ran the enemy aboard to windward, lashed the fire-ship there, and fired the train. The Turk was at once enveloped in flames, and the whole of the crew, eight hundred in number, perished.
But Kanaris seemed to be the only Greek naval officer who had the necessary courage and coolness to manœuvre successfully with fire-ships. The other captain ran his fire-ship alongside the man-of-war which carried the flag of the capitan-pasha. The position of the fire-ship was, however, ill chosen, and after being set on fire it drifted away without doing injury to the Turk. The rest of the Turkish fleet cut their cables and made for the Dardanelles, while one corvette ran ashore on Tenedos. Another was abandoned by her crew. Kanaris and the crews of the two fire-ships returned safely to Psara in their boats.
ONE day, after cruising along the coast inside the island of Eubœa or Negropont, the Misericordia entered the Gulf of Zeitouni, the Sinus Maliacus of the ancients. When they were nearly at the head of the gulf Horace asked Captain Martyn to let him go ashore to a little village at the water’s edge to get some vegetables and fruit, of which the supply had run out.
“Just as you like, Horace. A boat-load of green stuff of some sort or other would be very welcome, and if you can pick up half a dozen kids so much the better.”
“I am thinking I will go with you, Horace,” Macfarlane said; “it does a man good to stretch his legs ashore once in a way.”
The gig was at once lowered, and on Horace and the doctor taking their seats in the stern, four sailors rowed them ashore.
“I sha’n’t take the trouble to anchor,” Martyn said as they left the ship. “I expect you will be back in an hour, and I shall keep her standing off and on till I see you put out.”
Leaving two of the men in charge of the boat, Horace told the other two to take some of the baskets they had brought ashore and follow him. Some women looked out timidly at the doors of the houses, but no men were to be seen about.
“We are friends,” Horace said; “do you not see we are flying the Greek flag? Where are all the men?”
“They have gone away with Vriones. He came with an armed band and said that every man must go with him to fight.”
“Who have they gone to fight?”
“Ah! that we don’t know. He talked about fighting the Turks, but we think it more likely that he is going to fight Rhangos. They are at war with each other. Oh, these are bad times! What with the war with the Turks, and the war of one captain with another, and what with bands of klephts who plunder everyone, there is no peace nor quiet. They say Rhangos is going to join the Turks, as many other klepht leaders have done. To us it makes little difference who are masters, so that we know who they are. In the time of the Turks we had peace; we had to pay taxes, but we knew what they were. Now everybody wants taxes. These are evil days.”
“We want some vegetables and some fruit,” Horace said. “We do not wish to rob you, and are ready to pay a fair price for everything.”
“Those we can sell you,” the woman said, “it is nearly all we have left. There are vegetables everywhere, and they are not worth stealing.”
The news soon spread, and the women and children of the village were soon engaged in gathering and tying up vegetables. The sailors made several trips backwards and forwards to the boats with laden baskets, while the doctor and Horace, seated upon a low wall, watched the women at work in the gardens, and paid the sum agreed upon for each basketful that was carried off. Suddenly, without the slightest warning, there was a rush of men behind them, and before they could draw their pistols they were seized, thrown down, and bound.
“What is the meaning of this?” Horace asked indignantly. “We are officers of that ship there, which is in the service of Greece. As you are Greeks, what do you mean by molesting us?”
No reply was given. There was a sudden outburst of firing down by the boat, and the screams of women rose in the air. The men who had bound them moved away at the order of an officer, leaving two with muskets standing over the prisoners.
“This is a nice business, doctor; I expect we have fallen into the hands of Rhangos, the fellow the women were speaking about, and the men of this village have gone out with some other scoundrel to fight. I suppose he had spies about, and came down to plunder the place in their absence. She said she heard Rhangos was going to join the Turks; his capturing us certainly looks as if at present he was hostile to the Greeks. If he takes us away and hands us over to the Turks it is a bad look-out.”
“He will have to be quick about it,” the doctor said, “they are still firing occasional shots down by the water. That looks as if the boat has got away, and you may be sure Martyn won’t be long before he sends as many men as he can spare ashore to find us. There, do you hear?” and as he spoke there was the deep boom of a gun, followed by the rush of a shot overhead.
Orders were shouted angrily directly afterwards. Some men ran up, cut the cords that bound the prisoners’ legs, and then, seizing them by the arms, hurried them away, threatening them with instant death if they did not keep up with them. As they mounted the high ground behind the village Horace glanced round. Three boats were just leaving the schooner. A blow from one of the Greeks that, bound as he was, nearly threw him down, compelled him to turn his head and hurry forward again. For hours they hastened along. When about a mile from the village a sharp fire was heard to break out in that direction. As they had only eight men with them, they doubted not that Rhangos was with the main body opposing the landing.
“Our fellows will soon clear them out of the village,” Horace said to the doctor. “I only hope that, as they retire, the Greeks will follow us, for you may be sure that Martyn and Miller will press hard on them, and may perhaps overtake us.”
Up to nightfall, however, none of the band came up. The country had been getting more and more hilly, and at sunset they halted far up on the side of a mountain. Here a fire was lit, and some portions of a kid that had evidently been part of the plunder of the village were put over it to roast. The fire was kept blazing, and the doctor and Horace agreed that it was probably intended as a signal to their comrades. A lump of meat was thrown to each of the captives, their cords being loosed sufficiently to enable them to use their hands, their legs being tightly bound again as soon as they had halted. At eight o’clock a sound of voices was heard, and presently a party of Greeks, fully a hundred strong, came up. They were evidently in an ill temper, and replied sulkily to the questions of the guard of the prisoners. Horace gathered from their answers that they had fired a volley upon the boats as they approached; then, seeing they came on without a pause, had at once run from the village and scattered, reuniting some miles on.
“We lost everything we had taken,” one of the men said. “We had it all packed and ready to carry away, when those confounded sailors came. Some of us did start with our bundles, but they came so fast up to us that we had to throw everything away, and even then we had a lot of difficulty in keeping away from them. I expect they caught some. It was lucky we started off when we did; if we had waited till they landed very few would have got away.”
“Didn’t they shoot?” one of the guards asked.
“No, they never fired a shot. I don’t know whether they came ashore without powder, but from first to last they never fired.”
“They knew we had these two in our hands,” the guards said, “and they were afraid if they killed any of us we should take it out of our prisoners, and I think they were about right. Ah! here comes Rhangos. He had to take to a farmhouse before he had gone half a mile, and I suppose if any of them looked in they would have seen him feeding pigs or something of that sort, with his finery and arms hidden away.”
The klepht had now come up to the fire. He was a spare man, some fifty years old, with a keen hungry face.
“Are all here?” he asked briefly.
“We are six short of our number,” a man, who by his dress had evidently the rank of an officer among them, replied.
“Killed?”
“No, there was no firing; I expect those sailors ran them down.”
“Then we must march in half-an-hour, they will make them lead them here. Now, then, who are you?” he asked the doctor as the elder of the prisoners.
“My friend does not speak Greek,” Horace replied. “As you must be well aware we are officers of that schooner that was lying off the village. This is the doctor, I am third lieutenant. We are friends of Greece, we have been in action against the Turkish ships of war, we have saved great numbers of Greek fugitives from the Turks, now this is the treatment that we receive at the hands of the Greeks.”
Horace’s reticence as to the fact that he was the son of the owner of the schooner was the result of a conversation with the doctor.
“These scoundrels have no doubt carried us off either for the purpose of getting a ransom for us or of handing us over to the Turks as an acceptable present. I expect the idea of ransom is at the bottom of it. We have heard of this fellow Rhangos before. He is a noted klepht, and more Albanian than Greek. Whatever you do, Horace, don’t you let out you are the owner’s son. If you do there is no saying how much ransom they might ask for you. They think that an Englishman who fits out a ship at his own expense to come out here must be rolling in money. As long as they think that they have only got hold of a doctor and a third lieutenant they cannot ask a high price for them, but for an owner’s son there is no saying what figure they might put him at. Have you got a second name?”
“Yes, I am Horace Hendon Beveridge. Hendon was my mother’s name.”
“That is lucky; you can give them Horace Hendon. It is likely they may know your father’s name, for the Misericordia and her doings have been a good deal talked about. I am not in favour of anyone telling a lie, Horace, but as it is no lie to give your two first names without giving your third, I cannot see that there is harm in it.”
“The ship belongs to the Lord Beveridge?” Rhangos asked next.
“Yes, that is his name,” Horace replied.
“What is your name and that of your companion?”
Horace gave his two Christian names and the name of his companion.
“Have you paper?” the klepht said.
“I have a note-book in my pocket.”
“That will do. Now write in Greek: My Lord Beveridge, This is to give you notice that—now write the two names—‘Donald Macfarlane and Horace Hendon,’” Horace repeated as he wrote them, “surgeon and third lieutenant of your ship, are captives in my hands, and that unless three hundred pounds in gold are paid to me as ransom for them they will be put to death. If there is any attempt to rescue the prisoners they will at once be shot. The messenger will arrange with you how and where the ransom is to be paid.”
The klepht added his own name in scrawling characters at the bottom of the note, then called one of the men and gave him instructions as to where and how the ransom was to be paid, and then sent him off. As soon as the band had satisfied their hunger the march among the mountains was continued for another two hours. Then they threw themselves down by the side of a stream in a valley surrounded on all sides with craggy hills, and two men with muskets were placed as sentries over the prisoners.
“Well, this is not so bad,” Horace said. “It is certainly very lucky you gave me that hint about my name. Three hundred is not very much to pay to get out of such a scrape as this. I suppose there is no fear about their giving us up when they get the money.”
“I think not,” the doctor replied. “They would never get ransoms if they did not keep their word. I only hope that no one may let out before the messenger who you are. If they do, there will be a very serious rise in prices.”
“Fortunately none of them speak Greek but my father, and probably he would read the note before he would ask any questions.”
“Maybe yes, and maybe no,” the doctor said. “He is as like as not to say when he sees a messenger, ’Is my son alive and well?’ and then the cat would be out of the bag. Still, your father is a prudent man, and may keep a still tongue in his head, especially when he sees that the note is in your own handwriting. However, we will hope for the best.”
Morning had dawned some time before there was any movement among the band. Then their fires were lighted and breakfast cooked.
“Will the English lord pay the ransom for you, do you think?” Rhangos asked, sauntering up to Horace.
Horace shrugged his shoulders.
“It is a large sum to pay for two officers,” he said.
“He is rich, it is nothing to him.”
“He is well off, no doubt,” Horace said; “but it is not everyone who is well off who is disposed to part with money for other people.”
“Well, it will be bad for you if he doesn’t pay,” the klepht said significantly.
Three hours later the messenger was seen coming up the valley. Horace looked at him anxiously as he approached, and was pleased to see that, as he spoke to Rhangos, there was no expression of surprise or exultation in the latter’s face. He nodded when the other had finished, and then went to the fire where two or three of his lieutenants were sitting, saying briefly to Horace as he passed him, “He will pay.” Horace could hear what he said to the others.
“Demetri says the Englishman did not like paying the money. There was a good deal of talk between him and his officers before he came back to him and said, that though the demand was extortionate he would pay it. He said he should complain to the central government, and should expect them to refund it and settle with you.” There was a general laugh among his hearers.
“I ought to have asked more,” the klepht went on; “but I don’t know these English. Of course if any of you were taken, my dear friends, I would give all I have to ransom you.” The assertion was received with mocking laughter, as he went on calmly: “But you see other people are not animated by the same generous feeling as we Greeks, and I don’t suppose this milord sets any particular value on the lad, or on that long-shanked doctor. He can hire more of them, and I expect he only agreed to pay the money because his other officers insisted on it. They are rolling in wealth these English, but they are mean; if not, how is it that our pockets are not filled with English gold when we are fighting for a sacred cause?”
His hearers were highly tickled by this sentiment.
“When are they to be delivered up, Rhangos?”
“At mid-day to-morrow at Pales, the village halfway between the foot of the hills and the sea. Four men are to take them down to within a quarter of a mile of the village; then Demetri will go in and get the gold; then when he returns with it to the others the prisoners will be freed.”
“I should have thought the matter might have been arranged to-day,” one of the men said.
“So it might have been,” the klepht replied; “but I could not tell that. I thought that Demetri would not be able to go off to the ship this morning. He had six hours’ walking, and would not be there until two hours past midnight; then he would have to rest for an hour or two after he had seen them, and then six hours to walk back. It would have been too late to deliver them up before dark, and I should never think of sending them in the dark—their guards might fall into an ambush. As it was, Demetri found them in the village. They had not returned, as I thought they would do, on board their ship. He walked in, thinking the place was empty, when two of those sailors jumped out on him with cutlasses. Thinking that they were going to cut his throat he showed them the letter. They led him to the principal house in the village, and one went in while another held him fast outside. He heard a great talking and excitement in the house, and presently he was taken in. Then, as I told you, there was a great talk, and at last they agreed to pay the ransom. As soon as he got his answer he started on his way back, lay down for an hour or two in an empty cottage, and then came on here. We will stay where we are until to-morrow morning; then, Kornalis, you shall start with four men, and Demetri and the captives, and we will go on our way. We will deal another blow to Vriones, and then we will be off. We will fix on some place where you can join us after you have got the ransom.”
“It could not have happened better for us,” Horace said to his companion after he had translated the klepht’s story. “As it turned out, you see, my father got the note before he could say a word to the messenger. That was a capital move their pretending to hesitate about paying the ransom. If they had jumped at it this scoundrel is perfectly capable of raising his terms. As it is, he thinks he was clever enough to hit upon just the maximum sum that could be got for us. Well, it is all right now.”
“It will be all right when we are among the others, Horace; there is never any saying what may happen in this country. Some of the peasants these fellows have been robbing may fall on us, seeing we are but a small party. This Vriones with his bandits, who I daresay are just as bad as these fellows, may happen to meet us. No, we won’t calculate too confidently. Things have gone on very well so far. We will just hope they will go on to the end.”
Now that the affair was considered to be settled, but little attention was paid to the prisoners. Their cords were taken off, and they were permitted to move about, two men keeping an eye upon them, but not following them closely. They congratulated themselves that the sailors had withheld their fire, for undoubtedly their position would have been very different had some of the brigands been killed. So far from bearing any animosity now, the men chatted with them in a friendly manner, asked questions about their ship, and their encounters with the Turks.
“We would rather fight for the Greeks than the Turks,” one said: “but we follow our captains. There is neither pay nor plunder to be obtained with the Greeks; and as Odysseus and all the other chiefs play their own game, and think only of making money, why should poor devils like us be particular? All Albanian tribes have had their wars against each other as long as we or our fathers can remember. We know nothing about the Greece that they talk so much of now. There were the Morea and other provinces, and so there have always been so far as we know, and it is nothing to us whether they are ruled by Turks or by their own captains. As to religion, many of our tribes are Mussulmans, many are Christians. We do not see that it makes any difference.
“Everyone plunders when he gets a chance. Why should I want to cut a man’s throat because he is a Mussulman? His father was a Christian before him; my son may be a Mussulman after me. What does it matter? Since the fight at Petta many chiefs have gone over to the Turks, and if the Greeks win a battle most of them will go back again. The affair is nothing to us. On the mountains we hunt where we are most likely to get game. You like to hunt for amusement, and so you have come out here on a matter which does not at all concern you. We hunt to live, and don’t much care whether we take a sheep out of one flock or another.”
Horace smiled at the man’s avowal of the want of any principle whatever.
“I was a schoolmaster,” one of the lieutenants of the band, who was stretched at full length smoking and listening to the conversation, remarked. “I know about the old time, but I don’t know anything of this Greece you speak of. Where was it? What did it do? It was just then as it is now. There were a number of little tribes under their own captains. Athens, and Corinth, and Sparta, and Argos, and Thebes, and the rest of them always fighting against each other just as our Albanian clans do; not even ready to put aside their own quarrels to fight against an invader. Pooh! There never was a Greece, and I neither know nor care whether there ever will be. Why should we throw away our lives for a dream?”
“Yes; but at any rate the Greeks have a common language, which shows they are one people.”
“Families fall out more than strangers,” the man replied with a laugh. “You English and the Americans have a common language, and yet you have been fighting against each other, and they refuse to remain one nation with you. These things signify no more than the smoke of my pipe. A Christian’s money, and a Christian’s goods and cattle, are worth just as much to me as a Turk’s; and my captain, who pays me, is more to me than either Mavrocordatos or the Sultan. I daresay that English milord is a worthy man, though he must be a fool, and yet the wine I shall buy out of my share of his money will be just as good as if it had grown in my father’s vineyard.”
Horace laughed. He was not skilled in argument, even had he any inclination to indulge in it at the present time; and he sauntered off and sat down by the doctor, who, not being able to talk with the Greeks, found the time hang heavy on hand. Horace repeated to him his conversation with the two brigands.
“I own I did not know how to answer the last fellow, doctor.”
“There is no answer to be made, Horace. To argue, men must have a common ground to start from. There is no common ground between you and him. His argument is the argument of the materialist everywhere, whether he is Briton, Frenchman, or Greek. To a man who has neither religion nor principles there remains only self-interest, and from that point of view there is no gainsaying the arguments of that Albanian scamp any more than it would have been of use for a lowland merchant carried off by Highland caterans to urge upon them that their conduct was contrary to the laws both of morality and political economy. They would have said that they knew nothing about either, and cared less, and that unless his goodwife or fellow citizens put their hands in their pockets and sent the ransom they demanded, his head would be despatched to them in a hamper with small delay. He certainly had you on the hip with what he said about ancient Greece, for a more quarrelsome, cantankerous, waspish set of little communities the world never saw, unless it were the cities of Italy in the middle ages, which at any rate were of a respectable size, which was, by the way, the only respectable thing about them. Religion and principle and patriotism are the three things that keep men and nations straight, and neither the Greek nor Italian communities had the least glimmering of an idea of either of them, except a love for their own petty states may be called patriotism.”
“A good deal like your Highland clansmen, I should say, doctor,” Horace laughed. “The head of the clan was a much greater man in the eyes of his followers than the King of Scotland.”
“That is so, Horace; and the consequence was, that while there was peace and order and prosperity in the lowlands, the Highlands scarcely made a step forward until the clans were pretty well broken up after Culloden. It was a sore business at the time, but no one can doubt that it did good in the long run. And now, lad, I think that I will just take a sleep. It was not many hours we got of it last night, and you see most of these fellows have set us an example.”
The next morning they started at daybreak. The main body of the band had moved off hours before, leaving the Lieutenant Kornalis, Demetri, and four of the men. Three hours’ walking took them out of the mountains. There was little talking. The Greeks would have preferred going with their leader to plunder another village, for although the booty taken was supposed to be all handed over to the chief for fair distribution, there were few who did not conceal some trinket or money as their own special share of the plunder. They were but a mile or two beyond the hills, when, from a wood skirting the road, four or five shots rang out.
Two of the Greeks fell; the rest, throwing away their guns, fled at the top of their speed. Before the prisoners had time to recover from their surprise a number of men rushed out, and with the butts of their muskets and pistols struck them to the ground. When they recovered their senses a group of men were standing round them, while at some little distance they could hear the sound of firing, showing that the pursuit of their late captors was being closely maintained. By this time they had become sufficiently accustomed to the various costumes to know that they had now fallen into the hands of men of one of the Albanian tribes, probably Mussulmans acting as irregulars with the Turkish army, engaged upon a raiding expedition. One of them asked Horace a question, but the dialect was so different to that of the Greeks of Athens and the Morea that he was unable to understand it. Presently the men who had gone in pursuit returned, and the whole party set off to the north, placing their prisoners in their midst, and warning them by pointing significantly to their knives and pistols that they had better keep up with them.
“Eh! man,” the doctor said; “but it is dreadful. Just as we thought that everything was settled, and that in another couple of hours we should be with our own people, here we are in the hands of a pack of villains even worse than the others.”
“You said that we should not shout until we were out of the wood, doctor, and you have turned out a true prophet; but at present I am thinking more of my head than of anything else, I am sure I have got a couple of lumps on it as big as eggs.”
“It shows the folly of man,” the doctor said philosophically. “What good could they expect to get from knocking us down? We were neither fighting nor running away. We had not our wits about us, lad, or we should have just taken to our heels.”
“I expect they would have caught us if we had. We have neither of us had much walking lately, and those fellows are always climbing among their mountains. Do you think it is of any use trying to make them understand that if they will take us a few miles farther they will find three hundred pounds waiting for them?”
“You might try, Horace; but I don’t think that it will be of any use. I expect they are just skirting along at the foot of the hills to see what they can pick up. There are not above thirty of them, and they would not like to go far out upon the plains; besides, I don’t know that it would turn out well. If they were to go on in a body, Martyn would as likely as not fire at them, and then they would think that we had led them into an ambush, and shoot us without waiting to ask any question. Still, you can try if you like; we might be sorry afterwards if we didn’t.”
But when Horace tried to speak to the men he was threatened roughly, and he lapsed into silence. For three hours they ascended a great range of hills running east and west. When they gained the crest they could see stretched away far in front of them a flat and fertile country.
“The plains of Thessaly,” the doctor said; “the fairest and richest portion of the Greece of old. There is little chance of its forming part of the Greece of the future, at least not until a complete overthrow of the Turkish Empire. If Greece attains her independence the frontier line will be somewhere along the crest of these hills, for Thessaly, although there was some slight trouble there at first, has not joined the movement. There are no mountains and fortresses where they can take refuge, and a troop of Turkish cavalry could scour the whole country. There is where we are bound for, I expect;” and he pointed to a large clump of white tents far out on the plain. “I expect that is the camp of the Pasha of the province. I suppose he is going to operate on this side when the main force advances to the west.”
It took them another four hours’ walking before they approached the camp. When within a short distance of it their captors turned off and entered a village where numbers of their countrymen were sitting in the shade smoking or dozing. The band went on until they reached the principal house in the village, and four of them entering took their prisoners into a room where a tall old chief was sitting on a divan. They talked for some minutes, evidently explaining the circumstances of their capture. When they had done, the chief asked the prisoners in Greek who they were.
“We are Englishmen,” Horace replied; “we belong to a ship lying off a village whose name I don’t know. We had landed to buy fruit and vegetables, and then we were suddenly seized and carried away to the mountains by some Greek brigands led by a fellow named Rhangos. We had arranged for a ransom and were on our way under a guard to the village where the money was to be paid when your band put the Greeks to flight and made us prisoners.”
“How much ransom was to be paid?” the Albanian asked.
“Three hundred pounds, and if you will send us there now our friends will be glad to pay it to your people. I tried to explain that to them on the way, but they would not listen to me.”
“They are fools,” the chief said decidedly; “and besides, they don’t speak Greek. It is too late now. I must take you to the Pasha, who will deal with you as he chooses.” Then rising, and followed by a group of his officers and the prisoners in charge of four men, he walked across to the Turkish camp.
“They are a picturesque-looking set of cut-throats,” Macfarlane said.
“That they are. People at home would stare to see them with their white kilted petticoats and gaudy sashes, with their pistols inlaid with silver, and their embroidered jackets and white shirt sleeves. Well, what are we to say if we are asked about the ship?”
“We must tell the truth, lad; I doubt not they have had news before now that the schooner is cruising about on the coast; and even if we were disposed to tell a lie, which we are not, they would guess where we had come from. No English merchantman would be likely to be anchored off the coast here to buy vegetables; and, indeed, there are very few British vessels of any sort in these waters now. You need not just tell them that the schooner is the craft that has been playing the mischief over on the other coast and robbed them of their Chiot slaves; nor is it precisely necessary to enter into that affair near Cyprus. We need simply say, if we are asked, that we are Englishmen in the naval service of Greece; I don’t expect they will ask many questions after that, or that we shall have any occasion to do much more talking.”
“You think they will hang us, doctor.”
“It may be hanging, Horace, or it may be shooting, and for my part I am not very particular which it is. Shooting is the quickest, but then hanging is more what I may call my family way of dying. I should say that as many as a score of my ancestors were one way or another strung up by the Stuarts on one miserable pretence or other, such as cattle-lifting, settling a grudge without bothering the law-courts, and trifles of that sort.”
Horace burst into a fit of laughter, which caused the Albanian chief to look round sharply and inquiringly.
“It is all right, old chap,” Macfarlane muttered in English; “we are just laughing while we can, and there is no contempt of court intended.”
The Pasha was in a tent considerably larger than those that surrounded it. The Albanian went in, leaving the prisoners in charge of their guard. In five minutes he came out and signed to them to follow him in. The Pasha was an elderly man with a snow-white beard. He looked at the prisoners with some interest.
“I hear that you are Englishmen,” he said in Greek.
“That is so, sir.”
“And that you are in the Greek service.”
“We were in the Greek service, but after being carried off by Greek brigands I do not know that we shall have any inclination to remain in it.”
“If you had been taken fighting against us I should have ordered you to be shot,” the Pasha said; “but as it is I do not know. Do you belong to that schooner with white sails that has been cruising off the coast some days?”
“We do,” Horace admitted.
“I am told,” the Pasha went on, “that she is the ship that did us much harm at Chios.”
“We were attacked, and we beat off the boats,” Horace said. “That is fair warfare. Our principal object has been to rescue people in danger or distress, whether Christian or Turk. We rescued numbers of Chiot slaves. And on the other hand we saved numbers of Turks at the surrender of the Acropolis at Athens, and conveyed them safely to Tenedos, where we landed them; and the governor there recognized our service to his countrymen, and came off to the ship and invited us on shore to dine with him.”
“Yes, I have heard about that,” the Pasha said. “We have all heard of the white schooner. She has been a dangerous enemy to us, and has done us more harm than the whole of the Greeks together; but after your humanity at Athens I cannot feel animosity against you. It was a noble deed and worthy of brave men. Thus it is that nations should fight, but the Greeks began by massacre, and have been false to the oaths they swore twenty times. How can you fight for men who have neither courage nor faith, and who are as cruel as they are cowardly?”
“There have been cruelties on both sides,” Horace said, “though I own that the Greeks began it; but in England we love freedom, and it is not long since we drove the French out of Egypt and preserved it for you. Our sympathies are with the Greeks, because they were oppressed. We have never killed a Turk save in fair fight, and the crews of every ship we have taken we have permitted to return to shore in their boats without injuring one of them.”
“This also I have heard,” the Pasha said, “and therefore I will do you no harm. I will send you to Constantinople, where the Sultan will decide upon your fate. He has given orders that all foreigners taken in arms against us shall at once be put to death for interfering in a matter in which they have no concern; but as you were not taken in arms I do not feel that the order applies to you, and will therefore take upon myself to send you to him.”
“I thank you, sir,” Horace said, “though I fear it will only be a reprieve.”
“I cannot say,” the pasha replied gravely. “The Sultan strikes hard when he wishes to give a lesson. You see, his people were massacred wholesale by the Greeks, and at Chios he taught them that he could retaliate; but he is not cruel by choice. He is unswerving when his mind is made up. Whether he will make an exception in your case or not is more than I can say. I can only send you to him, and hope that he will be as merciful in your case as I would be had I the power.”
Then he ordered one of his officers to take charge of the prisoners, to see that they had a comfortable tent and were well cared for, and that none molested them. Four soldiers were to be always on guard at the tent, and to answer for the safety of the prisoners with their lives. In a short time they were placed in a tent among those allotted to the officers, and four sentries were placed round it. After sunset two soldiers brought large trays with meat, vegetables, and sweets from the pasha’s own table, and also a bottle of raki.
“The Turk is a gentleman, Horace,” the doctor said as, after having finished dinner, he mixed himself some spirits and water. “I am not saying, mind you, that I would not have mightily preferred a bottle of good whisky; but I am bound to say that when one has once got accustomed to it, raki has its virtues. It is an insinuating spirit, cool and mild to the taste, and dangerous to one who is not accustomed to it. What do you think of it, Horace?”
“I don’t care for it, but then I don’t care for any spirits,” Horace said; “but I thoroughly agree with you that the pasha is a good fellow, only I wish he could have seen his way to have let us go. The Sultan is a terrible personage, and the way he has hung up hostages at Constantinople has been awful. If he has made up his mind that he will deter foreigners from entering the Greek service by showing no mercy to those who fall into his hands, I have no very great hope that he will make any exception in our case.”
UPON the following morning horses were brought round and they were ordered to mount. An officer with twelve Turkish troopers took charge of them. The pasha came out from his tent.
“I am sending a letter to the Porte saying what I know of the doings of your ship, and of the service you rendered by saving our countrymen at Athens. I have also given directions that the vessel conveying you shall touch at Tenedos, and have written to the governor there asking him also to send on a letter in your favour.”
After an hour’s riding they reached the town of Larissa, and then followed the river on which it stands down to the sea.
“What a lovely country!” Horace exclaimed as he looked at the mountains to the right and left.
“We are travelling on classical ground,” the doctor replied. “This is the vale of Tempe, that hill to the right is Mount Ossa, that to the left is Mount Olympus.”
“They are grand,” Horace said, “though I should certainly enjoy them more under other circumstances. Fancy that being the hill that Jove used to sit on. It would be a grand place to climb, wouldn’t it?”
“I should be quite content to look at it comfortably from the deck of the schooner, Horace, and should have no desire whatever to scale it.”
“Where is the schooner now, do you think, doctor?”
“Where we left her. They would wait at the village where they expected us to be handed over to them till late in the afternoon, and then most likely march back to the shore. This morning they will be trying to get news of us. It is possible that one of the Greeks has taken down the news of our capture by the Turks, in hopes of getting a reward. He would not know whether we were killed or captured—they bolted too fast for that; but if a fellow does take news of the fight he will probably offer to show the spot. Martyn will take out a strong party, and when he finds the bodies of the two Greeks and no signs of us, he will arrive at the conclusion that we have been carried off. The Greeks probably recognized the men who attacked them as being a band of Albanians. The white petticoats alone would tell them that; and as the Christian Albanians would certainly not be likely to be plundering on this side at the present time, they will be sure they are Mohammedans either raiding on their own account or acting with the Turkish forces in Thessaly.
“No doubt they will offer a reward for news of us, and will probably learn from some peasant or other that a party of Albanians crossed the range into Thessaly about mid-day. Then when they hear that the pasha’s force was lying in the plain, not far from the foot of the hills, they will arrive at the truth that we were taken there. What their next step will be I cannot say, but I should fancy they will sail round the promontory and try and open communication with some small village, and get someone to visit the camp and try and pick up news of what has become of us. It must be days before they can do all this, and by the time they find we have been put on board ship we shall be at Constantinople.
“At any rate, Horace, I regard the idea of there being a chance of their rescuing us as out of the question. What they will do is, of course, beyond guessing. It is vexing to think that if they did but know at the present moment we were being put on board ship, they might cut us off at the mouth of the Dardanelles. It is little farther from the Gulf of Zeitouni than it is from the mouth of this river, and the schooner would probably sail twice as fast as any craft we are likely to be put on board. It is annoying, but it is of no use being annoyed. They don’t know we are going to be embarked, and they can’t learn it for four or five days at the very earliest, so don’t let us worry about that. We have reasonable cause for worry in knowing that we are going to be taken to Constantinople, for not improbably we will be executed when we get there.”
“You think that it is probable, doctor?”
“I do, indeed. The Sultan is not the man to stand on niceties. He has decided not to give quarter to foreigners who fight against him, and as a matter of policy he is perfectly right. We knew all along what our fate would be if we fell into the hands of the Turks. We have done them an immense amount of mischief: we have destroyed a frigate and beaten off their boats; we have taken a lot of prizes, and delivered some two or three thousand valuable slaves from their hands. The only set-off to this is that we assisted to save some three hundred Turkish women and children, as to whose fate the Sultan was probably perfectly indifferent. The balance is very heavy against us.”
Horace could not but admit that this was so, but in this beautiful valley, and with Constantinople still in the distance, the idea that ere long a violent death might befall him there was not sufficiently vivid to depress his spirits greatly.
After four hours’ riding they came down upon the little port at the mouth of the river. Two or three craft were lying there under the guns of the battery.
“That is our vessel, you will see, Horace. It is a man-of-war brig. I expect she is placed here on purpose to enable the pasha to communicate direct with Constantinople, instead of having to send up through the passes to Salonika.”
Leaving the prisoners under charge of the guard, the officer took a boat and rowed off to the brig. In a few minutes a large boat lying beside her was manned by a dozen sailors and rowed ashore. The officer was on board of her. Two of the men who had brought their valises strapped behind their saddles had already removed them, and stepped into the boat forward, while their comrades took charge of their horses. The officer then signed to Horace and the doctor to step on board, and they were rowed out to the brig. Half an hour later the anchor was got up, the sail set, and the vessel left the port.
There was no attempt at restraint of the prisoners. A young lieutenant who spoke Greek informed them, in the name of the captain, that the orders of the pasha were that they were to be treated as ordinary passengers, and he requested them to take their meals with him in the cabin. They would be entirely at liberty, except that they would not be allowed to land at Tenedos, or at any other port at which the vessel might touch.
The brig proved a fairly fast sailer; the wind was favourable, and late on the afternoon of the day after they had sailed they dropped anchor off Tenedos, and the officer in charge of the captives at once went ashore with the pasha’s letter to the governor. He returned late at night, after the prisoners had turned in in one of the officers’ cabins that had been vacated for their use. There was not a breath of wind in the morning, and the captain accordingly did not attempt to weigh anchor.
“It would be a fine thing if this calm would last for a fortnight,” the doctor said as they came on deck in the morning.
“Yes, but there is no chance of that, doctor. We have never had a dead calm for more than three days since we came out.”
“Well, we might do equally well with a light breeze from the north. That would help the schooner across the gulf, and at the same time would not enable the brig to work up the Dardanelles; there is a strongish current there. Still, I am not at all saying it is likely; I only say that I wish it could be so.”
When the officer came on deck he informed them, through the lieutenant, that the governor had given him a strong letter to the Porte speaking in the highest terms of the humanity they had shown towards the Turks they had rescued from Athens. An hour later two or three boats came off. Among those on board them were several women. When these saw the doctor and Horace leaning over the bulwark, they broke into loud cries of greeting.
“I expect they are some of those poor creatures we brought over,” Horace said. “I don’t remember their faces, we have had too many on board for that, and I don’t understand what they are saying, but it is evidently that.”
Some of the boatmen understood both Greek and Turkish, and these translated the expressions of the women’s gratitude, and their regret at seeing him a prisoner. They were not allowed to set foot on the brig, but they handed up baskets of fruit and sweetmeats. One of the women stood up in the boat and in Greek said in low tones to Horace, as he leant over the rail:
“There are but few of us here, and we are poor. Our hearts melted this morning when the news spread that you were prisoners on board a ship on her way to Constantinople. We can do nothing but pray to Allah for your safety. My husband was one of the soldiers you brought over, the one who had lost his arm, and who was tended by the hakim. As he was of no more use they have discharged him, and he has remained here, as I am a native of the island and have many friends. He will start in an hour with some fishermen, relations of mine. They will land him above Gallipoli, and he will walk to Constantinople. Then he will see the bimbashi and his former comrades, and find out Osman and Fazli Beys, who were with us, and tell them of your being prisoners, so that they may use their influence at the Porte, and tell how you risked your lives for them, and all—May Allah protect you both, effendis!”
Her story terminated abruptly, for the captain at this moment came up and ordered the boat away from the side.
“What is all that about, Horace?” Macfarlane asked as Horace returned the woman’s last salutation with two or three words of earnest thanks. “Why, what is the matter, lad? there are tears in your eyes.”
“I am touched at that poor woman’s gratitude, doctor. As you can see by her dress she is poor. She is the wife of a discharged soldier, that man who lost his arm. You dressed the stump, you may remember. I know you said that it had been horribly neglected, and remarked what a splendid constitution the Turk had; you thought that had he been an Englishman the wound would probably have mortified long before.”
“Of course I remember, Horace. And has he got over it?”
“He has.” And Horace then told him what the woman had said.
“It does one good to hear that,” Macfarlane said when he had finished. “Human nature is much the same whether it is in the wife of a Turkish soldier or of a Scottish fisherman. The poor creature and her husband are doing all they can. The bimbashi and the beys were great men in their eyes, and they doubtless think that they are quite important persons at Constantinople. Still, it is pleasant to think that the poor fellow, whose arm must still be very far from healed, is undertaking this journey to do what he can for us. It minds me of that grand story of Effie Deans tramping all the way from Scotland to London to ask for her sister’s pardon.
“I don’t say that anything is like to come of it, but there is no saying. If these Turks are as grateful as this soldier and his wife they might possibly do something for us, if it were not that the Sultan himself will settle the matter. An ordinary Turkish official will do almost anything for money or favour, but the Sultan is not to be got round; and they say he is a strong man, and goes his own way without asking the advice of anyone. Still it is, as I said, pleasant to know that there are people who have an interest in us, and who are doing all in their power to help us.”
An hour later a small boat was seen to put out from the port and to row away in the direction of the mainland.
For three days the brig lay at her anchorage. Then a gentle breeze sprang up from the south. Making all sail, the brig was headed to the entrance of the Dardanelles.
“Unless there is more wind than this,” Horace said, “I should hardly think she will be able to make her way up, doctor. She is not going through the water more than two knots an hour.”
“No, she will have to anchor again as soon as she is inside the straits unless the wind freshens, and I don’t think it is likely to do that. To my mind it looks as if it would die out again at sunset.”
This proved to be the case, and before it became dark the brig was anchored in a bay on the Asiatic side a short distance from the entrance.
The next morning the breeze again blew, and somewhat fresher than before. All day the captain strove to pass up the straits. Sometimes by keeping over out of the force of the current he made two or three miles, then when they came to some projecting point the current would catch the vessel and drift her rapidly down, so that when the breeze again sank at sunset they had gained only some four miles. Next day they were more fortunate and passed the castle of Abydos, and the third evening came to anchor off Gallipoli. On the following morning the wind blew briskly from the east, and in the afternoon they dropped anchor off Constantinople.
“Eh, man, but it is a wonderful sight!” Macfarlane said, as they looked at the city with the crenellated wall running along by the water’s edge, the dark groves of trees rising behind it, and the mosques with their graceful minarets on the sky-line. Ahead of them was Pera with its houses clustering thickly one above the other, and the background of tall cypress. Across the water lay Scutari, with its great barracks, its mosques, and the kiosks scattered along the shore. Caiques were passing backwards and forwards across the water; heavy boats with sailors or troops rowing between the ships of war and the shore; native craft with broad sails coming up astern from Broussa and other places on the Sea of Marmora; pleasure boats, with parties of veiled women rowing idly here and there; and occasionally a long caique, impelled by six sturdy rowers, would flash past with some official of rank.
“I have seen many places,” the doctor went on, “but none like this. Nature has done more for Rio, and as much perhaps for Bombay, but man has done little for either. We may boast of our western civilization, and no doubt we can rear stately buildings; but in point of beauty the orientals are as far ahead of us as we are ahead of the South Sea Islanders. Who would think that the Turks, with their sober ways, could ever have even dreamed of designing a thing so beautiful as that mosque with its graceful outlines. See how well those dark cypresses grow with it; it would lose half its beauty were it to rise from the round heads of an English wood.
“Just compare the boats of light-coloured wood all carved and ornamented with their graceful lines, and the boatmen in their snow-white shirts, with their loose sleeves and bare arms, and their scarlet sashes and fezzes with the black tub of an English or Scottish river. Look at the dresses of the peasants in that heavy boat there, and compare them with those of our own people. Why, man, we may be a great nation, intelligent, and civilized, and all that; but when it comes to an appreciation of the beautiful we are poor bodies, indeed, by the side of the Turk, whom we in our mightiness are accustomed to consider a barbarian. I know what you are going to say,” he went on, as Horace was going to speak. “There is tyranny and oppression, and evil rule, and corruption, and other bad things in that beautiful city. I grant you all that, but that has nothing to do with my argument. He may be a heathen, he may be ignorant, he may be what we call uncivilized; but the Turk has a grand soul or he never would have imagined a dream of beauty like this.”
As the sun set half an hour after the anchor was dropped the officer sent with them by the pasha did not think it necessary to land until the following morning, as the offices would all be shut. At eight o’clock he was rowed ashore and did not return until late in the evening. Business was not conducted at a rapid rate in the offices of the Porte. The lieutenant interpreted to the prisoners that the letter of the governor of Tenedos had been laid before the grand vizier, who would deliver it with that of the pasha to the Sultan at his audience in the evening.
“Did he see the grand vizier himself?” Horace asked.
The answer was in the affirmative.
“Did he gather from him whether it was likely that the Sultan would regard the matter favourably?”
The two Turks spoke together for some time. “I am sorry to say,” the lieutenant replied when they had done, “that the vizier was of opinion that the Sultan would be immovable. He has sworn to spare none of those who have stirred up his subjects to rebellion, and who, without having any concern in the matter, have aided them against him. He regards them as pirates, and has resolved by severity to deter others from following their example. The vizier said that he would do his best, but that when the Sultan’s mind was once made up nothing could move him; and that having himself received the reports of the destruction of one of his war-ships, and the very heavy loss inflicted on the boats of the fleet at Chios, and having, moreover, received memorials from the merchants at Smyrna as to the damage inflicted on their commerce by what was called the white schooner, he felt that he would be deaf to any appeal for mercy to two of her officers.”
At eight o’clock next morning a boat with twelve soldiers and an officer came off to the brig. The officer, mounting on the deck, handed to the captain an order for the delivery to him of the two prisoners sent from Thessaly.
“Things look bad, I am afraid,” Horace said as they stepped into the boat. “I saw the officer exchange a word or two with the cavalry man who brought us here and the captain, and I am sure, by the expression of their faces, that the news was bad. I am sure, too, from the way they shook hands with us at parting.”
“Some of these men’s faces seem familiar to me,” the doctor said as they were being rowed towards a landing to the east of the palace gardens. “I can’t say that they were among the men we brought from Athens, but I have a strong idea that two or three of them were. Do you recognize them?”
“I can’t say that I do. You see they were only on board one day, and I thought more of the women and children than of the soldiers and sailors.”
“I am almost sure of them, Horace; yet it is curious, that if they are the men we saved they did not make some sign of recognition when we came down the ladder. Turkish discipline is not very strict. They did not seem to look up much. They were all sitting forward of the six oarsmen, and I noticed, that till we pushed off they seemed to be talking about something together, and were so intent on it that they did not look up until after we had pushed off. I did notice that the oarsmen looked a little surprised when the officer, as we pushed off, gave an order to the man steering, and they saw which way the boat’s head was turned.
“I don’t suppose they knew that we were prisoners, Horace, and were expecting to go back to the place they came from. I suppose the landing they are taking us to is the nearest one to the prison.”
There were no boats lying at the broad steps alongside which the boat drew up. Six of the soldiers took their places in front of them, the officer marched between them, and the other six soldiers followed behind. The road, which was a narrow one, ran between two very high walls, and rose steeply upward.
“Evidently this landing-place is not much used,” the doctor said. “I suppose it leads to some quiet quarter.”
A hundred yards from the landing-place the officer gave the word to halt, and then another order, upon which one of the men, who carried a bag, began to open it.
“Quick, gentlemen!” the officer said in Greek; “you must change here. Quick! there is not a moment to lose.”
Astonished at the order, the doctor and Horace obeyed it.
“I suppose,” the former muttered, “they don’t want it known they have got two European prisoners. I don’t see what else they can be up to.”
The change was quickly made. Two long baggy Turkish trousers were pulled over their own, their jackets were thrown into the bag, and they were enveloped in Turkish robes. Their caps were thrown beside their jackets, and turbans placed on their heads, while their shoes were pulled off and their feet thrust into Turkish slippers. The officer and two of the soldiers aided in the work, and in a couple of minutes the metamorphosis was complete.
“Allah be praised!” the officer exclaimed fervently; and the words were echoed by the soldiers. These for a moment, regardless of discipline, gathered round the prisoners. One after another seized their hands, and bending over them pressed them to their forehead; then the officer gave an order, and one or two at a time—the soldiers carried only their side-arms—left the group and hurried on ahead, until the officer remained alone with the astonished Englishmen.
“What does this all mean?” Horace asked the officer in Greek.
“It means that you are free, my friends,” he said, shaking each of them cordially by the hand; “at least, so far free. Now let us follow the others.”
Still, almost thinking they were dreaming, the doctor and Horace accompanied their companion up the narrow lane, and emerged into a quiet street behind a great mosque; skirting the wall of this, they entered a wider street.
“Be careful,” the officer said in Greek; “walk along carelessly, and seem to be conversing with me.”
Horace translated the remark to the doctor.
There were not a great many people about, but as they went along the number increased. They crossed a busy street, turned down a lane on the other side, and then walked for upwards of half an hour, turning frequently, and as far as Horace could guess, making a wide detour, and again approaching the busy part of the town. Presently the officer stopped near the corner of a lane in a quiet street, and began to talk in an animated tone about the size of the town and other matters, until he saw that the street was for a moment empty; then he turned sharply down the lane, which ran between the backs of two sets of houses, went for a hundred yards, and then stopped at a door in the wall; opened it with the key, hurried them in, and locked the door behind him.
“Allah be praised!” he again said; “you are safe thus far. Now come in, they are anxiously expecting us.”
He entered the house, which stood in a small inclosure, and led the way into a room. They were received at the door by a Turk, whom both recognized at once as Osman Bey, one of the principal Turks they had carried from Athens. He repeated the officer’s pious exclamation:
“Allah be praised for his mercies!” and then in Greek he said, “Truly I am rejoiced, my friends, that Allah has granted me an opportunity of showing that I am not ungrateful, and that as you saved me and mine from death, so have I been able to save you; and I am doubly glad in seeing, what I knew not before, that one of you is the son of the Englishman to whom principally we owed our escape.”
“We are grateful, indeed,” Horace said; “but at present we understand nothing. This officer has told us nothing whatever.”
“This officer is my son, and is only an officer for the occasion,” Osman Bey said. “But come into the next room; my wife and daughters are eagerly expecting you.”
Three ladies rose from a divan on which they were sitting when the bey entered the room. They were lightly veiled, but the bey said:
“Lay aside your veils. These are as my sons, and you can unveil as if they were members of the family.”
The ladies unveiled. Horace had not seen their faces before on board ship, for the women of the upper class had remained closely veiled. The mother was a stout, elderly woman, with a kindly face. Her daughters were girls of fourteen or fifteen, with dark hair, somewhat colourless faces, and lovely eyes. The bey’s wife expressed her pleasure at the arrival of the Englishmen. The girls shrank rather timidly behind her, embarrassed at being thus unveiled before strangers.
“Now sit down,” the bey said. “Zuleika, do you bring in coffee and sweetmeats yourself. I do not wish your attendant to enter while these gentlemen are here.”
“I have sent her down the town on a message,” the bey’s wife said, while the younger girl rose and left the room. “She is faithful, but girls will chatter. Mourad, we know, we can trust.”
The girl soon returned with a tray with coffee, cakes, and sweetmeats. Then the bey said:
“Now I will tell you all about this. Ahmed, the sooner you get rid of that uniform the better. Give it to Mourad at once, and let him take it back to its owner, he may want it.”
The young man left the room.
“Now this is how it happened,” the bey began. “Three days ago came the messenger from Tenedos. Did you know of his being sent hither?”
“Yes; his wife told us he was leaving—a soldier who had lost his arm.”
“That was the man. He went to Hassan Bimbashi, who brought him first to Fazli Bey, and then to me. We had a consultation. It was clear to us all that it would be intolerable that men who had behaved with such humanity to us should be put to death, if we could possibly save them. It took us a long time to arrange the matter, and we three sat in the next room there debating the matter all night. We took Ahmed into our council at once, for he was, of course, as anxious to aid the men who had saved his parents and sisters from massacre as we were. Naturally, we at first thought of getting you out of prison by bribing the guards; but though this would have been comparatively easy, it was doubtful whether there would be time to carry it out. There are several prisons here, and there was no saying which you might be sent to, or who would be the men in charge of you; therefore, time would be needed after you arrived here, and we saw that it was probable that no time would be given us. The Sultan might, of course, view your case favourably; but, on the other hand, if he ordered you to execution, there would be no delay.
“When a thing has to be done, especially when foreigners are in the case, it is better to do it at once; otherwise, the Porte would be pestered by the foreign representatives. It was agreed, therefore, that if you were to be rescued, it must be done between the time of your arrival and your being put in prison. We divided the work into four parts. Fazli, who has most interest at the Porte, was to try all in his power to influence the ministers, and to get the grand vizier to represent the matter favourably to the Sultan. He was to give us the earliest news of whatever decision might be arrived at, and above all, he was to get some minor official there to follow the officer to whom the order for bringing you ashore should be given.
“The soldier who had brought the message from Tenedos was to find out a dozen of those who had been rescued with us, and to enlist them in the business. The bimbashi undertook the work of seizing the officer bearing the order. He could not very well take the command of the soldiers. Their faces would not be noticed by the sailors in the dockyard boat, nor by those on board the ship; but Hassan’s would be fully seen by both. My son, therefore, volunteered to undertake this part of the affair, dressed in Hassan’s uniform. He was to meet the twelve men at some spot agreed upon, near the dockyard gate; to march in with them, produce the order, and go out in one of the dockyard boats to the vessel; bring you ashore, and lead you here. My part of the business was to conceal you as long as necessary, and to arrange for your escape from Constantinople. Thus, you see, the risk was slight in each case. Fazli would be suspected, because he had urged your case at the Porte; but nothing could be proved against him. His servants might be examined, and his house searched. He would be able to prove that he spent the evening with several of his friends, to whom he gave an entertainment; and this morning, at the time the boat came for you, he was to be at the ministry again, trying what could be done on your behalf.
“None of the soldiers would know that the bimbashi was mixed up in the affair at all. Their one-armed comrade was to be furnished with money in case their gratitude required stimulating. My son ran no risk, because it is among the officers of the garrison that the search will be made for the man who commanded the party. As for myself, there is nothing to connect me in any way with it. Ahmed will take you off this evening to a small kiosk of mine ten miles away on the coast. The bimbashi’s share was the most dangerous. He was to take three men of his regiment on whom he could thoroughly rely. They would be three of those he had commanded at Athens and who had wives and children who had been rescued by you. He was much loved by his soldiers, for he lived and starved as they did, and did all in his power for their comfort.
“It is always dangerous to trust anyone, but in this case there was the men’s loyalty to him and their gratitude to you to bind them. He would learn from Fazli the hour when the Sultan’s decision would be given, and he and the three soldiers were to be upon the spot and to watch for the coming out of an officer followed by the man Fazli was to appoint. The officer was sure to go to one or other of the barracks for some soldiers to accompany him to the vessel. It would depend upon the hour and the orders he received whether to go direct on board or to do it in the morning. It was certain the hour would be late, for the conferences with the Sultan are invariably in the evening. Whether he went to one of the barracks or to his own lodging, he was to be followed until he got to some quiet spot, then seized, bound, and gagged, put into a large basket two of the soldiers were to carry, and taken to some quiet spot outside the walls. To-night, after it is dark, Hassan will go up and loose his bonds sufficiently to enable him to work himself free after a time.
“That was the arrangement at which we arrived after talking it over for hours. It was the work of the bimbashi and Ahmed. I am sure that Fazli and I would never have thought of it at all by ourselves. Ever since then we have kept a sharp look-out for the vessel. Everything had been got ready. The one-armed soldier had got the twelve men ready to go off. Hassan said he had made his arrangements, and had found a ruined hut half a mile out of the town beyond the walls, where there was little chance of anyone looking in in the course of the day, and, indeed, if anyone did so after eight o’clock, it would make little matter, as you would be ashore by that hour. After the brig arrived I had messages from Fazli every hour. He told us of the strong letters that had been sent by Ali Pasha and the governor of Tenedos, and he brought all his influence to bear to aid the representations made by them and by the officer who brought you down.