CHAPTER XLV

STORY OF THE WISE KING AND THE WICKED GENI.

'Once upon a time there was a king of Sidon, who had a daughter, and in beauty she surpassed all the maids of Asia. You must know that this was in the days when all the kingdom of Frangistan was hidden in darkness, and when none dwelt there but little men who lived on human flesh, whose faces were in their stomachs, who had but one leg, with which they made prodigious leaps in the dark from the summit of one hill to the summit of another, and when there dwelt in Assyria a mighty Sultan, named Solymon Ebn Daood, who ruled all the land that lies between the Euphrates on the east and the Mediterranean on the west, and from Mount Taurus on the north to Arabia on the south.

'He was a great and wondrous king; for after he slew—as an offering unto heaven—those thousand winged horses which came to him out of the sea near Damascus, Allah gave him power over the wind, by which he could cause it to blow at his will, over the hot deserts of Arabia, over Suristan, the Land of Roses, and over his own blessed realm. The Koran tells us, that on this wind, he could transport his mighty throne—the star and work of the Genii—from Damascus unto the hot shores of the Indian sea, in a single day; and unto him were subjected all the winged Genii; all the blue devils who dive for pearls in the sea of Kolzom, and those who build cities of gold and silver, and palaces of precious stones.

'Having gone to war with the king of Sidon, whose territories he had desolated by a cold north wind, he resolved to besiege the city, and ordered his magic carpet to be spread without the gates of Mecca, and it reached therefrom half-way to Jidda on the seashore. This carpet was a mighty piece of green silk fabricated by the Genii, who did all that he commanded them to do, as we are told in the 22nd Chapter of the Holy Koran. On this carpet stood the throne whereon he was seated, and around it were all his army, horse and foot, bowmen and spearmen, slingers and swordsmen, marshalled by Asaf the vizier.

'The moment they were all in order, he commanded them, to the number of a hundred thousand, to keep steady in their ranks, and avoid the edge of the carpet; then he placed his magic signet ring to his lips, and lo! There came a wind out of the eastern sky which lifted up the carpet, with the throne, the troops, and all that were thereon, and bore it through the air so swiftly that like the shadow of a cloud, they traversed all the blue vault of heaven, above Khaibar, where the well of bitter water flows; over the mountains that look down on Tabuc; over Arabia the Rocky; over the domes of Jerusalem, and the dark waves of the Dead Sea, and over Acre, until they alighted on the sea shore of Phoenicia, near the city of Sidon, which stands on a plain that extends two miles inward from the ocean; and this was but the journey of half a day to Solymon and his air-borne host.

'In great terror, the king of Sidon, when he saw this vast cloud darkening all the sky above the city, shut up his daughter Jerada, who had black hair that hung down to her knees, and who had eyes that were larger than her mouth; he placed her in a great round tower, which stands upon a mountain near the sea, and was built for him by the Geni Sakhur, who was his chief friend. But Solymon assaulted the city, sacked and destroyed its manufactories of linen and fine purple dyes, its schools of commerce and astronomy. He slew the king, while Asaf stormed the tower upon the mountain, and capturing the beautiful Jerada, brought her safely to Mecca before nightfall, and before the cry for evening prayer had rung from the minarets of the temple; and with her were his throne, his soldiers, and all the plunder of the Phoenician capital covering the magic carpet—and all this was but the task of one day.

'But with all his power, this mighty Sultan now became the slave of his slave, and the worshipper of his bondswoman; for Jerada was beautiful as a houri of Paradise. Her figure was tall and full of majesty and grace. Her beauty was like her bearing, noble as became the daughter of a king. Her voice was sweetly modulated, and of all his three hundred and ten wives, not one could wile or soothe the soul of Solymon like Jerada, when her snowy arms were thrown around the harp, and she sang the songs of Palestine. Veiled by long black lashes, her eyes were violet coloured, and of a deep, strange, and mournful tint and expression—as she never forgot that she was the daughter of Sidon's fallen king. Her skin was white as the foam on the sea; her hands and arms were exquisite; her manner soft and polished; her spirit gentle; her intelligence quick; her wit brilliant; and as his own unfathomable soul, the great lord of all Assyria loved her.

'But in her secret heart, Jerada never ceased to lament the fall of Sidon and her father's fate; and a thousand times did Solymon surprise her in her chamber, weeping bitterly. Then his heart smote him for the wrong he had done to one so fair, and he desired the Genii to fashion an image of the slaughtered king, and to mould it of wax, painted like life; to clothe it in fine robes of Tyrian purple, and to set upon its head the captured crown of Sidon. This image was placed in the chamber of Jerada, where she and her maidens wept at its feet and worshipped it morning and evening for the term of forty days; but, on Asaf the vizier discovering this wicked practice, he hastened in terror to Solymon and said,

'"Dost thou permit this foul idolatry? If so, the curse that fell on Ad will fall on thee, and this worship of a waxen image must not be permitted in the palace."

'When Solymon heard these words, he drew his cimitar, and by one blow destroyed the work of the Genii, and it vanished with a whistling sound. He chastised the beautiful Jerada by shutting her up in a tower, on the door of which he placed his magic seal; and then he went out into a wild and desert place, where he wept over the evils that had followed the fall of Sidon, and made supplications to Allah, crying aloud, as the blessed Koran tells us,

'"Oh forgive me, and accord unto me a kingdom which may not be obtained by any one after me, for thou art the giver of thrones."[*]

[*] See "Koran," xxxviii.

'But Allah resolved to chastise his negligence, and it happened thus:—

It was the custom of this great sultan, when he bathed or perfumed himself, to intrust his magic ring or signet, on the possession of which depended all his power and his kingdom, to one of his fairest favourites; and one day, when retiring to the bath, he placed it on the finger of Jerada, for with all his wisdom the wisest man—yea, even Solymon—may be but a fool before a beautiful woman. Jerada, as she gazed upon the ring, thought of her aged sire and fallen Sidon—of his nameless grave and her fallen fortune, and uttered a wish for "vengeance."

At that moment there was a tremulous motion in the air, and the Geni Sakhur, the friend of her father—the spirit who had built the great tower which yet stands upon the mountain over against Sidon, appeared before her in the likeness of Solymon, and received from her the wonderful ring. Then the eyes of the Geni sparkled with triumph; he breathed upon it, and lo! when the Sultan came from the bath, he was an old and withered man, so changed in aspect that none knew him; and then, mocked by the courtiers, threatened by Asaf the vizier, hooted by the pages and beaten by the guards, he was driven from the palace gates, and forced to wander in the desert, eating dates, berries, and wild fruits for the space of forty days, returning ever and anon to beg alms at the gates of Mecca, and at the porticos of his own palace.

'Here he saw the Geni Sakhur, on the terraces and in the gardens, clad in his royal garments, wearing his likeness and having his voice, toying with the lovely Jerada and the most beautiful of the ladies, who crowded his magnificent household, and the pious soul of this king—the mightiest that ever swayed the sceptre of Assyria—swelled with futile rage, for his ring was on Sakhur's finger, and he was powerless as the meanest slave.

'Moreover, this evil Geni, by the power of which he became possessed, governed the whole kingdom, and while seated on its throne, made such startling alterations in the laws, that Solyman, when he heard them proclaimed by sound of trumpet and timbrel at the brazen gates of Mecca, rent his garments and wept, while the astonished Asaf threw dust upon his head and beard in grief and wonder.

'At length the forty days, the exact period during which the waxen image had been worshipped under Solymon's roof, were expired; and then the devil Sakhur, with a yell of laughter, sprang from the throne on which he had been seated, with Jerada by his side, and to the terror of the faithful Vizier Asaf, and of all the courtiers, spread out his dusky wings, and ascending straight into the air, flew away with a speed that made him cleave the sky like a bird; and as he winged his way to the home of the Genii in the mountains of Kaf, he flung the magic ring of Solymon into the sea of Galilee.

'As it cleft the deep blue waters, its glittering stones and shining gold caught the eye of a large and silvery fish, which immediately swallowed it; but soon thereafter the fish began to writhe in great agony, and was cast by the ebbing tide upon the yellow sands near the then ruined and desolate city of Sidon.

'It happened that the Sultan Solymon, in form and face an old man, bent with years and clad in tattered garments, was wandering in hunger and destitution, along the sands, eating shell-fish, when he espied this large and silvery tenant of the deep, writhing on the shore; he straightway killed it by a stone, and making a fire of the wood called markh, which if rubbed together will burn, be it ever so green, he prepared to cook it, and lo! from its belly there dropped the golden ring—the magic signet by which the power of all Assyria was held—and with a prayer of joy he placed it on his finger!

'In a moment he recovered his stately stature, his manly beauty, his youthful face and curling beard; and by uttering a wish, found himself in the hall of his palace at Mecca, where he gave thanks unto Allah, and proceeded at once to punish Jerada and the evil Geni Sakhur. The beautiful daughter of Sidon he enclosed in a flinty rock on Mount Horeb, and there, by a touch of his ring, sealed her up for ever. The Geni, by a whispered wish, he dragged shrieking through the air from the far and snowy recesses of Kaf. Then tying a huge stone to his neck, he flung him headlong into the lake of Tiberias in Galilee, near which stands a town built by Herod; but the Geni instantly changed his form, and arose from the lake in the form of a small worm, which crept towards Solymon, intent on revenge.

'Now, as we all know, it would take a small worm a great many years to creep from the Lake of Tiberias to Jerusalem, where the Sultan Solymon was then finishing the great temple which was to stand there for ever in lieu of the tabernacle of Moosa. He employed a million of Genii to complete the work, and they toiled at it day and night, and over every Genii was a warden, who made his secret mark upon their work, and these spirits had secret signs and words by which they knew each other—the signs and words that were written on the seal of Solymon. But this mighty sultan perceiving that he was becoming aged, and that his end was drawing nigh, prayed to Allah, that, when he died, his death might be concealed from the Genii, who, if they discovered it, would all fly back to Kaf, and leave unfinished that gorgeous temple, which was yet to be the wonder of the world.

'And kind Allah ordained it should be thus.

'When Solymon died—for who among us would live for ever?—his spirit passed away as he stood at prayer, leaning on his long staff of plane-tree—the wood of the ark—and this staff supported his dead body erect and fresh, and comely as when in life, and as if he was still overseeing the work, for a year and a day, until the Genii were placing the last golden pomegranate on the shining summit of the temple, in the centre of which shone a vast eye that seemed to be behold everything; and all this while, the impatient worm was still creeping towards the dead Sultan.

'The worm reached the staff and gnawed it through; then on the very instant the temple was completed in all its parts, the body of the Sultan fell heavily to the ground; his golden crown rang on the marble pavement; and now, with a yell of rage, the overtasked Genii found that they had been deluded, and that their master had been dead for a year and a day!

'Thus it is that the twenty-fourth chapter of the Koran saith these words:—

'"When we decreed that Solymon should die, nothing revealed his death unto them except the creeping thing of the earth, which gnawed his staff, and then his body fell down."

'Such was the story of the Wise King and the Wicked Geni.'

—————

'And Jerada,' said I, laughing, 'did she still remain sealed up in the rock, or did the death of Solymon dissolve the spell?'

'Jerada wept and prayed sorely, for she had not deceived Solymon; but had been herself deceived by the wicked Geni Sakhur, who, as a traitor and falsifier, was worthy of the most severe death, the just could inflict—'

'Right, O Allah!' exclaimed a hoarse fierce voice behind us; 'right, wretch, and you have named your own sentence!'

A low cry of terror left the white lips of Iola, and springing to my feet, I found myself confronted by the two flaming eyes, the levelled pistols, and the portly person of the furious Yuze Bashi, Hussein Ebn al Ajuz!

CHAPTER XLVI.

HUSSEIN'S WRATH.

While listening to this old Arabian legend, which fell so prettily from the lisping tongue of Iola, I never thought of Hussein, who, having transacted with the Seraskier his business, which merely concerned the shipment of certain guns and shot for Varna, was then galloping along the paved road to Rodosdchig.

Intent upon the dark and tender eyes, the white neck, and soft tresses of Iola, I did not hear the ruffle beaten on the brass drum of the Main-guard as he cantered into the court; nor did I hear the tramp of his horse or his heavy foot-fall on the old Greek marble stair, or in the anteroom; nor did I remember in any way that a being so ungainly and so decidedly unwelcome existed in the world, until the muslin hangings were fiercely rent asunder, and he stood before us, his countenance livid with just rage, his dark eyes gleaming like two live coals, and his long brass-barrelled Turkish pistols levelled at us, one in each hand.

I had no weapon but my sword, which I immediately unsheathed, while instinctively placing myself between him and the mute and terror-stricken Iola, who sank grovelling before him, bowing her beautiful head to the carpet, and murmuring only—

'Mercy! mercy! vai! vai! woe—woe!'

Alarm for her, and shame for myself, deprived me of utterance. I could only interpose the long, glittering blade of the Highland claymore between us, and gaze on Hussein's angry front, debating whether or not I should slash him across the fingers, lest he might shoot one or both of us; and I remembered poor Callum Dhu and his thirty comrades, who would be at the mercy of Hussein's hundred Bombardiers, and might, moreover, be exposed to the fury of the populace, from whom not even the Greek Archbishop of Rodosdchig could protect them.

'Oh, face of brass and heart of steel! what do I see?' he exclaimed. Then uttering that expression of grief which is so frequently in the mouths of Mohammedans, he rent his white beard, and cried, 'We are God's, and unto Him we shall return! You have darkened the light of my eyes, oh Frank! but may the fiends have me if I take not a sure and terrible vengeance for this!'

'Hear me?' I implored, without knowing what to say.

'Nay—stir not a step, or these balls shall whistle through your brain!'

'Yuze Bashi, hear me, I beg of you, and you shall know all.'

'All!' he reiterated, stamping with rage; 'ye shall wish yourselves like the brutal Greeks, from whom this woman sprang—deaf and dumb and without understanding—before the measure of my vengeance is full. Her fate she knows; but for thee, accursed Frank—thou who hast reft me of her, who was to be unto me a garment and a comfort, as the blessed Koran saith—by the seven heavens and the seven earths, and by the hand that hung and cleft the moon in the firmament, I will have your heart to tread beneath my heel; but first the ferashes shall apply the bastinado until every toe you have has dropped from your feet in blood! Hallo, Chaoush! Hallo, Onbashi!'

'Do with me as you please, Effendi, but spare her.'

'As for her, the hand of a profligate Christian has touched her—a hand which defiles all it touches—yea, even the food of a dog; so, from this hour, she is alike divorced—thrice, I say it, divorced, divorced and accursed by Hussein!'

With these words, he pulled both triggers at once; but the pistols, having old flint locks, by the mercy of heaven, flashed in the pan and hung fire. Then, finding the necessity of immediate action, just as he was about to draw his sabre, I grasped him by the gilded waist-belt, and hurling him, with all my force, back upon the cushions which lay piled upon the floor behind him, I locked Iola into an inner apartment—kissed her cold hands, and rushed by a back door to the foot of the staircase. Then crossing the castle-yard, I regained my quarters, where I was immediately joined by Callum Dhu, who, ever kind and watchful, had been awaiting my return.

Alarmed, on seeing me spring in with my sword drawn, and excitement in my eye,

'In the name of the devil, co-dhalta,' said he, 'what is the matter?'

I told him that I had been visiting the wife of the commandant; that he had returned suddenly, and finding us at coffee, had been seized by a fit of jealousy, and nearly pistolled me; but that I had knocked him down, and made my escape.

This explanation was all truth, and yet was but a compromise between it and falsehood; and so I thought Callum suspected, for his keen dark Highland eye loured; his face flushed for a moment, and he gave me a glance of scrutiny such as he had never ventured to do as my fosterer in Glen Ora, and still less since we had joined the regiment. Beside all this, Callum Dhu was sufficiently well read in the writings of Morier, Frazer, Slade, and Franklin to know that the domestic privacy of an oriental household cannot be trifled with, and, after a moment's reflection—

'Glen Ora,' said he—for he never forgot my old Highland patronymic—'evil will come of all this, for you have been unwary; and there will be the life of one—it may be three—lost. Have you thought of that?'

'I have thought of it,' said I, irritated on finding a Mentor in him; 'and I tell you, Callum, that I care not whose life is lost, if the poor innocent Greek girl I have compromised is saved from the ferocity of this Turkish officer.'

'True—but how?' was the calm query.

'How—I care not how; but saved she must be, Callum. As for that true type of an Eastern tyrant—the ignorant, sensual, and avaricious Hussein—what care I for him?'

'Yet he trusted to your honour, Allan Mac Innon!'

I felt the quiet reproach, and dared not follow up my own thoughts, for I felt how weak is the human heart, and vain the resolves of human reason, when opposed to the wiles of beauty. Lest some outrage should be attempted upon me, as we knew not what lengths the Yuze Bashi's wrath might carry him, Callum suggested that one of our men should be posted, with his bayonet fixed and musket loaded, at the foot of the stair which ascended to the tower wherein we had our quarters; and, to watch over the safety of Iola, my faithful fellow proposed that he and Donald Roy, who was a sharp-witted, active, and hardy West-Highlander, should guard by turns the residence of the exasperated governor of Rodosdchig; and after these arrangements, I sat down to write to Jack Belton for his advice, and composed the letter, and my own mind, over a devilled bone, a bottle of Kirkissa wine, and cigar.

During my conference with Callum we heard various noises and cries of alarm proceeding from the quarters of the Yuze Bashi; and each of these sounds had a terrible echo in my heart, for, when believing that they proceeded from the apartment of Iola, the main strength of my fosterer scarcely sufficed to restrain me from rushing out, sword in hand, to her assistance.

All became quiet after a time. Then we heard the clatter of horse's hoofs, as a mounted messenger galloped from the fort, which made me suspect that our Yuze Bashi had sent some awkward instructions to the Bostandgi Bashi of the police; or worse still, to some of the lawless Bashi-Bozouks, an orta or regiment of whom, were cantoned at Carga, not far from us; but ere long, we learned that it was only a slave, dispatched by Iola for a certain learned Jewish Hakim, who arrived in due time, and reported, that after imprecating a torrent of maledictions on 'the chief of the bare-legged Yenitcheries,' as he termed the brave steady lads of her Britannic Majesty's — Highlanders, the Yuze Bashi had suddenly become speechless and black in the face; that his eyes had started in their sockets, and he became senseless, as if ghoules or ghinns were strangling him; that he was recovered only by bleeding and having his temples bound with a fillet, on which were traced the signs of the Zodiac. After this, he was able to make known that he wished to see the Moolah Mustapha, who had accordingly been sent for.

The plain English of all this I supposed to be, simply, that Hussein, being very short in stature, stout, pursy, and thick-necked, in his phrenzy had brought on a fit of apoplexy, the effects of which—if they had no better cure than the signs of the Zodiac—I believed would at least keep him quiet until I was recalled to Heraclea by Major Catanagh, an event for which I now devoutly prayed.

CHAPTER XLVII.

SEQUEL TO CHAPTER FORTY-THREE.

A morning or two after this, there was no small consternation existing among the soldiers of my little band at Rodosdchig, when Dugald Mac Ildhui, my sergeant, paraded them as usual, and neither Callum Dhu nor his master were forthcoming. Corporal Donald Roy was despatched to make inquiries, but returned to the parade with tidings that he had knocked repeatedly at Mr. Mac Innon's door without receiving any answer; and as it was open, he had ventured to peep in, and saw but too plainly that his camp-bed had not been slept in over-night; that the last fragment of an unextinguished candle was still burning, but streaming and guttering on the table; that his sword and belt and some of his uniform lay strewed about; but that neither he nor Callum Dhu had been seen since last night, when the Turkish sentinel at the barrier-gate thought he perceived them both pass hurriedly out, and take the path which led towards the sea.

The faithful sergeant and his corporal spent that day, all the next, and all the succeeding in vain surmises and in futile inquiries; no trace of their officer and missing comrade was to be found; and as the story of Hussein's rage and imprecations against me, for causes unknown, had by some means—perhaps through the chaoush or onbashi of the Bombardiers—reached the little band of Celts, they began to look darkly and inquiringly in each other's faces, while vague whispers of assassination gained strength and corroboration among them. The sergeant and his corporal had been among the wandering Highland dancers who went to Paris in 1848, and were so near being shot by the Republican troops for appearing kilted and plaided, with dirk and claymore, in the Place de Carrousel; and having imbibed thereafter a great doubt of, and detestation for, all foreigners whatsoever, they came to the conclusion that we had met with an untimely end.

The circumstance of a boat being found by a Galiondgi adrift near the castle, containing an officer's regimental sash, spotted with blood, and a Highland private's Glengarry bonnet, increased this terrible mystery, and led the soldiers to believe that, beyond a doubt, the unfortunate Ensign Mac Innon and his fidus Achates had become food for the fishes of the Propontis, and the whole beach around the bay was searched in vain for their bodies.

The sergeant—a sober, steady, and brave soldier, one of the many who were daily forced from their homes into our ranks, for he was an evicted Sutherland Highlander (evicted because he was unable to pay the marriage-tax of forty shillings now daily and illegally exacted by the grasping factors of the north and west Highlands from the people, to keep the number of the population down)—procured a thin yellow sheet of Turkish paper, and after holding a solemn council of war, in which a vote of vengeance was unanimously passed on the Yuze Bashi, who was still under the Jewish Hakim and the signs of the Zodiac, he squared his elbows, made a broad margin, carefully nibbed his pen, and proceeded to prepare an official report to Major Catanagh, recounting the strange disappearance of the officer commanding the detachment; and this report caused no small excitement at the mess-table when it reached Heraclea.

Some weeks elapsed before this mystery was cleared up; and the origin of it all was as follows:—

One evening, after the arrival of the Moolah Moustapha, of whose presence at the fortress I had an intuitive dread, an unusual bustle, and then a dead silence were remarked in the apartments of the Yuze Bashi; and in half an hour after sunset, Callum Dhu, with his dark face flushed and excited, came in haste to inform me, that a boat—one of those straight prowed and heavily-built craft, called by the Turks a kochamba—with several men in it, had come from the harbour round the promontory of the castle, and was now close to the sea staircase, a flight of steps hewn in the rocks near the lower gun-battery. He added more startling intelligence.

A loud whistle, as a signal, had been given by someone in this boat, and thereafter two men, one of whom he suspected to be the Moolah Moustapha, had left the postern gate, half leading and half dragging a veiled woman, 'who sobbed heavily,' concluded. Callum, 'but who made not the least resistance, as if all hope in her heart was dead, poor thing!'

I cannot express the horror with which I heard this information. Innumerable stories of Turkish cruelty, of the burial of living women, sacked and drowned in the Bosphorus; of the gashed and mangled bodies of others that have been found across the cables of our own ships, or were raked up by them, as they swung at their anchors by the Golden Horn; of bodies stranded and torn by jackals on the shore at Pera, with a thousand real and imaginary instances of the terrible result of oriental jealousy and domestic cruelty, flashed upon my memory, and I determined to save Iola from the dreadful fate impending over her, or to die in the attempt.

In the beginning of Islamism—women who were supposed to have broken their vows were stoned to death, or immured in a stone wall; for the fourth chapter of the Koran commands that they shall be "imprisoned in separate apartments until death release them."

'You are my foster brother, and will stand by me, Callum?' said I, grasping his hand.

'To the death will I stand by you; but on what errand go you now?'

'To save this woman.'

'The wife of the Yuze Bashi.'

'Yes—the Greek girl, Iola.'

'From what?'

'Death!'

'Death?'

'Yes—yes! hand me my dirk and the shot-belt for the revolver; get your bayonet. The Yuze Bashi means to drown his wife in a sack—'

'Dhia! it is horrible!—like a puppy-dog.'

'Or, it may be, to behead her by a slash of a yataghan. If either takes place, her blood will be on our heads, Callum—on mine, at least.'

'I don't understand all this; but, dioul! I will follow YOU anywhere, Mac Innon—so lead on.'

I slung my dirk and revolver-pistol to my belt; Callum buckled on his bayonet; we hurried from the castle, and soon reached the landing-place, where a few boats were usually moored.

The night was dark and cloudy; no moon was visible, and the sea of Marmora lay between its headlands like an ocean of ink; yet, by stooping low, I could perceive between me and the white streak that lingered at the horizon a large boat, containing several dark figures, being pulled like a great funeral barge, silently and rapidly to seaward.

''Tis those we are in search of,' said Callum, as we leaped on board of a little Greek caique, slashed through the painter, shipped the oars, and pulled sturdily and breathlessly after them.

In such a land as Turkey, where, in 1808, the Sultan Mahmoud II. could quietly, and quite as a matter of course, or as a piece of state policy, strangle his deposed brother Mustapha IV., together with his infant son; and also command four of his female slaves to be sacked and drowned, because they were likely to increase the royal family by presenting him with four little Harem-zadehs; where even his son, the present Sultan Abdul Medjid, with all his vaunted civilization, has committed more than one act of domestic barbarity, more especially the assassination of the two little princes, his nephews; and where too many of the atrocities recorded by travellers in all ages are still perpetrated, I knew all that hung over the doomed wife of Hussein; all I had to repent of, and all I had to fear!

Ill-fated Iola!

While all the rest of the world has been pushing on the rapid march of progression, Turkey like Spain, has stood still. The Turkish woman, says the Baron de Tott, when inspired by an irresistible love and desire of freedom, overcomes every obstacle, and at times escapes from the harem, her domestic prison. 'These unfortunate creatures,' he continues, always carry off their jewels with them, and consider nothing too good for their lover. Blinded by their unhappy passion, they do not perceive that this wealth often becomes the cause of their destruction. The villains to whom they fly never fail at the end of a few days to punish their temerity, and ensure the possession of their effects by a crime which, however monstrous, the government is least in haste to punish. The bodies of these miserable women, stripped and mangled, are frequently seen floating in the Port (of Constantinople) under the very windows of their murderers; and these dreadful examples, so likely to intimidate the rest, and prevent such madness, neither terrify nor amend.'

But to resume: surely, steadily, and lustily, with all our strength, Callum and I shot the light caique after the great dark barge of these voyagers in the dusk, at every stroke causing her to fly through the seething water as with each effort of the bending oars we almost lifted her into the air, and made the black waves boil in her white wake astern. The clatter and straining of our oars between the tholing pins, and the noise made by the caique as it surged through the water, soon gained the attention of the rowers in the large boat, which was now about half a mile from the shore, and they paused for a minute to observe us. Then one black figure stood erect, and peered into the gloom of the darkened sea.

He was the Moolah Moustapha.

The voice of one in authority now warned us to keep off, for the large boat contained two topchis, of Hussein's company, and four armed policemen of the Bostandgi Bashi, with one or two galiondgis.

'Dioul!' exclaimed Callum; 'what is he saying?'

'That they will fire, if we do not keep off.'

'How many of them are there?'

'One—two—six—seven, if not more.'

'Including the Moolah?'

'Who is almost nobody.'

'Two to six, at least,' pondered Callum.

'But I have six shots in my revolver.'

'If I had only my old rifle here,' sighed Callum, 'I could pick them all off like black-cocks!'

Two pistols flashed from the kochamba, and threw a sudden gleam across the water; but their bullets whistled harmlessly over us. Exasperated by this, my foster-brother cried,

'Kill every mother's son of them, Mac Innon—quick—before they reload again!'

But I dared not fire, lest one of those dark figures should be Iola.

'Pull hard,' said I; 'we are not twenty yards apart now; board and attack them with your bayonet—I'll make good use of my dirk, believe me!'

'Fire—fire! are they not three to one?'

'One Highlandman is equal to three Turks any day.'

'True, Mac Innon,' exclaimed Callum, entering at once into the spirit of the attack; 'hoigh—hurrah!'

But never was assault more fatally devised, or more signally unsuccessful.

In a moment the prow of the caique came with a frightful crash against the quarter of the lumbering kochamba; the shock threw me forward upon the thwarts, by one of which I was severely cut and bruised about the face, while I narrowly escaped three pistol shots, one of which grazed and slightly wounded Callum's left hand; but our misfortunes were only beginning; for in the concussion I lost my revolver-pistol. On relinquishing the oar, and springing up, I instinctively grasped for it at my waist-belt—but alas! the pistol was gone. For a moment I groped wildly and fruitlessly about the bottom of the caique, without finding it; and then, as no time could be lost, with my naked dirk, I sprang madly on board the kochamba, followed by Callum, who made free use of his bayonet, and now a deadly struggle took place; the Turks assailing us with batons, drawn sabres, and the brass knobs of their long-barrelled pistols, amid a storm of yells and barbarous maledictions.

Grasping one powerful galiondgi by the waist, Callum flung him fairly overboard, tossing him into the air like an India-rubber ball; and he was left by his fatalist friends to sputter and sink, or scramble on board as best he could.

The huge boat swayed from side to side, plashing and surging heavily, while we fought and grappled like wild animals; but though individually more than a match for any of the Osmanlies present, Callum and I were overborne by their number, and must inevitably have been shot, stabbed and tossed overboard, but for the exertions and authority of the Moolah Moustapha, who would not allow them to slay us; but under pain of his everlasting curse and displeasure, commanded them to spare our lives, "as he had eaten bread and salt with us." Though four of the fellows whom we encountered, and with whom we had exchanged several buffets, blows, and stabs in the dark, belonged to the unscrupulous force of the Bostandgi Bashi, or Police Inspector on the banks of the Bosphorus and its adjacent villages, the voice of the Moolah, who ordered us to be taken alive, proved all powerful. We were soon beaten down, and severely, roughly, even brutally, tied like sheep with a wet rope which lay steeping in the bilge at the bottom of the boat; and while we were lying helplessly there, the revengeful Osmanlies trampled and spat upon us, reviling us at the same time with such epithets as can only come from a vituperative Turkish tongue.

'Allah burn you, you dog's sons—you imps of Shaitaun!' said one whom they frequently named Zahroun, and who seemed to be half Bostandgi and half seaman.

'The drunken Inglees—whose dogs are they?' asked another, mockingly.

'They worship the devil, like the wild Yezidies of Iraun—the children of hell, and are false as the falsest Yahoudi. Dirt be upon their beards!' said the ferocious Zahroun.

'Son of Shaitaun,' said another, kicking me so severely that I thought my right arm was broken, 'it is your khismet (destiny) to die here, and I know not why the simple Moolah spares you.'

'Infidel that you are,' said a fourth, 'your khismet is written on your forehead by the finger of the prophet—and it is a skinful of the cold Bosphorus.'

To all this, the others added coarse and vulgar ribaldry, such as one might expect from the boatmen and Bostandgi of the Bosphorus, a depraved and murderous class at all times; and my heart swelled with honest rage when I thought of the futile war we had waged for those insensate Turks, whose name had not been heard in battle since our army landed in the Crimea, and who, with all their boasted valour, had fled at Balaclava, and left a single Highland regiment—"the thin red streak" of Sir Colin Campbell—to receive in line the charge of all the Russian cavalry!

But now the Moolah raised his voice.

'Bismillah—peace, I command you, peace! Allah permits them yet to live, and dare such as ye to repine? We come not here to brawl or to revile, but to fulfil the decrees of Allah as spoken by his prophet, upon whose memory, name, and grave be all the blessings of the faithful. The home of a true Believer—the anderun of a true Mussulman—one fearing God, obeying his Koran, and walking in the shadow of the prophet, has been violated, and the Koran and the law say, that a terrible punishment must follow!'

'Amaun! amaun!' muttered Zahroun and all the others present, while a moan from the stern of the boat drew my eyes towards Iola.

* * * * *

Would that I could blot from my memory the dreadful scene that followed!

Worn by nights and days of weeping—exhausted by unavailing prayers for pity, and paralyzed by terror, there seemed to be no life left in her slender and delicate form, save what a short, quick, and heavy sob indicated, as her small and tremulous hands were tied by a cord behind her back; and, calm and pale as death itself, she submitted to her fate without a murmur.

'Moustapha—insensate Moolah!' I exclaimed, in an agony of mind, 'hear me—hear me! Have you no pity?—no mercy?—no compassion for those who have been cruelly tempted?'

'Peace, accursed,' replied the Moolah, in a stern whisper, 'we tempt ourselves.'

As a degradation, the executioners had torn away the yashmack of muslin from her face, and its pale beauty and divine resignation were sad, sublime, and maddening to me; but a large, coarse sack was hastily drawn over her by Zahroim, who seemed an adept in the work; he tied it securely to her slender ankles, and saw her form no more.

A cry escaped me, and a half-suppressed groan from Callum Dhu, as these inhuman wretches launched her headlong into the deep.

She sunk like a stone! * * * * * *

On the black waves of that midnight sea there rose a few bubbles, and a ripple or two, that widened round us, and then all was over! A voice broke the stillness; it was that of the Moolah praying. He was repeating the first chapter of the Koran; a short chapter held in great veneration by the Mohammedans, who use it us a prayer, and deem it the quintessence of the whole writings of the Prophet.

'Allah latif magid!' (Allah is gracious!) he exclaimed, with a loud voice: 'the Lord of all creatures—the most merciful the King of the day of judgment! Thee do we worship, and of Thee do we beg assistance. Direct us in the right way—in the way of those to whom Thou hast been gracious—not of those against whom Thou art incensed and who go astray.'

'Amaun! amaun!' muttered all the ruffians, bowing their heads, as they shipped their oars again, and now the huge and lumbering koehamba was slowly pulled away from the place; from that hideous grave—the inky wafers that had swallowed up Iola Vidimo.

In the morning I was beloved by a beautiful woman—at night by an immortal but scarcely purer spirit; and with eyes full of tears for her who had passed away, I gazed upward on the starlit sky of Greece.

The passages of that night seemed all a hideous and incredible dream.

Iola was the most artless of all earthly beings, for in many things she was a mere child, and can aught be nearer angels, or more akin to heaven, than a child? But so perished this unhappy one; so pure, so unstained and beautiful—the victim of a pitiless destiny!

CHAPTER XLVIII.

THE TURKISH BOAT.

Our craft had been for some time in motion before I became aware that a large lateen sail was hoisted on it, and was filled to the extremity of its long and tapering yard; and that our course was directed, not to Rodosdchig, but up the sea of Marmora, towards the north-east.

I demanded of the Moolah Moustapha whither he was conveying us, but received no answer. Again and again I made the same request, each time with growing anger and vehemence, and each time adding threats of what our Government would say, or do, or require, curiously oblivious that I had, in my own person, outraged the civil and religious laws of Turkey, such as they are; but still the Moolah disdained to accord me the slightest answer or recognition, and sat, with his hands folded in his green robe and crossed upon his breast; his high felt cap pulled over his beetling brows; his keen and glittering eyes fixed upon the eastern quarter of the sky, where the dawn was shedding a rosy tinge over all the land and sea; and the rough galiondgis or boatmen, and the pistolled, sabred, tarbooshed, and bearded policemen of the Bostandgi Bashi were equally taciturn, though Zahroun scowled and swore at us from time to time.

Now I conceived that they might be conveying us to one of the old castles at the mouth of the Bosphorus, or perhaps to Constantinople, but the distance was rather too great to be traversed in an open boat at the season of the year.

Day dawned at last; morning brightened on the Grecian hills, and the outline of many a grim old tower and ruined temple, crowning the grey rocks and storm-beaten headlands, stood in dark relief against the blushing east.

Upon that sea, which mirrored all the morning sky, I gazed with a shudder of horror, for it was the grave of my poor Albanian girl, and her pale, wan face, her beautiful eyes, and angelic smile, came before me with painful distinctness; while, with a morbid grief, I endeavoured to imagine on what coral bed, in what deep and unfathomable rift or abyss of that huge watery tomb, on which the waves were shining in the orient sun, her charming form had found a last resting place.

Poor Iola! I could not yet realize her death, or the conviction that if I was to go back to Rodosdchig I would not meet her at the Ruined Hermitage, in the express cemetery, or in the silken-hung apartments of Hussein, where I had last spent an evening with her. The events of the last night still seemed all a hideous nightmare, or the memory of some terrible phantasmagoria.

'It is long before we become assured of the loss of those we value,' says a charming female writer; so her dying glance was still lingering before me, and shall be so, in years to come, when other memories may have been swept away and effaced, like footprints on the shore of an ebbing sea.

With emotions of rage and hatred, difficult alike to express and to control, I turned from her destroyers, and hid my face in my hands, as this bitterness was replaced by anguish and remorse.

The kochamba continued to run at great speed before a sharp breeze which blew direct from the narrow Dardanelles, and the rocky capes, the sandy bays, and wooded inlets opened and closed again in rapid succession, as we passed them with a flowing sheet, and ere long Callum and I recognised the flat-roofed town and barracks of Heraclea, with the old ruins of the age of Vespasian, and the white foam curling on the rocks of Palegrossa, where the timbers of the Vestal lay—a rent and weedy hull.

I now hoped that the Moolah and his ruffians meant to land us there, and deliver us up to our own commanding officer, and with this idea my spirit rose a little. The familiar faces of our mess came before me; rough Duncan Catanagh, with his old legends about Loch Lomond and stories of the Mahrattah war: frank Jack Belton, and others among whom I had felt happier than ever I hoped to be after the time I had laid my mother in her lonely Highland grave, and since I had been driven from Glen Ora into the wide and selfish world; but this gleam of liberty faded away, for the kochamba still bore on; her head was kept to the seaward, and in another hour Heraclea was left astern.

What could be the Moolah's object, and whither was he going?

Ere long a British screw-steamer-of-war—a frigate under easy sail, and with her steam up—passed us to leeward, on her way apparently for the Bosphorus, and Callum and I gathered new hope as she came close to us, with her scarlet ensign swelling proudly on the morning breeze, and with the sun shining through her open gun-ports. I arose in the boat, believing that my scarlet uniform might arrest the attention or excite the suspicion of those on board; but I was instantly thrust down below the thwarts; a pistol was held to my head by Zahroun; then a tarpaulin, was thrown over Callum and me, to conceal us more completely from any prying eye that might be aloft in the steamer's rigging, and steadily, swiftly, and monotonously the kochamba continued to cleave the glittering waves and run along the coast of Roumelia.

Our Turkish captors were all smoking opium and coarse Latakia in taciturn composure; some had small chibouques, and others cigarettes made up of paper and tobacco, from those little embroidered bags which an Osmanli is seldom without.

Several hours had now elapsed since Callum and I had been tied so roughly by ropes, and these being wetted by the salt spray, had shrunk to a degree that caused us intense and acute pain. My hands became red, swollen, stiff, and benumbed; and with something of satisfaction I saw the lateen-sail trimmed anew, the helm put up, and the prow of the kochamba turned inwards a town which we were nearing. But, still my mind was painfully full of Iola—my poor victim—for conscience made her seem as much the victim of my folly or recklessness—term it as you will—as of the cruelty of that Osmanli dog her husband, whom I had registered a hundred vows to pistol on the first opportunity.

Could I have recalled the events of the last few weeks Iola had still been spared, for my rashness would now have been tempered by reason and the ties of honour; and she had still been a thing of life and of this earth, enjoying the monotonous and secluded existence accorded to a Turkish wife—varied only by an evening ramble in the City of the Silent with the gossips of adjacent harems and anderuns.

The kochamba bore straight and steadily on, and as we neared the harbour, every object increased along the shore, and soon we were in smooth water and between the piers.

This, then, was the place of our destination, and here it was that probably poor Callum and I were to figure before one of those absurdly solemn courts of muftis and kadis who sit in every Turkish town to play the farce of Justice, and whose code of law is the verbose and obscure Koran of Mohammed, and the Koran alone.

Again I ventured to question the Moolah.

'What place is this?'

'Selyvria, in the Sandjiack of Gallipoli,' was the brief reply, as the boat came sheering alongside the low and slimy mole. Then the yard was lowered, and the flapping sail stowed away; the long oars were unshipped, and the painter run through one of the enormous iron rings on the quay.

We were ordered to land, and lost no time in doing so; then the policemen of the Bostandgi drew their sabres and conducted us into the town, where an increasing crowd of chattering Greeks and gambolling young Turkish gamins, with brown, bare legs and red tarbooshes, followed us through the muddy and unpaved thoroughfares with shrill cries of astonishment, amid which the incessant 'Mashallah,' 'Inshallah,' and 'Allah Ackbar,' were the most prominent.

The sun had set now and the aspect of the sea and land was magnificent.

Throned in the eastern heavens, the soft and silver moon was in all her clearest splendour. The studded belt of Orion and the constellation of the Scorpion united with her in filling the wide blue vault of night with lustre, and all the waves of Marmora seemed to be tipped with blue fire and to be rolling in liquid light.

Built on the slope of a hill, the terraced houses of Selyvria were irregular, quaint, and queer, like those of all Turkish towns, and they rose above each other like the seats of an amphitheatre. The hill was green, and on its summit rose a fortress of the Greek Empire—old, say some, as the days of Selys, who founded the city. The lower, or Turkish town, is without enclosure, though an embattled wall connects the outer row of houses, above which rise the domes of its khan and several mosques.

On leaving the town we were conducted along an ancient bridge of about forty arches, the shadows of which were thrown by the moonlight far across the salt sea-marsh, over which it is built. Thence proceeding by a part of the paved road that leads to Stamboul, and is formed of blocks of basalt, we found ourselves beneath the walls of a grim and dilapidated castle, which stands close to the sea-shore. On one hand the waves of the Propontis lay rolling in shining ripples on the yellow beach, and inland, on the other, spread a wilderness of wild vines and cherry-trees, with massive Grecian columns, tottering or prostrate among them, and beyond these a spacious burial-place, with all its shadowy, huge, and solemn cypresses, standing like a rank of giant spectres in the brilliant moonlight.

Above our heads towered the black parapets, the peering cannon, and the red-capped sentinels of the Turkish castle. Then the wild and strange voices of the Osmanli soldiers were heard, as the Onbashi of the Bostandgis conferred with the Mulazim who commanded the guard; the heavy doors were opened, and as we entered a cold and dark archway, we heard the chink of bolt and bar and swinging-chain, as the barrier was secured behind us; and then the ropes were untied from our almost powerless hands—an inexpressible relief!

'Dioul!' muttered Callum, with a shrug of his shoulders, 'we were better at home in desolate Glen Ora, even under Snaggs the factor, than here.'

Before I could reply, we were pushed through a side door, and thrust down a flight of steep and slimy steps, into a hot, close, and noisome place, where the sights, sounds, odours, and horrors that awaited us, require an entire chapter to themselves.

CHAPTER XLIX.

THE BAGNIO.

'Truth is strange—stranger than fiction.'

Never were words more expressive of what is passing around us daily in the world, even in its most matter-of-fact scenes and phases of life. Many a deep and bitter romance is occurring beside us, amid the bustle of the railway train; on the deck of the departing steamer; with the regiment embarking for foreign service, or with the disbanded soldier returning to search for his parent's cottage, and finding perhaps a manufacturing town, where he had left a rural village; amid the hum of the streets, in the brilliance of the crowded ball-room—in all these are thoughts and wishes, fears and aspirations, known only to Him who reads the hearts of all. Hence though my autography may seem a romance to the reader, it is a true and painful history to me.

Thus, as I have related, on the very day the late treaty of Peace was signed at Paris—to wit, the 30th March, 1856, or according to the Mohammedan Hejira, 1271—Callum Dhu and I found ourselves inmates of a Turkish Bagnio, an event of much more importance to us than the definement of the Bessarabian frontier, the fall of Sebastopol, or the acceptance of the "five points" by Russia.

We were thrust into a large, vaulted apartment, in the sunk or ground-floor of the fortress. It was damp, and pervaded by an atmosphere so fœtid, hot, and humid, that for a time it was all but overpowering, and denied us free respiration. A dim iron lantern hung from a pillar on one side, and shed a cold and wavering light into the misty dungeon, which was half seen and half sunk in shadow.

This darkness seemed dotted at certain distances by swarthy visages, fiercely browed and blackly bearded, with wild gleaming eyes; and on our British uniforms being seen, the clanking of chains rang on all sides, with incessant yells of

'Bono Johny!'

'No Bono!'

'Barek-allah—no Bono!'

And after a time, Callum and I could perceive that we were surrounded by about fifty prisoners, all of whom were chained to the four walls, and almost within arms length of each other.

'Ingleez! Ingleez!' shouted one.

'Giaours of Frangistan!'

'May they all go to Jehannum!'

''Tis their kismet.'

'And who can avert it?'

'Bono—bono!'

'No bono—wallah!'

'Hah-ha! Hah—ha!'

Such were the cries and yells we heard on all sides, mingled with groans, idiot or ferocious laughter, brutal jests and scurrility, in all the dialects of the Bosphorus and the Levant. Many of these prisoners were nude, or nearly so, and their muscular limbs and olive skins were fretted by the massive and rusty fetters which confined them to the walls on each side. Others were clad in every diversity of oriental costume, fashion, and colour. We could perceive the blue gown of the Jew; the torn but ample white robes of the Armenian; the gay cap of the short-trousered Greek; the fur pelisse of the hawk-eyed Tartar; and the red tarboosh that covered the woolly head of the Egyptian; but all these men were squalid, tattered, and beyond description, filthy. Assassination, robbery, and a thousand crimes of the deepest die, were legibly stamped on the hideous fronts of this crew of hardened desperadoes; and we shrank from their touch, on each side, as we hovered in the middle, and kept carefully beyond their reach, for I had once heard of a prisoner who was placed in a Turkish bagnio unchained, a privilege which so greatly exasperated his fettered companions, that they flung, beat, kicked, and tore him from man to man, until his mangled corpse defied their further efforts at insult or torture.

Most of these prisoners, as I afterwards ascertained, were men who had committed those foul murders and robberies, such as, since the war, are nightly occurring in the dark, unlighted, unpaved, and narrow streets of Stamboul—that Stamboul, boasted by the Turks as 'the refuge of the world—the city full of faith;' and these fierce denizens of the prophet's patrimony, would all, ere long, receive the reward of their crimes in some form of law; for though the land is almost lawless, its punishments, like its people, are barbarous and severe.

For several days and nights Callum and I remained together in this hideous place, ignorant of what fate had in store for us; whether we were to be detained there in hopeless captivity; whether we were to be brought before a court of malevolent muftis and ignorant kadis; or whether we were to be delivered to our own military authorities; to the Turkish, or to that enterprising ambassador who has immortalised himself by the anxiety and diplomatic energy he evinced during the defence of Kars; and from whom, by his conduct on that occasion, we had so much to expect in the form of protection and aid!

By day, Callum and I paced to and fro in the centre of this dreadful place, keeping apart from all our companions, and we soon became almost as oblivious of their presence, as they were of ours; and during this monotonous time our sole employment was watching the long flakes of misty light which streamed through four iron-grated apertures or narrow slits down to the Bagnio; and which, like four palpable objects, passed slowly round from one side of the dungeon to another, as the sun declined and day faded away. At these holes the Turkish sentinel, with his scarlet fez, dark moustachioed face, and cunning eye, was seen at times peering into the place to see if "all was right;" and through these apertures, I was told, they had been wont to fire ball-cartridge, when any unusual commotion took place among the prisoners.

At night we crouched together in a corner, somewhat apart from the rest, and weary of communing, surmising, and conjecturing, slept the sleep of the anxious and worn—that waking and painful doze, which is but a succession of nightmares and visions, till dawn again struggled through the misty atmosphere, to light up the quaint forms and ferocious faces of these fettered wretches, and to bring the Turkish guard, with their daily allowance of black bread and fresh water, when again would begin the usual chorus of laughter, groans, and curses, mingled with the swinging and clashing of fetters and chains, bolts and padlocks of rusty iron.

Among the unfortunates confined in this place I discovered two who were treated by our guards with more kindness and respect than the other prisoners, and whose stories somewhat interested me.

One was hopelessly insane; and the other, who was indeed sunk to the lowest depth of misery and dejection, informed me that they had been lieutenants (Mulazims) in the Turkish military service.

CHAPTER L.

THE TWO TURKISH LIEUTENANTS.

'I am Achmet Effendi,' said the latter, a handsome but pale, sad, and emaciated young man; 'I was a lieutenant in the old regiment of Scherif Bey, and, as a mere boy, served in the campaign of Egypt. My younger friend whom you see here so heavily visited by heaven and the prophet, that his mind is gone or possessed by a devil, so that he requires chains and bars three times heavier than the most powerful villain here, is Ali Effendi, a Mulazim of artillery, and there is none better or braver in the army of his Imperial Majesty the Sultan.

'He was with that Turkish army which on the 28th October, 1853, crossed the Danube, and on the 4th of the following month won the victorious battle of Oltenitza, where he slew the aide-de-camp of the Russian General, and found those important despatches which informed us, but alas! too late, of the intended attack upon Sinope, where four thousand five hundred of the Faithful were slaughtered by the dogs of the Czar.

'Ali Effendi was next engaged and severely wounded at the battle of Kalaphat on the 8th of January, 1854—you may still see the scar of the Russian bullet on his bare right arm, above the iron fetter. Ali is tall—he was then handsome and winning; a clever poet and maker of verses; an expert player on the guitar, but poor; for, like myself, he had only one hundred and twenty piastres per month, as a lieutenant en seconde, of Topchis.

'For five years he had loved and been beloved by the daughter of a wealthy Stambouli merchant, and he had received her plighted troth. You may know all the danger, the difficulties, and the deadly snares that hover round a Turkish love; yet the skilful Ali had surmounted and escaped them all, and won the love of Saïda. But her father discovered them, and he was inexorable, of course—fathers always are so, for they are the evil Genii of all love stories, and so he proposed to barter or sell her to Ali Pasha himself!

'Poor Ali, my friend, was marched off with his brigade of artillery to fight the Russians under Mouravieff at Kars, and the unhappy Saïda was in despair when the Pasha sent the dressmakers from the bazaar to measure her for the bridal attire and pearl slippers. Then her grief and fury could no longer be controlled; and bruising the crystal pendant of a lamp to powder, she drank it in a cup of sherbet and expired, with the name of Ali on her lips, and a copy of his last farewell verses, written on fine silk, pressed to her heart.

'Kars fell! Its garrison was captured, but Ali escaped the Cossacks of Mouravieff, and hastened home to find Saïda, not as of old, at her chamber window to answer the tinkling of his lute at night, when the quiet stars looked down on the blue Bosphorus, and the thousand lights of Stamboul were shining on its waters; but to seek her green grave among the silent ones at Pera, and he was almost beside himself with grief. Three days he remained on his knees at her resting-place, until he had read over all the hundred and fourteen chapters of the Koran, and covered the grass with flowers. Then he placed above her a gilded tomb, on which he wrote in charming verses the whole history of their hopeless love; and this tomb cost the poor lieutenant nine hundred piastres. Beside that tomb he swore a dreadful vow to slay both Ali Pasha and her father.

'While this rash vow was trembling on his lips, that father of cruelty and avarice, the old merchant, tottering on his staff, and with tears rolling down his white beard, appeared under the tall and sombre cypresses of the cemetery; and then the frantic Ali, transported with rage, sprang up from amid the flowers of Saïda's grave, and drawing a pistol from his girdle, shot him dead!

'From that moment Ali became a maniac, and the sultan sent him here. Allah has dried up his brains; but He is ever merciful and just; so whether my poor comrade shall recover, and be as he was in other times, a merry companion, a true friend, and gallant soldier, I know not; our kismet is in the hands of God and the Prophet, whose holy finger traced it, at the moment of our birth, upon our infant brows.'[*]

[*] Ali did recover, and is now a cole agassi (major) of the Turkish artillery at Hunkiar Skellessi: but being, as Jack Belton says, in full possession of his senses, vows he will never think of marriage more.

'A mournful story, Achmet Effendi,' said I, gazing with deep interest on the hollow cheek, lack-lustre eyes, and wasted form of this brave young officer, who had seen as much service, and fought with the gallant Williams at Kars; 'but, if I may inquire, what brought you here?'

'Love, also,' he answered, with a smile, and then a frown of anger on his olive brow. 'A few words will tell you all. My father is the Bashi-katib or military secretary of the Egyptian Contingent. The orta or battalion to which I belonged, and still belong—'

'Still belong?' I reiterated, glancing at his fetters,

'Yes,' said he, colouring, 'you shall hear.'

'I was in cantonments at Pera, when I became acquainted with a lady who was wont to walk, unattended either by slaves or carpet-spreaders, in the great cemetery there—'

'Ah!' said I, with mournful interest.

'Her figure was graceful; her brow like alabaster; her eyes—strange in our sunny land—were a deep and bewitching blue, for her mother had been a Russian lady, stolen from the shores of the sea of Azof. Her eye-brows were brown, and arched, like the moon of the Prophet, and never did the divine Hafiz of Iraun pen a sonnet on a face more beautiful than hers; and as Jammee the Iraunee sings in his ode, I was miserable when absent from her.

'Oh! in what place soe'er I stray,
By midnight, morning, or by day,
    Thou art the inmate of my breast;
I cannot linger, cannot stay,
But thy sweet image with me aye
    Abides my bosom's dearest guest!'

Yet she was another's, and by one of the contrarieties of our nature for that reason, more perhaps than for her loveliness, did I love her! she was—'

'A wife?'

'No.'

'What then?'

'A slave.'

'Well?' said I, thinking it was only a distinction without a difference among 'the Faithful.'

'Her master was in the service of the Kislar Aga, so you will perceive at once that she was a dangerous person to meddle with. The arrival of the allied troops in the Bosphorus had attracted the attention of all in Stamboul, so Pera was almost deserted. Zarifa, by a prettily-arranged bouquet of flowers, asked me to visit her, and I did so, taking care, however, to arm me well. I had my sabre and a pair of pistols, which I loaded carefully, in case of being surprised by the Kislar Aga or any of the black guardians of the Royal Seraglio. I had with me a fleet horse, one of those carefully-trained barbs which are used by our Turkish cavalry, and are drilled to close to the right and close to the left; to dress back, or forward, at a single word of command; to remain beside the rider if he falls, or to drag him out of the press by their teeth. Leaving my horse concealed in an olive-thicket, without perceiving that I was watched and followed by a Moolah, named Moustapha, who had been a corporal in my regiment, I entered the garden of the Kislar Aga's country-house, and there Zarifa received me in a beautifully-gilded kiosk, covered with tendrils of the myrtle, the passion-flower, the gorgeous azalea, and the Damascus rose. There soft carpets were spread; hot coffee, sherbet, wine, and a chibouque awaited me—and more than all, Zarifa, in all her beauty, with her yashmack thrown aside!

'Reclining on that soft carpet, with my arm around the yielding waist of my love—a pipe on one hand, a cup of Greek wine on the other, I was in the seventh heaven!

'The roses were sparkling in the new-fallen rain, which had just refreshed the earth with a shower, and the sun was exhaling it, as he came up in his splendour; the breeze was laden with the melody of the joyous birds, and the large drops hung like diamonds on every flower and tree, while the perfume of the orange-groves, of the violet-beds, and of the china jars of heliotrope, loaded the air with delicious fragrance; everything spoke to my heart of love, delight, and silence, as I pressed my lips to those of Zarifa!

'At that moment the gleam of three or four bayonets appeared above the garden wall; the door of the kiosk was dashed in; I sprang to my feet, with a hand on my sabre, to be confronted by the scowling Moolah, who, I found, to my rage, had surrounded me by a guard from the nearest police-station. In short, the ruffians of the Bostandgi Bashi were upon me!

'Zarifa uttered a shriek, as I rushed from her, to find my horse captured, and bayonets opposed to me, breast-high. I was obliged to surrender at discretion, and on being deprived of my arms, was thrust into an araba, and, with the terrified and weeping girl, was taken before a corrupt and cunning kadi.

'"Remember," said I, "that I am the son of tho Bashi-katib, and the grandson of the Seraskier."'

'"You are wise to boast of your ancestry since you cannot boast of yourself," sneered the Moolah.

'"Did not the Prophet cast eyes of evil on Zeinab, the wife of Zeid, his adopted son, from whom he cajoled her away and then married her; and Zeinab, thereafter, vaunted that she was above all the other wives of Mohammed, since their marriage was made in heaven?"

'"Peace, blasphemous kite!" exclaimed the kadi.

'He then asked me, according to our law, when a man is discovered in the society of an unmarried woman, if I would wed Zarifa?

'But I remained silent.

'Zarifa was beautiful, and I loved her—true; but to marry the slave of a servant of the Kislar Aga, the Chief Eunuch to that son of a slave, the Sultan; I—a Mulazim—on one hundred and twenty piastres per month. Wallah! the thing was not to be thought of! I refused, and was sentenced to pass two years in chains. Zarifa was given to a deserving chaoush of cavalry as a wife, and I was sent here as a prisoner, and as such must remain a few months longer."

'And you were sentenced to pass two years in chains?'

'Two years, Effendi.'

'Heavens,' thought I, 'should such be my sentence, what will become of Callum Dhu, and what will be the fate of my commission, which I value as my own life!'