In Greek Waters Part 44

"They are grand," Horace said, "though I should certainly enjoy them more under other circ.u.mstances. 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 sh.o.r.e. 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 a.s.sisted 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 pa.s.ses 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 ash.o.r.e. 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 pa.s.sengers, 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 ash.o.r.e 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 grat.i.tude, 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 grat.i.tude, 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 const.i.tution 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 anch.o.r.ed 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 cl.u.s.tering 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 sh.o.r.e. Caiques were pa.s.sing backwards and forwards across the water; heavy boats with sailors or troops rowing between the ships of war and the sh.o.r.e; 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 st.u.r.dy 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 ash.o.r.e 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."