XC

For days the dark malodorous blue fog had hung over Stamboul. Now the

southwest wind had rolled it up like a curtain and carried it away into

Syria, and the great imperial city of marble domes and snowy minarets

tipped with golden crescents, cypress-groves, and fountains, bagnios

and beggars, sylvan vistas and screeching stinks, lay basking in golden

November sunshine under a sky of purest turquoise. The scarlet and

yellow tinting of the vines and creepers that draped the walls and

the balconies of the black and red and white and yellow houses, alone

told of winter, like the deepened crimson of the robin’s breast, and

the pale purple of the crocus-like colchicum starring the meadows by

the Sweet Waters. For those who chose, it would be summer. And all the

vices of the Old World and the New came out to bask in the warmth and

the beauty. And the roar of traffic and the confusion of tongues in the

offal-ridden, stinking thoroughfares and on the filthy quays, above the

broad belt of discarded straw slippers, rusty tin kettles, and wooden

basins, and decomposing cats and dogs, that rose and fell upon the

margin of the crystal-blue Bosphorus--deafened the ears and dazed the

brain.

The roadsteads of Beshiktash were packed with French and English

battleships and transports. The vessels of the Turkish Fleet, with the

great golden lions sprawling on their prows, were anchored lower down.

Innumerable gilded caïques, richly draped and cushioned, propelled

by rowers in gay liveries and crowded--not only by Turkish ladies

veiled in the yashmak, and swathed in the feridjeh, but by English

and French women of Society--dressed in the latest Parisian fashions,

and accompanied by uniformed officers and civilian friends in correct

afternoon attire--shot to and fro over the surface of the harbor;

seeming to avoid, yet encircling and following a large galley, gorgeous

as a dying dolphin in colors of crimson and silver and green, and

closely attended by one or two vessels of magnificence only inferior to

the first, which had been waiting all the morning at the Dolma Bâghchi

Palace Stairs.

His Sublime Majesty, the Padishah, a sallow, black-bearded, impassive

personage--suggestive, in his tightly-buttoned frock coat and plain

fez, of a dark blue glass medicine-bottle with a red seal--attended by

one or two privileged Ministers, corpulent and spectacled dignitaries

with gray beards, was pleased to take the air of the harbor instead of

seeking the refreshment of the Sweet Waters; and it was etiquette to

follow, at a respectful distance, the galley containing the Luminary

of the World. Thus, the gilded caïques containing the veiled inmates

of the harems of Stamboul and Pera and Therapia, or the well-dressed

ladies of the Legations and Consulates with their male companions,

followed the turns and windings of the monster dolphin, like a flock

of variegated Pacific parrot-fish, while the fervid sunshine poured

down upon the glory and the loveliness, the filth and the degradation

of the ancient seat of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires, and all

the vices of the East and of the West mingled in the olla-podrida of

nations and of tongues.

Veiled and muffled Turkish ladies, elevated above the mud upon wooden

clogs, went by, with chattering Nubian women in attendance on them. Old

men in green turbans hawked _coco_ and sweetmeats; gypsy-girls,

brazen of glance and bold of tongue, trafficked in fortunes and did

business in smiles. Turkish soldiers of the Reserve, garrisoning the

capital--the fine flower of the Ottoman Army being with Omar Pasha at

Eupatoria--shambled by, smoking cigarettes, or munching lumps of coarse

ration-bread. And Jews, Armenians, Germans of the Legion, Styrians,

Levantines, Africans, Bulgarians, Wallachs, Czechs, rubbed shoulders

with men of every rank and branch of the Sister Services of Britain and

her Ally of France.

And amongst the English officers who thronged the European Clubs,

and crowded the hotels, and strolled upon the public places, were

well-groomed, dandified, curled and whiskered Adonises who had been

the spoiled and petted beauty-men of their regiments at Home, and were

going out to Balaklava under the impression that they were heroes.

But when they encountered the men who had come down invalided from

the Front, the luster fled from their Macassared whiskers, and the

assurance of their manners underwent alteration. For these were the

Real Thing--the genuine article--and only for the genuine article were

the ladies, English and French, Greek or Italian--possessed of ears and

eyes.

Upon the deck of a large, luxurious steam-yacht, anchored with other

private vessels in the roadstead below Beshiktash, and flying the

Ensign of St. George, with the white, red-crossed, gold-crowned burgee

of the Royal Yacht Squadron, were gathered so many men and women

representative of Society in Paris or London, that the background

might have been Cowes, or Ryde, or Henley at the height of the season,

instead of the European shore of the Bosphorus in November drear.

And though many brilliant uniforms were present, with handsome men

inside some of them, the loveliest ladies, icily ignoring these, vied

with each other in attentions to certain hairy, ragged, bandaged, and

limping tatterdemalions, who sported their rags with insufferable

arrogance, or the profound reposeful pride of old Egyptian kings. For

they were officers of Infantry and Artillery who had been wounded at

the Alma, or they were Cavalrymen whose stained red jackets, striped

overalls, and battered brass helmets, proclaimed them to be of

Redlett’s Heavy Brigade.... And he who lolled under the green-and-white

after-deck awning in a big Indian cane chair, with a little court of

admiring beauties gathered round him, and the wife of the English

Ambassador sitting upon his right hand--the man whose astrakhan-trimmed

Hussar jacket, stiff with tarnished gold lace, was slashed to ribbons;

whose busby had been shorn by a sword-cut of its red plume and gilded

cord--whose crimson overalls were stained like the tights of a street

tumbler--who had lost his sabretasche and half a spur, and whose

boots--once the pride of a Pall Mall maker’s heart--were slit in places

and had burst in others, was the most cosseted, complimented, caressed

and waited-on of all those who basked in the light of admiring glances

and the warmth of approving smiles.

As Houris in rustling silks, marvelous lace mantles, and bonnets of the

latest Parisian mode hovered about him, ministering with champagne-cup,

Russian tea, caviar-sandwiches, little Turkish pastries, and large

Turkish cigarettes to his imperial needs, you saw him as a man of

forty-nine or thereabouts, tall and lean in figure, sinewy of muscle,

long of bone. His features were boldly aquiline and not unhandsome; his

eyes were of keen, sparkling yellowish hazel, his reddish curling hair

and bushy, untrimmed whiskers of the same shade were just sprinkled

with gray. The outline of his jaw had the sharp salient line that

distinguished the bows of the brand-new pivot-gun screw-steamer that

lay anchored with the French and British line-of-battleships in the

roads at Beshiktash; his smile revealed a magnificent unbroken row of

shining white teeth, and his left arm was bandaged and slung. Also, he

had a Russian saber-cut on his sharp cheekbone, and a Russian bullet

in the muscles of his ribs made him catch his breath and grimace

occasionally. For this egregious dandy, the owner of the luxurious

steam-yacht and many things more desirable; who said “aw” for “are”

and “wheiah” for “where,” and “Bay Jove!” with the drawl one has heard

Bancroft use in Robertson comedies, was Lord Cardillon, the Brigadier

who had led the famous Light Cavalry Charge at Balaklava, on the

white-legged, big brown horse--who was even then being pampered with

cakes and sugar in his loose-box in the ’tween decks--and whose tail

the hero-worshiping crowd were to pluck bare when he got back to London.

* * * * *

Now, as the gold-and-crimson twenty-six-oared State caïque with the

gilded whorl and the preening peacock at the prow, shot up-stream

towards Therapia, Cardillon laughed, and said to the middle-aged

handsome woman who sat near, the diamonds on her white hands flashing

in the sunlight as she stitched at a masculine garment of coarse white

calico....

“You haven’t asked how my audience went off, Lady Stratclyffe?”

“I had forgotten,” she answered, “but I presume nothing new or original

was said or done, and that you were dismissed with the customary

compliments?”

His laugh, rather sharp and hard, rang out again clearly. People were

listening, and his white teeth gleamed in rather a self-conscious smile.

After the usual stage-wait--filled up with coffee and

_chibuks_--we found his Sublimity at the top of a long crystal

staircase, illuminated with red glass lusters. The Shadow of

Omnipotence took exception to the condition of my toggery. He said to

Prince Galamaki, who presented me: “_Mâshallah!_ but the infidel’s

clothes are torn and filthy! Does the Queen of England pay her Pashas

so badly that they cannot afford to buy new uniforms?”

There was a burst of laughter, masculine and feminine. He went on,

in the dandified drawl, pulling at his bushy whiskers with the free

unbandaged hand:

“Galamaki--who had the honor of meeting you at Petersburg, Lady

Stratclyffe--and who had attended to make his bow prior to leaving for

the Embassy at Vienna, looked civilly agonized, not having mentioned to

the Padishah that I understand Turkish pretty well. So I said, in that

language, that in England we considered that the uniform of a soldier

who had seen Service was his robe of honor. And that I had dressed to

wait upon the Sultan as I should dress to wait upon the Queen!”

There were “bravos” and the clapping of hands. Faces of both sexes

turned towards the speaker; and though he hid his pride and exultation

at the homage under an affectation of cynical indifference, it expanded

his sharply-cut nostril and burned in his light hazel eyes. He went on:

“Though the look of some of these fellows we’re waiting for might scare

her....”

“Oh no!” said Lady Stratclyffe, looking up from her work. “How could

you possibly imagine that?”

“English ladies are all so brave, nowadays!” he returned, with an

inflection of sarcasm.

Said a velvet voice behind him, with a sweet foreign accent that added

honey to the implied compliment:

“Milord, the English ladies but follow the example of the English

gentlemen!”

“Capital, Madame de Roux!” called out a handsome gray-haired man,

rather formally and stiffly dressed for a yacht-party, who had been

conversing with a French officer in Zouave uniform. “You scatter your

sugar-plums broadcast!--even a diplomatist may hope to pick up one

in the scramble.... Now, if you had said ‘The English Army,’--Lord

Cardillon would have taken the compliment to himself!”

Cardillon returned, ignoring the prick of sarcasm:

“Madame de Roux, who is upon her way to the Crimea, to confer supreme

happiness upon a gallant countryman, can afford to give English ladies

due credit for bravery. When do you sail, Madame?”

She thought in two days’ time.... He said, with gallant regret:

“I wish I might have had the pleasure of carrying you there in the

_Foam Star_. But I am compelled to return to England, worse luck!”

She said, with her lovely smile, as Lord Stratclyffe was buttonholed by

a gray-whiskered bluff-faced Rear-Admiral:

“There are many who will rejoice at what you so much regret.

For me, I have been granted a passage upon one of my country’s

war-steamers--thanks to the influence of one who is soon to become far

nearer than a friend....”

He said, with a certain sharp subtlety, understanding that she referred

to her approaching marriage with one of the Generals of France’s

Eastern Army:

“He should be grateful for whom you risk so much! But at Kamiesch

you will not suffer the inconveniences of Balaklava. Your countrymen

have already built a harbor and macadamized the principal roads. They

have a railway to their Front--public conveyances--field and general

hospitals--ambulances, and a corps of trained attendants, supplemented

by Sisters of Charity. In fact, everything that we have not--and that

we ought to have!”

“And whose is the fault,” she asked, “that you have not what you ought

to have?”

His debonair face suddenly changed into a mask of stiff Officialism.

His eyes hardened. His lips lost their jocund curve as they dropped out

the formula:

“I am really not aware!”

He shrugged his shoulders, and turned the conversation to the beauty

of the sables in which she was wrapped, leaning close as he spoke of

them with the air of a connoisseur, and looking at the wearer. Some

other women present there were younger and more brilliant. Not one,

he thought, exhaled the charm that breathed from Madame de Roux. He

noted the fine lines about her eyes and mouth, and on her forehead,

and the thread or two of white that showed amidst the silken black

hair. Its superb coils were crowned with a wide-brimmed hat of cavalier

fashion, black with drooping plumes of mauve. The tone of half-mourning

characterized the exquisite array of one who had been widowed a year

previously; conveying the impression of sorrow that had mellowed

into resignation, bereavement not unwilling to be consoled.... Bands

of mauve velvet, fastened with clasps of cameos set in brilliants,

closed her full lace sleeves at the wrists and encircled the lovely

throat that rose above the chemisette. Ample skirts of black _gros

de Naples_, stamped with mauve velvet flowers, billowed about her;

exquisite feet adorning little kid boots peeped from the expansive

folds. With his eyes upon the perfect arch of the revealed instep,

Cardillon sighed, envying this exquisite creature’s future husband,

that noted fire-eater Leguerrier.

* * * * *

We remember Grandguerrier, formerly Governor-General of Algeria, whom

the retirement of Boisrobert was soon to place in the chief command of

France’s Expeditionary Forces. Thick-set, short, hot-tempered--burnt

brown by African suns, with a close cap of gray hair coming down

low on the sagacious forehead--with bloodshot brown eyes, snub nose,

deep-cut mouth pouting under the bristling black mustache, the

middle-aged commander of Zouaves and Spahis appeared what he was, a

gallant soldier.... How loyally he stood by England when the imperious

hand at the Tuileries checked maddeningly at the electric bridle, we

never should forget!

“_On the 7th of June the Mamelon Vert, the Ouvrages Blancs and the

Quarries must be taken. Lord Dalgan and I have decided it. Ours is the

responsibility._” And so broke up the Council of War. But when the

stout little man on the white Arab rode through the English camps on

the day after the successful attack, what roaring cheers went up from

British throats at the sight of him.... And that he was tender-hearted

as well as brave we know.

* * * * *

Cardillon had sighed, and his sighs were not generally wasted.

Henriette turned upon him the eyes that had always reminded Dunoisse

of moss-agates gleaming under running brook-water, and said with

the subtle, half-mischievous smile that crinkled the corners of her

eyelids, and hardly curved her mouth:

“_You_ should have nothing left to sigh for at this hour!”

He said:

“But I have! I sigh for one of those violets you are wearing.”

She glanced down at the knot of pale purple blossoms pinned at the

bosom of her lawn chemisette, revealed by the unfastened mantle of

sables. Emboldened by her smile, he stretched a hand to them. But she

leaned back, avoiding the contact of the sinewy, sunburned, covetous

fingers. She had grown pale, her eyes and lips had shadows round

them--she looked older, more worn. Then, as he hesitated whether to

pursue his intent or withdraw his hand, she rose in a frou-frou of

silken draperies, and was gone upon the arm of Lord Stratclyffe,

leaving only a perfume and a desire behind her.... And Lady

Stratclyffe, looking across her sewing, said quietly:

“Answer _me_, since even our exquisite ally must not be trusted

with official secrets!... With whom does the blame rest? Need our

Army of Invasion have suffered all these hardships and privations

and miseries? How comes it that we are so lamentably deficient

in Commissariat and Transport arrangement? Why--I quote your own

words--have we ‘nothing that we ought to have’?”

He glanced about him before replying. But, seeing him engaged in talk

with the Ambassadress, his guests had moved away, leaving an island of

gleaming white planks about them. He said:

“Dear Lady Stratclyffe, the system of our Army Administrations has

been, from first to last, a system of Contracts. One must own it has

not been a success. Contractors are not, as a rule, trustworthy or

conscientious.... Ours have not proved themselves exceptions to the

rule!”

His shrug spoke volumes. She said, with hesitation:

“Surely the resources of the country----”

He answered harshly:

“The resources of the country, reported to be vast, were in our ease

non-existent. We could get nothing! We were upon the soil of a nation

for whose liberty we were about to fight, and they treated us from the

first as enemies. There’s no question about it! The native Bulgarians

refused to sell us grain, forage, fuel and provisions, nor would they

supply us with wagons, and beasts of burden and draught, or serve us as

drivers, guides or interpreters! They let us encamp where cholera and

fever were rife--and so we invaded the Crimea with a weakly, invalidy,

crippled army, two-thirds of ’em too weak to carry their packs and

the rest horizontal--disabled or moribund! And Burgoyle rode up to

the head of Varna Harbor when his Division was being put on board the

transports. He shook his fist and howled--he was quite beside himself.

‘Sick men to fight the Russian Imperial Guards with! Better give me

dead ones!’ But that we have achieved what we have, ma’am, we owe to

the pith and pluck and endurance of these sick men.”

“They’re glorious!” she said. “They’re glorious....”! And the Brigadier

went on:

“They were exhausted from exposure, dropping from want of sleep,

half-starved from shortage of rations when they carried the Great

Redoubt, and smashed two-thirds of Menschikoff’s army into gray lumps

on the Alma. On the day of the Balaklava Attack neither men nor beasts

had had bite or sup since the middle of the day before.... How the

Light Brigade charged I hardly know; their horses’ legs were tottering

under ’em! And they lay down after the battle, round their smoky fires

of green wood, with their baggage and camp equipment knocking about on

board the transports, and nothing but a sopping wet blanket between

half of ’em and the sky! And then they couldn’t sleep for the neighing

of the horses, and the row made by the camels and mules and bullocks.

For you can’t teach animals to starve in silence!--they’ve no pride

like two-legged brutes! There’s a verse I’d liked at Eton, about the

lions roaring and asking their meat from God. Well, the row made me

think of that and wonder whether He heard them?... And---- But I

suppose they’re quiet enough now!”