I pursued the old road just described, urging my horse to a trot where
I dare do so, but often being compelled--by the rough construction and
nature of the way, and at times by my painful doubts as to whether I
was pursuing the right one--to moderate his pace to a walk.
Frequently, too, I had to dismount and lead him by the bridle,
especially at such parts as those steps of wood and stone by the
Merdven or Devil's Staircase, when after passing through forests of
beech and elm, walnut and filbert trees, I found myself on the summit
of a rock, which I have since learned is two thousand feet above the
Euxine, and from whence the snow-capped summits of the Caucasus can be
seen when the weather is clear. Around me were the mountains of Yaila,
rising in peaks and cliffs of every imaginable form, and fragments of
rock like inverted stalactites started up here and there amidst the
star-lighted scenery. Anon the way lay through a forest entirely of
oaks, where the fallen leaves of the past year lay deep, and the heavy
odour of their decay filled all the atmosphere. The country seemed
very lonely; no shepherd's cot appeared in sight, and an intense
conviction of utter solitude oppressed me. Frequently I reined in my
horse and hearkened for a sound, but in vain. I knew a smattering of
Arabic and that polyglot gibberish which we call Hindostani, but
feared that neither would be of much service to me if I met a Tartar;
and as for a Greek or Cossack, the revolver would be the only means of
conferring with them. Once the sound of a distant bell struck my ear,
announcing some service by night in a church or monastery among the
hills; and soon, on my left, towered up the range of which
Mangoup-Kaleh is the chief, crowned with the ruins of a deserted
Karaite or Jewish tower, and which overlooks Sebastopol on one side,
and Sebastopol on the other. After a time I came to a place where some
buffaloes were grazing, beside a fountain that plashed from a little
archway into a basin of stone. This betokened that some habitation
must be in the vicinity; but that which perplexed me most, was the
circumstance that there the old road was crossed by another: thus I
was at a loss which to pursue. One might lead me to the shore of the
Black Sea; another back towards Sebastopol, or to the Russian pickets
in the valley of Inkermann; and the third, if it failed to be the way
to Kokoz, might be a path to greater perils still.
While in this state of doubt, a light, hitherto unnoticed, attracted
my attention. It glimmered among some trees about a mile distant on my
left, and I rode warily towards it, prepared to fight or fly, as the
event might require. Other lights rapidly appeared, and a few minutes
more brought me before a long rambling building of Turkish aspect,
having large windows filled in with glass, a tiled roof, and broad
eaves. On one side was a spacious yard enclosed by a low wall, wherein
were several horses, oxen, and buffaloes tethered to the kabitkas or
quaintly-constructed country carts; on the other was a kind of open
shed like a penfold, where lighted lanterns were hanging and candles
burning in tin sconces; and by these I could perceive a number of
bearded Armenians and Tartars seated with chibouks and coffee before
them, chatting gaily and laughing merrily at the somewhat broad and
coarse jokes of a Stamboul Hadji, a pretended holy mendicant, whose
person was as unwashed and whose attire was as meagre and tattered as
that of any wandering Faquir I had ever seen in Hindostan. His beard
was ample, and of wonderful blackness; his glittering eyes, set under
beetling brows, were restless and cunning; his turban had once been
green, the sacred colour; and he carried a staff, a wallet, a
sandal-wood rosary of ninety-nine beads, and a bottle, which probably
held water when nothing stronger could be procured. The Tartars, six
in number, were lithe, active, and gaily-dressed fellows, with large
white fur caps, short jackets of red or blue striped stuff, and loose,
baggy, dark blue trousers, girt by scarlet sashes, wherein were stuck
their daggers and brass-butted pistols; for, though all civilians,
they were nevertheless well armed.
The Armenians seemed to be itinerant merchants, or pedlars, as their
packages were close beside them; and two Tartar women--the wife and
daughter probably of the keeper of the khan--who were in attendance,
bringing fresh relays of coffee, cakes, and tobacco, wore each a white
feredji, which permitted nothing of their form to be seen, save the
sparkling dark eyes and yellow-booted feet, as it covered them so
completely that each looked like nothing else than a walking and
talking bundle of white linen. The whole group, as I came upon it thus
suddenly, when seen by the flickering light of the candles and
lanterns, had a very picturesque effect; but the idea flashed upon me,
that as all these men were, too probably, subjects of the Russian
empire, I ran some risk among them; and on my unexpected appearance
the Tartars started, eyed each other and me, in doubt how to act, and
instinctively laid hands on their weapons, like men who were wont to
use them. The Armenians changed colour and laid down their pipes,
fearing that I was but the precursor of a foraging party; and even the
Hadji paused in his story, and placed a hand under his short cloak,
where no doubt a weapon was concealed. All seemed doubtful what to
make of me. I heard "Bashi-bazouk" (Irregular) muttered, and "Frank,"
too. My gray greatcoat enabled me, in their unprofessional eyes, to
pass for anything. If a Russian officer, they feared me; if one of the
Allies, I was the friend--however unworthy an instrument--of the
successor of Mahomet; one of those who had come to fight his battles
against the infidels of the Russian-Greek church; so either way I was
pretty secure of the Tartars' good will; and boldly riding forward, I
proceeded to "air" some of the Arabic I had picked up in the East, by
uttering the usual greeting; to which the keeper of the khan replied
by a low salaam, bending down as if to take the dust from my right
boot and carry it to his lips, while more than once he said,
"_Hosh ghieldiniz!_" (_i. e_., Welcome!)
Then a Tartar, as a token of goodwill, took a pipe from his mouth and
presented it to me, while another offered me sliced water-melon on an
English delph-plate.
"_Aan coon slaheet nahss?_" (Have you any coppers?) whined the Hadji.
I gave him a five-piastre piece, on which he salaamed to the earth
again and again, saying,
"_Kattel herac! kattel herac!_" (Thank you, sir.)
The meeting was a narrow escape, for I might have fallen among
Russians; but fortunately not one of their nation happened at that
moment to be about the place. I laid some money on the low board
around which they were seated, and asked for coffee and a chibouk,
which were brought to me, when I dismounted. However, I remained near
my horse, that I might vault into the saddle and be off on the
shortest notice. On inquiring if I was on the right road for Kokoz,
the host of the establishment shook his head, and informed me that I
was several versts to the left of it. I next asked whether there were
any Russian troops in the immediate neighbourhood. Still eyeing me
keenly and dubiously, several of the Tartars replied in the
affirmative; and the tattered Hadji, whose goodwill I had won by my
peace-offering, told me that a party of Cossacks were now hovering in
the Baidar Valley, the very place through which I had passed, and must
have to repass, unless for safety I remained with Canrobert's flying
column. But then my orders were to return with his answer, and without
delay. Here was a pleasant predicament! After mature consideration I
resolved to wait for daylight, when the Hadji promised to be my guide
to the Tartar village, where the Franks were posted, and which he led
me to understand was nearer the base of Mangoup-Kaleh than the town of
Kokoz; and in the meantime, he added, he should resume a story, in the
narration of which he had been interrupted by my arrival. This
announcement was greeted with a hearty clapping of hands; the women
came nearer; all adjusted themselves in attitudes of attention, for
oral storytelling is the staple literature of the East. Thus their
thoughts, suspicions, and conjectures were drawn from me; and as all
seemed good-humoured, I resolved to make the best of the situation and
remain passive and patient, though every moment expecting to hear the
clank of hoofs or the jingle of accoutrements, and to see the glitter
of Cossack lances; and while I sat there, surveying the singular group
of which I formed one, the quaint aspect of the caravanserai on one
side, the dark forest lands and starlit mountains on the other, my
thoughts, in spite of me, reverted to the news I had so lately
heard--to her I had now lost for ever, and who, in her splendid
English home, was far away from all such wild scenes and stirring
perils as those which surrounded me.
The story told by the Hadji referred to a piece of court scandal,
which, had he related it somewhere nearer the Golden Horn, might have
cost him his head; and to me it became chiefly remarkable from the
circumstance that, soon after the Crimean War, a portion of it
actually found its way as news from the East into the London papers;
but all who heard it in the khan listened with eyes dilated and mouth
agape, for it was replete with that treachery and lust of cruelty
which are so peculiarly oriental. After extolling in flowing and
exaggerated terms the beauty of Djemila Sultana, whom he called the
third and youngest daughter of the Sultan Abdul Medjid, the Hadji told
us that he had been present when she was bestowed in marriage upon
Mahmoud Jel-al-adeen Pasha, to whom, notwithstanding the charms of
this royal lady, the possession of her hand was anything but enviable,
as oriental princesses usually treat worse than slaves their husbands,
leading them most wretched lives, in consequence of their tyrannical
spirit, their caprice, pride, and jealousy of other women. Now the
Sultana Djemila was no exception to this somewhat general rule, and
having discovered by the aid of her royal papa's chief astrologer, the
Munadjim Bashee, that her husband had purchased and secluded in a
pretty little kiosk near the waterside at Pera a beautiful Circassian,
whom he was wont to visit during pretended absences on military duty,
she found means to have the girl carried off, and ordered the Capi
Aga, or chief of the White Eunuchs, an unscrupulous Greek, to
decapitate her; an operation which he performed by one stroke of his
sabre, for the neck of the victim was very slender, and shapely as
that of a white swan. Not contented with this, she resolved still
farther to be revenged upon her husband the Pasha when he returned to
dinner.
Seating herself in the divan-hanee while the meal of which the Pasha
was to partake alone--as women, no matter what their rank may be,
never eat with men in the East--was being spread, she rose up at his
entrance, and rendering the usual homage accorded by wives (much to
his astonishment), she then clapped her white hands, on which the
diamonds flashed, as a signal to serve up the dinner. Crushed and
abashed by a long system of domestic tyranny and despair, Mahmoud
Jel-al-adeen, who feared his wife as he had never feared the Russians,
against whom he had fought valiantly at Silistria, failed to perceive
the malignant light that glittered in the beautiful black eyes of
Djemila. But a fear of coming evil was upon him, as on that day, when
he had ridden past the great Arsenal, he had seen a crow fly towards
him; in the East an infallible sign of something about to befall him,
as it was a crow that first informed Adam that Abel was slain.
"So I pray you, Djemila, neither to taunt nor revile me to-day," said
he, "for a strange gloom is upon me."
She laughed mockingly, and Mahmoud shivered, for this laugh was often
the precursor of taunts that could never be recalled or forgotten, and
of having his beard rent, his turban knocked off, and his lips--the
same lips at whose utterance his brigade of three thousand Mahomediyes
trembled--beaten with the heel of her tiny slipper. But she began to
storm as was her wont; and then, while her husband's fingers went into
the pillau from time to time, there began their usual taunting
discussion, with quotations from the Koran, "which, as all the world
knows, or ought to know," continued the Hadji, "is the one and only
book for laws, civil, moral, religious, and domestic."
"Doth not the Prophet say," she exclaimed, closing the slender tips of
her henna-dyed fingers, "in the fourth chapter entitled 'Women,' and
revealed at Mecca, act with equity towards them?"
"Yes; but he adds, 'If ye act not with equity towards orphans of the
female sex, take in marriage such other as please you, two, three, or
four; but not more."
"So--so; and your fancy was for a slave!"
"_Was?_" stammered Mahmoud; then he added, defiantly, yet tremulous
with apprehension the while, "A Circassian, whose skin is as the egg
of an ostrich--her hair as a shower of sunbeams."
"This to me!" she exclaimed; and starting from the divan, she smote
him thrice on the mouth with the heel of her embroidered slipper.
The eyes of the Pasha flashed fire; yet remembering who she was, he
sighed and restrained his futile wrath, and said,
"If you will quote the Prophet, remember that he says in chapter iv.,
'Men shall have pre-eminence above women, because of those advantages
wherein God hath caused one of them to excel the other.'"
Djemila laughed derisively and fanned herself.
"Who dared to tell you of this slave girl?" asked Mahmoud, glancing
nervously at the pretty little slipper; "who, I demand?"
"The wire of the Infidels, that passes over men's houses, and reveals
the secrets of all things therein--even those of the harem," said she,
laughing, but with fierce triumph now; "yea, telling more than is
known by the Munadjim Bashee himself."
The Pasha knew not what to say to this; he quaffed some sherbet to
keep himself cool, and then ground his teeth, resolving, if he dared,
to have all the telegraph wires in his neighbourhood cut down; indeed,
about this time, such was the terror the Turks had of those mysterious
speaking wires, that in Constantinople, to prevent their destruction
as telltales, a few human heads were placed upon the supporting poles
by order of Stamboul Effendi, or chief of the police.
"Thou shalt be stoned by order of my brother, and according to the
holy law!" said Djemila, her proud lips curling and quivering.
"Woman, she is but a slave--an odalisque!"
"Whom you would marry before the kadi?"
"Yes," said Mahmoud, through his teeth, for his temper was rising
fast.
"And you love her?"
"Alas, yes--God and the Prophet alone know how well!" said the Pasha,
whose head drooped as he mentally compared the sweet gentleness of his
Circassian girl with the fiery fury of the royal bride he had been
compelled to espouse, as _a cheap reward_ for his military services.
"_Chabauk!_" exclaimed Djemila. "Serve the next dish. Eat, eat, I say,
and no more of this!"
The cover was removed by a trembling servant, and there lay before the
Pasha Mahmoud the head of the poor Circassian girl--the masses of
golden hair he had so frequently caressed, the eyes, now glazed, he
had loved to look on, and the now pale lips he had kissed a thousand
times in that lonely kiosk beside the sea.
"There is your dessert--_alfiert olsun!_" (May it do you good!)
exclaimed Djemila, with flashing eyes and set teeth.
Mahmoud, horror-struck, had only power to exclaim, as he threw his
hands and turned his eyes upward, "My love--my murdered love--_Allah
bereket versin!_" (May God receive your soul!) and then fell back on
his divan, and expired.
As he had prior to this drunk some sherbet, it was whispered abroad,
ere long, that the poor Pasha had been poisoned; but as no examination
after death took place, the high rank of his wife precluding it, it
was given out that he had died of apoplexy. So he was laid in the
Place of Sleep, with his turban on, his toes tied together, and his
face turned towards Mecca, and there was an end of it with him; but
not so with the Capi Aga, whom the Sultan, for being guilty of obeying
Djemila's order to execute the odalisque, subjected to an old Turkish
punishment now, and long before that day, deemed as obsolete. He was
taken to the Sirdan Kapussi, or Dungeon Gate of Stamboul, close by the
Fruit Market, and placed in a vaulted room, where he was stripped of
all his clothes by the Capidgi Bashi, who then brought in a large
copper plate or table, supported by four pedestals of iron, and
underneath which was a grate of the same metal, containing a fire of
burning coals, at the sight of which a shriek of despair escaped the
miserable Greek. When the plate of copper had become quite hot, the
executioner took the turban-cloth of the doomed man, unwound it, and
placing it round his waist, by the aid of two powerful hamals had it
drawn tight, until his body was compressed into the smallest possible
place. Then by one blow of his sabre he slashed the hapless wretch in
_two_, and placing his upper half instantly upon the burning copper, the
hissing blood was staunched thereby, and he was kept alive, but in
exquisite torture, till the time for which he was ordained to endure
it was fulfilled. He was then lifted off, and instantly expired.
Eagerly, with fixed eyes, half-open mouths, and in hushed silence,
forgetting even to smoke, and permitting their chibouks to die out,
his audience listened to this most improbable story, which the cunning
Hadji related with wonderful spirit and gesticulation; and so "having
supped full with horrors," at its close they showered coins--kopecs,
paras, and even English pennies--upon the narrator. The whole story
was a hoax, the Sultan having no such daughter as Djemila, the names
of the three sultanas being quite unlike it; but that made as little
difference then in Crim Tartary as it did afterwards nearer Cornhill;
and Charley Gwynne and others of ours to whom I mentioned it were wont
to call it "the bounce of the cold chop and the hot plate."