THE PASHA OF ADALIA
Packed closely in the two boats of the Turkish craft the landing
party rowed for the shore. As soon as they reached it the boats were
drawn up on the strand, and in silence Martyn led his men across the
road. Then he struck off into the orchard on the other side, so as to
escape the notice of any of the people in the houses by the road. The
cobbler and Horace went first, Martyn and the men followed a short
distance behind. Half an hour’s walking took them to the edge of the
ditch, and after a short search they found a bough that Horace and
Zaimes had cut off and thrown down by the side of the path, to mark
the spot where they were to make the ascent.
Two sailors were posted on the path, at fifty yards above and below
them, in case anyone should come along, although the risk of this was
exceedingly small. There was no difficulty in scrambling down into
the ditch. As soon as they did so the sailor who carried the grapnel
advanced to the foot of the wall, and at the second attempt succeeded
in getting it to hold on the parapet. Another, with one of the
rope-ladders, went forward, fastened the rope to it, and the two of
them hauled the ladder up to the block, and kept the rope taut while
Martyn mounted. He found, as he had expected, that there was a
platform behind the wall for men to stand on while firing. Taking his
place on it he took hold of the ladder rope and told the men below to
loosen their end. Holding it partly up he fastened it at the block.
Then two men joined him, hauled the wooden gangway up, and planted it
against the top of the inner wall. The rest of the men followed, and
Martyn led the way across. The others soon stood beside him, all
stooping down on the platform as soon as they had crossed, so that
their heads should not show above the skyline, should anyone happen to
be looking out from the windows of the house.
Two sailors helped the cobbler across the gangway. Horace was the last
to mount, with the exception of the two sentries, whom he summoned
with a low whistle as soon as the others were up. When they reached
the top they hauled the rope-ladder after them, and laid it ready for
lowering again. By the time Horace crossed to the inner wall Martyn
and most of the men had already descended to the garden by the second
rope-ladder.
“That has all been managed well,” Martyn said when Horace joined him
below. “Now, you and I will go forward and reconnoitre a bit.”
The house was seventy or eighty yards away. There were lights in
several windows on the ground-floor, and at almost all the windows on
the flat above it.
“We had better take off our shoes, Horace. It is no use running any
risks. Shove them in your sash beside your pistols.”
They stole noiselessly up to the house and looked in at the windows.
In one room were a group of servants sitting round a brazier, smoking;
another room was empty; but in the third, which was much the largest,
four Turkish officials were seated on a divan, and a Nubian slave was
handing them coffee.
“That old chap is the pasha, no doubt,” Martyn whispered. “He is
evidently master of the house. You see he is giving some order or
other to the slave. Here is the garden door into a hall; let us see if
it is open. Yes; that is all right. Well, I think now we will bring up
the men. Now, as soon as we are in, Horace, you take four men; go in
first and post them at the doors leading out of the house. I will take
six men and seize the pasha and his friends. Other four will pounce
upon the servants. Your cobbler fellow had better go with them to tell
the servants that if they make the least row they will have their
throats cut. The other men will scatter about in the passages and down
stairs, and pounce upon anybody who may come along. As soon as you
have posted your men, go to the room where the servants are, and bring
the interpreter in to me. Tell the sailors to bind the fellows and lay
them down, and put a couple of guards over them.”
They returned to the men and told them off to their several duties.
All were ordered to take their shoes off, and put them in their belts.
“Now, you can draw your cutlasses, lads,” Martyn said. “Have you all
loaded your pistols?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, mind they are not to be used; a pistol-shot might destroy all
our plans. I hope to manage it so that there shall not be any noise
whatever.”
They made their way quietly up to the house. Horace opened the door
and led the way in, followed by his four men. They passed through the
hall and a long passage, from which several rooms opened; and he was
sure, by the direction in which he was going, that this must lead to
the offices. At the end was a strong door; only one bolt was shot, as
doubtless the officers would be leaving by this way. He put up a
heavy bar that was standing beside it, stationed two of the sailors
there, and then retraced his steps with the others. Just as he reached
the hall again a sailor came up to him.
“This is the way to the big door, your honour;” and turning down
another passage they arrived at a double door, which Horace had no
doubt was the one that he had seen in the court-yard. Posting the men
there he hurried back, and soon found the room where the servants had
been sitting. The work had already been done. The sailors had all been
provided with short lengths of rope, and the Turks were lying bound
upon the floor. Telling the cobbler to accompany him, he went into the
next room. Two sailors, with drawn cutlasses, were standing by the
side of the pasha. The three officers had been bound, and were lying
on the divan, with a sailor standing over each, while the other sailor
stood over the attendant, who cowered on the ground in an attitude of
abject terror. Martyn was standing facing the pasha.
“Now, Horace,” he said, “tell your man what to say to the pasha.”
This had been arranged between them, and Horace at once addressed the
pasha.
“Do you speak Greek?”
The pasha shook his head.
“Tell him,” Horace said in that language to the interpreter, “that we
belong to the ship to which the officers and sailors he has in his
prison also belong, and that we have come here to fetch them away. We
are fighting under the flag of Greece; but we are Englishmen by blood,
and we shall do no harm to him or his family. The prisoners, however,
we will have; and unless he sends at once, with an order for their
delivery from the prison, and hands them over to us, we shall be
obliged to carry him, the three officers here, and the ladies of his
family and his children, off on board our ship as hostages; and if a
hair of the prisoners’ heads is touched, we shall be forced to hang
him and the whole of his family to the yard-arms of the ship.”
[Illustration: THE CAPTURE OF THE PASHA]
The interpreter translated his words sentence by sentence. The Turk
had at first looked perfectly impassive; but at the threat to carry
off his women and children his expression changed, the veins stood out
of his forehead, and his face flushed with fury.
“Tell him,” Horace went on, “that we should deeply regret to have to
take such a step, and that we sincerely trust that he will see the
necessity for his yielding to our demands. There is no possibility of
assistance reaching him, we are a well-armed body of determined men,
his servants have been secured, and all the doors are guarded, as also
the windows outside--he is completely in our power. As we came in
noiselessly and unobserved, so we shall depart. If he refuses to
comply with our demands we shall, of course, be compelled to bind and
gag all our captives, and to carry the ladies and children.”
When the last sentence had been translated, Horace said to Martyn, “I
think, Captain Martyn, you had better get those officers carried into
the next room, so that we can touch upon the money side of the
question.”
Martyn gave the order, and the officers and the attendant were
removed.
“Now, pasha,” Horace went on, “let us look at this thing reasonably.
On the one side is the certainty that you and the ladies of the
household and your children will be carried away; and that unless the
prisoners are given up to us in exchange for you, you will be all put
to death. On the other hand, you have but to surrender prisoners whom
you did not even capture in war, but who were wrecked on your shore.
We know that you have sent to Smyrna for directions concerning them.
Were it not for that you would have handed them over to us without
difficulty; but as the pasha there, who is your superior, now knows of
it, you think that he will be angry when he hears of their escape, and
that you might fall into disgrace. But I don’t think that the pasha of
Anatolia, if he were placed in the same position as you are, would
hesitate a moment in giving up a score of captives of no great
importance one way or the other; and that if the matter were placed
by you in the proper light before him, accompanied, perhaps, by a
present, nothing more would be heard about it. In any case we are
ready to pay you the sum of one thousand pounds as a ransom for them.
We have sent your officers out of the room that they should not hear
this offer, which will be entirely between ourselves. It is not meant
as a bribe to you, but as a ransom, which, if you choose to send it to
Smyrna, will doubtless assist the pasha there to perceive that being,
with your whole family, at our mercy, you had no resource but to
comply with our commands. We will give you five minutes to make up
your mind.”
When this was translated, the pasha asked:
“How am I to know that, if the captives are restored to you, you will
not still carry me and my family away?”
“You have simply the word of English gentlemen,” Horace said when the
question was translated to him. “You see we are acting as
considerately as we can. Your ladies upstairs are still unaware that
anything unusual is going on. Our men have touched nothing belonging
to you. We are neither robbers nor kidnappers, but simply men who have
come to save their comrades from a cruel death.”
“I will write the order,” the pasha said firmly. “Had I been in the
house by myself I would have died rather than do so. Being as it is, I
cannot resist.”
“Who will you send with the order?” Horace asked.
“One of the officers you have taken away is the colonel of the
regiment. He will take it and bring the prisoners here. He is the
oldest of the three.”
Horace went into the next room and ordered the officer to be unbound
and brought in by two of the sailors.
“You have heard, Colonel Osman, the terms that these strangers have
laid down, and that unless the prisoners are surrendered, you, the two
bimbaches, myself, and the members of my family, will be carried off
as hostages and hung if the prisoners are not delivered up.”
“I heard that, pasha.”
“What is your opinion, colonel?”
“My opinion is that you have no course but to give up the prisoners.
No one would expect you to sacrifice the lives of the ladies of your
family and your children, to say nothing of your own and ours, merely
for the sake of twenty shipwrecked sailors. It seems to me that it
were madness to hesitate, pasha.”
“That is also my opinion,” the pasha said. “Therefore, colonel, I will
now write you an order to fetch them from prison and bring them under
an escort here. You will understand that it will be better that
absolute silence should be observed about this affair. The less it is
talked of the better. If the officer in special charge of them asks
any questions you can intimate that, without knowing it, you believe
that the messenger may have arrived from Smyrna with instructions as
to their disposal. Dismiss the escort at the outer gate and bring the
prisoners yourself here.”
The pasha wrote the order, which he handed to the colonel, who at once
hurried off with it.
“You are sure that he will faithfully obey the order, pasha?” Horace
asked through the interpreter.
The pasha nodded.
“One of the bimbaches here is his own brother, and he would be sure
that his life would be sacrificed were there any treachery.”
At this moment there was a little shriek heard.
“I am afraid,” Horace said, “that one of the ladies’ attendants has
come downstairs and has been seized. Perhaps you will like to go
upstairs and assure them that there is no cause for alarm. In the
meantime I will hand you this bag, which contains the amount of the
ransom in gold.”
“You Englishmen act nobly,” the pasha said as he took the bag. “You
had us in your power, and need have paid nothing, and you treat me as
a friend rather than as an enemy. It is a pity that you fight for the
Greeks. When I was a young man I fought in Egypt by the side of your
troops.”
Horace escorted him through the sailors in the passages to the foot of
the stairs and there left him.
“Your scheme is turning out trumps and no mistake,” Martyn said as he
returned to the room. “There is no fear, I hope, of that Turkish
colonel bringing all his men down on us.”
“I don’t think so.” And Horace then repeated what the pasha had said
as to one of the officers in his hands being the colonel’s brother.
“That is good, Horace. I don’t think he would venture on it anyhow.
Evidently the pasha has no fear. If he had he would not have sent him,
because he must have known that his treachery jeopardized his own
safety and that of his family.”
“How long do you think they will be before they are back?”
“Not much above half an hour, I should think. I don’t think the
Turkish soldiers do much in the way of undressing, and certainly our
fellows won’t. Now we will leave five men to look after the prisoners
here, and we will put all the others in the offices you say look into
the court-yard, so that if by any chance this fellow does bring troops
down with him we can give them a hot reception.”
“If he does, Horace, do you take the five men in the house, rush
upstairs, let one man put a pistol to the pasha’s head, and let the
others snatch up any children they can find there and take them away
over the wall--pasha and all--and march them straight down to the boat
and get them on board ship. Let me know when you are off with them. We
will defend the place as long as we can, and then make a bolt through
the garden to the ladder and follow you.”
The men loaded their muskets and took their places at the windows of
the offices. Horace and Martyn stood at the door leading from the
house into the court-yard. The interpreter stood with them. Presently
they heard the tramp of feet approaching. Then they heard a word of
command, followed by silence, and the interpreter said:
“He has ordered the soldiers to halt. The prisoners alone are to enter
the court-yard. When the gates close behind them the soldiers are to
march back to barracks.”
The gates that had been left ajar by the officer as he went out
opened, and in the moonlight they saw him enter, followed by Miller,
Tarleton, and the sailors. The officer himself closed and barred the
gate as the last entered. Then Martyn and Horace rushed forward and
grasped the hands of their friends. These were for a time speechless
with astonishment, but the men burst into exclamations and then began
to cheer. Martyn checked them at once.
“Hush, lads! Come in silently and quietly. We will talk and cheer when
we get away. Pass the word inside, Horace. Tell the men to file out at
once. Form up in the garden. I will wait here till you have cleared
the house.”
The greetings were hearty indeed when the two parties met in the
garden.
“March to the ladder, lads,” Martyn said, “but don’t begin to climb it
till we join you. Now, Horace, we will say good-bye to the old pasha.
Bring the interpreter in with you.”
The pasha had returned to his room again where he had been joined by
the three officers, the colonel having already liberated the other
two.
“Tell the pasha that Captain Martyn wishes to thank him for the
promptness with which the arrangement has been carried out, and also
to express to him his very great pleasure that this incident should
have terminated without unpleasantness. Captain Martyn wishes also to
say, that although, in order to rescue his officers and men, he was
obliged to use threats, yet that, as far as the ladies of the pasha’s
family were concerned, they were threats only; for that, even had he
refused, he should have respected the privacy of his apartments; and
although he would have been obliged to carry off the pasha himself,
his children, and these officers as hostages, he would have retaliated
for the murder of the prisoners only upon the adults. No English
officer would use disrespect to ladies, and no English officer would
avenge the murder even of his dearest friends upon children.”
When this was translated to the pasha, he replied: “The courtesy that
the captain and his sailors have exhibited since they entered the
house is in itself sufficient to show me that his words are true, and
that the ladies of my household would have been respected. I feel
myself humiliated by thus having my prisoners carried off from the
midst of the town, but I have no reason to complain. It is the will of
Allah, and I shall always remember these English officers as gallant
gentlemen. There are not many who would risk their lives to save a few
of their countrymen.”
A few more words were exchanged, and then Martyn and his companions
joined the sailors at the wall. Miller and Tarleton had by this time
gathered from the men a short account of how their rescue had come
about.
“Now,” Martyn said briskly when he reached them, “the sooner we are
off the better. Horace, do you lead the way with ten of the men who
came with us; let the last two of that party help your interpreter
over. Mr. Miller, you with your party will follow. I will bring up the
rear with the other ten men.”
In five minutes all were over the walls. The last party had pulled up
the ladder from the garden after them, then removed and lowered down
the gangway; and after Martyn, who came last, reached the ditch, the
grapnel was shaken from its hold on the wall.
“It wouldn’t do to leave these things here,” he said to Horace. “There
is no saying what yarn the pasha may set afloat. It is quite on the
cards that if he gets an order from Smyrna to execute the prisoners,
he will have it given out that they were marched to the court-yard of
his house and there executed. At any rate our taking away the ladders
will leave it open to him to give his own account of the matter. Now,
my lads, you will all follow me. It is of no use forming up in order,
as we are going through orchards; but keep close together, don’t
straggle and don’t talk. You will have plenty of time to compare notes
when you are once on board.
“Now, Miller,” he said as he started, “we are fairly out of it. I am
delighted, indeed, to see you and Tarleton again. I thought at one
time it was all up with you.”
“So did we,” Miller said, “and I can hardly believe we are free even
now.”
“It is due to Horace and Zaimes, Miller, though it is to Horace
entirely that the credit of hitting upon the plan by which we have got
you out belongs. However we will talk all about that when we get on
board. You will have to tell your yarn to the chief; besides, as I
have told the men not to talk, I don’t want to set a bad example.”
Horace had greeted Marco warmly in the court-yard, and as soon as they
started he fell behind with him, chatting with him in low tones.
“Zaimes couldn’t come with us, Marco, for he and the doctor had to
stay on board with my father to look after some prisoners there, but
he was here with me this morning and made all the arrangements for the
escape. We landed at the mouth of the bay and walked here last night,
both disguised in peasants’ dresses we got hold of. I know it was a
great privation to him not to be able to come himself and aid in your
rescue.”
Here Martyn, catching the murmur of voices, passed the word for
silence, and nothing more was said until they reached the boats which
they had drawn up on the shore. A few minutes later they were
alongside the brigantine. Mr. Beveridge hailed them as they
approached.
“Is that you, Martyn?”
“Yes, sir. Horace’s plan has worked perfectly, and we have got them
all out. The boats can only carry half. He is waiting with the rest on
the beach.”
“Thank God for that, Martyn! No one hurt at all?”
“No one, not even a Turk has been knocked down. The only scrimmage has
been with one of the pasha’s wives’ maids, who fought like a wild-cat
before two of our men could make her a prisoner.”
Directly the rest of the party came off the anchor was weighed and
sail made on the brigantine, and she was headed from the land. In half
an hour a look-out in the bow called out: “I think I can make out the
schooner away on our beam, sir.”
“I think it is her,” Martyn said after going forward to have a look.
“Light that red flare-up we brought with us, Horace.”
As soon as the red flame broke out, a similar signal was shown by the
craft in the distance. The brigantine was headed for her, and the two
vessels rapidly approached each other. Presently a hail from Tom
Burdett came across the water.
“Captain Martyn ahoy!”
“Ay, ay, Tom! We have got them all. Everyone is safe and well.”
A cheer broke out from the schooner, which was answered by a louder
one from the brigantine.
“Throw her up in the wind, Tom,” Martyn shouted, “and we will bring
this craft alongside.”
In two or three minutes the vessels lay side by side. Before leaving
the brigantine its crew were released. Mr. Beveridge, in his delight
at the success of the plan, made them each a handsome present for the
inconvenience they had suffered. The cobbler of Adalia had not come
aboard with the boats, Horace having given him his reward of
twenty-five pounds before embarking. As soon as the crew of the
schooner were all on board the head-sails were filled, and she rapidly
drew away from the brig. The boatswain was ordered to serve out a
ration of grog all round, and the officers then assembled in the
cabin, where the Greeks placed some cold meat and wine on the table,
to which all, especially Miller and Tarleton, fell to with a good
appetite. When they had done, Martyn told the story of the steps that
had been taken for their rescue.
“You see, Miller, it was entirely Horace’s plan; he made the whole
arrangements, and we had only to carry them out, which was the
simplest thing in the world. Now let us have your account.”
“We were not very lucky,” Miller said. “We overhauled five or six
craft, but for the most part they contained little of value. One or
two of them had some silk and other goods on board, and these were
transferred to the polacca. The weather kept fine, and thinking that
our rig would not alarm the Turks we sailed in within three miles of
Adalia. I was intending to go right into the roads and anchor there,
when we saw the clouds banking up to the south. I had no barometer on
board, but it looked so bad that we headed out again for the mouth of
the gulf.
“We had not gone far when the gale struck us, blowing like fury right
into the bay. We did everything we could, but the old tub drifted to
leeward two feet for every one we worked out. The wind got higher and
higher till it was blowing a hurricane. As soon as the water shallowed
sufficiently to anchor, I let both anchors go; but the gear was all
rotten, and the cables snapped like packthread. Finally we drove
ashore about half a mile to the east of the town.
“There was a mob there waiting us, and the pasha with a lot of troops.
We tied a line to a keg and it floated on shore. They hauled on it,
and then we sent a hawser and swarmed along it. The Turks behaved very
pluckily, joining hands and rushing into the breakers to get us
ashore. As soon as they saw by our uniform who we were there was a
regular hubbub, and I thought we should all have been killed then and
there. However the pasha made the troops form up round us, and marched
us into the town, and there we were stowed away in a room in that old
castle. The prospect didn’t look good, for as we went in we saw that
the troops were in huts all round us, and that there was besides a
high wall outside them. The window of the place we were shut up in was
about eight feet from the ground and very strongly barred, and in
addition they kept four soldiers always on guard in the room.
“Two or three fellows came to us and spoke in different lingoes, of
which we could neither make head nor tail. Then a chap came who spoke
Italian. I don’t know much of it, but enough to make out what he
meant when he spoke very slowly. The upshot of it was that they had
sent to Smyrna for orders as to what was to be done, and that it would
take five or six days for the messenger to go there and back. It did
not seem to make much odds to us what the answer was. Knowing how they
go on on both sides it was a moral certainty that we should be hung
either here or at Smyrna, and it did not seem to us that there was
much choice between the two places.
“Of course we often talked about you. We knew you would do everything
you could, and that when you found we did not turn up at the
rendezvous you would sail along the coast till you got news of us; but
it did not seem likely that you could do anything to help us. We knew
that you could not land more than twenty men, and with twenty men you
could do nothing at all against about a thousand Turks with that
strong wall in front of them. Besides, the old castle itself was
capable of defence, and there were lots of them stationed in it.
Things looked about as black as they could be. We were not starved;
the Turks gave us plenty of bread and a sort of thin broth.
“This evening we stretched ourselves out as usual about nine o’clock.
We were all asleep when the outer gates of the castle were opened,
then there was a loud trampling of feet, then our door was unlocked.
When an officer came in, followed by a lot of soldiers, we thought
that it was all up with us. The officer made signs that we were to go
with him, and I made so certain that we were being taken out either to
be shot or hung that I said a few words to the men, telling them that
the end had evidently come, and that we must die as Christians and
British sailors. We were led out, and about a hundred Turkish soldiers
closed round us. We were surprised when they marched us out of the
place, but as we went on through the streets of the town we supposed
they were taking us to some quiet spot outside the walls. Then we
turned in through that gateway, and then you know the rest, Martyn. I
don’t think that I am a coward, or that I felt afraid to die; but
when you and Horace rushed out to speak to us, you could have knocked
me over with a feather. It was not until I got out into the garden and
found your party formed up there that I was quite sure it was not all
a dream.”
When they had talked over the rescue Mr. Beveridge said: “Well, we
have had enough of cruising for the present; we will make for Athens
at once, Captain Martyn; by this time probably something will be going
on there.”
It was late in February when anchor was dropped in the harbour of the
Piræus. Mr. Beveridge at once went on shore with Martyn, and returned
the next morning.
“Any news of importance, father?” Horace asked as they came on board.
“Yes, Hypsilantes is likely to be succeeded by his rival
Mavrocordatos. A Samian adventurer named Lykourgos has got together a
fleet and has proposed a landing at Chios; there can be no doubt that
his intention is simply plunder, for even if he could drive the Turks
out of Chios he could not possibly hold the island, as a large Turkish
fleet will very shortly be ready to sail out of the Dardanelles. The
worst of it is that the Chiots are utterly opposed to any movement of
the kind. They are an agricultural people, and the island has always
been mildly governed and lightly taxed; their municipal administration
is already in their own hands, and their taxes collected by
themselves. When Admiral Tombazes appeared off Chios with the Greek
fleet during its first cruise, the inhabitants turned a deaf ear to
his invitation to them to rise. In fact there is no doubt that the
people of Chios have everything to lose and nothing to gain by
becoming a part of Greece.
“They have sent urgent remonstrances against the landing of any Greek
troops on the island, pointing out that there is a strong body of
Turkish troops there; that the citadel could not be captured, and that
the attempt would only inflame the passions of the Mohammedan
population and end in ruin and disaster to the Christian inhabitants.
Hypsilantes has written a mild letter to Lykourgos suggesting that it
would at any rate be prudent to defer the enterprise. It is feared,
however, that, like Greek commanders in general, the fellow will pay
no attention to this, but will proceed on his own account. Martyn
agrees with me that it would be as well for us to cruise about the
island and see how matters go on, and endeavour to rescue some of the
Turks from the fury of the Greeks, or some of the Greeks from the fury
of the Turks.”
“I should say the best thing to do, father,” Horace said indignantly,
“would be to attack the ship of this fellow Lykourgos and to hang him
at his own yard-arm.”
“It would be a good action, no doubt, Horace; but as he has with him a
fleet of seventy or eighty vessels it is probable that if we made the
attempt we should decorate the yard-arms and not Lykourgos. At any
rate we will stop here for two or three days, and give the men a run
on shore. Just at present, owing to the fact of our having destroyed
that Turkish frigate, they will be very popular characters, and are
not likely to get into any serious row. They have still got the money
I paid them for their conduct at Cyprus, and when sailors have got
money in their pockets they are never happy until they have got a
chance of spending it.”
Accordingly, the crew had twelve hours on shore, a third of their
number going each day. On the fourth day the vessel sailed for Chios.
They cruised round the island for a fortnight and frequently
overhauled fishing-boats and had conversations with the crews. They
learned that fresh troops had lately arrived at Chios, and that as
these bands were principally composed of volunteers, Vehid Pasha, the
governor, had great difficulty in maintaining order among them. He had
persuaded the Christians to raise a monthly contribution of
thirty-four thousand piastres to give regular pay and rations to the
troops and so keep them in a good temper.
On the 22d of March the schooner made out a large fleet of vessels
approaching the island. They kept away until they saw them anchor, and
then themselves cast anchor at a short distance from them. A boat at
once put off from the ship flying the flag of Lykourgos, to demand who
they were and with what intentions they were there.
“We fly, as you see, the flag of Greece,” Mr. Beveridge replied to the
officer, “and we have the authority of the Greek government to fight
against its enemies. I do not, however, recognize any authority on the
part of your commander, unless he is acting at the present time under
the explicit orders of Prince Mavrocordatos, who is now President of
Greece, and shall therefore consult only my own feelings as to whether
or not I take any part in the proceedings on shore.”
“Our admiral will know how to make you obey orders,” the officer said
angrily.
“Is he an admiral?” Mr. Beveridge asked, as if for information. “I was
not aware that he had received any commission that would authorize him
to use that title either from the last president or from the present
one. When I am well assured that this is the case it will naturally
modify my views; as to compelling me, you can look round at the
armament of this craft. Three months ago we destroyed a Turkish
frigate, and I fancy that if we were interfered with we could give a
good account of many of those vessels anchored there. If, therefore,
Lykourgos is really bent upon the capture of Chios, I should advise
him to set about it without wasting his time in meddling with us. You
may mention to him that I am an English gentleman who has fitted up
this vessel for the purpose of aiding Greece to achieve her
independence, and that in all honourable warfare I am ready to take my
part. If I see that the object of your expedition is honourable
warfare I shall lend all assistance in my power. If I find that it is
merely plunder and destruction, I shall also do all in my power to
prevent the Greek flag from being disgraced by acts only worthy of
pirates; and, moreover, I will take care that my countrymen and the
various nations of Europe shall obtain a fair account of what has been
done here.”
The Greek was completely cowed by the calmness and confidence of the
owner of the schooner, and returned to his boat without any of the
swagger with which he had quitted it. Horace translated his father’s
speech to Martyn and the other two officers as soon as Mr. Beveridge
had returned to his cabin.
“The chief is a perfect brick,” Martyn said enthusiastically. “Fancy
sending off such a message as that from this schooner to a fellow
commanding sixty or seventy sail. Sir Richard Grenville could hardly
have sent from the deck of the _Revenge_ a more defiant message to the
Spanish fleet.”
Miller rubbed his hands. “Shall I get the men in readiness for making
sail and casting off the guns, Captain Martyn?”
“There will be time enough,” Martyn said, “when we make out a movement
among them. We can get up sail in half the time they can. I should not
be surprised if this fellow Lykourgos knuckles down. Did you see how
his officer came down from his stilts? If this fellow had any pluck he
would be sailing to meet the Turkish fleet instead of landing to
pillage here, for, from what Mr. Beveridge said, that can be his only
motive. Still, we will keep a sharp look-out on them. If we see the
flag-ship signalling to the others, or her boats putting off to them,
we shall know what to expect. You may as well get a buoy on the
anchor-chain and have everything ready to slip. We are too near them
to be pleasant if they open fire. Once under way and out of close
range we can talk to them as we like.”