Facts and Fictions—Female Execution at Constantinople—Crime
of the Condemned—Tale of the Merchant’s Wife—The Call to
Prayer—The Discovery—The Mother and Son—The
Hiding-Place—The Capture—The Trial—A Night Scene in the
Harem—The Morrow—Mercifulness of the Turks towards their
Women.
A vast deal of very romantic and affecting sentiment has been from time
to time committed to paper, on the subject of the Turkish females
drowned in the Bosphorus; and some tale-writers have even gone so far as
to describe, in the character of witnesses, the extreme beauty and the
heart-rending tears of the victims.
The subject is assuredly one which lends itself to florid phrases and
highly wrought periods; but it is unfortunate that in this case, as in
many others, the imagination far outruns the fact. I say unfortunate,
because those readers who love to “sup full of horrors,” when they have
wept over the affecting image of beauty struggling against the grasp of
the executioner, and dark eyes looking reproach upon their murderer from
amid the deep waters which are so soon to quench their light for ever,
do not like to descend to the sober assurance that none of these things
can be; and that the veracious chroniclers who have excited their
sensibilities, and misled their reason, have only built up a pathetic
sketch upon inference, and in reality know nothing at all about the
matter.
There is no romance in one of these frightful executions—all is harsh
unmitigated horror! The victim may, or may not, be young and beautiful;
her executioners have no opportunity of judging. She may be the
impersonation of grace, and they must remain equally ignorant of the
fact; for she has neither power nor opportunity to excite sympathy, were
she the loveliest houri who ever escaped from the paradise of Mahomet.
I have a friend, a man in place and power, who, during the time of the
Janissaries, and but a few months previous to the annihilation of their
body, had been detained in the Palace of one of the Ministers until
three hours past midnight; and who, on passing across the deep bay near
the Castle of Europe, was startled by perceiving two caïques bearing
lights, lying upon their oars in the centre of the stream. His curiosity
being excited, he desired his boatmen to pull towards them, when at the
instant that he came alongside, he discovered that they were filled by
police officers; and at the same moment, a female closely shrouded in a
yashmac, and with the mouth of a sack, into which her whole body had
been thrust, tied about her throat, was lifted in the arms of two men
from the bottom of the furthest caïque, and flung into the deep waters
of the bay. As no weight had been appended to the sack, the miserable
woman almost instantly re-appeared upon the surface, when she was beaten
down by the oars of the boatmen; and this ruthless and revolting
ceremony was repeated several times ere the body finally sank.
My friend, heart-sick at the spectacle to which he had so unexpectedly
become a witness, demanded of the principal officer, by whom he had been
instantly recognized, the crime of the wretched victim who had just
perished; and learnt that she was the wife of a Janissary whom the
Sultan had caused to be strangled some weeks previously; and who, in her
anguish at the fate of her husband, had since rashly permitted herself
to speak in terms of hatred and disgust of the government by whose
agency she had been widowed.
On that fatal morning she had paid the price of her indiscretion.
The ministers of death lingered yet awhile to convince themselves that
the body would not reappear; and my friend lingered also from a feeling
which he could not explain even to himself. The dawn was just breaking
in the sky, and streaks of faint yellow were traced above the crests of
the dark mountains of the Asian coast. One long ray of light touched the
summits of the tall cypresses above the grave-yard of Isari, and
revealed the castellated outline of the topmost tower of the
Janissaries’ prison: there was not a breath of wind to scatter the
ripple; and all around looked so calm and peaceful, that he could
scarcely persuade himself that he had just looked on death, when the
deep voices of the men in the caïques beside him, as they once more
plunged their oars into the stream, and prepared to depart, aroused him
from his reverie; and, motioning to his boatmen to proceed, he found
himself ere long on the terrace of his own palace.
While I am on the subject of executions, I may as well relate “an o’er
true tale,” communicated to me by the same individual. Nearly four years
have elapsed since the occurrence took place, but it is so
characteristic of Turkish manners, that it will not be misplaced here.
An eminent merchant of Stamboul, extremely wealthy, and considerably
past the middle age, became the husband of a very young and lovely
woman. As Turkish females never see the individuals whom they marry
previously to the ceremony, but are chosen by some matronly relation of
the person who finds it expedient to bestow himself on a wife, and who,
having seen and approved the lady, arranges all preliminaries with her
parents; so it may well be imagined that the bride is frequently far
from congratulating herself on her change of position; and such, as it
would appear from the result, was the case with the young wife to whom I
have just referred, and who was destined to become the heroine of a
frightful tragedy.
Two years passed over Fatma Hanoum, and she became the mother of a son;
but her heart was not with its father, and, unhappily for the weak
victim of passion and disappointment, it had found a resting-place
elsewhere.
The merchant’s house was situated near a mosque, from the gallery of
whose minaret all the windows of the harem were overlooked. The sun was
setting on a glorious summer evening, when the Imaum ascended to this
gallery, to utter the shrill cry of the muezzin which summons the
faithful to prayer. Ere he commenced the invocation, he chanced to
glance downwards, and he started as he beheld a man, clinging to a shawl
which had been flung from above, and making his way into the harem of
the merchant through an open window. Nor was this all, for the quick and
jealous eye of the Imaum at once assured him that the delinquent was a
Greek—that the wife of a Musselmaun had stooped to accept the love of a
Christian—and he well knew that, in such a case, there was no mercy
for the culprit.
The Imaum was a stern man; for one moment only he wavered; and during
that moment he raised the ample turban from his brow, and suffered the
cool evening breeze to breathe lovingly upon his temples: in the next,
he bent over the gallery and spat upon the earth, as he murmured to
himself, “The dog of an Infidel,”—May his father’s grave be
defiled!—May his mother eat dirt!”—and having so testified his
contempt and abhorrence of the ill-fated lover, he lifted his gaze to
the clear sky, and the ringing cry pealed out:—
“La Allah, illa Allah! Muhammed Resoul Allah!”
His duty done, the Imaum descended the dark and narrow stair of the
minaret, and left the mosque; and in another instant he had put off his
slippers at the entrance of the salemliek, and stood before the sofa, at
the upper end of which sat the merchant smoking his chibouk of jasmine
wood, and attended by two slaves.
The Turks are not fond husbands, but they are jealous ones. They are
watchful of their women, not because they love them, but because they
are anxious for their own honour; and no instance can be adduced in
which an Osmanli is wilfully blind to the errors of his wife.
Here “the offence was rank, it smelt to Heaven.” The young and
beautiful Fatma Hanoum had wronged him with a Greek! The gray-bearded
merchant, trembling between rage and grief, rose from his seat and
rushed into the harem—The tale was true—for one moment the aged and
outraged husband looked upon the young and handsome lover; and in the
next the agile Greek had flung up the lattice, and sprung from the open
window. Ere long the house was filled with the relatives of the wife,
and its spacious apartments were loud with anguish and invective; but
Fatma Hanoum answered neither to the sobbing of grief, nor to the
reproach of scorn; she sat doubled up upon her cushions, with her eyes
riveted on the casement by which her lover had escaped.
The merchant, stung to the heart by the stain that had been cast upon
his honour; embittered in spirit by the knowledge that it was a
Christian by whom he had been wronged; and not altogether forgetful, it
may be, of the grace and beauty of the mother of his child, sat moodily
apart; and all the reasonings and beseechings of his wife’s anxious
family only wrung from him the cold and unyielding answer that he would
never see her more.
And the heretic lover, where was he?
Like an arrow shot by a strong arm, he had sped to the home of his
widowed mother, and had hurriedly imparted to her the fearful jeopardy
in which he stood. There was not a moment to be lost; and, hastily
snatching up some food that had been prepared for his evening meal, he
flung himself upon the neck of his weeping parent; and then, disengaging
himself from her clinging arms, rushed from the house, no one knew
whither.
But the Imaum, meanwhile, was not idle. He had aroused the
neighbourhood—he had raised the cry of sacrilege—he had bruited abroad
the dishonour of the Moslem—and ere long a Turkish guard was on the
track of the young Greek. But no trace of him could be discovered; and
the fair and frail Hanoum was removed to the harem of one of her
husband’s relatives, where her every look and action were subjected to
the most rigorous observance, before the faintest hope had been
entertained of securing her miserable lover.
Three wretched days were past, and on the morning of the fourth the
pangs of hunger became too mighty for the youth to support. He stole
from his concealment, he looked around him, and he was alone! He
ventured a few paces forward; rich fruits were pendent from the branches
of the tall trees beneath which he moved, and he seized them with
avidity; but, as he raised; his hand a second time to the laden boughs,
he heard near him the deep breathing of one who wept—He glared towards
the spot whence the sound came, and his heart melted within him—it was
his mother—the guardian of his youth—the friend of his manhood—the
mourner over his blighted hopes. He rushed towards her—he murmured her
name—and for a moment the parent and the child forgot all save each
other! It was the watchful love of the mother which first awoke to fear:
and in a few seconds the secret of her son was confided to her, and she
was comparatively happy. She could steal to his hiding-place at
midnight; she could ensure him against hunger; she could hear his voice,
and convince herself that he yet lived; and with this conviction she
hurried from his side, and bade him wait patiently yet a few hours, when
she would bring him food.
The young Greek stole back to his hiding-place, and slept—The sleep of
the wretched is heavy—slow to come, and weighed down with wild and
bitter dreams; and thus slumbered the criminal. The night was yet dark
when he awoke, and heard footsteps, and then he doubted not that his
watchful parent was indeed come to solace the moments of his trembling
solitude. Had he paused an instant, and afforded time for the perfect
waking of all his senses, he would have discovered at once that the
sounds of many feet were on the earth; but he had already passed several
days without cause of alarm, and his past safety betrayed him into a
false feeling of security.
The unhappy youth had not wandered beyond the spacious gardens of his
home, which, rising the height behind the house, were divided into
terraces, along whose whole extent had been placed avenues of orange and
lemon trees, planted in immense vases of red clay. Several of these, in
which the plants had failed or perished, had been reversed to protect
them from the weather; and one of them, dragged in the first paroxysm of
terror to the mouth of an exhausted well, had served to screen the
culprit from the gaze of his pursuers. But on this night, when by some
extraordinary fatality, he forgot for an instant the caution which had
hitherto been his protection, he clambered to the mouth of the pit as he
heard the coming footsteps, and, pushing aside the vase, sprang out upon
the path.
The moonlight fell on him as he emerged from his concealment, pale, and
haggard; his dark locks dank with the heavy atmosphere of his
hiding-place, and his frame weakened by exhaustion. As he gained his
feet and looked around him, his arms fell listlessly at his sides, and
his head drooped upon his breast—He had no longer either strength or
energy to wrestle with his fate; and he put his hands into the grasp of
the armed men among whom he stood, and suffered himself to be led away
from the home of his boyhood, and the clasp of his shrieking mother,
with the docility of a child.
The trial followed close upon the discovery of the lover. There was no
hope for the wretched pair! Against them appeared the Imaum, stern,
uncompromising, and circumstantial—the outraged husband, wrought to
madness by the memory of his dishonour; and callous as marble—the faith
which had been disgraced—society which had been scandalized. For them
there were none to plead, save the grey-haired and widowed mother who
wept and knelt to save her only son; but who asked his life in mercy,
and not in justice. Did their youth sue for them? Did the soft
loveliness of the guilty wife, or the manly beauty of the lover, raise
them up advocates? Alas! these were their direst condemnation; and thus
it only remained for them to die!
It was at this period that my friend, the ——, first became connected
with the affair. The family of the condemned woman, knowing his
influence with the government, flung themselves at his feet, and
implored his interference. They expatiated on the beauty of the
misguided Fatma—on the personal qualifications of him by whose love she
had fallen—they left no theme untouched; and he became deeply
interested in her fate, and resolved that while a hope remained he would
not abandon her cause. But he was fated to plead in vain; the crime had
increased in the country; every Turkish breast heaved high with
indignation; my friend urged, supplicated, and besought unheeded; and at
length found himself unable to adduce another argument in her behalf.
When reluctantly convinced of the fact, he discovered that through his
exertions to save her life, his feelings had become so deeply enthralled
by the idea of the miserable woman, that he resolved to endeavour to see
her ere she died; and he was startled by the ready acquiescence that
followed his request, as well as by the terms in which it was couched.
“We shall visit her at midnight, to acquaint her officially with the
result of the trial;” was the answer; “and should you think proper you
may accompany us; for you will have no future opportunity of indulging
your curiosity.”
Under these circumstances he did not hesitate; and a few minutes before
midnight he was at the door of the harem in which she had resided since
her removal from her husband’s house. The officers of justice followed
almost immediately: and it struck him as they passed the threshold, that
they were in greater number than so simple an errand appeared to exact;
but as he instantly remembered that others might feel the same curiosity
as himself, and profit by the same means of gratifying it, he did not
dwell upon the circumstance.
All was hushed in the harem; and the fall of their unslippered feet
awoke no echo on the matted floors. One solitary slave awaited them at
the head of the stairs, and he moved slowly before the party with a
small lamp in his hand, to the apartment of the condemned woman.
She was sleeping when they entered—Her cheek was pillowed upon her arm;
and a quantity of rich dark hair which had escaped from beneath the
painted handkerchief that was twisted about her head, lay scattered over
the pillow. She was deadly pale, but her eyebrows and the long silken
lashes which fringed her closed eyes were intensely black, and relieved
the pallor of her complexion; while her fine and delicate features
completed as lovely a face as ever the gaze of man had lingered on. At
times a shuddering spasm contracted for an instant the muscles of her
countenance—the terrors of the day had tinged her midnight dreams: and
at times she smiled a fleeting smile, which was succeeded by a sigh, as
if, even in sleep, the memory of past happiness was clouded by a pang.
But her slumber was not destined to be of long continuance; for the
principal individual of the party, suddenly bending over her, grasped
her arm, and exclaimed, “Wake, Fatma, wake; we have tidings for you!”
The unhappy woman started, and looked up; and then hurriedly concealing
her face in the coverlets, she gasped out, “Mashallah! What means this?
What would you with me that you steal thus upon me in the night? Am I
not a Turkish woman? And am I not uncovered?”
“Fear nothing, Hanoum;” pursued the official; “we have tidings for you
which we would not delay.”
“God is great!” shrieked the guilty one, raising herself upon her
pillows. “You have pardoned him—”
But the generous, self-forgetting prophecy was false. In the energy of
her sudden hope she had sprang into a sitting posture; and ere the words
had left her lips, the fatal bowstring was about her throat.
It was the horror of a moment—Two of the executioners flung themselves
upon her, and held her down—a couple more grasped her hands—a heavy
knee pressed down her heaving chest—there was a low gurgling sound,
hushed as soon as it was heard—a frightful spasm which almost hurled
the strong men from above the convulsed frame—and all was over!
At day-dawn on the morrow, the young Greek was led from his prison. For
several days he had refused food, and he was scarcely able to drag his
fainting limbs along the uneven streets. Two men supported him, and at
length he reached the termination of his painful pilgrimage. For a
moment he stood rooted to the earth; he gasped for breath—he tore away
his turban—and clenched his hands until the blood sprang beneath the
nails. She whom he had loved was before him—her once fair face was
swollen and livid, and exposed to the profane gaze of a countless
multitude. She was before him—and the handkerchief from which she was
suspended, beside the spot marked out for himself, was one which he had
given her in an hour of passion, when they looked not to perish thus!
I have pursued the tale until I am heart-sick, and can follow it up no
further. Yet, revolting as it is, it nevertheless affords a proof of
that which I have already adduced elsewhere; that even in their severity
the Turks are merciful to their women; and carefully shield them from
the shame, even when they cannot exempt them from the suffering, of
their own vices.