The shadows began to deepen; the horizon paled. The birds had ceased

to sing; but the little snakes were hissing vigorously under the

broad leaves of the acanthus and the dewy lentisuculus--for in ten

minutes night would be on.

There was a sound; and my unknown, in her white yashmack and flowing

robes, came before me like a graceful spirit, and quite as suddenly.

Her hands were placed joyously and confidingly in mine, and her

eyes--the loveliest of all those dark and soul-lit oriental eyes that

seem to swim in their own lustrous glory--were beaming upon me. I

was bewildered--confused--dazzled!

I felt the impossibility of resisting the fascinations of two such

loving eyes. The inside of the delicate lids were blackened with

kohol, and the ends of her slender fingers were tinged with

rosyhenna--yet she spoke with somewhat of a Greek accent.

'Tell me your name, my beautiful one?' I whispered, retaining her

soft hands in mine.

'Iola,' was the half-breathed reply.

'Iola--anything more?'

'Mashallah! what more would you require me to say?'

'Do you live in Rodosdchig?'

'Yes--but why do you inquire?'

'Because all that concerns you must be full of tender interest to me.'

'So soon! You have not known me quite five minutes.'

'I have known you four and twenty hours; yet when I gaze into your

beautiful eyes, Iola, I seem to have known you for a life-time.'

'You love me then?' she exclaimed, as her large eyes filled with

light and merriment.

'Oh, Iola! who could see you without loving you, tenderly and

passionately?'

'Inshallah!'

'You are not a Turk?

'Turk--no! I am a Greek,' she answered, in a changed voice, and

drooping of the eyelid.

I attempted to remove her yashmack; but she exclaimed,--

'In the name of Allah, not yet--not yet!' and shrinking laughingly

back, with pretty coquetry, prevented me from doing so.

After a little flirtation, and permitting me to kiss her hands as

often as I pleased, from a few words she let fall, greatly to my

alarm, I suspected that she _was_ a married Moselema; but I was now

too much involved with her to 'hang fire,' as we say at mess; and too

much attracted by her beauty--though I had seen but little of it--to

relinquish the chance of enlivening my dull detachment duty by a

little love affair--though death, perhaps, should hover near it. The

imminent risk we ran enhanced the charm of this new acquaintance.

The darkness was deepening, for in these climates there is little

twilight; and alarmed by the sombre aspect of the ruins, which were

haunted, of course, by a Ghoule, Iola (a charming name!); started

from my side, and insisted on retiring.

'Take these three rose-buds,' said I, for flowers are the language of

love among the Asiatics; 'three on one stem. Iola--they are

emblematic of the three qualities of love.'

'Of love?' she reiterated, in a tremulous whisper.

'Sprightly, secret, and sincere love, as ours shall be. Will you

accept of them from me?'

She trembled like one about to do a guilty thing; but took them with

a blush and something like a sob of joy; yet this excitable little

one would not permit me to kiss her!

'You will wear them for my sake, Iola?'

'There is danger in doing so--yet I will treasure them even when

faded, like the jewel of Prince Giamschid; and what is my reward?'

'Your reward?' I faltered, while reddening in turn.

'Yes, for the danger.'

'One dear little kiss--or a thousand if you will let me give them!' I

exclaimed, and threw my arm round her.

She drew down the yashmack, and I pressed my lip to hers, again and

again.

Until this moment my Oriental had never perhaps known what love was.

Risk, life, death, all were forgotten! I remembered only the charm

and the opportunity.

'And so in Frankistan, the rose is also an emblem of love?' she

whispered, as we walked slowly hand in hand towards the town, the

lights of which were sparkling in the distance.

'Yes, Iola.'

'Alas!'

'Why?'

'Because the rose lives but for a day--and if it should be so with

love?'

'Why that thought, and why these doubts--my love will live for ever,

Iola!'

(_For ever_? Alas! where were a heedless passion and two bright eyes

hurrying me?)

'It is indeed delightful to have one's life thus entwined with

another (and you will be always in Rodosdchig, I hope?); to have a

double existence and double joy, as if we lived in the Rose Garden of

Sadi.'

'Ah--but I fear your existence is so entwined already: your husband,

Iola?'

She uttered a faint cry of anger, and thus I found my conjectures

right.

'My husband!' she exclaimed; 'talk not of him! He bought me as he

did his horse, in the common market-place. He never asked me to love

him. O that were a condescension too much for a proud Turk! I am a

Mohammedan now; but I was a Christian born, and am by blood a Greek,

and my dead ancestors, who lie at Smyrna and at Scio, would raise

their fleshless hands against me, could they know me as I know myself

to-day. My husband bought me from a ruffian, reckless as himself. I

was bathed, perfumed, and led to his arms. Bismillah! speak no more

of my husband!'

These words removed every vestige of scruple in my heart. A

purchased slave! could I ever view her as a wedded wife? But now she

drew her feradjee close about her, and fled from my side without a

word of to-morrow, or of meeting again; for we had unconsciously

approached too near one of the town-gates, where, as she had

previously mentioned, a _dumb_ slave awaited her. Here I lost sight

of her, having pledged my word of honour neither to follow nor to

make inquiries after her.

My heart sank as she left me; and the idea of this delicate and

beautiful woman being bought and sold in a market-place, and being

now the wedded slave of a sensual Moslem, made me writhe and ponder

deeply, as I walked along the dark and muddy streets of Rodosdchig.

The town was now sunk in silence, and not a sound was heard, save the

occasional howling of wild and wandering dogs--the faithful but

'unclean beasts,' of the ungrateful Koran.

'Love begetteth love,' so my heart was sorely troubled. I could no

longer doubt that this beautiful Oriental loved me. Her dark but

brilliant eyes were full of it.

Her sighs but half suppressed as she had hung upon my shoulder; her

cheek alternately pale and flushed, were also full of it.

Her tremulous voice--her conversation and manner--her very silence

spoke of it--this deep fount of passion opened up within her ardent

heart for the _first_ time, and yet--pardon me for the chilling close

to my sentence--she had been some years _married_.

For two evenings I went to the ruins, but she did not come again. I

was well nigh my wit's end, and more than once narrowly escaped a

stab from a handjiar, or a shot from a pistol, as I rambled about the

bazaars and bezestiens, running after every woman whose figure

resembled Iola's, and poking my nose closer to their yashmacks than

Oriental propriety permits; so close, indeed, that I was once nearly

having my heels turned up by the ferashes of a mufti, despite my red

coat and claymore.

Restless, thoughtful, anxious and abstracted--haunted by a pair of

beautiful eyes that were the object of my waking thoughts in the

morning, the last at night, and the source of many a lonely hour of

reverie between, I was deeply in love with her before I knew the

whole truth, or saw the full danger of our position; and even when

cold reason displayed both, I was more charmed than startled by the

novelty of this new passion.

And she loved me, the possessor of those beautiful eyes!

Oh, there was something delicious in the thought that this attractive

woman, so bright, so brilliant, so happy in spirit--she who

unconsciously attracted me to her, as in a better sphere she would

have attracted all--even as the sun in his glory is said to absorb

the atoms in the air--should love me!

Who was she? Where was she?

Oh, for Aladdin's lamp, or the ring of the Genii!

A thousand dazzling and daring schemes of elopement suggested

themselves to me, for Laura's loss and desertion had made me reckless

of consequences; but first I had to discover Iola among the

closely-veiled hundreds of Kodosdchig; a task about as vain as the

proverbial one, of attempting to find a needle in a haystack.

CHAPTER XLI.

A STRANGE TASK.

Returning one evening, dispirited and provoked after a second

unsuccessful visit to the Ruined Hermitage, on entering the castle of

Rodosdchig, I was informed by Callum that the Yuze Bashi had been

inquiring for me everywhere, urgently and angrily. Surprised to hear

this, I repaired at once to his quarters, and was introduced without

ceremony; for the unfortunate captain of Bombardiers was considerably

perturbed, and in great tribulation.

I found him seated on a carpet, in a corner of an apartment, the

walls of which were, as usual, covered with pious sentences from the

Koran. He was smoking a narguillah, through a crystal vase of

rose-water, and the window, through which he usually watched the sun

dip behind the hills, was open, to admit the sea-breeze, for he was

flushed and feverish. An urgent despatch had come from the Seraskier

and Kiaja Kiatibi, summoning him to appear without a moment's delay

at Constantinople, on peril alike of his military button and his head.

'Beard of Ali!' he exclaimed, 'is not this alarming?'

'Rather,' said I, remembering that the first-named official was

generalissimo of the Sultan's forces, and that the second was

minister for the Home Department; and now the memory of a thousand

peculations, local oppressions, extortions, and tyrannies came

appallingly before Hussein, who, in his administration at Rodosdchig,

had been about as tenderhearted as a Madras collector. Besides, he

knew that he had ever been savagely severe with his men; for that

obedience which is simple subordination in the European soldier,

degenerates into mere slavery in the Turk.

Poor Hadjee Hussein Ebn al Ajuz felt his respected head wag somewhat

loosely on his shoulders; but while he prepared to depart at once for

Stamboul, in his selfish alarm for himself, the actual interest of

his wife and household were nearly forgotten.

His wife; here was a devil of a dilemma! What was to be done? The

question would have puzzled the seven wiseacres of the East, had they

been with us.

'And now,' said Hussein, relinquishing his narguillah with a sigh,

and belting his sabre about his portly person; 'I look to _you_ for a

great service.'

'If I can serve you in anything, command me.'

'I shall not be gone many days.'

'Take care, Hussein; I would bet a month's pay, or a quarter's field

allowance, against the chances of your ever coming back again.'

'Bismillah! don't say so, pray--I _shall_ come back!'

'And this service?' said I.

'Is to take charge of my wife in my absence.'

'I beg pardon--did I hear you aright? to take charge of----'

'My wife,' continued Hussein, grinding his teeth; 'there is none

other here to whom I can apply. The Moolah Moustapha, curses on him!

is--I know not where; and there is no Turkish officer in the castle,

save myself. You are a beyzadeh (gentleman's son) as well as a

soldier. I can trust you.'

'But your wife, Yuze Bashi--'tis a perilous trust, especially in

Turkey.'

'I have no resource,' said he, stamping his feet with rage; 'none--I

must leave this in ten minutes, and cannot apply to my soldiers, and

still less to yours, to act for me in this delicate matter.'

'Excuse my plainness--but I do not like the duty.'

'I like you the better for this sincerity, and trust you the more.'

'But----'

'But me no buts! You are like Sadd Ebn Kais, who said to the Prophet

on his march to Tabuc, "Give me leave to stay behind, and expose me

not unto temptation;" because, as the Koran hints, he dared not trust

himself among the black-eyed girls of Greece. Your scruples are

just; but remember, they who do good shall obtain good, even in this

world.'

'I have never seen the lady,' said I, doubtfully; 'is she beautiful?'

The Yuze Bashi knit his brows, for this was approaching forbidden

ground; but he answered,

'Beautiful as a Houri, and young--so young that I might be her

father; so you must watch over her and guard her as if she was

concealed by the seven blessed doors of the Prophet Zacharias.'

'So I am to be the guardian of a Turkish harem--what next?' thought I.

'You have still doubts,' said Hussein, with increasing irritation.

'Listen to me; when I was in the castle of Selyvria, my subaltern,

afterwards the Cole-agassi Mohammed Saïd, was suddenly ordered to

join the train of artillery then embarking for the Crimea, and it was

on peril of his head that he loitered for a moment, after receiving

the summons of the Seraskier. Here was just such a dilemma as mine;

but he came to me, saying,

'Hussein, you must be unto me as _my brother_; my purse, my wife, and

my household, I leave in your safe keeping.'

'You have my word of honour,' said I.

'It is unnecessary,' said he, 'for I believe in you.' And so he

sailed for the Euxine.

'For three months I had charge of his young and pretty wife. I never

saw her; but my servants by turns watched the house, allowing none to

enter--none at least but Ali Pasha, who paid me a hundred piastres

for every visit; so you see I was very strict, and daily sent my

grandfather, who was a decrepit old man, to ask if she required

anything.'

'And the subaltern Mohammed Saïd?'

'Came back no more.'

'How?'

'He died a major at the passage of the Alma.'

'And his wife?'

'When her jewels were sold, married Hussein Aga (the steward of Ali

Pasha), who paid me fifty piastres each time he left his slippers at

the door. But you are an Ingleez--I can trust you to guard my wife

better than I guarded the wife of Saïd--so watch her well, though she

is pure as the daughter of Imraun, and gentle as the west wind, or

the memory of a love we have lost when young.'

In ten minutes afterwards this coolest, queerest, and most cunning of

all Yuze Bashis, had poised his huge bulk on the saddle of a fleet

horse. With many sore misgivings, and terrors of the Seraskier and

the Kiaja Kiatibi, he took his departure for Stamboul, leaving me in

full possession of the fortress, and, more than all, of his wife,

about whom, although I had not seen her, I felt some curiosity as he

had acknowledged her to be young and beautiful as a Houri.

The plot of my Greek adventures was thickening!

'In love with the wife of one Turk, and solemnly requested, in a

fatherly way of course, to look after the rib of _another_!' says

Jack Belton, in one of his letters, which I received about this time

by the hand of a mounted Koord. 'An arduous duty for a subaltern,

Allan, but beware of meddling with such matters in Turkey! If the

Horse Guards make light of dangers risked in the field of Mars, they

will make lighter still of those encountered in the field of Venus.

Allons, my boy! on the llth February, Fort Alexander at Sebastopol

was blown up and entirely destroyed. There is no word of our moving

in that direction yet, though it is said that a costermonger's ass

would not exchange duties with our poor fellows in the trenches. I

send you a box of prime cheroots; the last month's "Army List," the

last Scotch newspaper, "Punch," and the corkscrew you required so

much, and wishing you safe back again with your pins under the mess

mahogany, remain, ever yours,

'J. BELTON

'Heraclea, March 1856.'

CHAPTER XLII.

TWO CHARMING EYES.

If Hussein imagined that Callum Dhu and I were to watch his premises,

and to guard the bower of his lady-love, even in the slender way that

he watched those of the Cole-agassi Mohammed Saïd, he was very much

mistaken; for, beyond an extra injunction to the sentinel at the gate

to admit no man into the little fortress without my express

permission I troubled myself no more about the matter; but this order

would have proved no bar to an enterprising Turkish lover, or an

intriguing Turkish wife, as the apartments of the Yuze Bashi had

windows and a private door, which opened into a beautiful rose-garden

without the walls; and the stockades, which once formed a barrier in

that direction had all been sold long since by the avaricious Hussein

for firewood.

The evening of the day after his departure was drawing near when I

bethought me of my Unknown Beauty at the Ruined Hermitage, and before

bending my steps in that direction, I lingered on the beach for a

time, below the castle-wall, in the hope that she might pass that way.

The town was hidden by the weather-beaten masses of the old castle,

the round towers of which had for ages formed a landmark to the sea.

Reddened under the western sun, the ocean seemed on fire towards its

verge, and the clouds were piled over each other, like mountains of

burnished brass, or gold and flame, but ever crumbling, changing, and

forming anew, as they rolled along the horizon, in all the splendour

of an oriental sunset. A gorgeous orange tint was spreading over

everything; the distant capes and headlands, isles, and rocks, were

all tinged with amber and violet hue or fiery red; and mirrored in

that shining sea which blended into yellow and crimson as its waves

rolled away towards the marble island of Marmora.

Among the rocks on which this strong old castle of the Grecians

stood, the dwarf oak, the flowering arbutus, the broad-leaved bay,

the fragrant myrtle, the _spini Christi_ of the gallant Crusaders,

the fig, the olive, the golden orange, and the luscious pomegranate,

with its brown and husky bulbs, were all growing in luxuriance; while

over all some giant plane-trees--which, by a marvel, had escaped the

cupidity of Hussein, though their stems were seven feet thick--spread

their shady branches. The castled promontory was a place of groves,

of flowers, and of perfume.

Lingering there, and thinking, almost with a sigh, that such a land

was worthy of a better race, there fell something at my feet.

It was three rose-buds--the faded three I had given to my veiled fair

one a few nights ago! I started and looked up, just as the white

hand that had dropped them was withdrawn from a casement in the old

castle-wall close by, and not ten feet from where I was sitting, and

where I had been musing for an hour past with Strabo and Herodotus

and their old memories, conflicting in my mind, with the recollection

of her magnificent eyes, when I found them beaming upon me!

She was still muffled in her yashmack and feradjee, yet I knew her in

a moment.

'Iola!' I exclaimed; 'you here?'

'Here, where I first saw you,' said she, smiling, and waving a kiss

towards me in the prettiest little flirting way imaginable.

'What--are you then--'

'The lady of whom you have such solemn charge.'

'The wife of the Yuze Bashi?'

'The wife of Hussein Ebn al Ajuz,' she added, with a gleam in her

black eyes.

'His prisoner, rather, poor Iola! what have you to live for?'

'Those who love me--for them I live, and for them only. I am _your_

prisoner at present, for Hussein has gone to Stamboul with terror in

every hair of his beard.

'Ah, Iola, you are worthy of a brighter and a better sphere than your

husband can ever assign you. There are some things I wish you could

understand; but the Mohammedan can form no conception of the position

assigned to your sex among the Franks of the western world, where the

influence of Christianity and of chivalry have served to exalt and

purify the character of woman.'

'I _do_ know all this,' she answered, impetuously, 'for I am come of

Albanian blood, and love the Christians, though they bow their heads

and bend their knees before gilded idols and painted pictures; for

among our mountains the Mussulmen cling to the memory of their

Christian fathers, and, on certain days, say a prayer at the old

stone crosses that mark where they lie. Moreover, I have been taught

that it was the place assigned to Mary, the first Christian woman,

that gave a nobility and purity to the women of Frangistan. I know

this, for I am a Greek by birth, though a Mohammedan by faith; and,

oh, blessed be the Moolah Moustapha, he who revealed unto me the

divine teachings of the Koran. Yet,' she added, with tears, and in a

tremulous voice, 'I can remember my dear, dear mother, teaching me to

kiss the little cross of the Christian's triple God!'

I winced a little at this peculiar phrase.

'Your mother--you remember her, then?'

'Oh, yes--yes! tall, beautiful, pale, and sad!' she added, throwing

her white hands and dark eyes upwards; 'her blood--her hot

blood--came over me as she died!'

'Iola! her blood--then she was killed?'

'Murdered--she was barbarously murdered before my eyes--for she was a

Greek, and the wife of the gallant Demetrius Vidimo.'

'Good heavens--what is this you tell me?'

'The truth,' she added, weeping; 'the terrible truth--you have heard

of my father, then?'

'And you are--'

'Iola Vidimo.'

'The sister of Constantine--'

'Oh, Mohammed! how know you that? I had a brother--a dear little

brother, so named. Can you tell me aught of him? Speak--speak--have

you lost your tongue?'

I had much to tell her, but how was I to fashion the tidings that her

brother had been shot in the presence of her husband; and that

he--Hussein--was one of those brutal soldiers who, after a vain

contention for the person of her mother, had so barbarously pistolled

her!

'Do you know this coral cross, Iola?'

She uttered a cry.

'It was my beloved mother's, and on that awful day at Acre, sixteen

years ago, she tied it round the neck of my boy-brother, when we were

separated. Tell me about Constantine--does he live?'

'It is a long story, Iola, and one that cannot be related here; but

you forget yourself--you are excited--your voice may be overheard,

and I may be seen. Where can we meet--at--the Hermitage?'

'No.'

'Where?'

'Here.'

'Here?'

'In these apartments.'

'If I am discovered?' I urged, with a heart that vibrated with

strange emotions.

'Where so safe as within a pistol-shot of your own soldiers?'

'True--but your honour, Iola?'

'Is in my own keeping--do you hesitate?' she added, with a flash in

her magnificent eyes.

'Dearest Iola, I will be here in an hour after sunset--but how to

reach the window?'

'Leave that to me.'

'Hush!'

'Some one comes,' she exclaimed, and shut the latticed-window, as I

hurried away in a tumult of thought.

The interruption proceeded only from a wandering Arab, who was drunk

with raki, and chaunted aloud the glories of the starlight, which, in

his hot and sultry clime, is loved better than the sunshine.

'Leili--Leili! O night--night!' was the burden of his monotonous and

intrusive ditty, for which I felt a decided inclination to punch his

head.

I was aware that in forming this appointment with Iola I was making a

sad breach in the trust Hussein had been compelled to repose in me;

but what the deuce was I to do? An oriental woman is not to be

trifled with; for love and hate are strong and sudden passions under

an eastern sun; and while heartily despising and wholly disliking

Hussein on one hand, I felt myself dazzled and fascinated by his

imprisoned odalisque on the other. Then I remembered his cool

admissions of the hundred piastres of Ali Pasha, and the fifty

piastres of Hussein Aga, the steward, and my scruples melted away.

I lighted one of Jack Belton's 'prime cheroots,' and sat down to

think over the matter, and viewed it through the mellowing medium of

a glass of brandy-and-water. I resolved to finish my flirtation with

all propriety and speed; looked at my watch, and longed exceedingly

for the dark hour, which, in that climate, follows the sinking of the

sun.

Alas! how weak are the best resolutions of the human heart, when

opposed to the magic influence of _two charming eyes_!

CHAPTER XLIII.

I SCALE THE WINDOW.

When remembering Laura Everingham and the pleasant days of other

times, I sighed with mingled regret and bitterness. Was it the old

love for her that could not be crushed, or the new love for my

beautiful Oriental that I could but imperfectly comprehend, and which

had so much of stirring novelty and imminent danger among its chief

allurements?

Perhaps I found myself a little in that dilemma which---I trust all

fair ladies will pardon the avowal--is not uncommon among

men--_loving two women at once_--'a way we often have in the army,'

as Belton would say.

The new passion which had seized me was certainly strengthened by a

sentiment of pique at Laura (oh, Laura, I could love you still!); yet

this passion, improper, unwarrantable, name it as you will, friend

reader, for this beautiful and too facile Moslem, filled all my heart

and fired my imagination with a thousand romantic fancies. I saw all

her danger and my own. One moment I lamented the evil chance which

had sent me on this solitary duty, and cast me in her path; and the

next, I looked at my watch, impatient of the lagging sunset.

Thus did love fire, and reason cool me by turns.

'I know,' says a recent writer, 'that five feet eight inches of

female flesh and blood, when accompanied by a pale complexion, black

eyes, and raven hair, is synonymous with strong passions and an

unfortunate destiny.' And most unfortunate was your destiny, poor

Iola!

Ah, those beautiful eyes! How sadly they put all one's wits and

self-possession to flight--by their arrows routing horse, foot, and

artillery.

I regarded her as a caged bird longing for freedom. I could not

conceive it possible that the wife of a Turk--especially such a

devilish and unmitigated Turk as the fat Yuze Bashi Hussein--should

be otherwise than most unhappy; for the Mohammedan deems women the

mere appendage of a household--a necessary comfort among others; a

handsome wife, a cup of coffee, and a well-filled chiboque, are the

mainsprings of life in the eyes of a true Believer--unless we add a

hot bath and a savoury kabob.

With these reflections, an hour after sunset, I found myself in the

dewy twilight, under her window, and among those richly-wooded rocks

on which the sea of Marmora was rolling in ripples of violet, blue,

and gold.

It was one of those brilliant nights when all the constellations are

visible, and the poor Mohammedan believes that all the imps of earth

are climbing to Heaven, to pry into the actions and overhear the

conversation of the blessed, who occasionally pelt and slay them with

the falling stars.

I waited for a little time, and then her lattice slowly--I thought

reluctantly--unclosed; and two white hands were clapped gently

together.

I replied to the signal; the stem of a date-tree and the tough

branches of a wild vine enabled me to reach the window with ease, and

in a moment I found myself within the sanctum sanctorum of a

Mohammedan house--the anderun, or female apartments of the Yuze Bashi

Hussein.

Iola was trembling; she drew her yashmack closely about her face, and

hastened to shut the casement. Her eyes were full of tears, and that

she had been seized by some unusual qualm, or terror of these

proceedings, was but too apparent. This was unpleasant, as it gave

me the sensation of being somewhat of a conspirator, at least.

The successful peculations of Hussein had enabled him to make the

apartments of his Greek wife magnificent. The roof was all of blue

velvet, painted with the figures of birds and flowers. The walls

were hung with silk, in alternate broad red and white stripes, on

which shone gilded sentences from the Koran. An exquisite Persian

carpet covered the floor, on which were a profusion of velvet and

embroidered cushions of the softest and lightest down arranged in the

form of couches; and there were two little stools bearing

coffee-trays and chiboques. The lower end of the apartment, which

was divided in two by festooned curtains of the finest muslin, was

hung with leopard-skins, and trophies of Turkish and Arabian arms of

the keenest steel--sabres, handjiars, carbines, pistols, lances,

matchlocks, and ancient horsetailed standards, arranged, in the form

of stars, round Tartar shields of brown bull-hide, all glittering

with knobs of burnished brass. The perfume of rich pastiles and wood

of aloes, burning in tripods of bronze, and the fragrance of six tall

candelabra full of fresh flowers, pervaded the apartment, which was

lit by two large lamps of fine oil, the smoke of which was consumed

by cream-coloured globes, that diffused a warm and voluptuous light.

To complete the picture of this remarkable apartment, let me remind

the reader of Iola, who, shrinking a little from me, stood in the

centre of it, with irresolution and timidity in her air and eyes.

She wore the hideous feradjee of the Turkish women, which enveloped

her whole form, permitting little of its oriental symmetry to be

seen; yet from amid its ample folds I could discern her hands, which

were gloveless, and her little feet, which had embroidered slippers,

and the faultless form and delicacy of which there were no stockings

to conceal.

Her black and brilliant eyes, expressive, languishing, and inquiring,

arch and smiling by turns, were now bent on me, timidly and

imploringly, under their long lashes and dark eyebrows, which were

well arched, defined, and full of character--a charming thing in

every girl. Through the thin yashmack, or veil of fine muslin, which

concealed the lower part of her face, after that abominable fashion

which the restless jealousy of their male tyrants imposes on the

women of the East, I could discern that her features were beautiful.

Her turban was of muslin, sprigged with gold; she had an ivory

pomander ball of attar-gul in one hand; a finely-embroidered

handkerchief and a sandal-wood rosary from Mecca in the other.

The respect with which she was treated was puzzling and confusing to

her, as a Turkish woman; for in her country the fair sex are kept in

a state of subjugation so strict, that a sister dare not sit in her

younger brother's presence without first obtaining permission.

I attempted to take her hands, but she withdrew them, and crossed

them on her bosom.

'Iola,' said I, tenderly; 'have you ceased to love me?'

'I know not,' she replied, sadly; 'for, as the Koran says, it

belongeth to Allah alone to fathom the human heart--and I cannot

fathom mine.'

'You are doubtful of your own emotions.'

'I am sad--very sad--having much reason to be so.'

'Allow me to remove this veil, for Heaven's sake, dear Iola!' I

continued, trembling with the earnestness of my own sentiments; 'do

not repel me.'

She was passive, and I hastened to remove both the feradjee and the

horrid yashmack; and then her fine figure appeared in a close velvet

jacket, sleeved only to the elbow, cut low at the neck and open at

the bosom; and her hair was gathered about her beautiful head in

massive braids, like perfumed and sable silk. She trembled and

blushed excessively, for, by the Mohammedan law, aged women who are

past the time of marriage _alone_ may lay this veil aside.

Her white neck and arms were encircled by strings of Turkish rose

pearls, made from the leaves of freshly-culled roses, bruised to a

paste, and dried and rolled in oil of roses and musk, and which,

being thus beautifully polished and pleasantly perfumed, are

favourite ornaments in the East.

She had all that combination of spiritual and voluptuous loveliness

which her Grecian sires of old worshipped in the olive-groves of

Paphos, and in the temples of Cyprus and Cytheria, when the power of

Juno's rival was supreme.

I drew her gently towards me, but still she averted her timid and

downcast face.

'Iola--why this change?' I asked, in a pettish tone; 'have you ceased

to love me now?'

'I have not ceased to love you,' she answered, while trembling

painfully; 'at first you merely struck my fancy, when passing daily

in the castle-yard, where you seemed so different in air, so free in

step and bearing, from the slow, heavy-headed, and crook-legged

soldiers of Hussein; but now you--you--'

'What?'

'Have keenly touched my heart. Alas!' she continued, weeping; '_now_

I am more a slave than ever the piastres of Hussein, or the promise I

gave him, before the Kadi, made me!'

'Be wary, Iola--remember that your servants may hear us, and our

position is full of danger.'

'There is no danger,' she replied, bitterly; 'they are all

dumb--voiceless as marble statues.'

'Dumb?'

'Mutes--tongueless--and two are deaf, or rendered so.'

'Horrible! For what reason?'

'To prevent their being indiscreet.'

'A wise precaution.'

'So my husband thinks--but a cruel one.'

After a pause, she added, 'Would to Allah that he had left me in the

care of his friend, the Moolah Moustapha!'

'Why?'

'Can you ask me? The Moolah is said to know--like Solymon Ebn

Daood--the language of the birds; and every kind of secret knowledge;

and thus he had watched over the wanderings of my heart.'

'Nay, dearest Iola, these scruples and coquettish regrets come

somewhat late--and one kiss--'

'Bismillah! In the name of the most Merciful, touch me not!' she

exclaimed, with a coy alarm that was rather chilling; but she was too

late: my kiss was on her pouting lip, and she did not repulse me--for

she felt assured, by the night and the silence around us, that no ear

was there to overhear us, and no mortal eye but mine to see her

unveiled beauty.

Here endeth the first lesson.

CHAPTER XLIV.

TEMPTATION AND FOLLY.

Never while life remains shall I forget the hours of delight I passed

with Iola.

I know that it was wrong--exceedingly wrong--and blamable in me to

have yielded to the tempting peril of engaging in this flirtation--to

give my regard for Iola its mildest term--but what could I do? And

having once yielded to the allurement, and encouraged her in it, how

could I fly or avoid her?

I met her no more at the Ruined Hermitage, or at the green City of

the Silent, for such interviews were full of peril; but I met her

again and again, in the seclusion of her own apartments, into which

not even the tongueless and mutilated slaves of Hussein could

penetrate without a signal being given and permission accorded from

within. Thus we had an interview every evening, and had much

delightful conversation, and many an hour of mute reverie.

How strange and alluring were those long, deep, and dangerous

reveries, which were full of beatings of the heart, and tender

meanings which the pen cannot depict, and no written language can

convey!

My word plighted to the absent Hussein--my honour, and more than all,

her honour--yea, her very life, were in peril, yet I trifled with

both, like the heedless, reckless, and it may be, selfish boy I was!

Poor Iola!

I related the story of her brother's desertion, recapture, trial, and

the death he suffered so courageously in our presence at Heraclea. I

mentioned the two little incidents which brought me in personal

contact with him; first in the public khan, and secondly at the last

terrible scene in the valley of the mosque, where from his dead hand

I took the little coral cross, which by a strange course of events I

was now enabled to suspend upon the bosom of his sister; and as I did

so, I thought of all that high-spirited and noble Albanian soldier

would have felt had he seen that sister, now a Mahommedan, (the wife

of one of those barbarous Osmanli who pistolled his stately mother at

Acre,) and hanging in all her loveliness, dissolved in tears and

grief upon the bosom of a stranger--a soldier of Frangistan!

I deemed it well for Hussein, well for Iola, and particularly

fortunate for myself, that the fiery young lieutenant of Albanians

was sleeping in his quiet grave, where the slaves of the Mir Alai

Saïd had laid him.

Tempered by politeness, and by that respect and deference to a female

which have come down to us from the days of the Crusaders and the

Cavaliers, the manner of a European lover is so different from the

bearing of an Oriental one, that there can be little wonder if the

heart of a Mahommedan woman is easily won by the stiff-hatted,

tight-coated, and long-trousered denizen of that ample and mysterious

district known to her only as Frangistan. In the matter of love and

wedlock, the Turkish woman has as little idea of freedom as the Turk

has of the arguments advanced by S. Bufford, gent.--a certain learned

pundit, who, in the reign of King William III., wrote an Essay

'against persons marrying _without their own consent_.'

'Oh, that I had the right to love you, as I have the right to hate

the Yuze Bashi Hussein!' said Iola, after one of her long silences.

'Oh the odious! May the heel of my slipper be ever on his mouth--and

yet--and yet he is my husband!'

'I wince always at that word in your pretty mouth, Iola!'

'In loving you, I cease to love him---if indeed I ever loved him.

Allah did not create woman with two hearts--with one under each

breast, as the Moolah Moustapha affirms.'

'But our love is full of sadness as well as peril, Iola--for a day is

coming when I must leave you.'

'Oh, leave me not!' she exclaimed, passionately. 'Must my love be

sacrificed to this coarse and untutored Osmanli? The day after you

leave me I shall have ceased to live.'

'Leave you I must, Iola.'

'Why?--when?'

'When ordered--for I, too, have Yuze Bashis and Mir Alais and Pashas

who command me.'

'By the love with which you have inspired me!' she said in a piercing

whisper, with her black eyes flashing in brilliance through their

tears; 'I conjure you to take me with you, for I cannot live without

you, and without you I must die!'

With these words she threw herself upon my breast, heedless of

everything.

'I will take you with me, Iola, if I can--'

'Nay you must--you shall!'

'Yes--yes, at all hazards.'

'Why should I die so young?'

'You will go with me--I promise you,' I replied, heedless of the

future; and then she gave me a smile of confiding fondness that would

have melted the heart of our old friend Bluebeard.

'My husband will be here anon, and his jealousy--'

'Well--fear him not, Iola; jealousy gives a relish to love--just as

musk does to sherbet, or pepper to a kabob,' said I, gaily.

'But alas,' said she, with a shudder, 'the jealousy of a Turk is

terrible! Could I teach Hussein that love and respect--or love and

affection are two distinct sentiments?'

'Give me but the love, Iola, and bestow the affection on whom you

please.'

'Allah!' she exclaimed, with a shudder, and a gleam of terror in her

expressive eyes, as she shrunk from my arm; 'what if _you_ should be

Hussein?'

'I Hussein--I the Yuze Bashi?' I asked, in astonishment.

'Yes--O Mahmoud! there is a strange sparkle in your eye.'

'How could such a thing be?' I asked, smiling at her simplicity.

'Genii give men the power to assume the forms, faces, and voices of

others for a time,' she replied, a little reassured; 'have you never

heard so?'

'Never.'

'How strange! Have you not heard of the wise Sultan Solymon, and his

magic ring--of the evil Geni Sakhur, and how they changed forms and

faces for forty days?'

'Never, on my honour.'

'Listen, and I will tell you,' said she, clasping her white hands

upon my left shoulder, and reclining her brow upon my cheek, while

her speaking eyes were lifted up to mine, as we reclined among the

soft and silky cushions; 'listen, and I will tell you a story--oh, a

very wonderful story--of things that happened long long ago,' she

continued, while her fine eyes diluted and filled with light; 'long

before Othmon the Bonebreaker sat on the Sultan's throne, and long

before Palæologus perished beneath the cimitars of the

Janissaries--but kiss me once again before I begin.'

The request was soon granted, and in her pretty little prattling way,

Lola told me the following tale of wonder and magic.

CHAPTER XLV

STORY OF THE WISE KING AND THE WICKED GENI.

'Once upon a time there was a king of Sidon, who had a daughter, and

in beauty she surpassed all the maids of Asia. You must know that

this was in the days when all the kingdom of Frangistan was hidden in

darkness, and when none dwelt there but little men who lived on human

flesh, whose faces were in their stomachs, who had but one leg, with

which they made prodigious leaps in the dark from the summit of one

hill to the summit of another, and when there dwelt in Assyria a

mighty Sultan, named Solymon Ebn Daood, who ruled all the land that

lies between the Euphrates on the east and the Mediterranean on the

west, and from Mount Taurus on the north to Arabia on the south.

'He was a great and wondrous king; for after he slew--as an offering

unto heaven--those thousand winged horses which came to him out of

the sea near Damascus, Allah gave him power over the wind, by which

he could cause it to blow at his will, over the hot deserts of

Arabia, over Suristan, the Land of Roses, and over his own blessed

realm. The Koran tells us, that on this wind, he could transport his

mighty throne--the star and work of the Genii--from Damascus unto the

hot shores of the Indian sea, in a single day; and unto him were

subjected all the winged Genii; all the blue devils who dive for

pearls in the sea of Kolzom, and those who build cities of gold and

silver, and palaces of precious stones.

'Having gone to war with the king of Sidon, whose territories he had

desolated by a cold north wind, he resolved to besiege the city, and

ordered his magic carpet to be spread without the gates of Mecca, and

it reached therefrom half-way to Jidda on the seashore. This carpet

was a mighty piece of green silk fabricated by the Genii, who did all

that he commanded them to do, as we are told in the 22nd Chapter of

the Holy Koran. On this carpet stood the throne whereon he was

seated, and around it were all his army, horse and foot, bowmen and

spearmen, slingers and swordsmen, marshalled by Asaf the vizier.

'The moment they were all in order, he commanded them, to the number

of a hundred thousand, to keep steady in their ranks, and avoid the

_edge_ of the carpet; then he placed his magic signet ring to his

lips, and lo! There came a wind out of the eastern sky which lifted

up the carpet, with the throne, the troops, and all that were

thereon, and bore it through the air so swiftly that like the shadow

of a cloud, they traversed all the blue vault of heaven, above

Khaibar, where the well of bitter water flows; over the mountains

that look down on Tabuc; over Arabia the Rocky; over the domes of

Jerusalem, and the dark waves of the Dead Sea, and over Acre, until

they alighted on the sea shore of Phoenicia, near the city of Sidon,

which stands on a plain that extends two miles inward from the ocean;

and this was but the journey of half a day to Solymon and his

air-borne host.

'In great terror, the king of Sidon, when he saw this vast cloud

darkening all the sky above the city, shut up his daughter Jerada,

who had black hair that hung down to her knees, and who had eyes that

were larger than her mouth; he placed her in a great round tower,

which stands upon a mountain near the sea, and was built for him by

the Geni Sakhur, who was his chief friend. But Solymon assaulted the

city, sacked and destroyed its manufactories of linen and fine purple

dyes, its schools of commerce and astronomy. He slew the king, while

Asaf stormed the tower upon the mountain, and capturing the beautiful

Jerada, brought her safely to Mecca before nightfall, and before the

cry for evening prayer had rung from the minarets of the temple; and

with her were his throne, his soldiers, and all the plunder of the

Phoenician capital covering the magic carpet--and all this was but

the task of one day.

'But with all his power, this mighty Sultan now became the slave of

his slave, and the worshipper of his bondswoman; for Jerada was

beautiful as a houri of Paradise. Her figure was tall and full of

majesty and grace. Her beauty was like her bearing, noble as became

the daughter of a king. Her voice was sweetly modulated, and of all

his three hundred and ten wives, not one could wile or soothe the

soul of Solymon like Jerada, when her snowy arms were thrown around

the harp, and she sang the songs of Palestine. Veiled by long black

lashes, her eyes were violet coloured, and of a deep, strange, and

mournful tint and expression--as she never forgot that she was the

daughter of Sidon's fallen king. Her skin was white as the foam on

the sea; her hands and arms were exquisite; her manner soft and

polished; her spirit gentle; her intelligence quick; her wit

brilliant; and as his own unfathomable soul, the great lord of all

Assyria loved her.

'But in her secret heart, Jerada never ceased to lament the fall of

Sidon and her father's fate; and a thousand times did Solymon

surprise her in her chamber, weeping bitterly. Then his heart smote

him for the wrong he had done to one so fair, and he desired the

Genii to fashion an image of the slaughtered king, and to mould it of

wax, painted like life; to clothe it in fine robes of Tyrian purple,

and to set upon its head the captured crown of Sidon. This image was

placed in the chamber of Jerada, where she and her maidens wept at

its feet and worshipped it morning and evening for the term of

_forty_ days; but, on Asaf the vizier discovering this wicked

practice, he hastened in terror to Solymon and said,

'"Dost thou permit this foul idolatry? If so, the curse that fell on

Ad will fall on thee, and this worship of a waxen image must not be

permitted in the palace."

'When Solymon heard these words, he drew his cimitar, and by one blow

destroyed the work of the Genii, and it vanished with a whistling

sound. He chastised the beautiful Jerada by shutting her up in a

tower, on the door of which he placed his magic seal; and then he

went out into a wild and desert place, where he wept over the evils

that had followed the fall of Sidon, and made supplications to Allah,

crying aloud, as the blessed Koran tells us,

'"Oh forgive me, and accord unto me a kingdom which may not be

obtained by any one after me, for thou art the giver of thrones."[*]

[*] See "Koran," xxxviii.

'But Allah resolved to chastise his negligence, and it happened

thus:--

It was the custom of this great sultan, when he bathed or perfumed

himself, to intrust his magic ring or signet, on the possession of

which depended all his power and his kingdom, to one of his fairest

favourites; and one day, when retiring to the bath, he placed it on

the finger of Jerada, for with all his wisdom the wisest man--yea,

even Solymon--may be but a fool before a beautiful woman. Jerada, as

she gazed upon the ring, thought of her aged sire and fallen

Sidon--of his nameless grave and her fallen fortune, and uttered a

wish for "vengeance."

At that moment there was a tremulous motion in the air, and the Geni

Sakhur, the friend of her father--the spirit who had built the great

tower which yet stands upon the mountain over against Sidon, appeared

before her _in the likeness of Solymon_, and received from her the

wonderful ring. Then the eyes of the Geni sparkled with triumph; he

breathed upon it, and lo! when the Sultan came from the bath, he was

an old and withered man, so changed in aspect that none knew him; and

then, mocked by the courtiers, threatened by Asaf the vizier, hooted

by the pages and beaten by the guards, he was driven from the palace

gates, and forced to wander in the desert, eating dates, berries, and

wild fruits for the space of _forty_ days, returning ever and anon to

beg alms at the gates of Mecca, and at the porticos of his own palace.

'Here he saw the Geni Sakhur, on the terraces and in the gardens,

clad in his royal garments, wearing his likeness and having his

voice, toying with the lovely Jerada and the most beautiful of the

ladies, who crowded his magnificent household, and the pious soul of

this king--the mightiest that ever swayed the sceptre of

Assyria--swelled with futile rage, for his ring was on Sakhur's

finger, and he was powerless as the meanest slave.

'Moreover, this evil Geni, by the power of which he became possessed,

governed the whole kingdom, and while seated on its throne, made such

startling alterations in the laws, that Solyman, when he heard them

proclaimed by sound of trumpet and timbrel at the brazen gates of

Mecca, rent his garments and wept, while the astonished Asaf threw

dust upon his head and beard in grief and wonder.

'At length _the forty days_, the exact period during which the waxen

image had been worshipped under Solymon's roof, were expired; and

then the devil Sakhur, with a yell of laughter, sprang from the

throne on which he had been seated, with Jerada by his side, and to

the terror of the faithful Vizier Asaf, and of all the courtiers,

spread out his dusky wings, and ascending straight into the air, flew

away with a speed that made him cleave the sky like a bird; and as he

winged his way to the home of the Genii in the mountains of Kaf, he

flung the magic ring of Solymon into the sea of Galilee.

'As it cleft the deep blue waters, its glittering stones and shining

gold caught the eye of a large and silvery fish, which immediately

swallowed it; but soon thereafter the fish began to writhe in great

agony, and was cast by the ebbing tide upon the yellow sands near the

then ruined and desolate city of Sidon.

'It happened that the Sultan Solymon, in form and face an old man,

bent with years and clad in tattered garments, was wandering in

hunger and destitution, along the sands, eating shell-fish, when he

espied this large and silvery tenant of the deep, writhing on the

shore; he straightway killed it by a stone, and making a fire of the

wood called markh, which if rubbed together will burn, be it ever so

green, he prepared to cook it, and lo! from its belly there dropped

the golden ring--the magic signet by which the power of all Assyria

was held--and with a prayer of joy he placed it on his finger!

'In a moment he recovered his stately stature, his manly beauty, his

youthful face and curling beard; and by uttering a wish, found

himself in the hall of his palace at Mecca, where he gave thanks unto

Allah, and proceeded at once to punish Jerada and the evil Geni

Sakhur. The beautiful daughter of Sidon he enclosed in a flinty rock

on Mount Horeb, and there, by a touch of his ring, sealed her up for

ever. The Geni, by a whispered wish, he dragged shrieking through

the air from the far and snowy recesses of Kaf. Then tying a huge

stone to his neck, he flung him headlong into the lake of Tiberias in

Galilee, near which stands a town built by Herod; but the Geni

instantly changed his form, and arose from the lake in the form of a

small worm, which crept towards Solymon, intent on revenge.

'Now, as we all know, it would take a small worm a great many years

to creep from the Lake of Tiberias to Jerusalem, where the Sultan

Solymon was then finishing the great temple which was to stand there

for ever in lieu of the tabernacle of Moosa. He employed a million

of Genii to complete the work, and they toiled at it day and night,

and over every Genii was a warden, who made his secret mark upon

their work, and these spirits had secret signs and words by which

they knew each other--the signs and words that were written on the

seal of Solymon. But this mighty sultan perceiving that he was

becoming aged, and that his end was drawing nigh, prayed to Allah,

that, when he died, his death might be concealed from the Genii, who,

if they discovered it, would all fly back to Kaf, and leave

unfinished that gorgeous temple, which was yet to be the wonder of

the world.

'And kind Allah ordained it should be thus.

'When Solymon died--for who among us would live for ever?--his spirit

passed away as he stood at prayer, leaning on his long staff of

plane-tree--the wood of the ark--and this staff supported his dead

body erect and fresh, and comely as when in life, and as if he was

still overseeing the work, for a year and a day, until the Genii were

placing the last golden pomegranate on the shining summit of the

temple, in the centre of which shone _a vast eye_ that seemed to be

behold everything; and all this while, the impatient worm was still

creeping towards the dead Sultan.

'The worm reached the staff and gnawed it through; then on the very

instant the temple was completed in all its parts, the body of the

Sultan fell heavily to the ground; his golden crown rang on the

marble pavement; and now, with a yell of rage, the overtasked Genii

found that they had been deluded, and that their master had been dead

for a year and a day!

'Thus it is that the twenty-fourth chapter of the Koran saith these

words:--

'"When we decreed that Solymon should die, nothing revealed his death

unto them except the _creeping thing_ of the earth, which gnawed his

staff, and then his body fell down."

'Such was the story of the Wise King and the Wicked Geni.'

----------

'And Jerada,' said I, laughing, 'did she still remain sealed up in

the rock, or did the death of Solymon dissolve the spell?'

'Jerada wept and prayed sorely, for she had not deceived Solymon; but

had been herself deceived by the wicked Geni Sakhur, who, as a

traitor and falsifier, was worthy of the most severe death, the just

could inflict--'

'Right, O Allah!' exclaimed a hoarse fierce voice behind us; 'right,

wretch, and you have named your own sentence!'

A low cry of terror left the white lips of Iola, and springing to my

feet, I found myself confronted by the two flaming eyes, the levelled

pistols, and the portly person of the furious Yuze Bashi, Hussein Ebn

al Ajuz!

CHAPTER XLVI.

HUSSEIN'S WRATH.

While listening to this old Arabian legend, which fell so prettily

from the lisping tongue of Iola, I never thought of Hussein, who,

having transacted with the Seraskier his business, which merely

concerned the shipment of certain guns and shot for Varna, was then

galloping along the paved road to Rodosdchig.

Intent upon the dark and tender eyes, the white neck, and soft

tresses of Iola, I did not hear the ruffle beaten on the brass drum

of the Main-guard as he cantered into the court; nor did I hear the

tramp of his horse or his heavy foot-fall on the old Greek marble

stair, or in the anteroom; nor did I remember in any way that a being

so ungainly and so decidedly unwelcome existed in the world, until

the muslin hangings were fiercely rent asunder, and he stood before

us, his countenance livid with just rage, his dark eyes gleaming like

two live coals, and his long brass-barrelled Turkish pistols levelled

at us, one in each hand.

I had no weapon but my sword, which I immediately unsheathed, while

instinctively placing myself between him and the mute and

terror-stricken Iola, who sank grovelling before him, bowing her

beautiful head to the carpet, and murmuring only--

'Mercy! mercy! vai! vai! woe--woe!'

Alarm for her, and shame for myself, deprived me of utterance. I

could only interpose the long, glittering blade of the Highland

claymore between us, and gaze on Hussein's angry front, debating

whether or not I should slash him across the fingers, lest he might

shoot one or both of us; and I remembered poor Callum Dhu and his

thirty comrades, who would be at the mercy of Hussein's hundred

Bombardiers, and might, moreover, be exposed to the fury of the

populace, from whom not even the Greek Archbishop of Rodosdchig could

protect them.

'Oh, face of brass and heart of steel! what do I see?' he exclaimed.

Then uttering that expression of grief which is so frequently in the

mouths of Mohammedans, he rent his white beard, and cried, 'We are

God's, and unto Him we shall return! You have darkened the light of

my eyes, oh Frank! but may the fiends have me if I take not a sure

and terrible vengeance for this!'

'Hear me?' I implored, without knowing what to say.

'Nay--stir not a step, or these balls shall whistle through your

brain!'

'Yuze Bashi, hear me, I beg of you, and you shall know all.'

'All!' he reiterated, stamping with rage; 'ye shall wish yourselves

like the brutal Greeks, from whom this woman sprang--deaf and dumb

and without understanding--before the measure of my vengeance is

full. Her fate she knows; but for _thee_, accursed Frank--thou who

hast reft me of her, who was to be unto me a garment and a comfort,

as the blessed Koran saith--by the seven heavens and the seven

earths, and by the hand that hung and cleft the moon in the

firmament, I will have your heart to tread beneath my heel; but first

the ferashes shall apply the bastinado until every toe you have has

dropped from your feet in blood! Hallo, Chaoush! Hallo, Onbashi!'

'Do with me as you please, Effendi, but spare her.'

'As for her, the hand of a profligate Christian has touched her--a

hand which defiles all it touches--yea, even the food of a dog; so,

from this hour, she is alike divorced--thrice, I say it, divorced,

divorced and accursed by Hussein!'

With these words, he pulled both triggers at once; but the pistols,

having old flint locks, by the mercy of heaven, flashed in the pan

and hung fire. Then, finding the necessity of immediate action, just

as he was about to draw his sabre, I grasped him by the gilded

waist-belt, and hurling him, with all my force, back upon the

cushions which lay piled upon the floor behind him, I locked Iola

into an inner apartment--kissed her cold hands, and rushed by a back

door to the foot of the staircase. Then crossing the castle-yard, I

regained my quarters, where I was immediately joined by Callum Dhu,

who, ever kind and watchful, had been awaiting my return.

Alarmed, on seeing me spring in with my sword drawn, and excitement

in my eye,

'In the name of the devil, co-dhalta,' said he, 'what is the matter?'

I told him that I had been visiting the wife of the commandant; that

he had returned suddenly, and finding us at coffee, had been seized

by a fit of jealousy, and nearly pistolled me; but that I had knocked

him down, and made my escape.

This explanation was all truth, and yet was but a compromise between

it and falsehood; and so I thought Callum suspected, for his keen

dark Highland eye loured; his face flushed for a moment, and he gave

me a glance of scrutiny such as he had never ventured to do as my

fosterer in Glen Ora, and still less since we had joined the

regiment. Beside all this, Callum Dhu was sufficiently well read in

the writings of Morier, Frazer, Slade, and Franklin to know that the

domestic privacy of an oriental household cannot be trifled with,

and, after a moment's reflection--

'Glen Ora,' said he--for he never forgot my old Highland

patronymic--'evil will come of all this, for you have been unwary;

and there will be the life of one--it may be three--lost. Have you

thought of that?'

'I _have_ thought of it,' said I, irritated on finding a Mentor in

him; 'and I tell you, Callum, that I care not whose life is lost, if

the poor innocent Greek girl I have compromised is saved from the

ferocity of this Turkish officer.'

'True--but how?' was the calm query.

'How--I care not how; but saved she must be, Callum. As for that

true type of an Eastern tyrant--the ignorant, sensual, and avaricious

Hussein--what care I for him?'

'Yet he trusted to your honour, Allan Mac Innon!'

I felt the quiet reproach, and dared not follow up my own thoughts,

for I felt how weak is the human heart, and vain the resolves of

human reason, when opposed to the wiles of beauty. Lest some outrage

should be attempted upon me, as we knew not what lengths the Yuze

Bashi's wrath might carry him, Callum suggested that one of our men

should be posted, with his bayonet fixed and musket loaded, at the

foot of the stair which ascended to the tower wherein we had our

quarters; and, to watch over the safety of Iola, my faithful fellow

proposed that he and Donald Roy, who was a sharp-witted, active, and

hardy West-Highlander, should guard by turns the residence of the

exasperated governor of Rodosdchig; and after these arrangements, I

sat down to write to Jack Belton for his advice, and composed the

letter, and my own mind, over a devilled bone, a bottle of Kirkissa

wine, and cigar.

During my conference with Callum we heard various noises and cries of

alarm proceeding from the quarters of the Yuze Bashi; and each of

these sounds had a terrible echo in my heart, for, when believing

that they proceeded from the apartment of Iola, the main strength of

my fosterer scarcely sufficed to restrain me from rushing out, sword

in hand, to her assistance.

All became quiet after a time. Then we heard the clatter of horse's

hoofs, as a mounted messenger galloped from the fort, which made me

suspect that our Yuze Bashi had sent some awkward instructions to the

Bostandgi Bashi of the police; or worse still, to some of the lawless

Bashi-Bozouks, an orta or regiment of whom, were cantoned at Carga,

not far from us; but ere long, we learned that it was only a slave,

dispatched by Iola for a certain learned Jewish Hakim, who arrived in

due time, and reported, that after imprecating a torrent of

maledictions on 'the chief of the bare-legged _Yenitcheries_,' as he

termed the brave steady lads of her Britannic Majesty's --

Highlanders, the Yuze Bashi had suddenly become speechless and black

in the face; that his eyes had started in their sockets, and he

became senseless, as if ghoules or ghinns were strangling him; that

he was recovered only by bleeding and having his temples bound with a

fillet, on which were traced the signs of the Zodiac. After this, he

was able to make known that he wished to see the Moolah Mustapha, who

had accordingly been sent for.

The plain English of all this I supposed to be, simply, that Hussein,

being very short in stature, stout, pursy, and thick-necked, in his

phrenzy had brought on a fit of apoplexy, the effects of which--if

they had no better cure than the signs of the Zodiac--I believed

would at least keep him quiet until I was recalled to Heraclea by

Major Catanagh, an event for which I now devoutly prayed.

CHAPTER XLVII.

SEQUEL TO CHAPTER FORTY-THREE.

A morning or two after this, there was no small consternation

existing among the soldiers of my little band at Rodosdchig, when

Dugald Mac Ildhui, my sergeant, paraded them as usual, and neither

Callum Dhu nor his master were forthcoming. Corporal Donald Roy was

despatched to make inquiries, but returned to the parade with tidings

that he had knocked repeatedly at Mr. Mac Innon's door without

receiving any answer; and as it was open, he had ventured to peep in,

and saw but too plainly that his camp-bed had not been slept in

over-night; that the last fragment of an unextinguished candle was

still burning, but streaming and guttering on the table; that his

sword and belt and some of his uniform lay strewed about; but that

neither he nor Callum Dhu had been seen since last night, when the

Turkish sentinel at the barrier-gate thought he perceived them both

pass hurriedly out, and take the path which led towards the sea.

The faithful sergeant and his corporal spent that day, all the next,

and all the succeeding in vain surmises and in futile inquiries; no

trace of their officer and missing comrade was to be found; and as

the story of Hussein's rage and imprecations against me, for causes

unknown, had by some means--perhaps through the chaoush or onbashi of

the Bombardiers--reached the little band of Celts, they began to look

darkly and inquiringly in each other's faces, while vague whispers of

assassination gained strength and corroboration among them. The

sergeant and his corporal had been among the wandering Highland

dancers who went to Paris in 1848, and were so near being shot by the

Republican troops for appearing kilted and plaided, with dirk and

claymore, in the Place de Carrousel; and having imbibed thereafter a

great doubt of, and detestation for, all foreigners whatsoever, they

came to the conclusion that we had met with an untimely end.

The circumstance of a boat being found by a Galiondgi adrift near the

castle, containing an officer's regimental sash, spotted with blood,

and a Highland private's Glengarry bonnet, increased this terrible

mystery, and led the soldiers to believe that, beyond a doubt, the

unfortunate Ensign Mac Innon and his _fidus Achates_ had become food

for the fishes of the Propontis, and the whole beach around the bay

was searched in vain for their bodies.

The sergeant--a sober, steady, and brave soldier, one of the many who

were daily forced from their homes into our ranks, for he was an

evicted Sutherland Highlander (evicted because he was unable to pay

the marriage-tax of forty shillings now daily and illegally exacted

by the grasping factors of the north and west Highlands from the

people, to keep the number of the population down)--procured a thin

yellow sheet of Turkish paper, and after holding a solemn council of

war, in which a vote of vengeance was unanimously passed on the Yuze

Bashi, who was still under the Jewish Hakim and the signs of the

Zodiac, he squared his elbows, made a broad margin, carefully nibbed

his pen, and proceeded to prepare an official report to Major

Catanagh, recounting the strange disappearance of the officer

commanding the detachment; and this report caused no small excitement

at the mess-table when it reached Heraclea.

Some weeks elapsed before this mystery was cleared up; and the origin

of it all was as follows:--

One evening, after the arrival of the Moolah Moustapha, of whose

presence at the fortress I had an intuitive dread, an unusual bustle,

and then a dead silence were remarked in the apartments of the Yuze

Bashi; and in half an hour after sunset, Callum Dhu, with his dark

face flushed and excited, came in haste to inform me, that a

boat--one of those straight prowed and heavily-built craft, called by

the Turks a kochamba--with several men in it, had come from the

harbour round the promontory of the castle, and was now close to the

sea staircase, a flight of steps hewn in the rocks near the lower

gun-battery. He added more startling intelligence.

A loud whistle, as a signal, had been given by someone in this boat,

and thereafter two men, one of whom he suspected to be the Moolah

Moustapha, had left the postern gate, half leading and half dragging

a veiled woman, 'who sobbed heavily,' concluded. Callum, 'but who

made not the least resistance, as if all hope in her heart was dead,

poor thing!'

I cannot express the horror with which I heard this information.

Innumerable stories of Turkish cruelty, of the burial of living

women, sacked and drowned in the Bosphorus; of the gashed and mangled

bodies of others that have been found across the cables of our own

ships, or were raked up by them, as they swung at their anchors by

the Golden Horn; of bodies stranded and torn by jackals on the shore

at Pera, with a thousand real and imaginary instances of the terrible

result of oriental jealousy and domestic cruelty, flashed upon my

memory, and I determined to save Iola from the dreadful fate

impending over her, or to die in the attempt.

In the beginning of Islamism--women who were supposed to have broken

their vows were stoned to death, or immured in a stone wall; for the

fourth chapter of the Koran commands that they shall be "imprisoned

in separate apartments until death release them."

'You are my foster brother, and will stand by me, Callum?' said I,

grasping his hand.

'To the death will I stand by you; but on what errand go you now?'

'To save this woman.'

'The wife of the Yuze Bashi.'

'Yes--the Greek girl, Iola.'

'From what?'

'Death!'

'Death?'

'Yes--yes! hand me my dirk and the shot-belt for the revolver; get

your bayonet. The Yuze Bashi means to drown his wife in a sack--'

'Dhia! it is horrible!--like a puppy-dog.'

'Or, it may be, to behead her by a slash of a yataghan. If either

takes place, her blood will be on our heads, Callum--on mine, at

least.'

'I don't understand all this; but, dioul! I will follow YOU

anywhere, Mac Innon--so lead on.'

I slung my dirk and revolver-pistol to my belt; Callum buckled on his

bayonet; we hurried from the castle, and soon reached the

landing-place, where a few boats were usually moored.

The night was dark and cloudy; no moon was visible, and the sea of

Marmora lay between its headlands like an ocean of ink; yet, by

stooping low, I could perceive between me and the white streak that

lingered at the horizon a large boat, containing several dark

figures, being pulled like a great funeral barge, silently and

rapidly to seaward.

''Tis those we are in search of,' said Callum, as we leaped on board

of a little Greek caique, slashed through the painter, shipped the

oars, and pulled sturdily and breathlessly after them.

In such a land as Turkey, where, in 1808, the Sultan Mahmoud II.

could quietly, and quite as a matter of course, or as a piece of

state policy, strangle his deposed brother Mustapha IV., together

with his infant son; and also command four of his female slaves to be

sacked and drowned, because they were likely to increase the royal

family by presenting him with four little Harem-zadehs; where even

his son, the present Sultan Abdul Medjid, with all his vaunted

civilization, has committed more than one act of domestic barbarity,

more especially the assassination of the two little princes, his

nephews; and where too many of the atrocities recorded by travellers

in all ages are _still_ perpetrated, I knew all that hung over the

doomed wife of Hussein; all I had to repent of, and all I had to fear!

Ill-fated Iola!

While all the rest of the world has been pushing on the rapid march

of _progression_, Turkey like Spain, has stood still. The Turkish

woman, says the Baron de Tott, when inspired by an irresistible love

and desire of freedom, overcomes every obstacle, and at times escapes

from the harem, her domestic prison. 'These unfortunate creatures,'

he continues, always carry off their jewels with them, and consider

nothing too good for their lover. Blinded by their unhappy passion,

they do not perceive that this wealth often becomes the cause of

their destruction. The villains to whom they fly never fail at the

end of a few days to punish their temerity, and ensure the possession

of their effects by a crime which, however monstrous, the government

is least in haste to punish. The bodies of these miserable women,

stripped and mangled, are frequently seen floating in the Port (of

Constantinople) under the very windows of their murderers; and these

dreadful examples, so likely to intimidate the rest, and prevent such

madness, neither terrify nor amend.'

But to resume: surely, steadily, and lustily, with all our strength,

Callum and I shot the light caique after the great dark barge of

these voyagers in the dusk, at every stroke causing her to fly

through the seething water as with each effort of the bending oars we

almost lifted her into the air, and made the black waves boil in her

white wake astern. The clatter and straining of our oars between the

tholing pins, and the noise made by the caique as it surged through

the water, soon gained the attention of the rowers in the large boat,

which was now about half a mile from the shore, and they paused for a

minute to observe us. Then one black figure stood erect, and peered

into the gloom of the darkened sea.

He was the Moolah Moustapha.

The voice of one in authority now warned us to keep off, for the

large boat contained two topchis, of Hussein's company, and four

armed policemen of the Bostandgi Bashi, with one or two galiondgis.

'Dioul!' exclaimed Callum; 'what is he saying?'

'That they will fire, if we do not keep off.'

'How many of them are there?'

'One--two--six--seven, if not more.'

'Including the Moolah?'

'Who is almost nobody.'

'Two to six, at least,' pondered Callum.

'But I have six shots in my revolver.'

'If I had only my old rifle here,' sighed Callum, 'I could pick them

all off like black-cocks!'

Two pistols flashed from the kochamba, and threw a sudden gleam

across the water; but their bullets whistled harmlessly over us.

Exasperated by this, my foster-brother cried,

'Kill every mother's son of them, Mac Innon--quick--before they

reload again!'

But I dared not fire, lest one of those dark figures should be Iola.

'Pull hard,' said I; 'we are not twenty yards apart now; board and

attack them with your bayonet--I'll make good use of my dirk, believe

me!'

'Fire--fire! are they not three to one?'

'One Highlandman is equal to three Turks any day.'

'True, Mac Innon,' exclaimed Callum, entering at once into the spirit

of the attack; 'hoigh--hurrah!'

But never was assault more fatally devised, or more signally

unsuccessful.

In a moment the prow of the caique came with a frightful crash

against the quarter of the lumbering kochamba; the shock threw me

forward upon the thwarts, by one of which I was severely cut and

bruised about the face, while I narrowly escaped three pistol shots,

one of which grazed and slightly wounded Callum's left hand; but our

misfortunes were only beginning; for in the concussion I lost my

revolver-pistol. On relinquishing the oar, and springing up, I

instinctively grasped for it at my waist-belt--but alas! the pistol

was gone. For a moment I groped wildly and fruitlessly about the

bottom of the caique, without finding it; and then, as no time could

be lost, with my naked dirk, I sprang madly on board the kochamba,

followed by Callum, who made free use of his bayonet, and now a

deadly struggle took place; the Turks assailing us with batons, drawn

sabres, and the brass knobs of their long-barrelled pistols, amid a

storm of yells and barbarous maledictions.

Grasping one powerful galiondgi by the waist, Callum flung him fairly

overboard, tossing him into the air like an India-rubber ball; and he

was left by his fatalist friends to sputter and sink, or scramble on

board as best he could.

The huge boat swayed from side to side, plashing and surging heavily,

while we fought and grappled like wild animals; but though

individually more than a match for any of the Osmanlies present,

Callum and I were overborne by their number, and must inevitably have

been shot, stabbed and tossed overboard, but for the exertions and

authority of the Moolah Moustapha, who would not allow them to slay

us; but under pain of his everlasting curse and displeasure,

commanded them to spare our lives, "as he had eaten bread and salt

with us." Though four of the fellows whom we encountered, and with

whom we had exchanged several buffets, blows, and stabs in the dark,

belonged to the unscrupulous force of the Bostandgi Bashi, or Police

Inspector on the banks of the Bosphorus and its adjacent villages,

the voice of the Moolah, who ordered us to be taken alive, proved all

powerful. We were soon beaten down, and severely, roughly, even

brutally, tied like sheep with a wet rope which lay steeping in the

bilge at the bottom of the boat; and while we were lying helplessly

there, the revengeful Osmanlies trampled and spat upon us, reviling

us at the same time with such epithets as can only come from a

vituperative Turkish tongue.

'Allah burn you, you dog's sons--you imps of Shaitaun!' said one whom

they frequently named Zahroun, and who seemed to be half Bostandgi

and half seaman.

'The drunken Inglees--whose dogs are they?' asked another, mockingly.

'They worship the devil, like the wild Yezidies of Iraun--the

children of hell, and are false as the falsest Yahoudi. Dirt be upon

their beards!' said the ferocious Zahroun.

'Son of Shaitaun,' said another, kicking me so severely that I

thought my right arm was broken, 'it is your khismet (destiny) to die

here, and I know not why the simple Moolah spares you.'

'Infidel that you are,' said a fourth, 'your khismet is written on

your forehead by the finger of the prophet--and it is a skinful of

the cold Bosphorus.'

To all this, the others added coarse and vulgar ribaldry, such as one

might expect from the boatmen and Bostandgi of the Bosphorus, a

depraved and murderous class at all times; and my heart swelled with

honest rage when I thought of the futile war we had waged for those

insensate Turks, whose name had not been heard in battle since our

army landed in the Crimea, and who, with all their boasted valour,

had fled at Balaclava, and left a single Highland regiment--"_the

thin red streak_" of Sir Colin Campbell--to receive in line the

charge of all the Russian cavalry!

But now the Moolah raised his voice.

'Bismillah--peace, I command you, peace! Allah permits them yet to

live, and dare such as ye to repine? We come not here to brawl or to

revile, but to fulfil the decrees of Allah as spoken by his prophet,

upon whose memory, name, and grave be all the blessings of the

faithful. The home of a true Believer--the anderun of a true

Mussulman--one fearing God, obeying his Koran, and walking in the

shadow of the prophet, has been violated, and the Koran and the law

say, that a terrible punishment must follow!'

'Amaun! amaun!' muttered Zahroun and all the others present, while a

moan from the stern of the boat drew my eyes towards Iola.

* * * * *

Would that I could blot from my memory the dreadful scene that

followed!

Worn by nights and days of weeping--exhausted by unavailing prayers

for pity, and paralyzed by terror, there seemed to be no life left in

her slender and delicate form, save what a short, quick, and heavy

sob indicated, as her small and tremulous hands were tied by a cord

behind her back; and, calm and pale as death itself, she submitted to

her fate without a murmur.

'Moustapha--insensate Moolah!' I exclaimed, in an agony of mind,

'hear me--hear me! Have you no pity?--no mercy?--no compassion for

those who have been cruelly tempted?'

'Peace, accursed,' replied the Moolah, in a stern whisper, '_we tempt

ourselves_.'

As a degradation, the executioners had torn away the yashmack of

muslin from her face, and its pale beauty and divine resignation were

sad, sublime, and maddening to me; but a large, coarse sack was

hastily drawn over her by Zahroim, who seemed an adept in the work;

he tied it securely to her slender ankles, and saw her form no more.

A cry escaped me, and a half-suppressed groan from Callum Dhu, as

these inhuman wretches launched her headlong into the deep.

She sunk like a stone! * * * * * *

On the black waves of that midnight sea there rose a few bubbles, and

a ripple or two, that widened round us, and then all was over! A

voice broke the stillness; it was that of the Moolah praying. He was

repeating the first chapter of the Koran; a short chapter held in

great veneration by the Mohammedans, who use it us a prayer, and deem

it the quintessence of the whole writings of the Prophet.

'Allah latif magid!' (Allah is gracious!) he exclaimed, with a loud

voice: 'the Lord of all creatures--the most merciful the King of the

day of judgment! Thee do we worship, and of Thee do we beg

assistance. Direct us in the right way--in the way of those to whom

Thou hast been gracious--not of those against whom Thou art incensed

and who go astray.'

'Amaun! amaun!' muttered all the ruffians, bowing their heads, as

they shipped their oars again, and now the huge and lumbering

koehamba was slowly pulled away from the place; from that hideous

grave--the inky wafers that had swallowed up Iola Vidimo.

In the morning I was beloved by a beautiful woman--at night by an

immortal but scarcely purer spirit; and with eyes full of tears for

her who had passed away, I gazed upward on the starlit sky of Greece.

The passages of that night seemed all a hideous and incredible dream.

Iola was the most artless of all earthly beings, for in many things

she was a mere child, and can aught be nearer angels, or more akin to

heaven, than a child? But so perished this unhappy one; so pure, so

unstained and beautiful--the victim of a pitiless destiny!

CHAPTER XLVIII.

THE TURKISH BOAT.

Our craft had been for some time in motion before I became aware that

a large lateen sail was hoisted on it, and was filled to the

extremity of its long and tapering yard; and that our course was

directed, not to Rodosdchig, but up the sea of Marmora, towards the

north-east.

I demanded of the Moolah Moustapha whither he was conveying us, but

received no answer. Again and again I made the same request, each

time with growing anger and vehemence, and each time adding threats

of what our Government would say, or do, or require, curiously

oblivious that I had, in my own person, outraged the civil and

religious laws of Turkey, such as they are; but still the Moolah

disdained to accord me the slightest answer or recognition, and sat,

with his hands folded in his green robe and crossed upon his breast;

his high felt cap pulled over his beetling brows; his keen and

glittering eyes fixed upon the eastern quarter of the sky, where the

dawn was shedding a rosy tinge over all the land and sea; and the

rough galiondgis or boatmen, and the pistolled, sabred, tarbooshed,

and bearded policemen of the Bostandgi Bashi were equally taciturn,

though Zahroun scowled and swore at us from time to time.

Now I conceived that they might be conveying us to one of the old

castles at the mouth of the Bosphorus, or perhaps to Constantinople,

but the distance was rather too great to be traversed in an open boat

at the season of the year.

Day dawned at last; morning brightened on the Grecian hills, and the

outline of many a grim old tower and ruined temple, crowning the grey

rocks and storm-beaten headlands, stood in dark relief against the

blushing east.

Upon that sea, which mirrored all the morning sky, I gazed with a

shudder of horror, for it was the grave of my poor Albanian girl, and

her pale, wan face, her beautiful eyes, and angelic smile, came

before me with painful distinctness; while, with a morbid grief, I

endeavoured to imagine on what coral bed, in what deep and

unfathomable rift or abyss of that huge watery tomb, on which the

waves were shining in the orient sun, her charming form had found a

last resting place.

Poor Iola! I could not yet realize her death, or the conviction that

if I was to go back to Rodosdchig I would not meet her at the Ruined

Hermitage, in the express cemetery, or in the silken-hung apartments

of Hussein, where I had last spent an evening with her. The events

of the last night still seemed all a hideous nightmare, or the memory

of some terrible phantasmagoria.

'It is long before we become assured of the loss of those we value,'

says a charming female writer; so her dying glance was still

lingering before me, and shall be so, in years to come, when other

memories may have been swept away and effaced, like footprints on the

shore of an ebbing sea.

With emotions of rage and hatred, difficult alike to express and to

control, I turned from her destroyers, and hid my face in my hands,

as this bitterness was replaced by anguish and remorse.

The kochamba continued to run at great speed before a sharp breeze

which blew direct from the narrow Dardanelles, and the rocky capes,

the sandy bays, and wooded inlets opened and closed again in rapid

succession, as we passed them with a flowing sheet, and ere long

Callum and I recognised the flat-roofed town and barracks of

Heraclea, with the old ruins of the age of Vespasian, and the white

foam curling on the rocks of Palegrossa, where the timbers of the

_Vestal_ lay--a rent and weedy hull.

I now hoped that the Moolah and his ruffians meant to land us there,

and deliver us up to our own commanding officer, and with this idea

my spirit rose a little. The familiar faces of our mess came

before me; rough Duncan Catanagh, with his old legends about Loch

Lomond and stories of the Mahrattah war: frank Jack Belton, and

others among whom I had felt happier than ever I hoped to be after

the time I had laid my mother in her lonely Highland grave, and since

I had been driven from Glen Ora into the wide and selfish world; but

this gleam of liberty faded away, for the kochamba still bore on; her

head was kept to the seaward, and in another hour Heraclea was left

astern.

What could be the Moolah's object, and whither was he going?

Ere long a British screw-steamer-of-war--a frigate under easy sail,

and with her steam up--passed us to leeward, on her way apparently

for the Bosphorus, and Callum and I gathered new hope as she came

close to us, with her scarlet ensign swelling proudly on the morning

breeze, and with the sun shining through her open gun-ports. I arose

in the boat, believing that my scarlet uniform might arrest the

attention or excite the suspicion of those on board; but I was

instantly thrust down below the thwarts; a pistol was held to my head

by Zahroun; then a tarpaulin, was thrown over Callum and me, to

conceal us more completely from any prying eye that might be aloft in

the steamer's rigging, and steadily, swiftly, and monotonously the

kochamba continued to cleave the glittering waves and run along the

coast of Roumelia.

Our Turkish captors were all smoking opium and coarse Latakia in

taciturn composure; some had small chibouques, and others cigarettes

made up of paper and tobacco, from those little embroidered bags

which an Osmanli is seldom without.

Several hours had now elapsed since Callum and I had been tied so

roughly by ropes, and these being wetted by the salt spray, had

shrunk to a degree that caused us intense and acute pain. My hands

became red, swollen, stiff, and benumbed; and with something of

satisfaction I saw the lateen-sail trimmed anew, the helm put up, and

the prow of the kochamba turned inwards a town which we were nearing.

But, still my mind was painfully full of Iola--my poor victim--for

conscience made her seem as much the victim of my folly or

recklessness--term it as you will--as of the cruelty of that Osmanli

dog her husband, whom I had registered a hundred vows to pistol on

the first opportunity.

Could I have recalled the events of the last few weeks Iola had still

been spared, for my rashness would now have been tempered by reason

and the ties of honour; and she had still been a thing of life and of

this earth, enjoying the monotonous and secluded existence accorded

to a Turkish wife--varied only by an evening ramble in the City of

the Silent with the gossips of adjacent harems and anderuns.

The kochamba bore straight and steadily on, and as we neared the

harbour, every object increased along the shore, and soon we were in

smooth water and between the piers.

This, then, was the place of our destination, and here it was that

probably poor Callum and I were to figure before one of those

absurdly solemn courts of muftis and kadis who sit in every Turkish

town to play the farce of Justice, and whose code of law is the

verbose and obscure Koran of Mohammed, and the Koran alone.

Again I ventured to question the Moolah.

'What place is this?'

'Selyvria, in the Sandjiack of Gallipoli,' was the brief reply, as

the boat came sheering alongside the low and slimy mole. Then the

yard was lowered, and the flapping sail stowed away; the long oars

were unshipped, and the painter run through one of the enormous iron

rings on the quay.

We were ordered to land, and lost no time in doing so; then the

policemen of the Bostandgi drew their sabres and conducted us into

the town, where an increasing crowd of chattering Greeks and

gambolling young Turkish _gamins_, with brown, bare legs and red

tarbooshes, followed us through the muddy and unpaved thoroughfares

with shrill cries of astonishment, amid which the incessant

'Mashallah,' 'Inshallah,' and 'Allah Ackbar,' were the most prominent.

The sun had set now and the aspect of the sea and land was

magnificent.

Throned in the eastern heavens, the soft and silver moon was in all

her clearest splendour. The studded belt of Orion and the

constellation of the Scorpion united with her in filling the wide

blue vault of night with lustre, and all the waves of Marmora seemed

to be tipped with blue fire and to be rolling in liquid light.

Built on the slope of a hill, the terraced houses of Selyvria were

irregular, quaint, and queer, like those of all Turkish towns, and

they rose above each other like the seats of an amphitheatre. The

hill was green, and on its summit rose a fortress of the Greek

Empire--old, say some, as the days of Selys, who founded the city.

The lower, or Turkish town, is without enclosure, though an embattled

wall connects the outer row of houses, above which rise the domes of

its khan and several mosques.

On leaving the town we were conducted along an ancient bridge of

about forty arches, the shadows of which were thrown by the moonlight

far across the salt sea-marsh, over which it is built. Thence

proceeding by a part of the paved road that leads to Stamboul, and is

formed of blocks of basalt, we found ourselves beneath the walls of a

grim and dilapidated castle, which stands close to the sea-shore. On

one hand the waves of the Propontis lay rolling in shining ripples on

the yellow beach, and inland, on the other, spread a wilderness of

wild vines and cherry-trees, with massive Grecian columns, tottering

or prostrate among them, and beyond these a spacious burial-place,

with all its shadowy, huge, and solemn cypresses, standing like a

rank of giant spectres in the brilliant moonlight.

Above our heads towered the black parapets, the peering cannon, and

the red-capped sentinels of the Turkish castle. Then the wild and

strange voices of the Osmanli soldiers were heard, as the Onbashi of

the Bostandgis conferred with the Mulazim who commanded the guard;

the heavy doors were opened, and as we entered a cold and dark

archway, we heard the chink of bolt and bar and swinging-chain, as

the barrier was secured behind us; and then the ropes were untied

from our almost powerless hands--an inexpressible relief!

'Dioul!' muttered Callum, with a shrug of his shoulders, 'we were

better at home in desolate Glen Ora, even under Snaggs the factor,

than here.'

Before I could reply, we were pushed through a side door, and thrust

down a flight of steep and slimy steps, into a hot, close, and

noisome place, where the sights, sounds, odours, and horrors that

awaited us, require an entire chapter to themselves.

CHAPTER XLIX.

THE BAGNIO.

'Truth is strange--stranger than fiction.'

Never were words more expressive of what is passing around us daily

in the world, even in its most matter-of-fact scenes and phases of

life. Many a deep and bitter romance is occurring beside us, amid

the bustle of the railway train; on the deck of the departing

steamer; with the regiment embarking for foreign service, or with the

disbanded soldier returning to search for his parent's cottage, and

finding perhaps a manufacturing town, where he had left a rural

village; amid the hum of the streets, in the brilliance of the

crowded ball-room--in all these are thoughts and wishes, fears and

aspirations, known only to Him who reads the hearts of all. Hence

though my autography may seem a romance to the reader, it is a true

and painful history to me.

Thus, as I have related, on the very day the late treaty of Peace was

signed at Paris--to wit, the 30th March, 1856, or according to the

Mohammedan Hejira, 1271--Callum Dhu and I found ourselves inmates of

a Turkish Bagnio, an event of much more importance to us than the

definement of the Bessarabian frontier, the fall of Sebastopol, or

the acceptance of the "five points" by Russia.

We were thrust into a large, vaulted apartment, in the sunk or

ground-floor of the fortress. It was damp, and pervaded by an

atmosphere so fœtid, hot, and humid, that for a time it was all

but overpowering, and denied us free respiration. A dim iron lantern

hung from a pillar on one side, and shed a cold and wavering light

into the misty dungeon, which was half seen and half sunk in shadow.

This darkness seemed dotted at certain distances by swarthy visages,

fiercely browed and blackly bearded, with wild gleaming eyes; and on

our British uniforms being seen, the clanking of chains rang on all

sides, with incessant yells of

'Bono Johny!'

'No Bono!'

'Barek-allah--no Bono!'

And after a time, Callum and I could perceive that we were surrounded

by about fifty prisoners, all of whom were chained to the four walls,

and almost within arms length of each other.

'Ingleez! Ingleez!' shouted one.

'Giaours of Frangistan!'

'May they all go to Jehannum!'

''Tis their kismet.'

'And who can avert it?'

'Bono--bono!'

'No bono--wallah!'

'Hah-ha! Hah--ha!'

Such were the cries and yells we heard on all sides, mingled with

groans, idiot or ferocious laughter, brutal jests and scurrility, in

all the dialects of the Bosphorus and the Levant. Many of these

prisoners were nude, or nearly so, and their muscular limbs and olive

skins were fretted by the massive and rusty fetters which confined

them to the walls on each side. Others were clad in every diversity

of oriental costume, fashion, and colour. We could perceive the blue

gown of the Jew; the torn but ample white robes of the Armenian; the

gay cap of the short-trousered Greek; the fur pelisse of the

hawk-eyed Tartar; and the red tarboosh that covered the woolly head

of the Egyptian; but all these men were squalid, tattered, and beyond

description, filthy. Assassination, robbery, and a thousand crimes

of the deepest die, were legibly stamped on the hideous fronts of

this crew of hardened desperadoes; and we shrank from their touch, on

each side, as we hovered in the middle, and kept carefully beyond

their reach, for I had once heard of a prisoner who was placed in a

Turkish bagnio unchained, a privilege which so greatly exasperated

his fettered companions, that they flung, beat, kicked, and tore him

from man to man, until his mangled corpse defied their further

efforts at insult or torture.

Most of these prisoners, as I afterwards ascertained, were men who

had committed those foul murders and robberies, such as, since the

war, are nightly occurring in the dark, unlighted, unpaved, and

narrow streets of Stamboul--that Stamboul, boasted by the Turks as

'the refuge of the world--the city full of faith;' and these fierce

denizens of the prophet's patrimony, would all, ere long, receive the

reward of their crimes in some form of law; for though the land is

almost lawless, its punishments, like its people, are barbarous and

severe.

For several days and nights Callum and I remained together in this

hideous place, ignorant of what fate had in store for us; whether we

were to be detained there in hopeless captivity; whether we were to

be brought before a court of malevolent muftis and ignorant kadis; or

whether we were to be delivered to our own military authorities; to

the Turkish, or to that enterprising ambassador who has immortalised

himself by the _anxiety_ and diplomatic _energy_ he evinced during

the defence of Kars; and from whom, by his conduct on that occasion,

we had so much to expect in the form of protection and aid!

By day, Callum and I paced to and fro in the centre of this dreadful

place, keeping apart from all our companions, and we soon became

almost as oblivious of _their_ presence, as they were of ours; and

during this monotonous time our sole employment was watching the long

flakes of misty light which streamed through four iron-grated

apertures or narrow slits down to the Bagnio; and which, like four

palpable objects, passed slowly round from one side of the dungeon to

another, as the sun declined and day faded away. At these holes the

Turkish sentinel, with his scarlet fez, dark moustachioed face, and

cunning eye, was seen at times peering into the place to see if "all

was right;" and through these apertures, I was told, they had been

wont to fire ball-cartridge, when any unusual commotion took place

among the prisoners.

At night we crouched together in a corner, somewhat apart from the

rest, and weary of communing, surmising, and conjecturing, slept the

sleep of the anxious and worn--that waking and painful doze, which is

but a succession of nightmares and visions, till dawn again struggled

through the misty atmosphere, to light up the quaint forms and

ferocious faces of these fettered wretches, and to bring the Turkish

guard, with their daily allowance of black bread and fresh water,

when again would begin the usual chorus of laughter, groans, and

curses, mingled with the swinging and clashing of fetters and chains,

bolts and padlocks of rusty iron.

Among the unfortunates confined in this place I discovered two who

were treated by our guards with more kindness and respect than the

other prisoners, and whose stories somewhat interested me.

One was hopelessly insane; and the other, who was indeed sunk to the

lowest depth of misery and dejection, informed me that they had been

lieutenants (Mulazims) in the Turkish military service.

CHAPTER L.

THE TWO TURKISH LIEUTENANTS.

'I am Achmet Effendi,' said the latter, a handsome but pale, sad, and

emaciated young man; 'I was a lieutenant in the old regiment of

Scherif Bey, and, as a mere boy, served in the campaign of Egypt. My

younger friend whom you see here so heavily visited by heaven and the

prophet, that his mind is gone or possessed by a devil, so that he

requires chains and bars three times heavier than the most powerful

villain here, is Ali Effendi, a Mulazim of artillery, and there is

none better or braver in the army of his Imperial Majesty the Sultan.

'He was with that Turkish army which on the 28th October, 1853,

crossed the Danube, and on the 4th of the following month won the

victorious battle of Oltenitza, where he slew the aide-de-camp of the

Russian General, and found those important despatches which informed

us, but alas! too late, of the intended attack upon Sinope, where

four thousand five hundred of the Faithful were slaughtered by the

dogs of the Czar.

'Ali Effendi was next engaged and severely wounded at the battle of

Kalaphat on the 8th of January, 1854--you may still see the scar of

the Russian bullet on his bare right arm, above the iron fetter. Ali

is tall--he was then handsome and winning; a clever poet and maker of

verses; an expert player on the guitar, but poor; for, like myself,

he had only one hundred and twenty piastres per month, as a

lieutenant en seconde, of Topchis.

'For five years he had loved and been beloved by the daughter of a

wealthy Stambouli merchant, and he had received her plighted troth.

You may know all the danger, the difficulties, and the deadly snares

that hover round a Turkish love; yet the skilful Ali had surmounted

and escaped them all, and won the love of Saïda. But her father

discovered them, and he was inexorable, of course--fathers always are

so, for they are the evil Genii of all love stories, and so he

proposed to barter or sell her to Ali Pasha himself!

'Poor Ali, my friend, was marched off with his brigade of artillery

to fight the Russians under Mouravieff at Kars, and the unhappy Saïda

was in despair when the Pasha sent the dressmakers from the bazaar to

measure her for the bridal attire and pearl slippers. Then her grief

and fury could no longer be controlled; and bruising the crystal

pendant of a lamp to powder, she drank it in a cup of sherbet and

expired, with the name of Ali on her lips, and a copy of his last

farewell verses, written on fine silk, pressed to her heart.