One of the Six Hundred: A Novel
He was very careful always to style us "effendi," such being the prefix
for all who are deemed educated; and, as he sat cross-legged on the
divan, with his paunch protruding before him, his ample and well-dyed
beard half hiding the frogged lace of his surtout, the amber mouthpiece
of his long chibouque between his thick lips, with his little scarlet
fez, and sleepy, half-leering black eyes, he seemed the very beau-ideal
of a used-up and sensual Osmanlee.
"_Ev-Allah!_" (praise God!) he said, on one occasion, "I have now seen
all the world."
"Indeed, colonel, I knew not that you had travelled," said I.
"Yes, and I would not give a grush (piastre) to see it again."
"_All_, do you say?" queried I.
"Yes; Mecca, Medina, Bassora, Damascus, Cairo, and Iskandrich--there is
no more to see; and of all the women I have ever beheld," he added, with
one of his wicked little leers, "who can equal the Cockonas of
Bucharest? Not even the golden-haired Tcherkesses."
"And what think you of the Greeks, colonel?" asked Studhome, rather in a
blundering manner, for Steriopoli's brows knit unpleasantly.
"_Backallum_" (we shall see), was his reply, as he gave a stealthy
glance at Magdhalini, who was superintending the tandour, the substitute
for a fireplace, consisting of a wooden frame, in which there is placed
a copper vessel, full of charcoal, the whole being covered by a wadded
coverlet, and closely reminding one of the brasseros of the Spaniards.
Swift though the glance, it was not unseen by Steriopoli, whom the
ominous remark which accompanied it sufficiently alarmed, and, with
unwonted abruptness of manner, he requested his daughter to retire and
assume her veil.
On the following day it chanced that he had to visit Alexi (which is
about twenty miles distant from Gallipoli), as he had some flour to
dispose of, and would be absent all night. Whether our Turkish visitor
was aware of this circumstance I cannot say, but in the forenoon I came
suddenly upon him and Magdhalini, whom he had surprised or waylaid in
the pathway near the windmills. He grasped one of her hands, and she
was struggling to release herself. I had my sword under my arm, but as
a fracas with a Turkish officer was by no means desirable, I lingered
for a moment before interfering.
"Girl," I heard him say, with a dark scowl, while he grasped her slender
wrist, "for the third time I tell thee not to bite the finger that puts
honey into thy mouth."
"Nonsense, Hadjee; let me go, I say," replied Magdhalini, laughing,
though she was partly frightened.
"I should like to make my home in thy heart, Magdhalini, even as the
bulbul buildeth her nest in the rose-tree," panted the fat Hadjee.
"Oh, thou owl, thou crow of bad omen!" exclaimed the lively Greek girl,
as she wrenched her hand free, and, darting a bright and merry glance at
her enraged and perspiring admirer, drew her yashmac close, and sprang
away, blushing because I had witnessed the scene.
That night Studhome and I had been supping with Beverley at his quarters
near the palace of the Capudan Pasha, and were returning late to the
house of Steriopoli. The sky was clear and starry; thus we could see
distinctly several Turkish soldiers loitering about near the house and
windmills, and though the hour was an unusual one for them to be absent,
that we deemed no concern of ours, and on entering we retired to our
kiosks, or rooms, and were both soon sound asleep--so sound that we
failed to hear a loud knocking shortly after at the front door.
Magdhalini and two female servants promptly responded to the unusual
summons, but declined to open without further inquiry, on which the door
was beaten in by a large hammer, and a chiaoush, or sergeant, and
several soldiers, all in Turkish uniform, seized Magdhalini, bound,
gagged, and carried her off, despite her cries and resistance. Roused
by the sudden noise, and suspecting we knew not what, Studhome and I
dragged on our trousers, and came forth both at the same moment, each
with drawn sword and cocked revolver; but before lights were procured,
and ere the terrified servants could make us understand the real state
of affairs, and the catastrophe which had taken place, our pretty Greek
hostess was gone beyond recovery.
I shall willingly hurry over all that followed in this strange episode
of social life in the East.
Poor Steriopoli came back next day to a desolate house--a degraded and
broken home! He was full of rage and despair, for his daughter was the
pride, the idol of his heart; and suspecting justly the Hadjee Mehmet,
he discovered that this celebrated warrior had gone to Alexi, the very
town from which he, Steriopoli, had returned.
There he traced his daughter, only to find that she had been most
cruelly and shamefully treated. She was lodged in the house of the
cole-agassi, or major of Mehmet's regiment--a wretch who had originally
been a channator aga, or chief of the black eunuchs; and on the pretext
that she had renounced Christianity and embraced Islamism, he refused to
give her up. In compliance with the wish of her sorrowing father, and
the indignant old Bishop of Gallipoli, she was brought before the
vaivode of the district. She appeared the wreck of her former self,
and, though not present, I afterwards heard that a most affecting scene
took place.
On beholding Steriopoli, whose once coal-black hair was now thickly
seamed with grey, she broke away from the Turkish slaves who held her,
and cast herself into his arms, in a passion of grief, exclaiming--
"My father! oh, my father! after what has taken place, I am no longer
worthy to be in your house, or to pray at my mother's grave. We can no
longer be anything to each other."
"Oh, Kyrie Eleison (Lord have mercy)!" groaned the unfortunate Greek.
Despite her solemn protests that she was still a Christian, the vaivode
would not yield her to her father; but opening the Koran, closed the
case by reading a passage from the sixteenth chapter thereof--a passage
revealed to the Prophet at Medina:--"O Prophet! when unbelieving women
come unto thee, and plight their faith unto thee, that they will not
associate anything with God, nor steal, nor commit sin, nor kill their
children, nor come with a calumny which they have forged between their
hands and feet, nor be disobedient to thee in that which shall be
reasonable: then do plight thy faith unto them, and ask pardon for them,
of One who is inclined to forgive and be merciful. O true believers!
enter not into friendship with a people against whom God is incensed;
they despair of pardon and the life to come, even as infidels despair of
the resurrection of those who dwell in the grave."
"La-Allah-illah-Allah-Mohammed resoul Allah!"[*] shouted the people.
[*] "There is but one God, and Mahomet is his Prophet."
The poor miller and his daughter were torn asunder, and the former was
driven by blows from the house of the vaivode; while Magdhalini, whom he
was never more permitted to see, was taken again to the house of the
cole-agassi. By Turkish law, such as it is, any commissioned officer
who kills a man is liable to five years' slavery in chains, and service
as a private hereafter; but the abduction of a Greek girl, though a
rajah, or Christian subject of the Porte, was a very trivial
affair--much less than stealing a terrier in the streets of London. The
foreign Consuls took up the matter, and redress was sought of the
Stamboul effendi, or chief of the police at Constantinople, but sought
in vain. The Bishop of Gallipoli applied to the Skeik Islam, also
without avail.
The Sheik is a very awful personage, who combines in his own person the
greatest offices of religion, together with the supreme power of the
civil law. Every new measure, even to naming the streets and numbering
the houses of filthy Stamboul, requires his sanction. The Sultan alone
has the power of life and death over the Sheik Islam, who can neither be
nobly bowstrung, nor ignobly beheaded, and he enjoys the peculiar
prerogative of being pounded to death in a mortar. A word from the Sheik
would have restored Magdhalini to her father; but Hadjee Mehmet, the
ex-tiruaktzy, had once operated on his holy nails, so a deaf ear was
turned to the prayer of the infidel Bishop, who was seeking the dove in
the net of the fowler long after we had taken our departure for Varna;
and, until the memorable day of Balaclava, I saw no more of the infamous
Hadjee Mehmet.
*CHAPTER XXX.*
Let me see her once again!
Let her bring her proud dark eyes,
And her petulant quick replies;
Let her wave her slender hand,
With its gesture of command,
And throw back her raven hair
With the old imperial air;
Let her be as she was then--
The loveliest lady in all the land--
Iseult of Ireland.
Ere the course of events added to the distance which already lay between
me and Great Britain, I resolved to write to Lady Louisa. I could no
longer endure the torture of suspense, combined with absence and
gathering doubt. In common parlance, ages seemed to have elapsed
instead of weeks since the day we marched for embarkation, and when I
beheld her for the last time; and thus, notwithstanding our strange
compact that there should be no correspondence between us, I wrote to
her, even at the hazard of the letter falling into the hands of her I
dreaded most--proud, stately, cold, and unsympathetic "Mamma
Chillingham."
It was about the middle of May, the day before we were to embark again,
for now the Allies were to advance to Varna; and while I wrote, and in
thought addressed Louisa, her presence seemed to come before me in
fancy, and the inner depths of heart and soul were stirred with a
jealous love and sorrowful tenderness that were almost unendurable; but
a summons from Colonel Beverley, regarding the baggage and squad-bags of
my troop, cut short my epistle in a very matter-of-fact way, and I
despatched Pitblado with it to the military post-office. In that letter
I sent brief remembrances to Fred Wilford's sister, and to many of our
friends; but of the newly-made marquis I could not trust myself to
write, though I had no doubt as yet of Louisa's faith and truth. That
night a letter came to me from Cora, the first I had received since we
landed at Gallipoli. She and Sir Nigel had returned to Calderwood, and
had just come back from the Lanarkshire steeplechases.
"Oh, Newton," she continued, "how anxious and frightened we have been,
for we heard that cholera had broken out in the British camp, and we
trembled for you--dear papa and I. (There was no doubt the "we" did not
include Louisa, at all events.) Do you think of us and quiet Calderwood
Glen--of the old house, of papa, and of me? Are the Oriental ladies so
beautiful as we have been told? One reads so much about their veiled
forms, their brilliant eyes, and so forth. Tell us what you have seen
of all this--the mosques, the harems, and the Golden Horn. You have
seen everything, of course."
There was nothing in Cora's letter that either flattered my passion or
soothed my apprehension. Chillingham Park was never once mentioned, and
I could only gather from its abrupt passages and assumed playfulness
that she still loved me, tenderly, truly, and hopelessly. There were
times when, in her dreams--I learned all this long after, when the
present had become the past, and could be recalled no more--there were
times when, in imagination, she saw Newton Norcliff, safe from wounds
and war, at Calderwood--hers, and hers only--a prize of which none could
rob her, not even the brilliant Louisa Loftus; and in her sleep, tears
of happiness stole down her poor, pale cheeks.