Henty George Alfred
In Greek Waters: A Story of the Grecian War of Independence
“Yes, we shall want such a man,” Zaimes agreed.
“Very well, Zaimes, then I think you had better go back to our friend at once. Even if he did mean treachery, he would have taken no steps yet, as he won’t expect us back till the evening if we come at all. Tell him that you want a service of him in which he will run no personal danger – for you know we can dress him up in some of our things, and put a bit of black cloth as a mask half over his face – and that he will be paid twenty pieces of gold for a night’s work. That will be a fortune to him.”
“That will be the best plan,” Zaimes said. “Where shall we meet you?”
“I will go down the hill to the bottom to see what sort of a road there is along the sea, and I will wait there for you. If the road is exposed to the view of the sentries on the batteries at the sea wall we must make our way through the orchards to this point; if not, we will move along there.”
“Do you think that Captain Martyn is sure to be here this evening?”
“He is quite certain to be. He knows that every hour is of importance, and he will get hold of some craft or other early this morning even if he has to go into a fishing port to get it.”
Zaimes retraced his steps up the hill, while Horace sauntered down until he came out on to the road leading to the port along the shore. A good many small houses were scattered along by its side, and some fishing-boats drawn up on the beach. At the angle of the wall there was a battery. Three guns pointed along the road and the Turkish sentry was leaning against the parapet by the side of them.
“We shall have to make our way through the orchards,” he said to himself. “There will be no getting along this road with the moon up. The sentry would notice us a quarter of a mile away. Besides, the tramp of so many feet would be certain to bring people to their doors. And we must come early if we can, so as to catch the pasha before he goes to bed.”
In half an hour Zaimes and the cobbler came up.
“It is agreed,” the former said in English; “twenty pounds will make him what he considers rich, and he declares he is ready to run any risk for a single night’s work in order to gain it. I think he is an honest fellow. I watched him closely when I went in, and if he had any thought whatever of betraying us, I think I should have seen it in his face.”
It was now four o’clock in the afternoon, and they soon made out a small brigantine anchored a quarter of a mile out, and about a mile and a half along the shore.
“I expect that is her,” Horace said. “She has only just come in, for there are some men upon the yards stowing away the sails, and that is just the position we agreed she should take up.”
When they had gone a mile farther they could see that she had small red and white flags at her mast-head. When they got opposite to her they went down to the water’s edge. Horace waved a white handkerchief for a moment and then sat down. A minute later the boat towing behind the brigantine was hauled up. Two men got into her and rowed leisurely to the shore. They were dressed as Turkish sailors, but Horace recognized them as they came close as two of the crew. They stepped in at once, and the boat rowed out again.
“Have you any news of Mr. Miller and the others, Mr. Horace,” one of them said, “if I might make so bold as to ask?”
“Certainly you may. They are in prison, and there is no possibility of getting them out with the strength we have got; it would need three or four hundred men at least. But we have another plan, which we hope will be successful.”
“You will find the captain down in the cabin with your father, Mr. Horace. Everyone is keeping below except three or four of our chaps, who are got up, like us, in the clothes of the crew of the craft.”
“Come along, Zaimes,” Horace said as he stepped on board. “You had better come with me. This man is going to help us, Davidson, so make him as comfortable as you can till Zaimes comes out again.”
Horace found his father, Martyn, and the doctor in the little cabin. He was heartily welcomed back, and eagerly questioned as to his news. He first told them of the impossibility of doing anything to effect the rescue of the prisoners, guarded as they were; and then explained the position of the pasha’s house and garden, and his own plan.
“Well, it is a bold scheme, Horace, but I should think it might succeed,” Martyn said when he concluded. “We ought certainly to be able to get hold of the pasha before an alarm is given, and if we do we might manage to make terms with him without the women knowing anything about it. That would be a great point, if it could be managed, for if they begin screaming they will bring the whole town upon us. You say there is one door from that part of the house into the court-yard on the other side, and of course there is a communication from the public rooms into the house. The first thing to do when we get in will be to post a couple of men at each of these doors to prevent anyone from running out and giving them the alarm. After that we can tackle the pasha quietly. As you say, though we may threaten, there would be no getting women up over those walls; they would have to be slung up like bales, and if the alarm were given we should have the town upon us before we had half finished the job. We could bundle the pasha off, tied up if he would not walk, and take a dozen children if there are as many, for the sailors could carry them if they were small; if not, they could be gagged and made to walk with a pistol at their heads; but with women, and especially Turkish women, it would be an awful business. Many of them are fat, and some of them I suppose would faint. If we can get the pasha himself and some of his children that will be enough; but as you say, I expect he will give in when he finds himself in our hands, and we tell him that we are going to carry him and his whole family off. Your idea of a bribe in addition is a very good one. Of course, as you say, if we were sure the men at Smyrna would send an order for them to be sent to him, we should be all right, for we could attack their guard at some lonely spot along the road; but the betting is ten to one that he orders them to be hung at once, and if the pasha here writes in return describing how he has been obliged to give them up, and sending a handsome present, he will hear nothing more about it. What time do you think we had better start, Horace?”
“About nine o’clock, I should say. It will take us a good hour getting from here and scaling the walls. It is not likely the pasha will be turning in before eleven, but it is as well to give a good margin.”
“I should recommend you not to go, Mr. Beveridge,” Martyn said. “You are not accustomed to climb rope-ladders. It is a job that is only fit for sailors.”
“I do not think I should be of much use,” Mr. Beveridge replied. “If I did, I would go gladly; but after the hindrance I was to you all at Cyprus, I will take your advice and stay here.”
“I will leave a couple of men with you.”
“No, Captain Martyn, you may want every man. Zaimes will remain with me. If you were going to attack the prison no doubt he would wish to be there and help to rescue his brother; but as it is, someone must stay here as we have eight prisoners down in the hold, and as he is no more accustomed to climbing ropes than I am, it is better that he should remain here.”
“Very well, sir, then I will see about getting the things we shall want made.”
The crew were at once set to work to prepare the ladders.
“We had better not make regular rope-ladders,” Martyn said. “They are well enough for us; but if we have to get people over the wall, we had better put in wooden rungs.”
Accordingly some spare oars were sawn up into lengths, and with these and four ropes, two ladders each forty feet long were manufactured. Then two spars twenty-five feet long were chosen. Cross-pieces were nailed to these a foot apart, and a long piece of canvas was nailed under this gangway, so that, as Martyn said, if any of the captives made a false step in going across it, they would not fall through. A single block was fastened to a grapnel, and a long rope attached for getting up the ladder to the top of the first wall. All this was but an hour’s work for twenty men. The doctor had been asked whether he would prefer staying on board or going with the party. He decided upon staying.
“If you were going to fight I would certainly go with you, Martyn; but I am no more accustomed to climbing up ropes than Mr. Beveridge is, and I should only be in your way, so I will stay with him and Zaimes and keep watch on board.”
“I think that is the best plan, doctor. It is sailors’ work. We shall have trouble as it is in hoisting that fellow Horace brought on board over the walls.”
The cobbler had turned pale with fright when Zaimes explained to him that they were going to take the pasha a prisoner, and that he would be wanted to interpret to him, and he protested that nothing could tempt him to undertake such a business.
“Nonsense, man!” Zaimes said. “You will run no more risks than the others. Look at them laughing and joking. They don’t look like men who are about to embark on a perilous expedition. However, I promised you twenty pounds, but if you do your work well and speak out boldly and firmly what you are told, you shall have another five.”
“It is a big sum for a poor man,” the cobbler replied. “I will do it, but I won’t answer for speaking out loud and bold; my teeth chatter at the very thought of it. If he should ever recognize me again, he would chop me up into mince meat.”
“How can he recognize you? You can either fasten a piece of black cloth over your face, or what will do just as well, get a cork and burn it, and rub it over your face till you are as black as coal. Your own brother wouldn’t know you then, and the pasha will have enough to think about without staring at you.”
“I like that better than the cloth,” the man said. “If there is a scuffle the black cloth may come off.”
“We will rig you up in the clothes of one of the sailors here. You can put them on over your own if you like, and then you will have nothing to do but to throw them away, wash your face, and walk boldly into the town in the morning.”
The brigantine had two boats. These were, as soon as it became dark, lowered, and a quarter before nine the landing party mustered. The men had already torn up some blankets and old sail-cloth, and wrapped them round their cutlasses and muskets so as to deaden the sound should these strike against the wall. The guns were not loaded, but each man carried thirty rounds of ammunition and a brace of pistols, which were to be loaded as soon as they got down into the garden, Martyn, however, giving the strictest orders that whatever happened not a shot was to be fired without his permission.
“I do not think it is likely that we shall meet with any resistance, lads,” he said before they stepped down into the boats. “If there is, knock them down with your fists; or if there is anything serious, use your cutlasses. Mr. Horace will place the four men told off for the doors, at their posts. These will follow him through the house regardless of anything that is going on around. Everything depends upon our preventing anyone from leaving the house and giving the alarm. I shall myself post men at all the lower windows before we enter. Their duty will be to prevent anyone from coming out into the garden. If there is yelling or shrieking in the garden it will alarm the town. As long as they only shriek in the house there is no fear of its being heard. Now you each know what you have got to do. As to scaling the wall, this must be done as quietly as if you were making sail on board a smart frigate.”
CHAPTER XIII
THE PASHA OF ADALIA
PACKED closely in the two boats of the Turkish craft the landing party rowed for the shore. As soon as they reached it the boats were drawn up on the strand, and in silence Martyn led his men across the road. Then he struck off into the orchard on the other side, so as to escape the notice of any of the people in the houses by the road. The cobbler and Horace went first, Martyn and the men followed a short distance behind. Half an hour’s walking took them to the edge of the ditch, and after a short search they found a bough that Horace and Zaimes had cut off and thrown down by the side of the path, to mark the spot where they were to make the ascent.
Two sailors were posted on the path, at fifty yards above and below them, in case anyone should come along, although the risk of this was exceedingly small. There was no difficulty in scrambling down into the ditch. As soon as they did so the sailor who carried the grapnel advanced to the foot of the wall, and at the second attempt succeeded in getting it to hold on the parapet. Another, with one of the rope-ladders, went forward, fastened the rope to it, and the two of them hauled the ladder up to the block, and kept the rope taut while Martyn mounted. He found, as he had expected, that there was a platform behind the wall for men to stand on while firing. Taking his place on it he took hold of the ladder rope and told the men below to loosen their end. Holding it partly up he fastened it at the block. Then two men joined him, hauled the wooden gangway up, and planted it against the top of the inner wall. The rest of the men followed, and Martyn led the way across. The others soon stood beside him, all stooping down on the platform as soon as they had crossed, so that their heads should not show above the skyline, should anyone happen to be looking out from the windows of the house.
Two sailors helped the cobbler across the gangway. Horace was the last to mount, with the exception of the two sentries, whom he summoned with a low whistle as soon as the others were up. When they reached the top they hauled the rope-ladder after them, and laid it ready for lowering again. By the time Horace crossed to the inner wall Martyn and most of the men had already descended to the garden by the second rope-ladder.
“That has all been managed well,” Martyn said when Horace joined him below. “Now, you and I will go forward and reconnoitre a bit.”
The house was seventy or eighty yards away. There were lights in several windows on the ground-floor, and at almost all the windows on the flat above it.
“We had better take off our shoes, Horace. It is no use running any risks. Shove them in your sash beside your pistols.”
They stole noiselessly up to the house and looked in at the windows. In one room were a group of servants sitting round a brazier, smoking; another room was empty; but in the third, which was much the largest, four Turkish officials were seated on a divan, and a Nubian slave was handing them coffee.
“That old chap is the pasha, no doubt,” Martyn whispered. “He is evidently master of the house. You see he is giving some order or other to the slave. Here is the garden door into a hall; let us see if it is open. Yes; that is all right. Well, I think now we will bring up the men. Now, as soon as we are in, Horace, you take four men; go in first and post them at the doors leading out of the house. I will take six men and seize the pasha and his friends. Other four will pounce upon the servants. Your cobbler fellow had better go with them to tell the servants that if they make the least row they will have their throats cut. The other men will scatter about in the passages and down stairs, and pounce upon anybody who may come along. As soon as you have posted your men, go to the room where the servants are, and bring the interpreter in to me. Tell the sailors to bind the fellows and lay them down, and put a couple of guards over them.”
They returned to the men and told them off to their several duties. All were ordered to take their shoes off, and put them in their belts.
“Now, you can draw your cutlasses, lads,” Martyn said. “Have you all loaded your pistols?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, mind they are not to be used; a pistol-shot might destroy all our plans. I hope to manage it so that there shall not be any noise whatever.”
They made their way quietly up to the house. Horace opened the door and led the way in, followed by his four men. They passed through the hall and a long passage, from which several rooms opened; and he was sure, by the direction in which he was going, that this must lead to the offices. At the end was a strong door; only one bolt was shot, as doubtless the officers would be leaving by this way. He put up a heavy bar that was standing beside it, stationed two of the sailors there, and then retraced his steps with the others. Just as he reached the hall again a sailor came up to him.
“This is the way to the big door, your honour;” and turning down another passage they arrived at a double door, which Horace had no doubt was the one that he had seen in the court-yard. Posting the men there he hurried back, and soon found the room where the servants had been sitting. The work had already been done. The sailors had all been provided with short lengths of rope, and the Turks were lying bound upon the floor. Telling the cobbler to accompany him, he went into the next room. Two sailors, with drawn cutlasses, were standing by the side of the pasha. The three officers had been bound, and were lying on the divan, with a sailor standing over each, while the other sailor stood over the attendant, who cowered on the ground in an attitude of abject terror. Martyn was standing facing the pasha.
“Now, Horace,” he said, “tell your man what to say to the pasha.”
This had been arranged between them, and Horace at once addressed the pasha.
“Do you speak Greek?”
The pasha shook his head.
“Tell him,” Horace said in that language to the interpreter, “that we belong to the ship to which the officers and sailors he has in his prison also belong, and that we have come here to fetch them away. We are fighting under the flag of Greece; but we are Englishmen by blood, and we shall do no harm to him or his family. The prisoners, however, we will have; and unless he sends at once, with an order for their delivery from the prison, and hands them over to us, we shall be obliged to carry him, the three officers here, and the ladies of his family and his children, off on board our ship as hostages; and if a hair of the prisoners’ heads is touched, we shall be forced to hang him and the whole of his family to the yard-arms of the ship.”
The interpreter translated his words sentence by sentence. The Turk had at first looked perfectly impassive; but at the threat to carry off his women and children his expression changed, the veins stood out of his forehead, and his face flushed with fury.
“Tell him,” Horace went on, “that we should deeply regret to have to take such a step, and that we sincerely trust that he will see the necessity for his yielding to our demands. There is no possibility of assistance reaching him, we are a well-armed body of determined men, his servants have been secured, and all the doors are guarded, as also the windows outside – he is completely in our power. As we came in noiselessly and unobserved, so we shall depart. If he refuses to comply with our demands we shall, of course, be compelled to bind and gag all our captives, and to carry the ladies and children.”
When the last sentence had been translated, Horace said to Martyn, “I think, Captain Martyn, you had better get those officers carried into the next room, so that we can touch upon the money side of the question.”
Martyn gave the order, and the officers and the attendant were removed.
“Now, pasha,” Horace went on, “let us look at this thing reasonably. On the one side is the certainty that you and the ladies of the household and your children will be carried away; and that unless the prisoners are given up to us in exchange for you, you will be all put to death. On the other hand, you have but to surrender prisoners whom you did not even capture in war, but who were wrecked on your shore. We know that you have sent to Smyrna for directions concerning them. Were it not for that you would have handed them over to us without difficulty; but as the pasha there, who is your superior, now knows of it, you think that he will be angry when he hears of their escape, and that you might fall into disgrace. But I don’t think that the pasha of Anatolia, if he were placed in the same position as you are, would hesitate a moment in giving up a score of captives of no great importance[Pg 229][Pg 230] one way or the other; and that if the matter were placed by you in the proper light before him, accompanied, perhaps, by a present, nothing more would be heard about it. In any case we are ready to pay you the sum of one thousand pounds as a ransom for them. We have sent your officers out of the room that they should not hear this offer, which will be entirely between ourselves. It is not meant as a bribe to you, but as a ransom, which, if you choose to send it to Smyrna, will doubtless assist the pasha there to perceive that being, with your whole family, at our mercy, you had no resource but to comply with our commands. We will give you five minutes to make up your mind.”
When this was translated, the pasha asked:
“How am I to know that, if the captives are restored to you, you will not still carry me and my family away?”
“You have simply the word of English gentlemen,” Horace said when the question was translated to him. “You see we are acting as considerately as we can. Your ladies upstairs are still unaware that anything unusual is going on. Our men have touched nothing belonging to you. We are neither robbers nor kidnappers, but simply men who have come to save their comrades from a cruel death.”
“I will write the order,” the pasha said firmly. “Had I been in the house by myself I would have died rather than do so. Being as it is, I cannot resist.”
“Who will you send with the order?” Horace asked.
“One of the officers you have taken away is the colonel of the regiment. He will take it and bring the prisoners here. He is the oldest of the three.”
Horace went into the next room and ordered the officer to be unbound and brought in by two of the sailors.
“You have heard, Colonel Osman, the terms that these strangers have laid down, and that unless the prisoners are surrendered, you, the two bimbaches, myself, and the members of my family, will be carried off as hostages and hung if the prisoners are not delivered up.”
“I heard that, pasha.”
“What is your opinion, colonel?”
“My opinion is that you have no course but to give up the prisoners. No one would expect you to sacrifice the lives of the ladies of your family and your children, to say nothing of your own and ours, merely for the sake of twenty shipwrecked sailors. It seems to me that it were madness to hesitate, pasha.”
“That is also my opinion,” the pasha said. “Therefore, colonel, I will now write you an order to fetch them from prison and bring them under an escort here. You will understand that it will be better that absolute silence should be observed about this affair. The less it is talked of the better. If the officer in special charge of them asks any questions you can intimate that, without knowing it, you believe that the messenger may have arrived from Smyrna with instructions as to their disposal. Dismiss the escort at the outer gate and bring the prisoners yourself here.”
The pasha wrote the order, which he handed to the colonel, who at once hurried off with it.
“You are sure that he will faithfully obey the order, pasha?” Horace asked through the interpreter.
The pasha nodded.
“One of the bimbaches here is his own brother, and he would be sure that his life would be sacrificed were there any treachery.”
At this moment there was a little shriek heard.
“I am afraid,” Horace said, “that one of the ladies’ attendants has come downstairs and has been seized. Perhaps you will like to go upstairs and assure them that there is no cause for alarm. In the meantime I will hand you this bag, which contains the amount of the ransom in gold.”
“You Englishmen act nobly,” the pasha said as he took the bag. “You had us in your power, and need have paid nothing, and you treat me as a friend rather than as an enemy. It is a pity that you fight for the Greeks. When I was a young man I fought in Egypt by the side of your troops.”
Horace escorted him through the sailors in the passages to the foot of the stairs and there left him.
“Your scheme is turning out trumps and no mistake,” Martyn said as he returned to the room. “There is no fear, I hope, of that Turkish colonel bringing all his men down on us.”
“I don’t think so.” And Horace then repeated what the pasha had said as to one of the officers in his hands being the colonel’s brother.
“That is good, Horace. I don’t think he would venture on it anyhow. Evidently the pasha has no fear. If he had he would not have sent him, because he must have known that his treachery jeopardized his own safety and that of his family.”
“How long do you think they will be before they are back?”
“Not much above half an hour, I should think. I don’t think the Turkish soldiers do much in the way of undressing, and certainly our fellows won’t. Now we will leave five men to look after the prisoners here, and we will put all the others in the offices you say look into the court-yard, so that if by any chance this fellow does bring troops down with him we can give them a hot reception.”
“If he does, Horace, do you take the five men in the house, rush upstairs, let one man put a pistol to the pasha’s head, and let the others snatch up any children they can find there and take them away over the wall – pasha and all – and march them straight down to the boat and get them on board ship. Let me know when you are off with them. We will defend the place as long as we can, and then make a bolt through the garden to the ladder and follow you.”
The men loaded their muskets and took their places at the windows of the offices. Horace and Martyn stood at the door leading from the house into the court-yard. The interpreter stood with them. Presently they heard the tramp of feet approaching. Then they heard a word of command, followed by silence, and the interpreter said:
“He has ordered the soldiers to halt. The prisoners alone are to enter the court-yard. When the gates close behind them the soldiers are to march back to barracks.”
The gates that had been left ajar by the officer as he went out opened, and in the moonlight they saw him enter, followed by Miller, Tarleton, and the sailors. The officer himself closed and barred the gate as the last entered. Then Martyn and Horace rushed forward and grasped the hands of their friends. These were for a time speechless with astonishment, but the men burst into exclamations and then began to cheer. Martyn checked them at once.
“Hush, lads! Come in silently and quietly. We will talk and cheer when we get away. Pass the word inside, Horace. Tell the men to file out at once. Form up in the garden. I will wait here till you have cleared the house.”
The greetings were hearty indeed when the two parties met in the garden.
“March to the ladder, lads,” Martyn said, “but don’t begin to climb it till we join you. Now, Horace, we will say good-bye to the old pasha. Bring the interpreter in with you.”
The pasha had returned to his room again where he had been joined by the three officers, the colonel having already liberated the other two.
“Tell the pasha that Captain Martyn wishes to thank him for the promptness with which the arrangement has been carried out, and also to express to him his very great pleasure that this incident should have terminated without unpleasantness. Captain Martyn wishes also to say, that although, in order to rescue his officers and men, he was obliged to use threats, yet that, as far as the ladies of the pasha’s family were concerned, they were threats only; for that, even had he refused, he should have respected the privacy of his apartments; and although he would have been obliged to carry off the pasha himself, his children, and these officers as hostages, he would have retaliated for the murder of the prisoners only upon the adults. No English officer would use disrespect to ladies, and no English officer would avenge the murder even of his dearest friends upon children.”
When this was translated to the pasha, he replied: “The courtesy that the captain and his sailors have exhibited since they entered the house is in itself sufficient to show me that his words are true, and that the ladies of my household would have been respected. I feel myself humiliated by thus having my prisoners carried off from the midst of the town, but I have no reason to complain. It is the will of Allah, and I shall always remember these English officers as gallant gentlemen. There are not many who would risk their lives to save a few of their countrymen.”
A few more words were exchanged, and then Martyn and his companions joined the sailors at the wall. Miller and Tarleton had by this time gathered from the men a short account of how their rescue had come about.
“Now,” Martyn said briskly when he reached them, “the sooner we are off the better. Horace, do you lead the way with ten of the men who came with us; let the last two of that party help your interpreter over. Mr. Miller, you with your party will follow. I will bring up the rear with the other ten men.”
In five minutes all were over the walls. The last party had pulled up the ladder from the garden after them, then removed and lowered down the gangway; and after Martyn, who came last, reached the ditch, the grapnel was shaken from its hold on the wall.
“It wouldn’t do to leave these things here,” he said to Horace. “There is no saying what yarn the pasha may set afloat. It is quite on the cards that if he gets an order from Smyrna to execute the prisoners, he will have it given out that they were marched to the court-yard of his house and there executed. At any rate our taking away the ladders will leave it open to him to give his own account of the matter. Now, my lads, you will all follow me. It is of no use forming up in order, as we are going through orchards; but keep close together, don’t straggle and don’t talk. You will have plenty of time to compare notes when you are once on board.
