Henty George Alfred
In Greek Waters: A Story of the Grecian War of Independence

An hour later a small boat was seen to put out from the port and to row away in the direction of the mainland.

For three days the brig lay at her anchorage. Then a gentle breeze sprang up from the south. Making all sail, the brig was headed to the entrance of the Dardanelles.

“Unless there is more wind than this,” Horace said, “I should hardly think she will be able to make her way up, doctor. She is not going through the water more than two knots an hour.”

“No, she will have to anchor again as soon as she is inside the straits unless the wind freshens, and I don’t think it is likely to do that. To my mind it looks as if it would die out again at sunset.”

This proved to be the case, and before it became dark the brig was anchored in a bay on the Asiatic side a short distance from the entrance.

The next morning the breeze again blew, and somewhat fresher than before. All day the captain strove to pass up the straits. Sometimes by keeping over out of the force of the current he made two or three miles, then when they came to some projecting point the current would catch the vessel and drift her rapidly down, so that when the breeze again sank at sunset they had gained only some four miles. Next day they were more fortunate and passed the castle of Abydos, and the third evening came to anchor off Gallipoli. On the following morning the wind blew briskly from the east, and in the afternoon they dropped anchor off Constantinople.

“Eh, man, but it is a wonderful sight!” Macfarlane said, as they looked at the city with the crenellated wall running along by the water’s edge, the dark groves of trees rising behind it, and the mosques with their graceful minarets on the sky-line. Ahead of them was Pera with its houses clustering thickly one above the other, and the background of tall cypress. Across the water lay Scutari, with its great barracks, its mosques, and the kiosks scattered along the shore. Caiques were passing backwards and forwards across the water; heavy boats with sailors or troops rowing between the ships of war and the shore; native craft with broad sails coming up astern from Broussa and other places on the Sea of Marmora; pleasure boats, with parties of veiled women rowing idly here and there; and occasionally a long caique, impelled by six sturdy rowers, would flash past with some official of rank.

“I have seen many places,” the doctor went on, “but none like this. Nature has done more for Rio, and as much perhaps for Bombay, but man has done little for either. We may boast of our western civilization, and no doubt we can rear stately buildings; but in point of beauty the orientals are as far ahead of us as we are ahead of the South Sea Islanders. Who would think that the Turks, with their sober ways, could ever have even dreamed of designing a thing so beautiful as that mosque with its graceful outlines. See how well those dark cypresses grow with it; it would lose half its beauty were it to rise from the round heads of an English wood.

“Just compare the boats of light-coloured wood all carved and ornamented with their graceful lines, and the boatmen in their snow-white shirts, with their loose sleeves and bare arms, and their scarlet sashes and fezzes with the black tub of an English or Scottish river. Look at the dresses of the peasants in that heavy boat there, and compare them with those of our own people. Why, man, we may be a great nation, intelligent, and civilized, and all that; but when it comes to an appreciation of the beautiful we are poor bodies, indeed, by the side of the Turk, whom we in our mightiness are accustomed to consider a barbarian. I know what you are going to say,” he went on, as Horace was going to speak. “There is tyranny and oppression, and evil rule, and corruption, and other bad things in that beautiful city. I grant you all that, but that has nothing to do with my argument. He may be a heathen, he may be ignorant, he may be what we call uncivilized; but the Turk has a grand soul or he never would have imagined a dream of beauty like this.”

As the sun set half an hour after the anchor was dropped the officer sent with them by the pasha did not think it necessary to land until the following morning, as the offices would all be shut. At eight o’clock he was rowed ashore and did not return until late in the evening. Business was not conducted at a rapid rate in the offices of the Porte. The lieutenant interpreted to the prisoners that the letter of the governor of Tenedos had been laid before the grand vizier, who would deliver it with that of the pasha to the Sultan at his audience in the evening.

“Did he see the grand vizier himself?” Horace asked.

The answer was in the affirmative.

“Did he gather from him whether it was likely that the Sultan would regard the matter favourably?”

The two Turks spoke together for some time. “I am sorry to say,” the lieutenant replied when they had done, “that the vizier was of opinion that the Sultan would be immovable. He has sworn to spare none of those who have stirred up his subjects to rebellion, and who, without having any concern in the matter, have aided them against him. He regards them as pirates, and has resolved by severity to deter others from following their example. The vizier said that he would do his best, but that when the Sultan’s mind was once made up nothing could move him; and that having himself received the reports of the destruction of one of his war-ships, and the very heavy loss inflicted on the boats of the fleet at Chios, and having, moreover, received memorials from the merchants at Smyrna as to the damage inflicted on their commerce by what was called the white schooner, he felt that he would be deaf to any appeal for mercy to two of her officers.”

At eight o’clock next morning a boat with twelve soldiers and an officer came off to the brig. The officer, mounting on the deck, handed to the captain an order for the delivery to him of the two prisoners sent from Thessaly.

“Things look bad, I am afraid,” Horace said as they stepped into the boat. “I saw the officer exchange a word or two with the cavalry man who brought us here and the captain, and I am sure, by the expression of their faces, that the news was bad. I am sure, too, from the way they shook hands with us at parting.”

“Some of these men’s faces seem familiar to me,” the doctor said as they were being rowed towards a landing to the east of the palace gardens. “I can’t say that they were among the men we brought from Athens, but I have a strong idea that two or three of them were. Do you recognize them?”

“I can’t say that I do. You see they were only on board one day, and I thought more of the women and children than of the soldiers and sailors.”

“I am almost sure of them, Horace; yet it is curious, that if they are the men we saved they did not make some sign of recognition when we came down the ladder. Turkish discipline is not very strict. They did not seem to look up much. They were all sitting forward of the six oarsmen, and I noticed, that till we pushed off they seemed to be talking about something together, and were so intent on it that they did not look up until after we had pushed off. I did notice that the oarsmen looked a little surprised when the officer, as we pushed off, gave an order to the man steering, and they saw which way the boat’s head was turned.

“I don’t suppose they knew that we were prisoners, Horace, and were expecting to go back to the place they came from. I suppose the landing they are taking us to is the nearest one to the prison.”

There were no boats lying at the broad steps alongside which the boat drew up. Six of the soldiers took their places in front of them, the officer marched between them, and the other six soldiers followed behind. The road, which was a narrow one, ran between two very high walls, and rose steeply upward.

“Evidently this landing-place is not much used,” the doctor said. “I suppose it leads to some quiet quarter.”

A hundred yards from the landing-place the officer gave the word to halt, and then another order, upon which one of the men, who carried a bag, began to open it.

“Quick, gentlemen!” the officer said in Greek; “you must change here. Quick! there is not a moment to lose.”

Astonished at the order, the doctor and Horace obeyed it.

“I suppose,” the former muttered, “they don’t want it known they have got two European prisoners. I don’t see what else they can be up to.”

The change was quickly made. Two long baggy Turkish trousers were pulled over their own, their jackets were thrown into the bag, and they were enveloped in Turkish robes. Their caps were thrown beside their jackets, and turbans placed on their heads, while their shoes were pulled off and their feet thrust into Turkish slippers. The officer and two of the soldiers aided in the work, and in a couple of minutes the metamorphosis was complete.

“Allah be praised!” the officer exclaimed fervently; and the words were echoed by the soldiers. These for a moment, regardless of discipline, gathered round the prisoners. One after another seized their hands, and bending over them pressed them to their forehead; then the officer gave an order, and one or two at a time – the soldiers carried only their side-arms – left the group and hurried on ahead, until the officer remained alone with the astonished Englishmen.

“What does this all mean?” Horace asked the officer in Greek.

“It means that you are free, my friends,” he said, shaking each of them cordially by the hand; “at least, so far free. Now let us follow the others.”

Still, almost thinking they were dreaming, the doctor and Horace accompanied their companion up the narrow lane, and emerged into a quiet street behind a great mosque; skirting the wall of this, they entered a wider street.

“Be careful,” the officer said in Greek; “walk along carelessly, and seem to be conversing with me.”

Horace translated the remark to the doctor.

There were not a great many people about, but as they went along the number increased. They crossed a busy street, turned down a lane on the other side, and then walked for upwards of half an hour, turning frequently, and as far as Horace could guess, making a wide detour, and again approaching the busy part of the town. Presently the officer stopped near the corner of a lane in a quiet street, and began to talk in an animated tone about the size of the town and other matters, until he saw that the street was for a moment empty; then he turned sharply down the lane, which ran between the backs of two sets of houses, went for a hundred yards, and then stopped at a door in the wall; opened it with the key, hurried them in, and locked the door behind him.

“Allah be praised!” he again said; “you are safe thus far. Now come in, they are anxiously expecting us.”

He entered the house, which stood in a small inclosure, and led the way into a room. They were received at the door by a Turk, whom both recognized at once as Osman Bey, one of the principal Turks they had carried from Athens. He repeated the officer’s pious exclamation:

“Allah be praised for his mercies!” and then in Greek he said, “Truly I am rejoiced, my friends, that Allah has granted me an opportunity of showing that I am not ungrateful, and that as you saved me and mine from death, so have I been able to save you; and I am doubly glad in seeing, what I knew not before, that one of you is the son of the Englishman to whom principally we owed our escape.”

“We are grateful, indeed,” Horace said; “but at present we understand nothing. This officer has told us nothing whatever.”

“This officer is my son, and is only an officer for the occasion,” Osman Bey said. “But come into the next room; my wife and daughters are eagerly expecting you.”

Three ladies rose from a divan on which they were sitting when the bey entered the room. They were lightly veiled, but the bey said:

“Lay aside your veils. These are as my sons, and you can unveil as if they were members of the family.”

The ladies unveiled. Horace had not seen their faces before on board ship, for the women of the upper class had remained closely veiled. The mother was a stout, elderly woman, with a kindly face. Her daughters were girls of fourteen or fifteen, with dark hair, somewhat colourless faces, and lovely eyes. The bey’s wife expressed her pleasure at the arrival of the Englishmen. The girls shrank rather timidly behind her, embarrassed at being thus unveiled before strangers.

“Now sit down,” the bey said. “Zuleika, do you bring in coffee and sweetmeats yourself. I do not wish your attendant to enter while these gentlemen are here.”

“I have sent her down the town on a message,” the bey’s wife said, while the younger girl rose and left the room. “She is faithful, but girls will chatter. Mourad, we know, we can trust.”

The girl soon returned with a tray with coffee, cakes, and sweetmeats. Then the bey said:

“Now I will tell you all about this. Ahmed, the sooner you get rid of that uniform the better. Give it to Mourad at once, and let him take it back to its owner, he may want it.”

The young man left the room.

“Now this is how it happened,” the bey began. “Three days ago came the messenger from Tenedos. Did you know of his being sent hither?”

“Yes; his wife told us he was leaving – a soldier who had lost his arm.”

“That was the man. He went to Hassan Bimbashi, who brought him first to Fazli Bey, and then to me. We had a consultation. It was clear to us all that it would be intolerable that men who had behaved with such humanity to us should be put to death, if we could possibly save them. It took us a long time to arrange the matter, and we three sat in the next room there debating the matter all night. We took Ahmed into our council at once, for he was, of course, as anxious to aid the men who had saved his parents and sisters from massacre as we were. Naturally, we at first thought of getting you out of prison by bribing the guards; but though this would have been comparatively easy, it was doubtful whether there would be time to carry it out. There are several prisons here, and there was no saying which you might be sent to, or who would be the men in charge of you; therefore, time would be needed after you arrived here, and we saw that it was probable that no time would be given us. The Sultan might, of course, view your case favourably; but, on the other hand, if he ordered you to execution, there would be no delay.

“When a thing has to be done, especially when foreigners are in the case, it is better to do it at once; otherwise, the Porte would be pestered by the foreign representatives. It was agreed, therefore, that if you were to be rescued, it must be done between the time of your arrival and your being put in prison. We divided the work into four parts. Fazli, who has most interest at the Porte, was to try all in his power to influence the ministers, and to get the grand vizier to represent the matter favourably to the Sultan. He was to give us the earliest news of whatever decision might be arrived at, and above all, he was to get some minor official there to follow the officer to whom the order for bringing you ashore should be given.

“The soldier who had brought the message from Tenedos was to find out a dozen of those who had been rescued with us, and to enlist them in the business. The bimbashi undertook the work of seizing the officer bearing the order. He could not very well take the command of the soldiers. Their faces would not be noticed by the sailors in the dockyard boat, nor by those on board the ship; but Hassan’s would be fully seen by both. My son, therefore, volunteered to undertake this part of the affair, dressed in Hassan’s uniform. He was to meet the twelve men at some spot agreed upon, near the dockyard gate; to march in with them, produce the order, and go out in one of the dockyard boats to the vessel; bring you ashore, and lead you here. My part of the business was to conceal you as long as necessary, and to arrange for your escape from Constantinople. Thus, you see, the risk was slight in each case. Fazli would be suspected, because he had urged your case at the Porte; but nothing could be proved against him. His servants might be examined, and his house searched. He would be able to prove that he spent the evening with several of his friends, to whom he gave an entertainment; and this morning, at the time the boat came for you, he was to be at the ministry again, trying what could be done on your behalf.

“None of the soldiers would know that the bimbashi was mixed up in the affair at all. Their one-armed comrade was to be furnished with money in case their gratitude required stimulating. My son ran no risk, because it is among the officers of the garrison that the search will be made for the man who commanded the party. As for myself, there is nothing to connect me in any way with it. Ahmed will take you off this evening to a small kiosk of mine ten miles away on the coast. The bimbashi’s share was the most dangerous. He was to take three men of his regiment on whom he could thoroughly rely. They would be three of those he had commanded at Athens and who had wives and children who had been rescued by you. He was much loved by his soldiers, for he lived and starved as they did, and did all in his power for their comfort.

“It is always dangerous to trust anyone, but in this case there was the men’s loyalty to him and their gratitude to you to bind them. He would learn from Fazli the hour when the Sultan’s decision would be given, and he and the three soldiers were to be upon the spot and to watch for the coming out of an officer followed by the man Fazli was to appoint. The officer was sure to go to one or other of the barracks for some soldiers to accompany him to the vessel. It would depend upon the hour and the orders he received whether to go direct on board or to do it in the morning. It was certain the hour would be late, for the conferences with the Sultan are invariably in the evening. Whether he went to one of the barracks or to his own lodging, he was to be followed until he got to some quiet spot, then seized, bound, and gagged, put into a large basket two of the soldiers were to carry, and taken to some quiet spot outside the walls. To-night, after it is dark, Hassan will go up and loose his bonds sufficiently to enable him to work himself free after a time.

“That was the arrangement at which we arrived after talking it over for hours. It was the work of the bimbashi and Ahmed. I am sure that Fazli and I would never have thought of it at all by ourselves. Ever since then we have kept a sharp look-out for the vessel. Everything had been got ready. The one-armed soldier had got the twelve men ready to go off. Hassan said he had made his arrangements, and had found a ruined hut half a mile out of the town beyond the walls, where there was little chance of anyone looking in in the course of the day, and, indeed, if anyone did so after eight o’clock, it would make little matter, as you would be ashore by that hour. After the brig arrived I had messages from Fazli every hour. He told us of the strong letters that had been sent by Ali Pasha and the governor of Tenedos, and he brought all his influence to bear to aid the representations made by them and by the officer who brought you down.

“The ministers and the grand vizier were all agreed that the kindness shown by those on board the English ship should suffice to save your lives, but the Sultan decides for himself, and he was known to be so enraged at foreigners joining the Greeks in their rebellion against him that they feared nothing would move him. Everything, therefore, was prepared for the attempt. The twelve soldiers were directed to be at a spot near the dockyard at seven in the morning; and the bimbashi, with his three men, took up his post near the entrance to the ministry. I had nothing to do. At twelve o’clock last night Hassan came here, bringing the official letter and a suit of his uniform. Everything had gone well. The messenger had been seized in a lonely street leading to one of the barracks, and was overpowered and silenced before he had time to utter a sound. Hassan accompanied the men carrying the basket in case by any accident they should be questioned, and saw the officer placed, securely bound, in the hut. As he had been blindfolded the instant he had been seized he could not have seen that his assailants were soldiers. Ahmed can tell you the rest.”

“There is nothing to tell,” the young man said. “I found the soldiers waiting at the spot agreed upon, and gave them the arranged sign. We went into the dockyard. I showed the order, and demanded a large boat, which was at once given me. Then I went off to the vessel, where our friends were handed over to me without a question; rowed to the wharf; the clothes were changed in the lane; and here we are.”

“I cannot thank you sufficiently for your kindness, Osman Bey, on behalf of myself and my friend here, and express our gratitude also to your son, to Hassan Bimbashi, and to Fazli Bey. You have indeed nobly repaid the service that my father and all of us were glad to have been able to render you.”

“Do not talk about gratitude,” the bey said. “You saved not only us, but our wives and families, and that at the risk of your lives, for I expected that the Greeks would fall upon you for interfering in their butchery. What you did for us was done for strangers against whom you were in arms. What we have done for you has been done for our benefactors. Therefore let no more be said. My wife and daughters would have despised me had I not done all in my power to rescue their preservers. Now let us return to the next room, where we will have a meal. I think it would be as well, Ahmed, to send Mourad at once down to the bridge to hire a caique there, and tell him to take it to the next landing to that at which you disembarked, and there wait for you. What do you say?”

“I think, father, it would be better to go boldly down to the bridge and take the boat there. I am sure to see some of the men we generally employ, and it will seem natural to them that I should be going with two friends up to our kiosk; whereas the other way would be unusual, and when inquiries are made, as there are sure to be, they might speak of it. But I agree with you that it will be as well not to wait until the evening. Directly the officer gets free there is sure to be a great stir, and there may be janissaries placed at the various landings, as it might be supposed the escaped prisoners would try to get on board a neutral ship.”

“Perhaps that would be better, Ahmed. I think they might boldly go through the crowd with a little more attention to their dress.”