path: root/42276-0.txt

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42276 ***

[Illustration: CAPTURED BY ALBANIAN BRIGANDS]




    IN GREEK WATERS

    A STORY OF

    THE GRECIAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE

    (1821-1827)

    BY

    G. A. HENTY

    Author of “Beric the Briton,” “Condemned as a Nihilist,” etc.


    _WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS BY W. S. STACEY, AND
    A MAP OF THE GRECIAN ARCHIPELAGO_

    NEW YORK
    CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
    1902


    COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY
    CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS.

    THE CAXTON PRESS
    NEW YORK.





PREFACE


MY DEAR LADS,

The struggle known as the Greek War of Independence lasted for six
years (1821-27), and had I attempted to give even an outline of the
events this would have been a history and not a story. Moreover, six
years is altogether beyond the length of time that can be included in
a book for boys. For these reasons I have confined the story to the
principal incidents of the first two years of the war; those of my
readers who may wish to learn the whole history of the struggle I
refer to Finlay’s well-known _History of Greece_, which I have
followed closely in my narration.

As a rule in the stories of wars, especially of wars waged for
national independence, the dark side of the struggle is brightened by
examples of patriotism and devotion, of heroic bravery, of humanity to
the wounded, of disinterestedness and self-sacrifice. The war of Greek
independence is an exception. The story is a dark one with scarcely a
gleam of light. Never during modern times has a struggle been
disgraced by such deeds of cruelty and massacre as those which
prevailed on both sides. Such being the case, I have devoted less
space than usual to the historical portion of my tale, and this plays
but a subordinate part in the adventures of the _Misericordia_ and her
crew.

    Yours sincerely,

    G. A. HENTY.




    CONTENTS


    CHAPTER                                      PAGE
        I. A GREEK STUDENT                         11
       II. A YACHT                                 29
      III. THE WRECK                               47
       IV. A STARTLING PROPOSAL                    66
        V. FITTING OUT                             85
       VI. UNDER WEIGH                            107
      VII. A CHANGE OF NAME                       127
     VIII. A BESIEGED VILLAGE                     145
       IX. RESCUED                                162
        X. A DARING EXPLOIT                       180
       XI. IN THE HANDS OF THE TURKS              197
      XII. PLANNING A RESCUE                      213
     XIII. THE PASHA OF ADALIA                    225
      XIV. CHIOS                                  243
       XV. A WHITE SQUALL                         259
      XVI. FIRE-SHIPS                             277
     XVII. RESCUING THE GARRISON OF ATHENS        295
    XVIII. A TURKISH DEFEAT                       312
      XIX. PRISONERS                              330
       XX. AT CONSTANTINOPLE                      348
      XXI. THE “MISERICORDIA” AGAIN               365
     XXII. ALL ENDS WELL                          385




    ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                 PAGE
    CAPTURED BY ALBANIAN BRIGANDS      _Frontispiece_
    “WELL, YOUNGSTER, WHAT IS IT?”                 20
    HORACE SUGGESTS A RESCUE                       52
    THEIR FIRST SIGHT OF THE SCHOONER              82
    A DISCUSSION ABOUT CLOTHES                    110
    “GIVE THEM A ROUND,” SAID CAPTAIN MARTYN      148
    THE CAPTAIN IS WOUNDED                        177
    THE GREEK CAPTIVES ARE BROUGHT ON DECK        198
    THE CAPTURE OF THE PASHA                      228
    REPELLING THE TURKISH BOARDERS                279
    THE GOVERNOR COMES ON BOARD                   306
    THE DOCTOR TELLS THE STORY                    379

           *       *       *       *       *

    MAP OF GRECIAN ARCHIPELAGO                     10




IN GREEK WATERS




CHAPTER I

A GREEK STUDENT


The people of the little fishing village of Seaport were agreed on one
subject, however much they might differ on others, namely, that Mr.
Beveridge was “a wonderful learned man.” In this respect they were
proud of him: learned men came to visit him, and his name was widely
known as the author of various treatises and books which were precious
to deep scholars, and were held in high respect at the universities.
Most of the villagers were, however, of opinion that it would have
been better for Seaport had Mr. Beveridge been a trifle less learned
and a good deal more practical. Naturally he would have been spoken of
as the squire, for he was the owner of the whole parish, and his house
was one of the finest in the county, which some of his ancestors had
represented in parliament; but for all that it would have been
ridiculous to call a man squire who had never been seen on horseback,
and who, as was popularly believed, could not distinguish a field of
potatoes from one of turnips.

It was very seldom that Mr. Beveridge ventured outside the
boundary-wall of his grounds, except, indeed, when he posted up to
London to investigate some rare manuscript, or to pore over ancient
books in the reading-room of the British Museum. He was never seen at
the meetings of magistrates, or at social gatherings of any kind, and
when his name was mentioned at these, many shrugged their shoulders
and said what a pity it was that one of the finest properties in the
county should be in the hands of a man who was, to say the least of
it, a little cracked.

Mr. Beveridge’s father, when on a tour in the East as a young man, had
fallen in love with and, to the intense indignation of his family,
married a Greek lady. Upon coming into possession of the property, two
years later, John Beveridge settled down with his beautiful wife at
the Hall, and lived in perfect happiness with her until her death.

She had had but one child, a boy, the present owner of the Hall, who
was twelve years old when she died. Happy as she was with her husband,
Mrs. Beveridge had never ceased to regret the sunny skies of her
native land. She seldom spoke of it to her husband, who hunted and
shot, was a regular attendant at the board of magistrates, and
attended personally to the management of his estate. He was a man of
little sentiment, and had but a poor opinion of the Greeks in general.
But to Herbert she often talked of the days of her childhood, and
imbued him with her own passionate love of her native country. This
led him at school to devote himself to the study of Greek with such
energy and ardour that he came to be considered as a prodigy, and
going up to Oxford he neglected all other branches of study, mixed but
little with other undergraduates, made no friends, but lived the life
of a recluse, and was rewarded by being the only first-class man of
his year, the examiners declaring that no such papers had ever before
been sent in.

Unfortunately for Herbert his father died a few months before he took
his degree. He had neither understood nor appreciated his son’s
devotion to study, and when others congratulated him upon the
reputation he was already gaining at the university, he used to shrug
his shoulders and say, “What is the good of it? He has not got to
work for his living. I would rather see him back a horse over a
five-barred gate than write Greek like Homer.” He had frequently
declared that directly Herbert took his degree he would go with him
first for a few months up to London, and they would then travel
together for a year or two so as to make him, as he said, a bit like
other people.

Left to his own devices at the death of his father Herbert Beveridge
did not even go home after taking his degree, but, writing to the
steward to shut up the house, started a week later for Greece, where
he remained for three years, by the end of which time he was as
perfectly acquainted with modern as with ancient Greek. Then he
returned home, bringing with him two Greek attendants, turned the
drawing-room into a library, and devoted himself to his favourite
study. Three years later he married, or rather his aunt, Mrs. Fordyce,
married him. That lady, who was the wife of a neighbouring squire,
came over and, as she said, took him in hand.

“This cannot go on, Herbert,” she said; “it is plainly your duty to
marry.”

“I have never thought of marrying, aunt.”

“I daresay not, Herbert, but that is no reason why you shouldn’t
marry. You don’t intend, I suppose, that this place, after being in
the hands of our family for hundreds of years, is to be sold to
strangers at your death. It is clearly your duty to marry and have
children.”

“But I don’t know anyone to marry.”

“I will find you a wife, Herbert. I know half a dozen nice girls, any
one of whom would suit you. You want a thoroughly good, sensible wife,
and then, perhaps, there would be some chance of your becoming like
other people.”

“I don’t want to become like other people, I only want to be let
alone.”

“Well, you see that is out of the question, Herbert. You shirk all
your duties as a large land-owner; but this duty, at least, you cannot
shirk. Let me see, to-day is Monday; on Wednesday our gig shall be
over here at half-past twelve, and you shall come over and lunch with
me. I will have Miss Hendon there; she is in all respects suitable for
you. She is fairly pretty, and very bright and domesticated, with
plenty of common sense. She won’t have any money; for although her
father’s estate is a nice one, she has four or five brothers, and I
don’t suppose Mr. Hendon lays by a penny of his income. However, that
matters very little. Now you must rouse yourself for a bit. This is an
important business, you know, and has to be done. After it is over you
will find it a great comfort, and your wife will take all sorts of
little worries off your hand. Of course if you don’t like Mary Hendon
when you see her, I will find somebody else.”

Herbert Beveridge resigned himself quietly, and became almost passive
in this matter of his own marriage. He liked Mary Hendon when he had
got over the shyness and discomfort of the first visit, and three
months later they were married. He then went back to his library
again, and his wife took the management of the estate and house into
her capable hands. During her lifetime Herbert Beveridge emerged to a
certain extent from his shell. He became really fond of her, and
occasionally accompanied her on her drives, went sometimes into
society, and was generally considered to be improving fast.

Ten years after marriage she died, and her husband fell back into his
old ways. His life, however, was no longer quite solitary, for she had
left him a boy eight years of age. He had been christened Horace,
which was a sort of compromise. Mr. Beveridge had wished that he
should have the name of some Greek worthy--his favourites being either
Themistocles or Aristides. His mother had called in Mrs. Fordyce to
her assistance, and the two ladies together had succeeded in carrying
their point. Mrs. Fordyce had urged that it would be a misfortune for
the boy to bear either of these names.

“He will have to go to school, Herbert, of course, and the boys would
make his life a burden to him if he had either of the names you
mention. I know what boys are; we have plenty of them in our family.
If he were Aristides he would get the nickname of Tidy, which would be
hideous. The other name is worse still; they would probably shorten it
into Cockles, and I am sure you would not want the boy to be spoken of
as Cockles Beveridge.”

“I hate common names,” Mr. Beveridge said, “such as Jack, Bob, and
Bill.”

“Well, I think they are quite good enough for ordinary life, Herbert,
but if you must have something classical why not take the name of
Horace? One of Mary’s brothers is Horace, you know, and he would no
doubt take it as a compliment if you gave the boy that name.”

And so it was fixed for Horace. As soon as the child was old enough to
go out without a nurse, Mr. Beveridge appointed one of his Greek
servants to accompany him, in order that the child should pick up a
knowledge of Greek; while he himself interested himself so far in him
as to set aside his books and have him into the library for an hour a
day, when he always talked to him in Greek. Thus at his mother’s death
the boy was able to talk the language as fluently as English. In other
respects he showed no signs whatever of taking after his father’s
tastes. He was a sturdy boy, and evinced even greater antipathy than
usual to learning the alphabet, and was never so happy as when he
could persuade Marco to take him down to the beach to play with the
fisher children. At his mother’s death he was carried off by Mrs.
Fordyce, and spent the next six months with her and in the houses of
his mother’s brothers, where there were children about his own age. At
the end of that time a sort of family council was held, and Mrs.
Fordyce went over to Seaport to see her nephew.

“What were you thinking about doing with the boy, Herbert?”

“The boy?” he asked vaguely, being engaged on a paper throwing new
light on the Greek particles when she entered.

“Naturally, Herbert, the boy, your boy; it is high time he went to
school.”

“I was thinking the other day about getting a tutor for him.”

“Getting fiddlesticks!” Mrs. Fordyce said sharply; “the boy wants
companionship. What do you suppose he would become, moping about this
big house alone? He wants to play, if he is ever to grow up an active
healthy man. No harm has been done yet, for dear Mary kept the house
bright, and had the sense to let him pass most of his time in the open
air, and not to want him always at her apron-string. If when he gets
to the age of twenty he develops a taste for Greek--which Heaven
forbid!--or for Chinese, or for any other heathen and out-of-the-way
study, it will be quite time enough for him to take it up. The
Beveridges have always been men of action. It is all very well,
Herbert, to have one great scholar in the family; we all admit that it
is a great credit to us; but two of them would ruin it. Happily I
believe there is no record of a great scholar producing an equally
great son. At any rate I do hope the boy will have a fair chance of
growing into an active energetic man, and taking his place in the
county.”

“I have no wish it should be otherwise, aunt,” Herbert Beveridge said.
“I quite acknowledge that in some respects it would be better if I had
not devoted myself so entirely to study, though my work has not been
without fruit, I hope, for it is acknowledged that my book on the use
of the digamma threw an entirely new light upon the subject. Still I
cannot expect, nor do I wish, that Horace should follow in my
footsteps. Indeed, I trust, that when I have finished my work, there
will be little for a fresh labourer to glean in that direction. At any
rate he is far too young to develop a bent in any direction whatever,
and I think therefore that your proposal is a good one.”

“Then in that case, Herbert, I think you cannot do better than send
him with Horace Hendon’s two boys to school. One is about his own age
and one is a little older. The elder boy has been there a year, and
his father is well satisfied with the school.”

“Very well, aunt. If you will ask Horace to make arrangements for the
boy to go with his sons I am quite content it should be so.”

So Horace Beveridge went, a week later, by coach with his cousins to a
school at Exeter, some forty miles from Seaport, and there remained
until he was fourteen. He passed his holidays at home, never seeing
his father until dinnertime, after which he spent two hours with him,
a period of the day to which the boy always looked forward with some
dread. Sometimes his father would chat cheerfully to him, always in
modern Greek; at others he would sit silent and abstracted, waking up
occasionally and making some abrupt remark to the boy, and then again
lapsing into silence. When about the house and grounds Marco was his
constant companion. The Greek, who was a mere lad when he had come to
England, was fond of Horace, and having been a fisherman as a boy, he
enjoyed almost as much as his charge did the boating and fishing
expeditions upon which he accompanied him.

At this time Horace had a strong desire to go to sea, but even his
Aunt Fordyce, when he broached the subject to her, would give him no
hope or encouragement.

“If it had been ten years ago, Horace, it would have been another
matter. The sea was a stirring life, then; and even had you only gone
into the navy for a few years you would have seen lots of service, and
might have distinguished yourself. As to staying in it, it would have
been ridiculous for you as an only son. But now nothing could be more
wretched than the position of a naval officer. All the world is at
peace, and there does not appear to be the slightest chance of war
anywhere for many years. Hundreds and hundreds of ships have been paid
off and laid up, and there are thousands of officers on half-pay, and
without the smallest chance of ever getting employment again. You
have arrived too late in the world for sailoring. Besides, I do not
think in any case your father would consent to such a thing. I am
happy to say that I do not think he has any idea, or even desire, that
you should turn out a famous scholar as he is. But to a man like him
it would seem terrible that your education should cease altogether at
the age at which boys go into the navy, and that you should grow up
knowing nothing of what he considers the essentials of a gentleman’s
education. No, no, Horace, the sea is out of the question. You must go
up to Eton, as arranged, at the end of these holidays, and from Eton
you must go through one of the universities. After that you can wander
about for a bit and see the world, and you will see as much of it in
six months that way as in twice as many years were you in the navy in
these times of peace.”

Horace looked a little downcast.

“There is another thing, Horace,” his aunt said; “it would not be fair
for you to go into the navy, even if there was nothing else against
it.”

“How is that, aunt?”

“Well, Horace, when there are hundreds of officers on half-pay, who
can scarcely keep life together on the few pounds a year they get, it
would be hard indeed for young fellows with money and influence to
step into the places and keep them out.”

“Yes, aunt, I did not think of that,” Horace said, brightening up. “It
certainly would be a beastly shame for a fellow who can do anything
with himself to take the place of a man who can do nothing else.”

“Besides, Horace,” his aunt went on, “if you like the sea so much as
you do now when you have done with college, there is no reason why you
should not get your father to let you either hire or buy a yacht and
go where you like in her, instead of travelling about by land.”

“That would be very jolly!” Horace exclaimed. “Yes, that would be
really better than going to sea, because one could go where one
liked.”

And so at the end of the holidays Horace went up to Eton. On his
return home in the summer his father said: “Your aunt was over here
the other day, Horace, and she was telling me about that foolish idea
you have of going to sea. I was glad to hear that you gave it up at
once when she pointed out to you the absurdity of it. Her opinion is
that as you are so fond of the water, and as Marco can manage a boat
well, it would be a good thing for you to have one of your own,
instead of going out always with the fishermen; the idea seemed to me
a good one, so I got her to write to some one she knows at Exmouth,
and he has spoken to the revenue officer there. They have been
bothering me about what size it should be, and as I could not tell
them whether it should be ten feet long or fifty, I said the matter
must remain till you came home, and then Marco could go over with you
to Exmouth and see the officer.”

“Oh, thank you very much, father!”

“It is only right that you should be indulged in a matter like this,
Horace. I know that you don’t care about riding alone, and I am sorry
I can’t be more of a companion to you, but I have always my hands full
of important work, and I know that for a boy of your age it must be
very dull here. Choose any boat you like. I have been talking to
Marco, and he says that she can be hauled up on the beach and lie
there perfectly safe when you are away. Of course if necessary he can
have a young fellow or two from the village to help while you are at
home. He seems to think that in that way you could have a boat of more
comfortable size. I don’t know anything about it, so I have left the
matter entirely to him and you. The difference of cost between a small
boat and a large one is of no consequence one way or the other.”

Accordingly, the next morning Marco and Horace started directly after
breakfast in the carriage to catch the coach, which passed along the
main road four miles from Seaport, and arrived at Exmouth at two. They
had no difficulty in finding the house of Captain Martyn, whose title
was an honorary one, he being a lieutenant of many years’ service.

“Is Captain Martyn in?” Horace asked the servant who opened the door.

“No, sir; he is away in the cutter.” Horace stood aghast. It had never
struck him that the officer might not be at home.

“His son is in, Mr. William Martyn, if that will do,” the servant
said, seeing the boy’s look of dismay.

“I don’t know,” he said; “but at any rate I should like to see him.”

“I will tell him, sir, if you will stay here.”

A minute later a tall powerfully-built young fellow of two or
three-and-twenty came to the door.

“Well, youngster, what is it?” he asked.

“I have come about buying a boat, sir. My name is Beveridge. I believe
Captain Martyn was kind enough to say that he would look out for a
boat for us.”

“Oh, yes, I have heard about it; but whether it was a dinghy or a
man-of-war that was wanted we couldn’t find out. Do you intend to
manage her single-handed?”

“Oh, no, sir! I have done a lot of sailing with the fishermen at
Seaport, but I could not manage a boat by myself, not if there was any
wind. But Marco was a sailor among the Greek isles before he entered
my father’s service.”

“Want a comfortable craft,” the Greek, who had learned to speak a
certain amount of English, said. “Can have two or three hands.”

“Oh, you want a regular cruiser! Well, you are a lucky young chap, I
must say. The idea of a young cub like you having a boat with two or
three hands to knock about in! Do you want a captain, because I am to
let?”

“No, sir, we don’t want a captain, and we don’t want a great big
craft. Something about the size of a fishing-boat, I should say. Are
you a sailor?”

“Yes, worse luck, I am a master’s mate, if you know what that is. It
means a passed midshipman. I have been a master’s mate for four years,
and am likely to be one all my life, for I have no more chance of
getting a berth than I have of being appointed a post-captain
to-morrow. Well, I will put on my cap and go with you. I have been
looking about since my father heard about a boat being wanted. The
letter said nothing about your age, or what size of boat was wanted;
it gave in fact no useful information whatever. It was about as much
to the point as if they had said you wanted to have a house and did
not say whether it was a two-roomed cottage or a country mansion. But
I think I know of a little craft that would about suit you. Does your
father sail himself?”

[Illustration: “WELL, YOUNGSTER, WHAT IS IT?”]

Horace could not help smiling at the idea. “No,” he said. “My father
cares for nothing but studying Greek. I am at Eton, but it is very
slow in the holidays, and as I generally go out with the fishermen the
best part of the time I am at home, he thought it would be a good
thing for me to have a boat of my own.”

William Martyn looked quietly down at the lad, then went in and got
his cap, rejoined them, and sauntered down towards the river. He led
the way along the wharfs, passed above the town, and then pointed to a
boat lying on the mud.

“That is the craft I should choose if I were in your place,” he said.
“She is as sound as a bell, and I wouldn’t mind crossing the Bay of
Biscay in her.”

“But she is very large,” Horace said, looking at her with some doubt
in his face.

“She is about fifteen tons burthen,” he said, “built of oak, and is
only eight years old, though she looks battered about and rusty as she
lies there. She was built from his own designs by Captain Burrows, as
good a sailor as ever stepped. She is forty feet long and fifteen feet
beam. She is fast, and a splendid sea-boat, with four foot draft of
water. He died three years after he built her, and she has been lying
there ever since. Her gear has been all stowed away in a dry place,
and the old sailor in charge of it says it is in perfect order. The
old captain used to knock about on board of her with only a man and a
boy, and she is as easy to handle as a cock-boat. I was out in her
more than once when I was at home on leave, and she is a beauty. Of
course you can’t judge of her as she lies there; but she has
wonderfully easy lines, and sits the water like a duck. She is a
dandy, you see; that is, she carries a small mizzen mast. She was
rigged so because a craft like that is a good deal easier to work
short-handed than a cutter.”

She seemed as she lay there so much larger than anything Horace had
had the idea of possessing that he looked doubtfully at Marco.

“I think she will do,” the Greek said; “just the sort of boat for us.
See her when tide comes up, and can go on board. How much cost?”

“They only want eighty pounds for her,” William Martyn said. “They
asked a hundred and fifty at first; but everything is so dull, and
there have been such a lot of small craft sold off from the dockyards,
that she has not found a purchaser. If I had two or three hundred a
year of my own there is nothing I should like better than to own that
craft and knock about in her. Her only fault is she wants head-room.
There is only five foot under her beams, for she has a low freeboard.
That prevents her from being sold as a yacht. But as one does not want
to walk about much below I don’t see that that matters. She has got a
roomy cabin and a nice little stateroom for the owner, and a fo’castle
big enough for six hands.”

“It would be splendid,” Horace said. “But do you think, Marco, my
father meant me to have such a large boat as this?”

The Greek nodded. “Master said buy a good big safe boat. No use
getting a little thing Mr. Horace tire of in a year or two. Can always
get a man or two in the holidays. I think that is just the boat.”

“Tide has nearly reached her,” William Martyn said. “We shall be able
to get off to her in an hour. We will go and overhaul the gear now. I
will get the key of the cabins.”

It took them a good hour to get out the sails and inspect them, and
examine the ropes and gear. All were pronounced in good order.

“The sails are as good for all practical purposes as the day they were
turned out,” Martyn said. “They may not be quite as white as the
fresh-water sailors about here think necessary for their pleasure
craft, but they are sound and strong, and were well scrubbed before
they were put away. And you may be sure Burrows used none but the best
rope money could buy. Now we will go on board. She will look a
different craft when her decks are holy-stoned, and she gets two or
three coats of paint,” the young officer went on as they stepped on
board. “A landsman can never judge of a boat when she is dismantled,
and he can’t judge much at any time. He thinks more of paint and
polish than he does of a ship’s lines.”

But Horace had seen enough of boats to be able to appreciate to some
extent the easy lines of her bow and her fine run, and the Greek was
delighted with her. Below she was in good order, except that she
wanted a coat of paint. The cabins were of course entirely dismantled,
but Horace was surprised at their roominess, accustomed as he was to
the close little fo’castles of the fishing-boats.

“She was fitted up in a regular man-of-war fashion,” Martyn said.
“This was just a captain’s cabin on board a frigate, but on a small
scale, and so was the state-room. We did not see the furniture, but it
is all upstairs in an attic of the cottage we went to.”

“How long would it take to get her ready?” Horace asked.

“About ten days. Most of her ballast is out of her, but the rest ought
to come out so as to give her a regular clean down, and a coat of
whitewash below, before it is all put in again. If you like, young
’un, I will look after that. I have got nothing to do, and it will be
an amusement to me. I am looking for a berth at present in a
merchantman, but there are such a number of men out of harness that it
isn’t easy to get a job. Look here, if you really want to learn some
day to be fit to take charge of this craft yourself, you could not do
better than persuade your father to let you come over here and see her
fitted up, then you will know where every rope goes, and learn more
than you would sitting about on deck in the course of a year. There
will be no difficulty in getting a couple of rooms ready for you and
your man in the town.”

“Can we get home to-night, sir?”

“Yes, the coach goes through here at six o’clock.”

“My father will write to-morrow, at least I expect he will,” Horace
said. “It isn’t very easy to get him to do things, but I expect I
shall manage.”

“He will write,” Marco said confidently; and as the boy knew that the
Greek had far more opportunities of getting at his father than he had,
he felt sure that he would manage it.

“We are very much obliged to you, Mr. Martyn,” he said.

“All right, young sir. If your father decides to take the boat get him
to write to me; or if he is bad at writing, write to me yourself after
settling it with him, and I will put on men and see that she is ready
for sea in a fortnight.”

“Do you feel sure father will let me have the boat, Marco?” Horace
said as soon as they were alone.

“It is done,” the Greek said with a wave of his hand. “He said to me,
‘Go and buy a proper boat, see that everything is right about it, but
don’t worry me.’ So when I say, ‘I have bought the boat; it is just
the thing we want; it will cost a hundred pounds by the time it is
ready for sea,’ he will say he is glad to hear it, and there will be
an end of it. Mr. Beveridge never troubles.”

“And will you tell him that it would be a good thing for me to go over
and see her fitted up?”

“I will tell him. He will be glad to know that you have got something
to do.”

It was half-past ten o’clock when they got home. The other Greek
opened the door.

“Is the master in bed yet, Zaimes?”

“He went upstairs ten minutes ago. I think he had forgotten all about
Horace not being at home. He did not mention his name to me.”

“What a nuisance!” Horace said. “Now I shall have to wait till
morning before I know about it, and I am so anxious to hear what he
says.”

“It will be all the pleasanter when you hear,” Zaimes said quietly.

The two men were brothers, Zaimes being ten years senior. He was Mr.
Beveridge’s valet, his brother being a sort of general assistant,
waiting at meals except when Horace was at home, when he was
considered specially told off to him. They lived apart from the other
servants, having a room of their own where they cooked their meals in
their own fashion. Both were extremely attached to their master, and
would have given their lives for him.

“Marco will tell me all about it, and I will talk to the master while
I am dressing him. You are making Marco again a boy like yourself,
Horace. He is as eager about this boat as you are”; and he smiled
indulgently at his brother, whom he still regarded as a boy, although
he was now nearly forty.

“That will be the best plan, Zaimes. I shall be glad for him to know
all about it before breakfast time, for I am sure I should not like to
tell him that we had fixed on a boat like that.”

Horace was a long time before he got to sleep. He had never dreamt of
anything bigger than an open boat, and the thought of having a craft
that he could sail anywhere along the coast, and even sleep on board,
seemed almost too good to be true. He woke an hour before his time,
dressed hastily, went out into the garden, and stood there looking
over the sea. The fishing-boats were going out, and he pictured to
himself the boat he had seen, gliding along among them, bigger and
ever so much handsomer than any of them; and how he would be able to
take out his cousins, and perhaps some day have a school friend to
spend the holidays with him and cruise about. So deep was he in his
thoughts that he was surprised when he heard the bell ring for
breakfast.

“Now, then,” he said to himself as he walked back to the house, “I
shall know. Of course it will be a horrible disappointment if he says
no, but I sha’n’t show it, because it is too much to expect him to do
this. I should never have dreamt of such a thing if it had not been
for Marco. Well, here goes”; and he walked into the parlour.

“Good morning, father!”

“Good morning, Horace. I am glad to hear that Marco has found just the
boat that he thinks will suit the place. He tells me you want to go
over and see her fitted out. I think that that will be a very good
plan. When you do a thing, Horace, do it well if it is worth doing at
all. Marco will go back with you by the coach this morning.”

“Oh, thank you, father; it is awfully kind of you!”

“I wish you to enjoy yourself,” his father said; “it is no more than
the price of another horse. It is a fine sport and a healthy one, and
I don’t know that it is more dangerous than galloping about the
country on horseback. I have told Marco to make all arrangements, and
not to worry me about things. At the beginning of each holiday he will
say how much he will require for provisions on board, and the payment
of the wages of a man and a boy. I shall give him a cheque, and there
will be an end of it as far as I am concerned. I shall be much more at
my ease knowing that you are enjoying yourself on board than wondering
what you will do to amuse yourself from day to day.”

Thinking that all that was necessary had been said, Mr. Beveridge then
opened a Greek book that lay as usual beside his plate, and speedily
became absorbed in it. When he himself had finished, Horace slipped
away. He knew that his father would be at least two hours over the
meal, which he only turned to when Zaimes made a movement to attract
his attention, everything being kept down by the fire, which was lit
specially for that purpose, even in summer.

“It is all settled, Marco; think of that! Won’t it be glorious?”

“It will be very good, Horace. I shall like it almost as much as you
will. I love the sea, even this gray ugly sea of yours, which is so
different from the blue of the Ægean. I too mope a little sometimes
when you are not at home, for though I have the kindest and best of
masters, one longs sometimes for change. I told you your father would
agree. It is just what I told him we should want. An open boat is no
use except when the weather is fine, and then one must always keep
close to port in case the wind should drop, and when it comes calm you
have to break your back with rowing. Oh, we will have fine sails
together, and as you grow older we can go farther away, for she should
be safe anywhere. When you become a man I daresay he will get for you
something bigger, and then perhaps we can sail together to Greece, and
perhaps the master will go with you, for he loves Greece as much as we
do.”

There was a fortnight of hard work. William Martyn was in command, and
kept Horace at work as if he had been a young midshipman under his
orders; while Marco turned his hand to everything, singing snatches of
sailor songs he had sung as he fished when a boy, chattering in Greek
to Horace, and in broken English to the two men.

“You are going to be skipper, I hear,” William Martyn said to him one
day.

“Going to skip!” Marco repeated vaguely. “I know not what you mean.”

“Going to be captain--padrone.”

Marco shook his head. “No, sir. Can sail open boat good, but not fit
to take charge of boat like this. Going to have man at Seaport, a good
fisherman. He sailed a long time in big ships. Man-of-war’s man. When
war over, came back to fish. I shall look after young master, cook
food for him, pull at rope, steer sometimes; but other man be captain
and sail boat.”

William Martyn nodded. “Quite right, Marco; these fishermen know the
coast, and the weather, and the ports and creeks to run into. It is
all very well in fine weather, but when you get a blow, a craft like
this wants a man who can handle her well.”

Horace’s pride in the craft increased every day. As she lay
weather-beaten and dismantled on the mud she had seemed to him larger
but not superior in appearance to the fishing craft of Seaport, which
were most of them boats of ten or twelve tons; but each day her
appearance changed, and at the end of ten days--with all her rigging
in place, her masts and spars scraped, her deck fairly white, and her
sides glossy with black paint--she seemed to him a thing of perfect
beauty. It was just the fortnight when the paint and varnish of the
cabins were dry, the furniture in its place, and everything ready for
sea. Horace’s delight culminated when the anchor was got up, sail set
on her, and William Martyn took the helm, as with a light wind she ran
down through the craft in the harbour for a trial trip.

“She is a wonderfully handy little craft,” the mate said approvingly,
as she began to rise and fall on the swell outside; “the old captain
knew what he was doing when he laid down her lines. She is like a duck
on the water. I have been out in her when big ships were putting their
noses into it, and she never shipped a pailful of water. I can tell
you you are in luck, youngster. How are you going to take her round?”

“I was going to write to-night for Tom Burdett--that is the man Marco
spoke about--to come over by coach.”

“I will tell you what I will do, youngster; I will take her over for
you. I shall enjoy the trip. If you like we will start to-morrow
morning.”

“I should like that immensely,” Horace said; “we shall astonish them
when we sail into the port.”

“Very well, then, that is agreed; you had better get some stores on
board; I mean provisions. Of course if the weather holds like this we
should be there in the evening; but it is a good rule at sea never to
trust the weather. Always have enough grub and water for a week on
board; then, if you happen to be blown off shore, or anything of that
sort, it is of no consequence.”




CHAPTER II

A YACHT


Marco, who acted as banker and appeared to Horace to be provided with
an unlimited amount of money, was busy all the evening getting
crockery, cooking-utensils, knives and forks, table-cloths, towels,
and other necessaries.

“Why, it is like fitting out a house, Marco.”

“Well, it is a little floating house,” the Greek said; “it is much
better to have your own things, and not to have to borrow from the
house every time. Now we will get some provisions, two or three
bottles of rum for bad weather, or when we have visitors on board, and
then we shall be complete. Mr. Martyn said he would see to the water.
Now, we will go to bed soon, for we are to be down at the wharf at six
o’clock; and if we are not there in time you may be sure that you will
get a rating.”

“There is no fear of my being late, Marco. I don’t think I shall sleep
all night.”

“Ah! we shall see. You have been on your feet since seven this
morning. I shall have to pull you by your ear to wake you in the
morning.”

This, however, was not necessary. The boy was fast asleep in five
minutes after he had laid his head on the pillow; he woke soon after
daylight, dropped off to sleep several times, but turned out at five,
opened the door of the Greek’s room, and shouted:

“Now, then, Marco, time to get up: if you do not, it is I who will do
the ear-pulling.”

They were down at the wharf at a quarter to six. As the clock struck
the hour William Martyn came down.

“Good-morning, youngster! you are before your time, I see. You
wouldn’t be so ready to turn out after you had had a year or two on
board ship. Well, it looks as if we are going to have a grand day.
There is a nice little breeze, and I fancy it will freshen a good bit
later on. Now, then, tumble into the dinghy, I will take the sculls;
the tide is running out strong, and you might run her into the yacht
and damage the paint; that would be a nice beginning.”

As soon as they were on board, the mate said:

“Now, off with those shoes, youngster. You can go barefoot if you
like, or you can put on those slippers you bought; we have got the
deck fairly white, and we must not spoil it. You should make that a
rule: everyone who comes on board takes off his boots at once.”

The Greek made the dinghy fast, and then took off his shoes and
stockings. Horace put on the slippers, and the mate a pair of light
shoes he had brought on board with him.

“Now, then, off with the sail-covers; fold them up and put them down
under the seat of the cockpit. Knot up the tyers loosely together, and
put them there also. Never begin to hoist your sails till you have got
the covers and tyers snugly packed away. Now, Marco, get number two
jib out of the sail-locker. I don’t think we shall want number one
to-day. Now, hook on the halliards. No; don’t hoist yet, run it out
first by the outhaul to the end of the bowsprit. We won’t hoist it
till we have got the mainmast and mizzen up. Now, Marco, you take the
peak halliards, and I will take the main. Now, then, up she goes; ease
off the sheet a bit. Horace, we must top the boom a bit; that is high
enough. Marco, make fast; now up with the mizzen; that is right. Now,
Horace, before you do anything else always look round, see that
everything is right, the halliards properly coiled up and turned over
so as to run freely, in case you want to lower or reef sail, the
sheets ready to slacken out, the foresail and jib sheets brought aft
on their proper sides. There is nothing in our way now; but when there
are craft in the way, you want to have everything in perfect order,
and ready to draw the moment the anchor is off the ground. Otherwise
you might run foul of something before you got fairly off, and
nothing can look more lubberly than that. Now you take the helm, and
Marco and I will get up the anchor. The wind is nearly dead down the
river; don’t touch the tiller till I tell you.”

Horace stood by the helm till the mate said:

“The chain is nearly up and down; now put the tiller gently to
starboard.”

As he spoke he ran up the jib, and as the boat’s head payed off,
fastened the sheet to windward.

“Now, Marco, round with the windlass; that is right, the anchor is
clear now; up with it.”

As he spoke he ran up the foresail. “Slack off the main sheets, lad,
handsomely; that is right, let them go free; slack off the mizzen
sheets.”

The wind had caught the jib now, and, aided by the tide, brought the
boat’s head sharply round. The jib and foresheets were hauled to
leeward, and in less than a minute from the time the anchor had left
the ground the boat was running down the river with her sheets well
off before the wind.

“Helm a-port a little, Horace, so as to give us plenty of room in
passing that brig at anchor. That is enough. Steady! Now keep as you
are. Marco, I will help you get the anchor on board, and then we will
get up the topsail and set it.”

In ten minutes the anchor was stowed, topsail set, and the ropes
coiled down. Then a small triangular blue flag with the word “Surf”
was run up to the masthead.

“Properly speaking, Horace, flags are not shown till eight o’clock in
the morning; but we will make an exception this time. Gently with the
tiller, lad; you are not steering a fishing-boat now; a touch is
sufficient for this craft. Keep your eye on the flag, and see that it
flies out straight ahead. That is the easiest thing to steer by when
you are dead before the wind. There is more care required for that
than for steering close-hauled, for a moment’s carelessness might
bring the sail across with a jerk that would pretty well take the mast
out of her. It is easy enough now in smooth water; but with a
following sea it needs a careful helmsman to keep a craft from yawing
about.”

Marco had disappeared down the forecastle hatch as soon as he had
finished coiling down the topsail halliard, and a wreath of smoke now
came up through the stove-pipe.

“That is good,” the mate said. “We shall have breakfast before long.”

They ran three miles straight out, so as to get well clear of the
land; then the sheets were hauled in, and the _Surf’s_ head pointed
east, and lying down to her gunwale she sped along parallel with the
shore.

“We are going along a good seven knots through the water,” the mate
said. “She has got just as much sail as she wants, though she would
stand a good deal more wind, if there were any occasion to press her;
but as a rule, Horace, always err on the right side; there is never
any good in carrying too much sail. You can always make more sail if
the wind drops, while if it rises it is not always easy to get it in.
Give me the helm. Now go down to Marco and tell him to come up a few
minutes before breakfast is ready. We will get the topsail off her
before we sit down, and eat our breakfast comfortably. There is no fun
in having your plate in your lap.”

By half-past seven the topsail was stowed and breakfast on the table.
Marco took the helm, while the mate and Horace went down to breakfast.
Horace thought that it was the most delightful meal he had ever taken;
and the mate said:

“That Greek of yours is a first-rate cook, Horace. An admiral could
not want to sit down to a better breakfast than this. There is not
much here to remind me of a midshipman’s mess. You would have had very
different food from this, youngster, if you had had your wish and gone
to sea. That father of yours must be a trump; I drink his health in
coffee. If he ever gets a bigger craft, and wants a captain, I am his
man if he will send your Greek on board as cook. Does he care for the
sea himself?”

“I think he used to like it. I have heard him talk about sailing among
the Greek islands; but as long as I have known him he has never been
away from home except for short runs up to London. He is always in his
library.”

“Fancy a man who could afford to keep a big craft and sail about as he
likes wasting his life over musty old books. It is a rum taste,
youngster. I think I would rather row in a galley.”

“There are no such things as galleys now, are there?”

“Oh, yes, there are in Italy; they have them still rowed by convicts,
and I fancy the Spanish gun-boats are rowed by prisoners too. It is
worse than a dog’s life, but for all that I would rather do it than be
shut up all my life in a library. You seem to talk Greek well,
youngster.”

“Yes; Marco has always been with me since I was a child, and we have
another Greek servant, his brother; and father generally talks Greek
to me. His mother was a Greek lady, and that is what made him so fond
of it at first. They say he is the best Greek scholar in England.”

“I suppose it differs a lot from the Greek you learn at school?”

“Yes, a lot. Still, of course, my knowing it helps me tremendously
with my old Greek. I get on first-rate at that, but I am very bad at
everything else.”

“Well, now we will go up and give Marco a spell,” the mate said. Marco
was relieved and went below. Horace took the helm; the mate lit a pipe
and seated himself on the weather bulwark. “We shall be at Seaport
before eleven if we go on like this,” he said.

“Oh, do let us take a run out to sea, Mr. Martyn; it is no use our
going in until four or five o’clock.”

“Just as you like, lad; I am in no hurry, and it is really a glorious
day for a sail. Put up the helm, I will see to the sheets.”

As they got farther from the protection of the land the sea got up a
bit, but the _Surf_ went over it lightly, and except that an
occasional splash of spray flew over her bow, her decks were perfectly
dry.

“Have you heard of a ship yet, Mr. Martyn?”

“Yes, I heard only yesterday of a berth as first-mate in a craft at
Plymouth. The first-mate got hurt coming down channel, and a friend of
my father’s, learning there was a vacancy, spoke to the owners. She
belongs there, and I am to join the day after to-morrow. She is bound
up the Mediterranean. I shall be very glad to be off; I have had a
dull time of it for the last four months except for this little job.”

“I am afraid you won’t get any vehicle to take you back to-night,”
Horace said.

“No, I didn’t expect that; the coach in the morning will do very well.
I have nothing to do but just to pack my kit, and shall go on by coach
next morning. I was thinking of sleeping on board here, if you have no
objection.”

“I am sure my father will be very glad to see you up at the house,”
Horace said eagerly.

“Thank you, lad, but I shall be much more comfortable on board. Marco
said he would get dinner at two, and there is sure to be plenty for me
to make a cold supper of, and as there is rum in the locker I shall be
as happy as a king. I can smoke my pipe as I like. If I were to go up
with you I should be uncomfortable, for I have nothing but my
sea-going togs. I should put your father out of his way, and he would
put me out of mine. So I think, on all accounts, I had much better
remain in good quarters now I have got them. How far is it to the
place where I catch the coach?”

“About four miles. We will send the carriage to take you there.”

“Thank you, I would much rather walk. I have nothing to carry but
myself, and a four miles’ walk across the hills will be just the thing
for me.”

At four o’clock the _Surf_ entered the little harbour of Seaport;
Horace was delighted with the surprise of the fishermen at the arrival
of the pretty craft.

“You are sure you won’t change your mind and come up with me to the
house?”

“Quite certain, thank you, lad. Marco has put out everything I can
possibly require. He offered to come down to get breakfast for me, but
I prefer to manage that for myself, then I can have it at any time I
fancy. I will lock up the cabin before I land. He will be there to
take the key.”

“I shall come down with him, of course, Mr. Martyn. I can’t tell you
how much I am obliged to you for what you have done for me, and I hope
that some day we may have another sail together.”

“If I am at home any time when you may happen to put in at Exmouth I
shall be glad to take a cruise with you, Horace.”

As the lad and Marco went up the hill to the house, Horace, to his
surprise, met his father coming down with Zaimes.

“Well, Horace, so you have brought your yacht home. Zaimes routed me
out from my work to come and look at her, and she really looks a very
pretty little vessel.”

“She is not little at all, father.”

“Perhaps not in comparison, Horace; but did you and Marco bring her
back by yourselves?”

“No, father; William Martyn, the officer who has seen to her fitting
up, and who recommended her, you know, said he would come with us. So,
of course, he has been in command, and Marco and I have been the crew.
He has been teaching me lots of things, just the same, he says, as if
I had been a newly joined midshipman.”

“But where is he now, Horace?”

“He is on board. He is going home by the coach to-morrow. I said that
I was sure you would be glad if he would come up to the house; but he
said he should feel more comfortable on board. Were you coming down to
look at her, father?”

“Yes, Horace, I was. It is quite a wonderful event my being outside
the grounds, isn’t it?”

“It is indeed, father. I am so glad you are coming down. I am sure you
will like her, and then, perhaps, you will come sailing sometimes; I
do think, father, that you would enjoy such a sail as we had to-day,
it was splendid.”

“Well, we will see about it, Horace. Now I have once come out I may do
so again; I am not sure that a good blow might not clear my brain
sometimes.”

There was quite an excitement in the village when Mr. Beveridge was
seen coming down. Occasionally during his wife’s lifetime he had come
down with her to look into questions of repairs or erection of new
cottages in lieu of old ones, but since that time he had never entered
the village. Personally his tenants did not suffer from the cessation
of his visits, for his steward had the strictest injunctions to deal
in all respects liberally with them, to execute all necessary repairs,
to accede to any reasonable request; while in case of illness or
misfortune, such as the loss of a boat or nets, the rent was always
remitted. That Mr. Beveridge was to a certain extent mad to shut
himself up as he did the villagers firmly believed, but they admitted
that no better landlord was to be found in all that part of the
country.

Mrs. Beveridge had been greatly liked, and the people were pleased at
Horace being down so much among them; but it was rather a sore subject
that their landlord himself held so entirely aloof from them. Men
touched their hats, the women curtsied as he came down the street,
looking almost with pity at the man who, in their opinion, so terribly
wasted his life and cut himself off from the enjoyments of his
position.

Mr. Beveridge returned their salutes kindly. He was scarce conscious
of the time that had passed since he was last in the village; the
years had gone by altogether unmarked save by the growth of Horace,
and by the completion of so many works.

“I suppose you know most of their names, Horace?”

“All of them, I think, father.”

“That is right, boy. A landlord ought to know all his tenants. I wish
I could find time to go about among them a little more, but I think
they have everything they want as far as I can do for them; still, I
ought to come. In your mother’s time I did come sometimes. I must try
to do it in future. Zaimes, you must see that I do this once a
fortnight. I authorize you to bring me my hat and coat after lunch and
say to me firmly, ‘This is your afternoon for going out.’”

“Very well, sir,” the Greek said. “I will tell you; and I hope you
will not say, as you always do to me when I beg you to go out: ‘I must
put it off for another day, Zaimes, I have some work that must be
done.’”

“I will try not to, Zaimes, I will indeed. I think this is a duty. You
remind me of that, will you?”

By this time they had reached the little port, where a number of the
fishermen were still lounging discussing the _Surf_, which was lying
the picture of neatness and good order among the fishing-boats, with
every rope in its place, the sails in their snow-white covers, and
presenting the strongest contrast to the craft around her.

“She is really a very pretty little yacht,” Mr. Beveridge said with
more animation than Horace ever remembered to have heard him speak
with. “She does great credit to your choice, Marco, and I should think
she is a good sea-boat. Why, Zaimes, this almost seems to take one
back to the old time. She is about the size of the felucca we used to
cruise about in; it is a long time back, nearly eighteen years, and
yet it seems but yesterday.”

“There is no reason why you should not sail again, master; even I long
to have my foot on the planks. One never loses one’s love of the sea.”

“I am getting to be an old man now, Zaimes.”

“No one would say so but yourself, master; you are but forty-three.
Sometimes, after being shut up for days, you look old--who would not
when the sun never shines on them--but now you look young, much
younger than you are.”

A stranger indeed would have had difficulty in guessing Mr.
Beveridge’s age. His forehead was broad, his skin delicate and almost
colourless, his light-brown hair was already of a silvery shade, his
face clean shaven, his hands white and thin. His eyes were generally
soft and dreamy, but at the present moment they were bright and
alert. His figure was scarcely that of a student, for the frame was
large, and there was at present none of the stoop habitual to those
who spend their lives over books; and now that he was roused, he
carried himself exceptionally upright, and a close observer might have
taken him for a vigorous man who had but lately recovered from an
attack of severe illness.

“We shall see, Zaimes, we shall see,” he said; “let us go on board.
You had better hail her, Horace.”

“_Surf_ ahoy!” Horace shouted, imitating as well as he could William
Martyn’s usual hail. A minute later the mate’s head appeared above the
companion. “My father is coming on board, Mr. Martyn. Will you please
bring the dinghy ashore.” The mate hauled up the dinghy, got into it,
and in a few strokes was alongside the quay.

Mr. Beveridge descended the steps first. “I am glad to meet you, Mr.
Martyn, and to thank you for the kindness you have shown my son in
finding this craft for him and seeing to its being fitted out.”

“It has been an amusement, sir,” the mate said. “I was knocking about
Exmouth with nothing to do, and it was pleasant to be at work on
something.”

“Get in, Horace,” Mr. Beveridge said, “the dinghy won’t carry us all.
You can bring it back again for the others.”

The party stayed for half an hour on board. Mr. Beveridge was warm in
his approval of the arrangements.

“This is a snug cabin indeed,” he said. “I had no idea that such a
small craft could have had such good accommodation. One could wish for
nothing better except for a little more head-room, but after all that
is of no great consequence, one does not want to walk about below. It
is a place to eat and to sleep in, or, if it is wet, to read in. I
really wonder I never thought of having a sailing-boat before. I shall
certainly take a sail with you sometimes, Horace.”

“I am very glad of that, father, it would be very jolly having you
out. I don’t see much of you, you know, and I do think it would do you
good.”

William Martyn was not allowed to carry out his intention of staying
on board, nor did he resist very earnestly Mr. Beveridge’s pressing
invitation. His host differed widely from his preconceived notions of
him, and he saw that he need not be afraid of ceremony.

“You can smoke your pipe, you know, in the library after dinner, Mr.
Martyn. I have no objection whatever to smoke; indeed, I used to smoke
myself when I was in Greece as a young man--everyone did so there, and
I got to like it, though I gave it up afterwards. Why did I give it
up, Zaimes?”

“I think you gave it up, master, because you always let your cigar out
after smoking two or three whiffs, and never thought of it again for
the rest of the day.”

“Perhaps that was it; at any rate your smoking will in no way
incommode me, so I will take no denial.”

Accordingly the cabins were locked up, and William Martyn went up with
the others to the house and there spent a very pleasant evening. He
had in the course of his service sailed for some time in Greek waters,
and there was consequently much to talk about which interested both
himself and his host.

“I love Greece,” Mr. Beveridge said. “Had it not been that she lies
dead under the tyranny of the Turks I doubt if I should not have
settled there altogether.”

“I think you would have got tired of it, sir,” the mate said. “There
is nothing to be said against the country or the islands, except that
there are precious few good harbours among them; but I can’t say I
took to the people.”

“They have their faults,” Mr. Beveridge admitted, “but I think they
are the faults of their position more than of their natural character.
Slaves are seldom trustworthy, and I own that they are not as a rule
to be relied upon. Having no honourable career open to them, the upper
classes think of nothing but money; they are selfish, greedy, and
corrupt; but I believe in the bulk of the people.”

As William Martyn had no belief whatever in any section of the Greeks
he held his tongue.

“Greece will rise one of these days,” Mr. Beveridge went on, “and when
she does she will astonish Europe. The old spirit still lives among
the descendants of Leonidas and Miltiades.”

“I should be sorry to be one of the Turks who fell into their hands,”
William Martyn said gravely as he thought of the many instances in his
own experiences of the murders of sailors on leave ashore.

“It is probable that there will be sad scenes of bloodshed,” Mr.
Beveridge agreed; “that is only to be expected when you have a race of
men of a naturally impetuous and passionate character enslaved by a
people alien in race and in religion. Yes, I fear it will be so at the
commencement, but that will be all altered when they become
disciplined soldiers. Do you not think so?” he asked, as the sailor
remained silent.

“I have great doubts whether they will ever submit to discipline,” he
said bluntly. “Their idea of fighting for centuries has been simply to
shoot down an enemy from behind the shelter of rocks. I would as lief
undertake to discipline an army of Malays, who, in a good many
respects, especially in the handiness with which they use their
knives, are a good deal like the Greeks.”

“There is one broad distinction,” Mr. Beveridge said: “the Malays have
no past, the Greeks have never lost the remembrance of their ancient
glory. They have a high standard to act up to; they reverence the
names of the great men of old as if they had died but yesterday. With
them it would be a resurrection, accomplished, no doubt, after vast
pains and many troubles, the more so since the Greeks are a composite
people among whom the descendants of the veritable Greek of old are in
a great minority. The majority are of Albanian and Suliot blood, races
which even the Romans found untamable. When the struggle begins I fear
that this section of the race will display the savagery of their
nature; but the fighting over, the intellectual portion will, I doubt
not, regain their proper ascendency, and Greece will become the Greece
of old.”

William Martyn was wise enough not to pursue the subject. He had a
deep scar from the shoulder to the elbow of his right arm, and another
on the left shoulder, both reminiscences of an attack that had been
made upon him by half a dozen ruffians one night in the streets of
Athens, and in his private opinion the entire extirpation of the Greek
race would be no loss to the world in general.

“I am very sorry you have to leave to-morrow morning,” Mr. Beveridge
said presently. “I should have been very glad if you could have stayed
with us for a few days. It is some years since I had a visitor here,
and I can assure you that I am surprised at the pleasure it gives me.
However, I hope that whenever you happen to be at Exmouth you will run
over and see us, and if at any time I can be of the slightest service
to you I shall be really pleased.”

The next morning William Martyn, still refusing the offer of a
conveyance, walked across the hills to meet the coach, and as soon as
he had started Horace went down to the yacht. Marco had gone down into
the village early, had seen Tom Burdett, and in his master’s name
arranged for him to take charge of the _Surf_, and to engage a lad to
sail with him. When Horace reached the wharf Tom was already on board
with his nephew, Dick, a lad of seventeen or eighteen, who at once
brought the dinghy ashore at Horace’s hail.

“Well, Dick, so you are going with us?”

“Ay, Master Horace, I am shipped as crew. She be a beauty. That cabin
is a wonderful lot better than the fo’castle of a fishing-lugger. She
is something like a craft to go a sailing in.”

“Good morning, Tom Burdett,” Horace said as the boat came alongside
the yacht; “or I ought to say Captain Burdett.”

“No, no,” the sailor laughed; “I have been too long aboard big craft
to go a captaining. I don’t so much mind being called a skipper, cos a
master of any sort of craft may be called skipper; but I ain’t going
to be called captain. Now, Dick, run that flag up to the mast-head.
That is yachting fashion, you know, Master Horace, to run the burgee
up when the owner comes on board. We ain’t got a burgee, seeing as we
don’t belong to a yacht-club; but the flag with the name does service
for it at present.”

“But I am not the owner, Tom, that is nonsense. My father got it to
please me, and very good of him it was; but it is nonsense to call the
boat mine.”

“Them’s the orders I got from your Greek chap down below, Mr. Horace.
Says he, ‘Master says as how Mr. Horace is to be regarded as owner of
this ’ere craft whenever he is aboard;’ so there you are, you see.
There ain’t nothing to be said against that.”

“Well, it is very jolly, isn’t it, Tom?”

“It suits me first-rate, sir. I feel for all the world as if we had
just captured a little prize, and they had put a young midshipmite in
command and sent me along with him just to keep him straight; that is
how I feel about it.”

“What sort of weather do you think we are going to have to-day, Tom?”

“I think the wind is going to shift, sir, and perhaps there will be
more of it. It has gone round four points to the east since I turned
out before sunrise.”

“And where do you think we had better go to-day, Tom?”

“Well, as the wind is now it would be first-rate for a run to
Dartmouth.”

“Yes, but we should have a dead-beat back, Tom; we should never get
back before dark.”

“No sir, but that Greek chap tells me as your father said as how there
were no occasion to be back to-night, if so be as you liked to make a
cruise of it.”

“Did he say that? That is capital. Then let us go to Dartmouth;
to-morrow we can start as early as we like so as to get back here.”

“I don’t reckon we shall have to beat back. According to my notion the
wind will be somewhere round to the south by to-morrow morning; that
will suit us nicely. Now then, sir, we will see about getting sail on
her.”

As soon as they began to throw the sail-covers off, Marco came on deck
and lent a hand, and in the course of three minutes the sails were up,
the mooring slipped, and the _Surf_ was gliding past the end of the
jetty.

“That was done in pretty good style, sir,” Tom Burdett said as he took
up his station by the side of Horace, who was at the tiller. “I reckon
when we have had a week’s practice together we shall get up sail as
smartly as a man-of-war captain would want to see. I do like to see
things done smart if it is only on a little craft like this, and with
three of us we ought to get all her lower sail on her in no time. That
Greek chap knows what he is about. Of course he has often been out
with you in the fishing-boats, but there has never been any call for
him to lend a hand there, and I was quite surprised just now when he
turned to at it. I only reckoned on Dick and myself, and put the Greek
down as steward and cook.”

“He used to work in a fishing-boat when he was a boy, Tom.”

“Ah, that accounts for it! They are smart sailors, some of them
Greeks, in their own craft, though I never reckoned they were any good
in a square-rigged ship; but in those feluccas of theirs they ain’t
easy to be beaten in anything like fine weather. But they ain’t
dependable, none of those Mediterranean chaps are, whether they are
Greeks or Italians or Spaniards, when it comes on to blow really hard,
and there is land under your lee, and no port to run to. When it comes
to a squeak like that they lose their nerve and begin to pray to the
saints, and wring their hands, and jabber like a lot of children. They
don’t seem to have no sort of backbone about them. But in fine weather
I allow they handle their craft as well as they could be handled. Mind
your helm, sir; you must always keep your attention to that, no matter
what is being said.”

“Are you going to get up the topsail, Tom?”

“Not at present, sir; with this wind there will be more sea on as we
get further out, and I don’t know the craft yet; I want to see what
her ways are afore we try her. She looks to me as if she would be
stiff under canvas; but running as we are we can’t judge much about
that, and you have always got to be careful with these light-draft
craft. When we get to know her we shall be able to calculate what she
will carry in all weathers; but there is no hurry about that. I have
seen spars carried away afore now, from young commanders cracking on
sail on craft they knew nothing about. This boat can run, there is no
mistake about that. Look at that fishing-boat ahead of us; that is
Jasper Hill’s _Kitty_; she went out ten minutes afore you came down.
We are overhauling her hand over hand, and she is reckoned one of the
fastest craft in Seaport. But then, this craft is bound to run fast
with her fine lines and shallow draft; we must wait to see how she
will do when there is lots of wind.”

In a couple of hours Horace was glad to hand over the tiller to the
skipper as the sea had got up a good deal, and the _Surf_ yawed so
much before the following waves that it needed more skill than he
possessed to keep her straight.

“Fetch the compass up, Dick,” the skipper said; “we are dropping the
land fast. Now get the mizzen off her, she will steer easier without
it, and it isn’t doing her much good. Do you begin to feel queer at
all, Mr. Horace?”

“Not a bit,” the boy laughed. “Why, you don’t suppose, after rolling
about in those fishing-boats when they are hanging to their nets, that
one would feel this easy motion.”

“No; you would think not, but it don’t always follow. I have seen a
man, who had been accustomed to knock about all his life in small
craft, as sick as a dog on board a frigate, and I have seen the first
lieutenant of a man-of-war knocked right over while lying off a bar on
boat service. One gets accustomed to one sort of motion, and when you
get another quite different it seems to take your innards all aback.”

The run to Dartmouth was quickly made, and to Horace’s delight they
passed several large ships on their way.

“Yes, she is going well,” Tom Burdett said when he expressed his
satisfaction; “but if the wind was to get up a bit more it would be
just the other way. We have got quite as much as we want, while they
could stand a good bit more. A small craft will generally hold her own
in a light wind, because why, she carries more sail in proportion to
her tonnage. When the big ship has got as much as she can do with, the
little one has to reef down and half her sails are taken off her.
Another thing is, the waves knock the way out of a small craft, while
the weight of a big one takes her through them without feeling it.
Still I don’t say the boat ain’t doing well, for she is first-rate,
and we shall make a very quick passage to port.”

Running up the pretty river, they rounded to, head to wind, dropped
the anchor a short distance from a ship of war, and lowered and stowed
their sails smartly. Then Horace went below to dinner. It had been
ready for some little time, but he had not liked leaving the deck, for
rolling, as she sometimes did, it would have been impossible to eat
comfortably. As soon as he dined, the others took their meal in the
fo’castle, Marco having insisted on waiting on him while at his
dinner. When they had finished, Marco and Dick rowed Horace ashore.
The lad took the boat back to the yacht, while the other two strolled
about the town for a couple of hours, and then went off again.

The next day the _Surf_ fully satisfied her skipper as to her
weatherly qualities. The wind was, as he had predicted, nearly
south-east, and there was a good deal of sea on. Before getting up
anchor, the topmast was lowered, two reefs put in the main-sail and
one in the mizzen, and a small jib substituted for that carried on the
previous day. Showers of spray fell on the deck as they put out from
the mouth of the river; but once fairly away she took the waves
easily, and though sometimes a few buckets of water tumbled over her
bows and swashed along the lee channels, nothing like a green sea came
on board. Tom Burdett was delighted with her.

“She is a beauty and no mistake,” he said enthusiastically. “There is
many a big ship will be making bad weather of it to-day; she goes over
it like a duck. After this, Mr. Horace, I sha’n’t mind what weather I
am out in her. I would not have believed a craft her size would have
behaved so well in a tumble like this. You see this is more trying for
her than a big sea would be. She would take it easier if the waves
were longer, and she had more time to take them one after the other.
That is why you hear of boats living in a sea that has beaten the life
out of a ship. A long craft does not feel a short choppy sea that a
small one would be putting her head into every wave: but in a long sea
the little one has the advantage. What do you think of her, sir?”

“She seems to me to heel over a long way, Tom.”

“Yes, she is well over; but you see, even in the puffs she doesn’t go
any further. Every vessel has got what you may call her bearing. It
mayn’t take much to get her over to that; but when she is there it
takes a wonderful lot to bring her any further. You see there is a lot
of sail we could take off her yet, if the wind were to freshen. We
could get in another reef in the main-sail, and stow her mizzen and
foresail altogether. She would stand pretty nigh a hurricane with that
canvas.”

It was four o’clock in the afternoon before the _Surf_ entered the
harbour. Horace was drenched with spray, and felt almost worn out
after the struggle with the wind and waves; when he landed his knees
were strangely weak, but he felt an immense satisfaction with the
trip, and believed implicitly Tom Burdett’s assertion that the yacht
could stand any weather.




CHAPTER III

THE WRECK


Those were glorious holidays for Horace Beveridge. He was seldom at
home; sometimes two of his cousins, the Hendons, accompanied him in
his trips, and they were away for three or four days at a time. Three
times Mr. Beveridge with Zaimes went out for a day’s sail, and Horace
was pleased to see that his father really enjoyed it, talking but
little, but sitting among some cushions Zaimes arranged for him
astern, and basking in the bright sun and fresh air. That he did enjoy
it was evident from the fact that, instead of having the yacht laid up
at the end of the holidays, Mr. Beveridge decided to keep her afloat,
and retained Tom Burdett’s services permanently.

“Do you think, Tom, we shall get any sailing in the winter holidays?”

“We are sure to, sir, if your father has not laid her up by that time.
There are plenty of days on this coast when the sailing is as pleasant
in winter as it is in summer. The harbour is a safe one though it is
so small, and I don’t see any reason why she shouldn’t be kept afloat.
Of course we shall have to put a stove in the cabin to make it snug;
but with that, a good thick pea-jacket, warm gloves, and high boots,
you would be as right as a nail.”

And so at Christmas and through the next summer holidays Horace
enjoyed almost constant sailing. He was now thoroughly at home in the
boat, could steer without the supervision of the skipper, and was as
handy with the ropes as Dick himself.

“This is the best job I ever fell into, Mr. Horace,” Tom Burdett said
at the end of the second summer. “Your father pays liberal; and as for
grub, when that Greek is on board a post-captain could not want
better. It is wonderful how that chap does cook, and he seems
downright to like it. Then you see I have got a first-rate crew. Dick
is as good as a man now; I will say for the Greek, he is a good sailor
as well as a good cook; and then you see you have got a deal bigger
and stronger than you were a year ago, and are just as handy either at
the tiller or the sheets as a man would be, so we are regular
strong-handed, and that makes a wonderful difference in the comfort on
a craft.”

That summer they sailed up to Portsmouth, and cruised for a week
inside the Isle of Wight, and as Horace had one of his school-fellows
spending the holidays with him, he enjoyed himself to the fullest of
his capacity. During the holidays Horace did not see much of his
father, who, quite content that the boy was enjoying himself, and
gaining health and strength, went on in his own way, and only once
went out with him during his stay at home, although, as Marco told
him, he generally went out once a week at other times.

The first morning after his return, at the following Christmas, Horace
did not as usual get up as soon as it was light. The rattle of the
window and the howl of the wind outside sufficed to tell him that
there would be no sailing that day. Being in no hurry to move, he sat
over breakfast longer than usual, talking to Zaimes of what had
happened at home and in the village since he last went away. His
father was absent, having gone up to town a week before, and Horace
had, on his arrival, found a letter from him, saying that he was sorry
not to be there for his return, but that he found he could not get
through the work on which he was engaged for another two days; he
should, however, be down at any rate by Christmas-eve.

After breakfast Horace went out and looked over the sea. The wind was
almost dead on shore, blowing in such violent gusts that he could
scarce keep his feet. The sky was a dull lead colour, the low clouds
hurrying past overhead. The sea was covered with white breakers, and
the roar of the surf, as it broke on the shore, could be heard even
above the noise of the wind. Putting on his pea-jacket and high
boots, he went down to the port. As it had been specially constructed
as a shelter against south-westerly winds, with the western pier
overlapping the other, the sea did not make a direct sweep into it;
but the craft inside were all rolling heavily in the swell.

“How are you, Tom? It is a wild day, isn’t it?”

“Don’t want to see a worse, sir. Glad to see you back again, Mr.
Horace. Quite well, I hope?”

“First-rate, Tom. It is a nuisance this gale the first day of coming
home. I have been looking forward to a sail. I am afraid there is no
chance of one to-day?”

“Well, sir, I should say they would take us and send us all to the
loonatic asylum at Exeter if they saw us getting ready to go out. Just
look at the sea coming over the west pier. It has carried away a bit
of that stone wall at the end.”

“Yes. I didn’t really think of going out, Tom, though I suppose if we
had been caught out in it we should have managed somehow.”

“We should have done our best, in course,” the sailor said, “and I
have that belief in the boat that I think she might weather it; but I
would not take six months’ pay to be out a quarter of an hour.”

“What would you do, Tom, if you were caught in a gale like this?”

“If there weren’t land under our lee I should lay to, sir, under the
storm-jib and a try-sail. Maybe I would unship the main-sail with the
boom and gaff, get the top-mast on deck and lash that to them; then
make a bridle with a strong rope, launch it overboard, lower all sail,
and ride to that; that would keep us nearer head on to the sea than we
could lie under any sail. That is what they call a floating anchor. I
never heard of a ship being hove-to that way; but I was out on boat
service in the Indian Ocean when we were caught in a heavy blow, and
the lieutenant who was in charge made us lash the mast and sails and
oars together and heave them overboard, and we rode to them right
through the gale. We had to bale a bit occasionally, but there was
never any danger, and I don’t think we should have lived through it
any other way. I made a note of it at the time, and if ever I am
caught in the same way again that is what I shall do, and what would
be good for a boat would be good for a craft like the _Surf_.”

This conversation was carried on with some difficulty, although they
were standing under the lee of the wall of a cottage.

“She rolls about heavily, Tom.”

“She does that, sir. It is lucky we have got our moorings in the
middle of the harbour, and none of the fishing-boats are near enough
to interfere with her. You see most of them have got their sails and
nets rolled up as fenders, but in spite of that they have been ripping
and tearing each other shocking. There will be jobs for the carpenter
for some time to come. Five or six of them have torn away their
bulwarks already.”

After waiting down by the port for an hour Horace returned to the
house. When luncheon was over he was just about to start again for the
port, when Marco said to him:

“Dick has just been in, sir. There is going to be a wreck. There are a
lot of fishermen gathered on the cliff half a mile away to the right.
They say there is a ship that will come ashore somewhere along there.”

“Come on, then, Marco. Did you hear whether they thought that anything
could be done?”

“I did not hear anything about it. I don’t think they know where she
will go ashore yet.”

In a few minutes they reached the group of fishermen standing on the
cliff. It was a headland beyond which the land fell away, forming a
bay some three miles across. A large barque was to be seen some two
miles off shore. She was wallowing heavily in the seas, and each wave
seemed to smother her in spray. Tom Burdett was among the group, and
Horace went up to him at once.

“What’s to prevent her from beating off, Tom? She ought to be able to
work out without difficulty.”

“So she would at ordinary times,” the skipper said; “but she is
evidently a heavy sailer and deep laden. She could do it now if they
could put more sail on her, but I expect her canvas is all old. You
see her topsails are all in ribbons. Each of them seas heaves her
bodily to leeward. She is a doomed ship, sir, there ain’t no sort of
doubt about that; the question is, Where is she coming ashore?”

“Will it make much difference, Tom?”

“Well, it might make a difference if her master knew the coast. The
best thing he could do would be to get her round and run straight in
for this point. The water is deeper here than it is in the bay, and
she would get nearer ashore before she struck, and we might save a few
of them if they lashed themselves to spars and her coops and such
like. Deep as she is she would strike half a mile out if she went
straight up the bay. The tide is nearly dead low, and in that case not
a man will get ashore through that line of breakers. Then, again, she
might strike near Ram’s Head over there, which is like enough if she
holds on as she is doing at present. The Head runs a long way out
under water, and it is shallower half a mile out than it is nearer the
point. There is a clump of rocks there.”

“I don’t remember anything about them, Tom, and we have sailed along
there a score of times.”

“No, sir, we don’t take no account of them in small craft, and there
is a fathom and a half of water over them even in spring-tides.
Springs are on now, and there ain’t much above nine foot just now; and
that craft draws two fathom and a half or thereabouts, over twelve
foot anyhow. But it don’t make much difference; wherever she strikes
she will go to pieces in this sea in a few minutes.”

“Surely there is something to be done, Tom?”

“Some of us are just going down to get ropes and go along the shore,
Mr. Horace; but Lor’ bless you, one just does it for the sake of doing
something. One knows well enough that it ain’t likely we shall get a
chance of saving a soul.”

“But couldn’t some of the boats go out, Tom? There would be plenty of
water for them where she strikes.”

“The fishermen have been talking about it, sir; but they are all of
one opinion; the sea is altogether too heavy for them.”

“But the _Surf_ could go, couldn’t she, Tom? You have always said she
could stand any sea.”

“Any reasonable sort of sea, Mr. Horace, but this is a downright
onreasonable sort of sea for a craft of her size, and it is a deal
worse near shore where the water begins to shallow than it would be
out in the channel.”

But though Tom Burdett spoke strongly, Horace noticed that his tone
was not so decided as when he said that the fishing-boats could not go
out.

“Look here, Tom,” he said, “I suppose there must be thirty hands on
board that ship. We can’t see them drowned without making a try to
save them. We have got the best boat here on the coast. We have been
out in some bad weather in her, and she has always behaved splendidly.
I vote we try. She can fetch out between the piers all right from
where she is moored; and if, when we get fairly out, we find it is
altogether too much for her, we could put back again.”

Tom made no answer. He was standing looking at the ship. He had been
already turning it over in his mind whether it would not be possible
for the _Surf_ to put out. He had himself an immense faith in her
sea-going qualities, and believed that she might be able to stand even
this sea.

“But you wouldn’t be thinking of going in her, Mr. Horace?” he said
doubtfully at last.

“Of course I should,” the lad said indignantly. “You don’t suppose
that I would let the _Surf_ go out if I were afraid to go in her
myself.”

“Your father would never agree to that if he were at home, sir.”

“Yes, he would,” Horace said. “I am sure my father would say that
if the _Surf_ went out I ought to go in her, and that it would be
cowardly to let other people do what one is afraid to do one’s self.
Besides, I can swim better than either you or Dick, and should have
more chance of getting ashore if she went down; but I don’t think she
would go down. I am nearly sixteen now; and as my father isn’t here I
shall have my own way. If you say that you think there is no chance of
the _Surf_ getting out to her there is an end of it; but if you say
that you think she could live through it, we will go.”

[Illustration: HORACE SUGGESTS A RESCUE]

“I think she might do it, Mr. Horace; I have been a saying so to the
others. They all say that it would be just madness, but then they
don’t know the craft as I do.”

“Well, look here, Tom, I will put it this way: if the storm had been
yesterday, and my father and I had both been away, wouldn’t you have
taken her out?”

“Well, sir, I should; I can’t say the contrary. I have always said
that the boat could go anywhere, and I believe she could, and I ain’t
going to back down now from my opinion; but I say as it ain’t right
for you to go.”

“That is my business,” Horace said. “Marco, I am going out in the
_Surf_ to try to save some of the men on board that ship. Are you
disposed to come too?”

“I will go if you go,” the Greek said slowly; “but I don’t know what
your father would say.”

“He would say, if there was a chance of saving life it ought to be
tried, Marco. Of course there is some danger in it, but Tom thinks she
can do it, and so do I. We can’t stand here and see thirty men drowned
without making an effort to save them. I have quite made up my mind to
go.”

“Very well, sir, then I will go.”

Horace went back to Tom Burdett, who was talking with Dick apart from
the rest.

“We will take a couple of extra hands if we can get them,” the skipper
said. “We shall want to be strong-handed.”

He went to the group of fishermen and said:

“We are going out in the _Surf_ to see if we can lend a hand to bring
some of those poor fellows ashore. Young Mr. Beveridge is coming, but
we want a couple more hands. Who will go with us?”

There was silence for a minute, and then a young fisherman said:

“I will go, Tom. My brother Nat is big enough to take my place in the
boat if I don’t come back again. I am willing to try it with you,
though I doubt if the yacht will get twice her own length beyond the
pier.”

“And I will go with you, Tom,” an older man said. “If my son Dick is
going, I don’t see why I should hang back.”

“That will do, then, that makes up our crew. Now we had best be
starting at once. That barque will be ashore in another hour, and she
will go to pieces pretty near as soon as she strikes. So if we are
going to do anything, there ain’t no time to be lost. The rest of you
had better go along with stout ropes as you was talking of just now;
that will give us a bit of a chance if things go wrong.”

The six hurried along the cliff and then down to the port, followed by
the whole of the fishermen. A couple of trips with the dinghy took
them on board.

“Now, then,” Tom Burdett said to Dick’s father, “we will get the
fore-sail out and rig it as a try-sail. Dick, you cut the lashings and
get the main-sail off the hoops. We will leave it and the spars here;
do you lend him a hand, Jack Thompson.”

In five minutes the main-sail with its boom and gaff was taken off the
mast and tied together. A rope was attached to them and the end flung
ashore, where they were at once hauled in by the fishermen, who
crowded the wharf, every soul in the village having come down at the
news that the _Surf_ was going out. By this time holes had been made
along the leach of the sail, and by these it was lashed to the
mast-hoops. The top-mast was sent down to the deck, launched
overboard, and hauled ashore; the mizzen was closely reefed, but not
hoisted.

“We will see how she does without it,” Tom said; “she may like it and
she may not. Now, up with the try-sail and jib, and stand by to cast
off the moorings as she gets weigh on her; I will take the tiller.
Marco, do you and Mr. Horace stand by the mizzen-halliards ready to
hoist if I tell you.”

As the _Surf_ began to move through the water a loud cheer broke from
the crowd on shore, followed by a dead silence. She moved but slowly
as she was under the lee of the west pier.

“Ben, do you and the other two kick out the lower plank of the
bulwark,” Tom Burdett said; “we shall want to get rid of the water as
fast as it comes on board.”

The three men with their heavy sea-boots knocked out the plank with a
few kicks.

“Now, the one on the other side,” Tom said; and this was done just as
they reached the entrance between the piers. She was gathering way
fast now.

“Ease off that jib-sheet, Dick,” the skipper cried. “Stand by to haul
it in as soon as the wind catches the try-sail.”

Tom put down the helm as he reached the end of the pier, but a great
wave caught her head and swept her half round. A moment later the wind
in its full force struck the try-sail and she heeled far over with the
blow.

“Up with the mizzen!” Tom shouted. “Give her more sheet, Dick!” As the
mizzen drew, its action and that of the helm told, and the _Surf_
swept up into the wind. “Haul in the jib-sheet, Dick. That is enough;
make it fast. Ease off the mizzen-sheet a little, Marco! That will do.
Now lash yourselves with lines to the bulwark.”

For the first minute or two it seemed to Horace that the _Surf_, good
boat as she was, could not live through those tremendous waves, each
of which seemed as if it must overwhelm her; but although the water
poured in torrents across her deck it went off as quickly through the
hole in the lee bulwark, and but little came over her bow.

“She will do, sir!” Tom, close to whom he had lashed himself,
shouted. “It will be better when we get a bit farther out. She is a
beauty, she is, and she answers to her helm well.”

Gradually the _Surf_ drew out from the shore.

“Are you going to come about, Tom?”

“Not yet, sir; we must get more sea-room before we try. Like enough
she may miss stays in this sea. If she does we must wear her round.”

“Now we will try,” he said five minutes later. “Get those lashings
off. Mr. Horace, you will have to go up to the other side when she is
round. Get ready to go about!” he shouted. “I will put the helm down
at the first lull. Now!”

The _Surf_ came round like a top, and had gathered way on the other
tack before the next big wave struck her.

“Well done!” Tom Burdett shouted joyously, and the others echoed the
shout. In ten minutes they were far enough out to get a sight of the
ship as they rose on the waves.

“Just as I thought,” Ben muttered; “he thinks he will weather Ram’s
Head, and he will go ashore somewhere on that reef of rocks to a
certainty.”

In another five minutes the course was again changed, and the _Surf_
bore directly for the barque. In spite of the small sail she carried
the water was two feet up the lee planks of her deck, and she was
deluged every time by the seas, which struck her now almost abeam. But
everything was battened down, and they heeded the water but little.

“What do you think of her now?” Tom shouted to his brother-in-law.
“Didn’t I tell you she would stand a sea when your fishing-boats dare
not show their noses out of the port?”

“She is a good ’un and no mistake, Tom. I did not think a craft her
size could have lived in such a sea as this. You may brag about her as
you like in future, and there ain’t a man in Seaport as will
contradict you.”

They were going through the water four feet to the barque’s one, and
they were but a quarter of a mile astern of her when Horace
exclaimed, “She has struck!” and at the same moment her main and
foremast went over the side.

“She is just about on the shallowest point of the reef,” Ben Harper
said. “Now, how are you going to manage this job, Tom?”

“There is only one way to do it,” the skipper said. “There is water
enough for us. Tide has flowed an hour and a half, and there must be
two fathoms where she is lying. We must run up under her lee close
enough to chuck a rope on board. Get a light rope bent on to the
hawser. They must pull that on board, and we will hang to it as near
as we dare.”

“You must go near her stern, Tom, or we shall get stove in with the
masts and spars.”

“Yes, it is lucky the mizzen is standing, else we could not have gone
alongside till they got rid of them all, and they would never do that
afore she broke up.”

Horace, as he watched the ship, expected to see her go to pieces every
moment. Each wave struck her with tremendous force, sending cataracts
of water over her weather gunwale and across her deck. Many of the
seas broke before they reached her, and the line of the reef could be
traced far beyond her by the white and broken water.

“Now, then,” the skipper shouted, “I shall keep the _Surf_ about twice
her own length from the wreck, and then put the helm hard down and
shoot right up to her.”

“That will be the safest plan, Tom. There are two men with ropes
standing ready in the mizzen-shrouds.”

“I shall bring her in a little beyond that, Ben, if the wreck of the
mainmast isn’t in the way; the mizzen may come out of her any moment,
and if it fell on our decks it would be good-bye to us all.”

A cheer broke from the men huddled up under shelter of the weather
bulwark as the little craft swept past her stern.

“Mind the wreck!” a voice shouted.

Tom held up his hand, and a moment later put the helm down hard. The
_Surf_ swept round towards the ship, and her way carried her on until
the end of the bowsprit was but five or six yards distant. Then Tom
shouted:

“Now is your time, Dick;” and the rope was thrown right across the
barque, where it was grasped by half a dozen hands.

“Haul in till you get the hawser,” Dick shouted; “then make it fast.”
At the same moment two ropes from the ship were thrown, and caught by
Marco and Ben. Tom left the tiller now and lowered the try-sail. By
the time the hawser was fast on board, the _Surf_ had drifted twice
her own length from the ship. “That will do, Ben; make the hawser fast
there.” Two strong hawsers were hauled in from the ship and also made
fast.

“Now you can come as soon as you like,” Tom shouted. As the hawsers
were fastened to the weather-side of the vessel, which was now heeled
far over, it was a sharp incline down to the deck of the _Surf_, and
the crew, throwing their arms and legs round the hawsers, slid down
without difficulty, the pressure of the wind on the yacht keeping the
ropes perfectly taut. As the men came within reach, Tom Burdett and
Ben seized them by the collars and hauled them on board.

“Any woman on board?” he asked the first.

“No, we have no passengers.”

“That is a comfort. How many of a crew?”

“There were thirty-three all told, but four were killed by the falling
mast, and three were washed overboard before we struck, so there are
twenty-six now.”

In five minutes from the ropes being thrown the captain, who was last
man, was on board the yacht. The _Surf’s_ own hawser had been thrown
off by him before he left, drawn in, and coiled down, and as soon as
he was safe on board the other two hawsers were thrown off.

“Haul the jib a-weather, Dick,” Tom Burdett shouted as he took the
helm again. “Slack the mizzen-sheet off altogether, Marco; up with the
try-sail again.”

For a short distance the yacht drifted astern, and then, as the
pressure of the jib began to make itself felt, her head gradually
payed off. “Haul in the try-sail and jib-sheets. Let go the
weather-sheet, Dick, and haul in the other. That is it, now she begins
to move again.”

“You are only just in time,” the captain said to Tom; “she was just
beginning to part in the middle when I left. You have saved all our
lives, and I thank you heartily.”

“This is the owner of the yacht, sir,” Tom said, motioning to Horace.
“It is his doing that we came out.”

“Oh, that is all nonsense, Tom! You would have come just the same if I
hadn’t been there.”

“Well, sir, it has been a gallant rescue,” the captain said. “I could
hardly believe my eyes when I saw your sail coming after us, and I
expected every moment to see it disappear.”

“Now, captain,” Tom said, “make all your men sit down as close as they
can pack under the weather bulwark; we ain’t in yet.”

It was an anxious time as they struggled through the heavy sea on the
way back, but the _Surf_ stood it bravely, and the weight to windward
enabled her to stand up more stiffly to her canvas. When they were
abreast of the port half the men went over to the other side, the helm
was put up, and she rushed towards the shore dead before the wind. The
extra weight on deck told on her now, and it needed the most careful
steering on Tom’s part to keep her straight before the waves, several
of which broke over her taffrail and swept along the deck, one of them
bursting out her bulwarks at the bow.

“Get ready to haul in the sheets smartly,” Tom shouted as they neared
the pier.

He kept her course close to the pier-head, and as the _Surf_ came
abreast of it jammed down the tiller, while Ben and Dick hauled in the
mizzen-sheet. A moment later she was shooting along under the shelter
of the wall, while a loud shout of welcome rose above the howling of
the wind from those on shore.

“Now, sir, I will see about getting her moored,” Tom said, “if you
will run down and get some rum bottles out of the locker; I am pretty
well frozen and these poor fellows must be nigh perished, but it would
never have done to open the hatchway in that sea.”

“Come down, men,” Horace cried, as he dived below. “We had no time to
light the fire before starting, but a glass of spirits will do you
good all round.”

Two or three of the fishermen rowed out as soon as the yacht was
moored, and in a few minutes all were ashore.

“Now you had better run up to the house and change, Mr. Horace,” Tom
Burdett said. “We will look after the men here and get them some dry
things, and put them up amongst us. We have done a big thing, sir, and
the _Surf_ has been tried as I hope she will never be tried again as
long as we have anything to do with her.”

“All right, Tom! Will you come up with me, captain? There is no one at
home but myself, and we will manage to rig you up somehow.”

The captain, however, declined the invitation, saying that he would
rather see after his men and put up himself at the public-house on the
beach.

“I will come up later, sir, when I have seen everything all snug
here.”

Horace had some difficulty in making his way up through the crowd, for
both men and women wished to shake hands with him. At last he got
through, and, followed by Marco, ran up through the village to the
house. Zaimes had been among the crowd assembled to see the _Surf_
re-enter the port; and when Horace changed his things and came down
stairs he found a bowl of hot soup ready for him.

“You have given me a nice fright, Mr. Horace,” the Greek said as he
entered the room. “I have been scolding Marco, I can tell you.”

“It was not his fault, Zaimes. I made up my mind to go, and told him
so, and he had the choice whether he would go or stay behind, and he
went.”

“Of course he went,” Zaimes said; “but he ought to have come and told
me. Then I should have gone too. How could I have met your father, do
you think, if you had been drowned?”

“Well, you would not have been to blame, Zaimes, as you knew nothing
about it until after we had started.”

“No, you had been gone half an hour before someone from the village
came up and told them in the kitchen. Then one of the servants brought
me the news, and I ran down like a madman, without even stopping to
get a hat. Then I found that most of the men had gone up to the cliff
to keep you in sight, and I went up there and waited with them until
you were nearly back again. Once or twice, as you were running in to
the pier, I thought the yacht was gone.”

“That was the worst bit, Zaimes. The sea came tumbling over her stern,
and I was washed off my feet two or three times. I almost thought that
she was going down head-foremost. Well, I am glad I was at home this
morning. I would not have missed it for anything.”

“No, it is a good thing, now it is done, and something to be proud of.
I am told very few of the fishermen thought that you would ever come
back again.”

“They didn’t know the boat as we did, Zaimes. I felt sure she would go
through anything; and, besides, Tom kicked out the lower plank of the
bulwarks on each side, so as to help her to free herself from water as
it came on board, and flush-decked as she is, there was nothing to
carry away; but she hasn’t taken a cupful of water down below.”

In the evening the captain of the barque came up, and Horace learned
from him that she was on her way from New Orleans laden with cotton.

“The ship and cargo are insured,” the captain said; “and, as far as
that goes, it is a good thing she is knocked into match-wood. She was
a dull sailer at the best of times, and when laden you could not get
her to lay anywhere near the wind. She would have done better than she
did, though, hadn’t her rudder got damaged somehow in the night. She
ought to have clawed off the shore easy enough; but, as you saw, she
sagged to leeward a foot for every foot she went for’ard. I was
part-owner in her, and I am not sorry she has gone. We tried to sell
her last year, but they have been selling so many ships out of the
navy that we could not get anything of a price for her; but as she was
well insured, I shall get a handier craft next time. I was well off
shore when the storm began to get heavy last night, and felt no
anxiety about our position till the rudder went wrong. But when I saw
the coast this morning, I felt sure that unless there was a change in
the weather nothing could save her. Well, if it hadn’t been for the
loss of those seven hands, I should, thanks to you, have nothing to
complain of.”

Fires had been lit on the shore as night came on; but except fragments
of the wreck and a number of bales of cotton nothing was recovered. In
the morning the captain and crew left Seaport, two hands remaining
behind to look after the cotton and recover as much as they could. Two
days later Mr. Beveridge returned home.

“I saw in the paper before I left town, Horace, an account of your
going out to the wreck and saving the lives of those, on board. I am
very glad I was not here, my lad. I don’t think I should have let you
go; but as I knew nothing about it until it was all over, I had no
anxiety about it, and felt quite proud of you when I read the account.
The money was well laid out on that yacht, my boy. I don’t say that I
didn’t think so before, but I certainly think so now. However,
directly I read it I wrote to the Lifeboat Society and told them that
I would pay for a boat to be placed here. Then there will be no
occasion to tempt Providence the next time a vessel comes ashore on
this part of the coast. You succeeded once, Horace, but you might not
succeed another time; and knowing what a sea sets in here in a
south-westerly gale, I quite tremble now at the thought of your being
out in it in that little craft.”

The news that Mr. Beveridge had ordered a lifeboat for the port gave
great satisfaction among the fishermen, not so much perhaps because it
would enable them to go out to wrecks, as because any of their own
craft approaching the harbour in bad weather, and needing assistance,
could then receive it.

Horace became very popular in Seaport after the rescue, and was spoken
of affectionately as the young squire, although they were unable to
associate the term with his father; but the latter’s interest in the
sea, and his occasionally going out in the yacht, seemed to have
brought him nearer to the fishing people. There had before been
absolutely nothing in common between them and the studious recluse,
and even the Greeks, who had before been held in marked disfavour in
the village as outlandish followers, were now regarded with different
eyes when it was learned that Marco had been a fisherman too in his
time, and his share in the adventure of the _Surf_ dissipated the last
shadow of prejudice against them.

The weather continued more or less broken through the whole of the
holidays, and Horace had but little sailing. He spent a good deal of
his time over at his cousins’, rode occasionally after the hounds with
them, and did some shooting. A week after coming home his father had
again gone up to town, and remained there until after Horace had
returned to Eton. He was, the lad observed, more abstracted even than
usual, but was at the same time restless and unsettled. He looked
eagerly for the post, and received and despatched a large number of
letters. Horace supposed that he must be engaged in some very sharp
and interesting controversy as to a disputed reading, or the meaning
of some obscure passage, until the evening before he went away his
father said:

“I suppose, Horace, you are following with interest the course of
events in Thessaly?”

“Well, father, we see the papers of course. There seems to be a row
going on there; they are always fighting about something. From what I
could understand of it, Ali Pasha of Janina has revolted against the
Sultan, and the Turks are besieging him. What sort of a chap is he? He
is an Albanian, isn’t he?”

“Yes, with all the virtues and vices of his race--ambitious,
avaricious, revengeful, and cruel, but brave and astute. He has been
the instrument of the Porte in breaking down the last remnants of
independence in the wide districts he rules. As you know, very many of
the Christian and Mussulman villages possessed armed guards called
armatoli, who are responsible not only for the safety of the village,
but for the security of the roads; the defence of the passes was
committed to them, and they were able to keep the numerous bands of
brigands within moderate bounds. This organization Ali Pasha set
himself to work to weaken as soon as he came into power. He played off
one party against the other--the Mussulmans against the Christians,
the brigands against the armatoli, one powerful chief against another.
He crushed the Suliots, who possessed a greater amount of
independence, perhaps, than any of the other tribes, and who, it must
be owned, were a scourge to all their neighbours. He took away all
real power from the armatoli, crippled the Mussulman communities as
well as weakened the Christian villages; inspired terror in the whole
population by the massacre of such as resisted his will, and those
whom he could not crush by force he removed by poison; finally, he
became so strong that it was evident his design was to become
altogether independent of the Sultan. But he miscalculated his power,
his armies fled almost without striking a blow; his sons, who
commanded them, are either fugitives or prisoners; and now we hear
that he is besieged in his fortress, which is capable of withstanding
a very long siege.”

“He must be a thorough old scoundrel, I should say, father.”

“Yes,” Mr. Beveridge assented somewhat unwillingly. “No doubt he is a
bad man, Horace; but he might have been--he may even yet be, useful to
Greece. When it first became evident that matters would come to a
struggle between him and the Porte he issued proclamations calling
upon the Christians to assist him and make common cause against the
Turks, and specially invited Greece to declare her independence of
Turkey, and to join him.”

“But I should say, father, the Albanians would be even worse masters
than the Turks.”

“No doubt, Horace, no doubt. The Turks, I may own, have not on the
whole been hard masters to the Christians. They are much harder upon
the Mussulman population than upon the Christian, as the latter can
complain to the Russians, who, as their co-religionists, claim to
exercise a special protection over them. But, indeed, all the
Christian powers give protection, more or less, to the Christian
Greeks, who, especially in the Morea, have something approaching
municipal institutions, and are governed largely by men chosen by
themselves. Therefore the pashas take good care not to bring trouble
on themselves or the Porte by interfering with them so long as they
pay their taxes, which are by no means excessive; while the Mussulman
part of the population, having no protectors, are exposed to all sorts
of exactions, which are limited only by the fear of driving them into
insurrection. Still this rebellion of Ali Pasha has naturally excited
hopes in the minds of the Greeks and their friends that some results
may arise from it, and no better opportunity is likely to occur for
them to make an effort to shake off the yoke of the Turks. You may
imagine, Horace, how exciting all this is to one who, like myself, is
the son of a Greek mother, and to whom, therefore, the glorious
traditions of Greece are the story of his own people. As yet my hopes
are faint, but there is a greater prospect now than there has been for
the last two hundred years, and I would give all I am worth in the
world to live to see Greece recover her independence.”




CHAPTER IV

A STARTLING PROPOSAL


After Horace returned to Eton, remembering the intense interest of his
father in the affairs of Greece, he read up as far as he could
everything relating to late events there. That he should obtain a
really fair view of the situation was impossible. The Greeks had
countrymen in every commercial city in the world; they were active and
intelligent, and passionately desirous of interesting Europe in their
cause. Upon the other hand the Turks were voiceless. Hence Europe only
heard the Greek version of the state of affairs; their wrongs were
exaggerated and events distorted with an utter disregard for truth,
while no whisper of the other side of the question was ever heard.

At that time the term Greek was applied to persons of Greek religion
rather than of Greek nationality. The population of European Turkey,
of pure Greek blood, was extremely small, while those who held the
Greek form of religion were very numerous, and the influence possessed
by them was even greater. The Christians were in point of
intelligence, activity, and wealth superior to the Turks. They were
subservient and cringing when it suited their purpose, and were as a
rule utterly unscrupulous. The consequence was that they worked their
way into posts of responsibility and emolument in great numbers, being
selected by the Porte in preference to the duller and less pushing
Turks. In some portions of European Turkey they were all-powerful: in
the Transylvanian provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia every post was
held by Greeks, and there were but a few small and scattered Turkish
garrisons. Yet here the population were incomparably more cruelly
fleeced and ground down by their Greek masters than were the
Christians in the more Turkish provinces.

In Servia and parts of Bulgaria the numbers were more even, but here
also the Greeks held most of the responsible posts. In Greece proper
the Christians vastly predominated, while in Northern Thessaly the
numbers of the Christians and Mussulmans were about the same.

The Greek metropolitan of Constantinople and his council exercised a
large authority by means of the bishops and priests over the whole
Christian population, while for some time a secret society named the
Philike Hetaireia had been at work preparing them for a rising. It was
started originally among the Greeks at Odessa, and was secretly
patronized by Russia, which then, as since, had designs upon
Constantinople.

The first outbreak had occurred in March, 1821, when Prince Alexander
Hypsilantes, who had been an officer in the Russian service, crossed
the Pruth, and was joined by the Greek officials and tax-gatherers of
the Transylvanian provinces. He was a vain, empty-headed, and utterly
incompetent adventurer. A small band of youths belonging to good
families enrolled themselves under the title of the Sacred Band, and
the army also joined him, but beyond the cold-blooded massacre of a
considerable number of Turks and their families he did absolutely
nothing. The main body of the population, who bitterly hated their
Greek oppressors, remained quiescent. Russia, seeing his utter
incapacity, repudiated him, and after keeping alive the hopes of his
followers by lying proclamations Hypsilantes secured his own safety by
flight across the Austrian frontier when the Turkish army approached.
The five hundred young men of the Sacred Battalion fought nobly and
were killed almost to a man; but with the exception of a band of
officers who refused to surrender, and shut themselves up in Skulani
and in the monastery of Seko and there defended themselves bravely
until the last, no resistance was offered to the Turks, and the
insurrection was stamped out by the beginning of June. But in the
meantime Greece proper was rising, and though the news came but slowly
Horace saw that his father’s hopes were likely to be gratified, and
that the Greeks would probably strike a blow at least for national
independence, and he more than shared the general excitement that the
news caused among educated men throughout Europe.

The summer holidays passed uneventfully. Horace took long cruises in
the _Surf_. He saw but little of his father, who was constantly absent
in London. August came, and Horace returned from his last trip and was
feeling rather depressed at the thought of going back to school in two
days’ time. He met Zaimes as he entered the house.

“Is my father back from town, Zaimes?”

“Yes, Mr. Horace, and he told me to tell you as soon as you returned
that he wished you to go to him at once in the library.”

It was so unlike his father to want to see him particularly about
anything, that Horace went in in some wonder as to what could be the
matter. Mr. Beveridge was walking up and down the room.

“Is your mind very much set on going back to Eton, Horace?” he asked
abruptly.

“I don’t know, father,” Horace said, taken somewhat aback at the
question. “Well, I would very much rather go back, father, than be
doing nothing here. I am very fond of sailing as an amusement, but one
would not want to be at it always. Of course if there is anything
really to do it would be different.”

“Well, I think there is something else to do, Horace. You know my
feeling with regard to this insurrection in Greece.”

“Yes, father,” Horace, who was indeed rather tired of the subject,
replied.

“Well, you see, my boy, they have now resisted the Turks for some five
months and have gained rather than lost ground. That seems to show
decisively that this is no mere hasty rising, but that the people are
in earnest in the determination to win their liberty. Now that I am
thoroughly convinced of this my course is clear, and I have determined
upon going out to give such assistance as I can.”

Horace was astounded. “Going out to fight, father?”

“Yes, if necessary to fight, but I can be of more use than in merely
fighting. I have never, since I came into the property some
twenty-four years ago, spent anything like a third of my income.
Indeed, since my return from Greece my expenses here have been but a
few hundreds a year. I have always hoped that I should have the
opportunity of devoting the savings to help Greece to regain her
independence. That moment has come. At first I feared that the
movement would speedily die out; but the letters that I receive show
that it is increasing daily, and indeed that the Greeks have placed
themselves beyond the hope of forgiveness by, I am sorry to say, the
massacre of large numbers of Turks. It is, of course, to be regretted
that so glorious a cause should have been sullied by such conduct; but
one cannot be surprised. Slaves are always cruel, and after the wrongs
they have suffered, it could hardly be expected that they would forego
their revenge when the opportunity at last came. However, the
important point of the matter is, that there can be no drawing back
now.

“For better or for worse the revolution has begun. Now, Horace, you
are but sixteen, but you are a sensible lad, and I have stood so much
apart from other men from my boyhood that I am what you might call
unpractical; while I take it that you from your temperament, and from
being at a great public school, are eminently practical, therefore, I
shall be glad to hear your opinion as to how this thing had best be
set about. I take it, of course, that you are as interested in the
struggle as I am.”

“Well, not so interested perhaps, father. I feel, of course, that it
is a horrible thing that a people like the Greeks, to whom we all owe
so much, should be kept in slavery by the Turks, who have never done
any good to mankind that I know of, and I should certainly be glad to
do everything in my power to help; but of course it all comes so
suddenly upon me that just at present I don’t see what had best be
done.”

“I heard from my friends in London that many young men are already
starting to assist the Greeks. What they will need most is not men,
but arms and money, so at least my Greek friends write me.”

“Well, father,” Horace said bluntly; “I should say you had much better
give them arms than money. I have been reading the thing up as much as
I could since it began, and as far as I can see the upper class
Greeks, the men who, I suppose, will be the leaders, are a pretty bad
lot--quite as bad, I should say, as the Turkish pashas.”

“Yes, I quite agree with you there, Horace. You see in a country that
is enslaved, political and other careers are closed, and the young men
devote themselves to making money. You see that in the history of the
Jews. All through the middle ages they were everywhere persecuted,
every avenue to honourable employment was closed to them, consequently
they devoted themselves to making money, and have been the bankers of
kings for hundreds of years. No doubt it is the same thing with the
Greeks; but the mass of the people are uncorrupted, and with the deeds
of their great forefathers always before them they will, I am sure,
show themselves worthy of their name.”

“No doubt, father; I think so too.”

“You don’t mind my spending this money on the Cause, Horace,” his
father asked anxiously, “because, though it is my savings, it would in
the natural course of things come to you some day.”

“Not at all, father; it is, as you say, your savings, and having at
heart, as you have, the independence of Greece, I think it cannot be
better laid out than assisting it. But I should certainly like it to
be laid out for that, and not to go into the pockets of a lot of
fellows who think more of feathering their own nests than of the
freedom of Greece. So I should say the best thing would be to send out
a cargo of arms and ammunition, as a beginning; other cargoes can go
out as they are required. And you might, of course, take a certain
amount of money to distribute yourself as you see it is required. I
hope you mean to take me with you.”

“I think so, Horace. You are young to do any fighting at present, but
you will be a great support and comfort to me.”

Horace could scarcely resist a smile, for he thought that if there was
any fighting to be done he would be of considerably more use than his
father.

“Well, I suppose the next thing, Horace, will be to go up to town to
inquire about arms. My Greek friends there will advise me as to their
purchase, and so on.”

“Yes, father,” Horace said a little doubtfully; “but as it is late now
I think, if you don’t mind, I will get some supper and turn in. I will
think it over. I think we had better talk it over quietly and quite
make up our minds what is best to be done before we set about
anything; a few hours won’t make any difference.”

“Quite so, Horace; it is no use our beginning by making mistakes. It
is a great comfort to me, my boy, to have you with me. At any rate I
will write to-night to your headmaster and say that circumstances will
prevent your return to Eton this term.”

Horace went into the next room, had some supper, and then went
thoughtfully up to bed. The idea of going out to fight for the
independence of Greece was one which at any other time he would have
regarded with enthusiasm, but under the present circumstances he felt
depressed rather than excited. He admired his father for his great
learning, and loved him for the kindness of his intentions towards
him; but he had during the last two or three years been more and more
impressed with the fact that in everything unconnected with his
favourite subject his father was, as he said himself, utterly
unpractical. He left the management of his estate to the steward, the
management of the house to Zaimes, both happily, as it chanced, honest
and capable men; but had they been rogues they could have victimized
him to any extent. That his father, who lived in his library and who
was absorbed in the past, should plunge into the turmoil of an
insurrection was an almost bewildering idea. He would be plundered
right and left, and would believe every story told him; while as for
his fighting, the thing seemed absolutely absurd. Horace felt that the
whole responsibility would be on his shoulders, and this seemed
altogether too much for him. Then the admission of his father that
abominable massacres had been perpetrated by the Greeks shook his
enthusiasm in the Cause.

“I should be glad to see them free and independent, and all that,” he
said, “but I don’t want to be fighting side by side with murderers.
Among such fellows as these, my father, who is a great deal more Greek
than any Greek of the present day, I should say, would be made utterly
miserable. He admits that the upper class are untrustworthy and
avaricious. Now he says that the lower class have massacred people in
cold blood. It does not affect him much in the distance, but if he
were in the middle of it all it would be such a shock to him that I
believe it would kill him. Besides, fancy his going long marches in
the mountains, sleeping in the wet, and all that sort of thing, when
he has never walked half a mile as far back as I can remember.”

He lay tossing about for a couple of hours, and then sat suddenly up
in bed. “That’s it,” he exclaimed, “that is a splendid idea. What a
fool I was not to think of it before! If William Martyn is but at home
that would be the thing above all.”

Then he lay down, thought the matter over for another half-hour, and
then went quietly off to sleep.

“Well, Horace, have you been turning the matter over in your mind?”
his father asked as soon as they sat down to breakfast.

“I have, father, and I have hit upon a plan that seems to me the very
best thing possible in all ways.”

“What is it, Horace?”

“Well, father, it seems to me that if we take out war material to
Athens it will very likely get into wrong hands altogether, and when
arms are really wanted by the people of the mountains, and I expect
that it is they who will do the fighting and not the people of the
towns, there won’t be any to give them. The next thing is, if we go to
Athens, and people know that you are a rich Englishman, you will get
surrounded by sharks, and before you have time to know who is to be
trusted, or anything about it, all your money will be gone. Then I am
sure that you could not in that way take any active part in helping to
free Greece, you never could stand marches in the mountains and
sleeping in the open air, bad food, and all that sort of thing, after
living the quiet indoor life you have for so many years. I know you
would stick to it, father, as long as you could, but it seems to me
you would be sure to get knocked up.”

“Yes, I ought to have prepared for this, Horace. It would have been
better for me to have taken regular exercise every day, even if I did
get through a little less work. Still I am stronger than you think. I
am only forty-four, and a man at forty-four ought to be able to do
nearly as much as he ever could do.”

“Yes, father, if he had lived an active life and exercised his
muscles. I have no doubt you are just as strong in many things as
other men; I never remember your being ill for a day; but I am sure
you are not fit for knocking about among the mountains. What I have
been thinking of is this. If you approve of it I will go over to
Exmouth this morning and see if William Martyn is there. He is likely
to be at home if his vessel is in port. If he is not, I will get his
father to recommend some one. There must be lots of young lieutenants
on half-pay who would jump at the idea. First I should engage with
Martyn if he is there, or go to the man whom his father recommended to
me at Plymouth, and get him to buy for you a fast schooner or
brig--one that had either been an English privateer or a captured
Frenchman would be about the thing--arrange with him to be the captain
and engage officers and crew, and get him to arm her with as many guns
as she will carry. He would be able probably to put us into the best
way of buying muskets. As such immense numbers of soldiers have been
paid off, no doubt there have been great sales of muskets by
government, and we might get them at a quarter the price we should
have to pay for new ones. Of course we should take in ammunition in
large quantities. All these mountaineers have no doubt got guns, and
ammunition will be the thing most wanted of all. We could also pick up
some cannon. No doubt they are to be bought for scrap iron. The Greeks
will want them to arm their ships and batteries. In that way you see,
father, you would have everything under your own hands. Nobody would
know how many muskets you have got on board, and you could serve them
out when or how they were required.

“The same with money. We could cruise about and pop into quiet places,
and send arms and ammunition up into the hills. Of course directly you
got out there you would put the ship under the Greek flag, and by
harassing the Turks at sea we might do a hundred times more good than
we could by land. There would be no fatigue and no discomfort. You
would always be comfortable on board, and could take Zaimes and Marco
with you. We would take Tom Burdett as boatswain. He was boatswain in
the navy, you know. If he goes I daresay Dick will also go with us.”

“That is an excellent plan, Horace. It seems to meet all the
difficulties, and I was really feeling uncomfortable at the thought of
being mixed up in all the confusion and excitement there will, no
doubt, be at Athens. It is a most happy idea. We will not lose a
moment about it. I like that young fellow Martyn, and I hope you will
be able to get hold of him. Let him name his own terms. I have not the
least idea whether the captain of a vessel of that sort is paid five
pounds a week or twenty-five. Of course it will be dangerous service,
and should be liberally paid for. Well, you had better pack up your
bag directly we have finished breakfast. You may be away for a week or
ten days.”

“I can’t start to-day, father, surely.”

“No! why not, Horace?”

“Because, you know, you arranged we should both go over to dine at
aunt’s.”

“Of course, Horace; I quite forgot that. It is very annoying, but I
suppose it can’t be helped.”

Horace laughed. “A day won’t make much difference, father. I am sure
aunt would be very vexed if we did not turn up. Do you mean to tell
her anything about it?”

Mr. Beveridge was silent for a minute. “I don’t think there is any
occasion; do you, Horace?” he said doubtfully. “She might raise
objections, you know; though that, of course, would make no
difference; arguments are always to be avoided, and your aunt was
always a very positive woman.”

“I think it is just as well to say nothing about it,” Horace said with
a slight smile, for he felt sure that his aunt would oppose the
project tooth and nail if she were aware of it, and that she would be
backed by the whole strength of his mother’s family. He did not say
this, but went on, “It is a nuisance being asked a tremendous lot of
questions about things, especially when you don’t know much about them
yourself. No, I think, father, we had better keep it quite quiet. It
will be time enough to write a line to aunt and tell her that we are
off, the last thing before we get up anchor.”

“I agree with you, Horace, so we will say nothing about this trip of
ours. Well, as it seems you can’t go to-day, you had better make your
arrangements to catch the coach to-morrow morning. I will sign a dozen
blank cheques, which you can fill up as required. Of course whoever
accepts the post of captain will know all that will be wanted for the
ship, and if he doesn’t know himself about the arms and ammunition he
may be able to introduce you to some officer who does. Will you take
Marco with you?”

“No, I don’t think so, father. I don’t see that he would be any use,
and having a man going about with you looks as if one was being taken
care of.”

Horace caught the coach and alighted at Exmouth, and hurried to the
revenue officer’s house.

“Is Mr. William Martyn in?” he asked the servant who opened the door.

“He is not in just at present, sir; I think he went down to the
river.”

“How long has he been home?” Horace asked, delighted at the news.

“He only got in last week, sir; his ship got wrecked, and Mr. William
turned up without any clothes, or anything except just what he stood
up in.”

“Hurrah!” Horace exclaimed, to the astonishment of the woman, and then
without another word ran down to the wharfs. He soon saw the figure he
was in search of talking to two or three old sailors.

“Hullo, youngster!” Martyn said in surprise, as Horace came up, “where
have you sprung from?”

“Off the top of the coach.”

“I suppose so. I have been having a bit of bad luck and lost my ship.
We were wrecked off St. Catharine’s Point, at the back of the Isle of
Wight, and there were only seven of us saved among a crew of
thirty-five all told.”

“Yes, I heard from your servant you had been wrecked,” Horace said.
“She didn’t say that any lives had been lost; but I must have
astonished her, now I think of it, for I said ‘Hurrah!’ when she told
me.”

“What did you say hurrah for?” the mate asked gruffly.

“Because I wanted to find you here, and was so pleased that you were
not going to sail away again directly.”

“No,” Will Martyn said gloomily, “it is bad enough to have lost one’s
kit and everything, and now I shall have to look about for another
berth, for I think the vessel was only partly insured, and as the
owners only have one or two ships I expect it will hit them rather
hard, and that they won’t have another craft ready for some time, so
it will be no use my waiting for that.”

The sailors had moved away when Horace came up, so that he was able at
once to open the subject of his visit to the mate.

“Well, that was just what I was hoping when I heard that you were
wrecked, Will, for I had come over on purpose to see if you were
disengaged and disposed to take a new berth.”

“What! is your father going in for a big yacht instead of the _Surf_,
Horace?”

“Well, not exactly, but something of that sort. You know I told you
how enthusiastic he was about Greece and everything connected with it.
Of course he is tremendously excited about this rising out there, and
he is going to send out a lot of arms and ammunition. So we have
talked it over and agreed that the best thing to do would be to buy a
fast schooner or brig, fit her up as a privateer, fill her with arms
and ammunition, and go out, hoist the Greek flag, and do what we can
to help them against the Turks. Of course we thought at once of you to
carry out the thing, and to act as captain. What do you say to it?”

“The very thing I should like, Horace; nothing could suit me better.
Mind I am not giving any opinion as to whether it is a wise thing on
the part of your father; that is his business. But as far as I am
concerned I am your man.”

“My father said you were to name your own terms. He didn’t know
anything about what the pay should be, but he particularly said that
as it would be a service of danger it ought to be paid for liberally.”

“Of course there will be danger,” the mate said, “but that adds to the
pleasure of it. If I were a married man of course I should have to
look at it in a different light; but as I ain’t, and have no idea of
getting spliced, the danger does not trouble me. I have been getting
eight pounds a month as third mate, and I should have got ten next
voyage, as I was going second. As I shall be skipper on board this
craft of yours, suppose we say twelve pounds a month.”

“My father expected to pay more than that a good deal,” Horace said;
“and as everything will depend upon you it would not be at all fair to
pay the same sort of pay as if you were merely sailing in a merchant’s
ship. However, he will write to you about it. There will be a
tremendous lot to do before we start, and we want to be off as soon as
possible. There is a ship to buy and fit out, and officers to get, and
a crew. Then we want to find out where we can buy muskets. It seemed
to me that as government must have been selling great quantities, we
should be able to get them pretty cheap.”

“I could find out all about that at the port where we fit out,” Will
Martyn said. “As for cannon, they can be had almost for taking away.
There are thousands and thousands of them to be had at every port.
Five years ago every vessel went to sea armed. Now even the biggest
craft only carry a gun or two for firing signals with, unless, of
course, they are going to sail in Eastern waters. Well, this is a big
job--a different sort of order altogether to buying the _Surf_ for
you. I hope it will turn out as well.”

“Of course Plymouth will be the best port to go to.”

“I don’t know. During the war certainly either that or Portsmouth
would have been the best. Vessels were constantly coming in with
prizes; but now, I should say either London or Liverpool would be the
best for picking up the sort of craft we want. Still, as Plymouth is
so much the nearest here, I should say we had best try there first.
Then if we can’t find what we want we will take a passage by coaster
to Portsmouth, if the wind is favourable; if not, go by coach. But how
are you off for money, because I am at dead low-water? I have got a
few pounds owing to me, but I can’t handle that till I get to London.”

“I have twenty pounds,” Horace said. “We didn’t think, when I started,
of going farther than Plymouth; but I have some blank cheques for
paying for things.”

“Twenty pounds ought to be ample; but if we find at Plymouth we want
more I can easily get one cashed for you. I know plenty of people
there.”

“Well, when can you start, Will? My father is anxious not to lose a
moment.”

“I can start in ten minutes if my father is at home. I should want to
have just a short chat with him; but I can do that while they are
getting the chaise ready. Our best plan would be to drive to Exeter
and take the evening coach going through there. There is one comes
through about six o’clock. I have come down by it several times. It
will take us into Plymouth by twelve o’clock; so we should gain
nothing if we started earlier.”

“Well, I will go to the inn,” Horace said.

“No; that you won’t, Horace. You come round with me. I expect dinner
is ready by this time. We generally dine at one. My father went out in
the cutter to look after a wreck four or five miles along the coast,
and he said he did not expect to be back till between two and three;
so we settled to dine at three. There is the cutter coming up the
river now.”

“But you would rather be with your father alone,” Horace said.

“Not a bit of it. I have got nothing private to say to him, except to
get him to let me draw twenty pounds from his agent to get a fresh
rig-out with. He would like to see you again, especially as I am going
to sail with you, and he maybe able to put us up to a few wrinkles as
to getting our powder on board, and so on. Of course I have been
accustomed to seeing it got in from government powder hulks. We will
just walk up to the house now if you don’t mind, to tell the girl to
put an extra knife and fork on the table, then we will go down and
meet my father when he lands.”

The servant looked with such strong disapprobation upon Horace when
she opened the door that he burst into a fit of laughter. “You are
thinking about my saying hurrah when I heard Mr. Martyn was wrecked?”
he said. “Well, I did not exactly mean that, only I was very glad,
because I thought if he had not been wrecked he could not have shipped
just at present, and I wanted him very badly.”

“Yes, I am off again, Hesba,” the mate said. “Going right away this
afternoon. That is a bit of luck, isn’t it? I have just come back to
tell you to put another knife and fork upon the table, as Mr.
Beveridge is going to dine with us; and if you have time to kill a
fatted calf, or anything of that sort, do so.”

“Lor’, Mr. William, you know very well there ain’t no fatted calf, and
if there was it would take ever so long to kill it and get some meat
cooked, if it was only cutlets.”

“Well,” Martyn laughed, “never mind the calf, Hesba; but if dinner is
short run straight down to the butcher’s and get a good big tender
steak, and look sharp about it, for my father will be here in a
quarter of an hour.”

As Horace had seen Captain Martyn (as he was by courtesy called, being
in command of a revenue cutter, although only in fact a lieutenant)
several times while fitting out the _Surf_ the officer knew him as he
saw him standing at the top of the stairs with his son.

“Well, Master Beveridge,” he said as he climbed up the stairs, “I
haven’t seen you since you sailed away in that little craft. I hear
you did a brave deed in her, going out in that gale to rescue the crew
of the _Caledon_. It is lucky you caught Will in.” He was by this time
ashore and shaking hands heartily with Horace.

“He has come to take me away, father,” Will said. “Mr. Beveridge is
going to get a fast craft to carry out arms and ammunition to the
Greeks, and he has offered me the command.”

“I should not mind going myself, Will. I am sorry you are off so soon;
but you are likely to see some stirring scenes over there. When are
you going?”

“We are going to start directly we have had some dinner, father. We
will order a chaise as we go along. We intend to catch the six-o’clock
coach at Exeter, so as to get to Plymouth to-night. I am going to see
if we can pick up a likely craft there. If not, I shall try Portsmouth
and Southampton, and if they won’t do, London.”

“Well, that is sharp work, Will. But you have no kit to pack, so there
is no difficulty about it. However, there is no time to be lost.”

At a quarter to four the post-chaise was at the door, and Will Martyn
and Horace started. The horses were good, and they were in plenty of
time for the coach, and arrived duly in Plymouth. As soon as they had
breakfasted next morning they started out and went first to the
shipping office of a firm known to Will Martyn, and there got a list
of ships lying for sale in the port.

“What sort of craft are you looking for, Martyn?” the shipping agent
said. “We have a dozen at least on our own books, and you may as well
give us a turn before you look at any others.”

“I want a schooner or a brig--I don’t much care which it is--of about
a couple of hundred tons. She must be very fast and weatherly; the
sort of craft that was used as a privateer in the war; or as a slaver;
or something of that kind.”

“I have only one craft that answers to that description,” the agent
said; “but I should say that she was what you want. She was sent home
from the west coast of Africa six months ago, as a prize. Of course
she was sold, and was bought by a man I know. After he had got her he
found she had not enough carrying power for his business. She never
was built for cargo, and would be an expensive vessel to work, for she
has a large sail spread, and would want so strong a crew to work her
that she would never pay. He bought her cheap for that reason, and
will be glad to get the price he gave for her, or if the point were
pressed even to make some loss to get her off his hands. They call her
a hundred and fifty, and she looks a big vessel for that size. But if
she had eighty tons in her hold it would be as much as she could carry
with comfort.”

“That sounds promising,” Martyn said. “At any rate we will begin by
having a look at her. Where is she lying?”

“About three miles up the river. Tide is making; so we could run up
there in a sailing boat in half an hour. I will go with you myself.
There is a care-taker on board. Are you buying her for yourself,
Martyn?”

The mate laughed.

“As I have not captured an heiress I am not likely to become a ship
owner. No; Mr. Beveridge’s father is fond of the sea, and has
commissioned me to buy a comfortable craft that shall be at once fast
and seaworthy, and I am going to command her.”

“Well, I don’t think you would find anything that would suit your
purpose better than the _Creole_. She would make a splendid yacht for
a gentleman who had a fancy for long cruises.”

“What is her age?” the mate asked.

“Well, of course we can’t tell exactly; but the dockyard people
thought she couldn’t be above four or five years old. That is what
they put her down as when they sold her. At any rate she is sound, and
in as good condition as if she had just come off the stocks. She had
been hulled in two or three places in the fight when she was captured,
but she was made all right in the dockyard before she was put up for
sale. All her gear, sails, and so on are in excellent condition.”

“Where are they?”

“They are on board. As we had a care-taker it was cheaper to leave
them there and have good fires going occasionally to keep them dry
than it would have been to stow them away on shore.”

There was a brisk breeze blowing, and in less than the half hour
mentioned by the agent he said: “That’s her lying over on the farther
side.”

“She looks like a slaver all over,” Martyn said as he stood up to
examine the long low craft. “I suppose they caught her coming out of a
river, for she would show her heels, I should guess, to any cruiser
that was ever built, at any rate in light winds. If she is as good as
she looks she is just the thing for us.”

When they reached the vessel they rowed round her before going on
board.

“She is like a big _Surf_,” Will said to Horace; “finer in her
lines, and lighter. She ought to sail like a witch. I see she carried
four guns on each side.”

[Illustration: THEIR FIRST SIGHT OF THE SCHOONER]

“Yes, and a long pivot-gun. They are down in the hold now. She was
sold just as she stood; but I suppose they will be of no use to you.”

“Some of them may be,” Martyn said carelessly. “If we go cruising up
the Mediterranean it is just as well to have a gun or two on board.
Now let us look at her accommodation.

“Yes, she is a very roomy craft on deck,” he went on as he stepped on
board. “She has a wonderful lot of beam, much more than she looks to
have when you see her on the water, owing to her lines being so fine.”

“She has lots of head-room here,” Horace said as they went below. “I
thought that slavers had very low decks.”

“So they have,” the mate said. “I expect when she took a cargo on
board they rigged up a deck of planks here so as to have two tiers for
the slaves; that would give them about three foot three to each tier.”

They spent over two hours on board. Will Martyn examined everything
most carefully, prodding the planks and timbers with his knife, going
down into the hold and prying into the state of the timbers there,
getting into the boat, to examine the stern-post and rudder, and
afterwards overhauling a good deal of the gear. The inspection was in
all respects satisfactory.

“She will do if the price will do,” he said. “How much do they want
for her?”

“He paid fifteen hundred at the dockyard sale,” the agent said; “that
is ten pound a ton, with all her gear, fittings, and so on, thrown in.
As you see, there is the cabin furniture, and so on, all complete,
except the paint. There needn’t be a penny laid out on her.”

“Well, how much will he take off?” Martyn said. “Fifteen hundred was
anyone’s price, and as she don’t suit him, she won’t suit many people.
If he is likely to have her on his hands any time, eating her head
off and losing value, he ought to be glad to take anything near what
he gave for her. Well, frankly, how much will he take off? Business is
business. I have admitted the boat will suit me; now what is the limit
you are authorized to take?”

“He will take two hundred less. It is a ridiculously low price.”

“Of course it is,” Will agreed. “But shipping at present is a drug in
the market, and this ship is practically fit for nothing but a yacht
or the Levant trade. I expect I could get her a couple of hundred
pounds cheaper if I held off. What do you think, Horace?”

“I don’t think it would be fair to knock down the price lower than
that,” Horace said.

“It is fair to get a thing as cheap as you can. If you try to get it
for less than he will sell it for you don’t get it, that is all. He is
not obliged to sell, and you are not obliged to buy. Still, the price
is a very reasonable one, and we will take her at that. You have full
authority to sell, I suppose, without reference to your principal?”

“Yes.”

“Very well, then, we will go to your office. Mr. Beveridge will give
you a cheque for thirteen hundred pounds, and you shall hand over
possession.”

“Good. It is eleven o’clock now, Johnson,” he said to the care-taker.
“Here is your money up to to-night, but from twelve o’clock to-day Mr.
Martyn takes possession as agent for the owners, so you will take your
orders from him.”

“You can go on as usual,” Will said. “We will pay you from twelve
o’clock, so you will make a half-day’s pay by the change.”




CHAPTER V

FITTING OUT


The cheque for the payment of the _Creole_ was filled up and handed
over, the agent giving a formal receipt and possession of the vessel,
and undertaking to sign the necessary papers as soon as they could be
drawn out.

“You are evidently lucky about ships,” William Martyn said as he left
the agent’s office with Horace. “You have got a little wonder in the
_Surf_, and there is no doubt about the _Creole_ being a bargain. When
the war was going on she would have been snapped up at double the
price, and would have been cheap at that. Now the first thing to do is
to get first and second mates. Directly I have got them I can put a
gang of riggers on board. I will go to the Naval Club, and see the
list of the officers on board the ships here. I am pretty sure to know
some of them, and shall find out from them whether there are any of my
old messmates down here. If they don’t know of any, we might hear of
men to suit at the Club. There are always plenty of men here and at
Portsmouth waiting about on the chance of meeting some officer they
have served under and getting him to put in a word for them at the
Admiralty.”

“I will walk down with you to the Club, but I won’t go in with you;
one is only in the way when people who know each other are talking.
And besides, Martyn, don’t you think before you do anything you ought
to see about your clothes?”

“Of course I ought; I never gave the matter a thought before. But I
certainly could not put my foot on the quarter-deck of one of His
Majesty’s ships in this turn-out. No. The first thing to do is to drop
into my father’s agent to draw some money. Then I will go into a
slop-shop and get a suit. I know a place where they keep really decent
togs. A man often has to join in a hurry, and wants a fit-out at half
an hour’s notice. Then I can order the rest of the things at the
tailor’s I used to get my clothes from. ’Pon my word, now you speak of
it, I am ashamed to be going out in these things. They were an old
suit that I put on when bad weather set in, and they have shrunk so
that the sleeves don’t come half-way down to the wrists, and the
trousers are up to the ankles. As a master’s mate it didn’t matter so
very much, for masters’ mates are very often out at elbows, but as
commander of the _Creole_ it is a different thing altogether.”

Martyn was lucky in picking up the undress uniform of a lieutenant
that just fitted him.

“I can let you have it at that price, because I got it a bargain,” the
man said. “The owner came in here a few weeks ago with a man beside
him. He had just come down to join his ship, which was to sail in a
few hours, and as he stepped off the coach was served with a writ by a
Jew he had borrowed money of two or three years before. It was only a
few pounds, but to make up the sum he had to sell some of his things,
and this suit was among them.”

“And nicely you ground him down in the price, I have no doubt,” Martyn
growled. “However, I have got the benefit of it. Now, Horace, I can
show at the Club. Just take your knife out and cut this strap off the
shoulder. I can’t go about as a full-fledged lieutenant, though I have
passed.”

They were walking up the main street when a voice exclaimed:

“Hullo, Martyn! is that you?” and a young officer shook him warmly by
the hand.

“Why, Dacent, this is luck. I am glad to see you indeed. It is three
years since we ran against each other last; five since we served
together in the _Nonpareil_. What are you doing?”

“I am third in the flagship here. What are you doing? I met O’Connor
the other day; he told me he had run across you at Malta, and that you
had gone into the merchant service like so many other of our old
friends.”

“That was so, Dacent. It was of no use kicking my heels on shore when
I hadn’t the ghost of a chance of getting appointed to a ship. So I
had to swallow my pride and ship in a merchantman. We were wrecked at
the back of the Wight in the storm last week, and I have had the luck
to get a fresh appointment, and that is what I am here for. I was just
on my way to the Club to see if I could find any of my old chums. You
are just the fellow to help me. But first let me introduce Mr.
Beveridge. He is the son of my owner. Half an hour ago he completed
the purchase of the craft that I am to command. She is a beauty. I
don’t know whether you know her. She is called the _Creole_, a
schooner of a hundred and fifty tons. She is lying up the river.”

“I know her well enough,” Dacent said, as he shook hands with Horace.
“She was brought in here the week after I joined. I thought she was as
pretty a looking craft as I ever set eyes on. I congratulate you, old
fellow. There are not many things that you won’t be able to show your
heels to. But what line is she going to be in? She would make a fine
craft for the Levant trade.”

“That is just where we are going, Dacent, but not to trade. I will
tell you what we are going to do, but it must be kept dark. I don’t
know whether they might not look upon it as a breach of the neutrality
laws. Mr. Beveridge is an enthusiast for the cause of Greece, and we
are going to take out a cargo of guns and ammunition, and then we
shall hoist the Greek flag, and do a little fighting on our own
account with the Turks as a Greek privateer.”

“By Jove, I envy you, Martyn. That is a thousand times better than
sticking in Plymouth Sound with nothing to do but to see the men
holy-stone the deck, and fetching and carrying messages. Now, what is
it I can do for you?”

“Well, in the first place, I want a couple of officers; for choice, I
would have one who has passed, and could take the command in case
anything happened to me. I don’t care whether the second is a mate or
a midshipman who has pretty nearly served his time.”

“I know just the man for you, for your first. There is Miller--you
remember him?”

“Of course; I was with him in the _Minerva_ frigate in the West
Indies. He was a capital fellow. Is he to be had?”

“Yes; I saw him only yesterday. He has been two years out of a berth,
and no chance of getting a ship, and he was looking out for a berth on
board a merchantman, but he had not heard of one when I saw him. He
gave me his address; here it is--the Anchor Inn; it is a little place
not far from the dock gates. I expect Jim has no money to spare. His
father is a clergyman near Falmouth. I asked him why he didn’t look
for a ship there. He laughed, and said he didn’t mind shipping into
the merchant service anywhere else; but he shouldn’t like to do it so
near home, after swaggering about there in the king’s uniform.”

“I will go down at once. It is just one o’clock, and we are likely to
catch him in.”

“Well, will you and your friend dine with me at the Club at six
o’clock, Martyn? We can chat there better than we can on board, and we
have lots to tell each other since we last parted.”

The invitation was accepted, and then Martyn and Horace set off to
find the Anchor.

“There is one thing I have not asked you,” the former said, as they
went along. “How about prize-money, because you know that makes a good
deal of difference. I don’t suppose there will be much to be got,
because there are not many craft flying the Turkish flag, and the seas
will be swarming with Greek craft who are half-pirates even in time of
peace. Still we may capture a Turkish man-of-war brig or something of
that sort, and she may have treasure on board such as pay for the
troops. I suppose we should share according to the ordinary privateer
scale.”

“Certainly,” Horace said. “My father has no idea of making money by
the thing, and I can certainly promise that he will agree to the usual
scale whatever it is.”

“That is right. I thought that it would be so, and, indeed, although
officers might go without, you would hardly get men to risk their
lives unless there was a chance of prize-money.”

“It would not be fair to ask them to do so,” Horace said. “Of course
that would be understood. All these sort of arrangements are in your
hands. My father particularly said so; he really knows nothing about
these matters. You must make all these arrangements just as if you
were the owner, and please arrange what you consider liberal terms to
everyone. My father has made up his mind to spend a certain sum of
money which he has long laid by for the purpose, and I am sure we are
more likely to succeed in helping the Greeks if everyone on board is
quite contented and happy. Oh, there is the Inn; I won’t go in with
you. You had much better talk it over with him by yourself.”

Ten minutes later Martyn came out with a short square-built young
fellow of about his own age, with a good-humoured merry face, which
was at present beaming with satisfaction.

“That is all settled,” Martyn said. “Mr. Beveridge, let me introduce
to you Mr. James Miller, first lieutenant of your father’s schooner,
the _Creole_.”

“It is a perfect godsend,” Miller said, as he shook hands with Horace.
“I began to despair of getting a ship here, and I am precious glad now
I didn’t, for I should have been mad if I had met Martyn, and found I
had missed this chance. It will be glorious fun, and it looked as if
one were never going to have a chance of that sort of thing again.”

“And he knows of a young fellow who will suit us for our second,”
Martyn said, “Jack Tarleton. He was with us in the _Minerva_. I
remember him only as a jolly little mid. I had just passed then, and
he was the youngest; but he lives close to Miller, and he says he has
grown up into a fine young fellow. He is about nineteen now. He has
not passed yet, for he was laid on the shelf four months before his
time was up, and not having passed, of course he is even worse off
than either of us. Not that it matters so much to him, for his father
has an estate; but as Jack is the second son, and loves his
profession, he is so anxious to be afloat again that he told Miller
the other day he would ship before the mast if he could not get a
berth before long. Miller will write to him this afternoon, and he
will be here to-morrow night or next morning. I have asked him to come
round and have lunch with us at the Falcon. Mr. Beveridge and his
father sail with us, Miller, in the double capacity, as I understand,
of owners and fighting men.”

Horace laughed. “In the first place, I am not going to be called Mr.
Beveridge or Mr. Anything,” he said. “I shall be regarded as a sort of
third officer, and do my work regularly while we are at sea. I know a
little about sailing already,” he said to Miller, “so I sha’n’t be
quite a green hand.”

“No, indeed,” Martyn said. “Horace, if I am to call him so, has got a
fifteen-ton yacht I picked up for him, and a first-rate little craft
she is. He went out in a big gale last winter, and rescued the crew of
a wreck, the _Celadon_.”

“I saw it in the paper,” Miller said warmly, “and thought what a
plucky thing it was. That is capital. Then you will be like one of
ourselves. Well, what are you going to do first, Martyn?”

“First we are going to lunch. Then you will write your letter to
Tarleton and post it. After that we will charter a boat and go up and
look at the _Creole_ again. You haven’t seen her yet, and we haven’t
seen her since the purchase was concluded, and a craft always looks
different when you know she is yours. After making an overhaul we will
go ashore to the nearest yard and arrange for her to be docked, and
her bottom cleaned and scrubbed; I expect it wants it pretty badly.
That will be enough for to-day. As soon as she is in the water again
we will set a gang of riggers at work. I shall take charge of that
part of the business, and I will leave it to you to hunt up a crew. We
have got a boatswain. At least I have no doubt we have.”

“How many men are you going to take, Martyn?”

“She mounts four guns each side and a long Tom--I don’t know what the
metal is yet--and she is heavily sparred. Of course she hasn’t got her
topmasts in place, but her masts are very long, and I have no doubt
she shows a good spread of sail; those craft always do. We shall want
a strong crew, for, if we fight at all, it will be against craft a
good deal bigger than ourselves. There is any amount of room on the
main deck, where they carried the slaves. Of course we needn’t settle
at present, but I should say we ought to carry from forty to fifty
men.”

“I think we ought certainly to have a strong crew,” Horace said, “so
as to be able to land a strong party if we wanted to; the extra
expense would be of no consequence.”

“We must pick our men, Miller--smart active fellows, and, of course,
men-of-war’s for choice. If we can’t get enough here, we will sail her
round to Portsmouth and fill up there. There ought to be plenty of
prime seamen to be had. They would jump at the chance of sailing in
such a craft as ours.”

Miller was delighted with the ship, and they now especially examined
the cabin arrangements. The saloon ran across the stern of the ship.
It was handsomely fitted up in mahogany. Leading off this, on the port
side, was a large cabin that had evidently been the captain’s. This,
of course, would be Mr. Beveridge’s. On the starboard side were three
cabins. Next to these was the steward’s pantry and cabin; and facing
this, on the port side, two other state-rooms.

“It could not have been better if it had been built for us,” Miller
said. “There are three cabins on the starboard side. Horace will take
one of the three, I suppose, and that will leave a spare cabin in case
we take a passenger we are likely to want.”

“What are you thinking of, Miller?”

“I was thinking that as we are going to fight, it is not by any means
impossible that some of us or the men may be wounded.”

“I should certainly say it was quite possible,” Martyn laughed.

“Well, you see as long as it is only a clip from a cutlass or a flesh
wound through the arm, I fancy we might patch it up between us with a
bit of plaster and a bandage; but if it comes to an amputation or
getting a bullet out of the body, or anything of that sort, who is
going to do it?”

“By Jove! you are right, Miller. I had not thought of that. I am
afraid we shall have to take a surgeon with us. It would never do to
go into action in the Levant, where there is no chance of finding an
English doctor, without having at least a surgeon’s-mate on board.”

“Of course not,” Horace agreed; “that is an absolute necessity. Will
you see about it at once, please.”

“There is no difficulty in getting surgeons,” Martyn said. “Of course
young fellows who have just done walking hospitals are as plentiful as
peas; but we had better get hold of a man who has been knocking about
for a few years in the navy, and who has had some experience in
gunshot wounds. There must be plenty of good men about, for they have
suffered just as we have by the reduction. I will speak to Dacent
about it this evening, and get him to ask one of the naval surgeons
here if he knows a man. One or other of them is almost sure to do so.
Well, the spare cabin will be for him. So now we are fixed
completely.”

“We shall have to take off a little bit from the main deck, because my
father’s two Greeks will certainly come with us. Only one can sleep in
the steward’s cabin, so we shall want a small cabin for the other and
a place for cooking. They are first-rate cooks, both of them; and I
expect they will undertake the cooking altogether for us.”

“That can very easily be managed,” Martyn said. “We can knock a door
through this bulkhead, and run another bulkhead up across the deck,
seven or eight feet farther forward. I have not forgotten that Greek’s
cooking; and if we live on board this craft as you did on the _Surf_,
I can tell you, Miller, we needn’t envy an admiral.”

“Well, I like a good dinner, I must own, Martyn, though I can do with
salt-horse if necessary.”

“But are you sure, Horace,” Martyn said, “that your father wouldn’t
prefer having the cabin astern all to yourselves? When we are about it
we could put the bulkhead farther forward, and make a ward-room for
us.”

“No, I am sure he would not wish that,” Horace said. “I will write to
him when we get ashore and ask him; but I am sure he would find it
more pleasant our being all together, and it would be much better for
him than being by himself. My father is a great scholar,” he explained
to Miller, “and is always poring over books. I am sure it will do him
a lot of good getting away from them altogether and being with people.
Besides, that private cabin of his is a good size, and there will be
plenty of room for him to have a table and an easy-chair in it
whenever he is disposed to shut himself up. However, I will hear what
he says.”

After leaving the ship a visit was paid to one of the shipbuilding
yards, and arrangements made for the _Creole_ to be brought into dock
at high-tide. On getting back to the inn Horace wrote to his father on
the various questions that had arisen, and then to Marco, telling him
to come over by coach, and to bring Tom Burdett with him. They then
went to dine at the club with Dacent, who entered with great zest into
their arrangements.

“I can’t tell you what is your best way of setting about getting the
arms; but I should say go to Durncombe’s. They are by far the largest
ship-chandlers here, and I should say that they could supply anything
from an anchor to a tallow-dip. They must have fitted out innumerable
privateers, and bought up the stores of as many prizes. They may not
be able to supply you with as many small-arms as you want; but if you
give them an order for a thousand cannon, I have not a doubt they
could execute it in twenty-four hours, and that at the price of old
iron. As to the muskets, they could no doubt collect a big lot here,
and get more still from Portsmouth. Those of course would be
principally ship’s muskets, no longer wanted or taken from prizes. I
don’t suppose they would get enough, and of course you would want
them in fair condition; but they would put advertisements for them in
the Birmingham papers, or, likely enough, would know firms in
Birmingham who had bought up muskets sold out of the army.”

“What do they buy them for?” Horace asked.

“Oh, they contract for the supply of those South American States, for
trade in Africa and the East, or for the supply of the armies of
native princes in India. I think, if I were you, I would not go to him
direct, but would get the agent you got the _Creole_ from to undertake
it, and get the terms settled. He would get them a good bit cheaper
than you could.”

“No doubt he would,” Martyn agreed, “especially if we agreed to pay
him so much for getting it, instead of so much commission. When a man
gets a commission he has no interest in keeping the price down; just
the contrary. I will ask him casually, to begin with, what is the cost
of muskets in fair condition, and at what price we could pick up
guns--say six, eight, and twelve pounders--complete, with carriages.”

“I don’t know about the carriages, Martyn; but I know the guns fetch
less by a good bit than their weight of old iron. They cost more to
break up, in fact, than they are worth; and they are using them for
posts, and things of that sort, for the sake of getting rid of them. I
should say that you could get a couple of hundred guns of those sizes
to-morrow for a pound apiece, and I believe that you might almost get
them for the trouble of carting away, for they are simply so much
lumber. Powder is a glut in the market too. I should say hundreds of
tons have been emptied into the sea in this port alone, for when the
merchant skippers found they no longer required to carry it, it was
cheaper for them to throw it overboard than to get rid of it in any
other way.”

When they returned to the Falcon that evening they found Miller had
shifted his quarters there from the little inn in which he had been
staying, and two days later Jack Tarleton also arrived there. He was a
good-looking young fellow, nearly six feet in height, slight at
present, but likely to fill out, with a somewhat quiet manner, but, as
Horace soon found, a quick appreciation of the humorous side of things
and a good deal of quiet fun. On the same day Marco arrived with Tom
Burdett, who was delighted when Horace disclosed the project to him.

“I should think I would like to go, Mr. Horace. Why, bless you, I have
been feeling almost as if I was rusting out at Seaport, except when
you were at home. Why, it will be like giving one a fresh lease of
life to get at one’s own work again.”

He was at once installed on board the _Creole_, which on that day had
been let out of the dock again with her copper scrubbed until it shone
like gold. Miller had as yet had no time to see about the men, and Tom
at once undertook this part of the business.

“I know every tavern down by the waterside and the places where men
are likely to be found. I will soon pick you up some prime hands. If I
can’t get enough of them here, I will take a run to Bristol. There is
a big trade there, and there will be plenty of men-of-war’s-men to be
had for the asking for such a job as this.”

“How about Seaport, Tom?” Horace asked.

“Well, we will take Dick; but there are not many I would care about
having from there. They are good enough in their fishing-boats, but I
would rather have men who are accustomed to bigger craft. Besides,
though fishermen are good sailors in some ways, they are not
accustomed to discipline, and are always slovenly in their way of
doing things. Besides, if I persuaded young fellows to come from
there, and any of them got killed, their fathers and mothers would
look black at me when I got back. No, I don’t think I will have anyone
but Dick.”

By this time a letter had come from Mr. Beveridge in answer to
Horace’s letter.

“I quite agree with you,” he said, “that the officers should be paid
fairly. I see that, as you say, it is not a thing that you could very
well arrange with them. Will you tell Mr. Martyn, from me, that the
terms I propose are twenty guineas a month for him, eighteen for the
second officer, and fifteen for the third; and that, in case of any of
them losing a limb or being disabled, I shall settle upon them a
pension the same as that to which they would have been entitled at
their rank in the navy in the same case. The ship appears to me to be
wonderfully cheap. I knew nothing about it, but quite expected that it
would cost three times as much. Certainly I should not wish for them
to have a separate cabin. It will be much more pleasant for me, if not
disagreeable to them, for us to live together. As for what you say
about prize-money, tell Mr. Martyn to arrange as he proposes,
according to the ordinary usage in privateers. It is a matter to which
I have given no thought, but he shall give me the particulars when we
meet. As you know, I have no intention of making profit out of the
enterprise.”

Two days later Martyn told Horace that Dacent had introduced him to
one of the surgeons, who knew a young doctor who would, he thought,
suit. “His name is Macfarlane; he is, of course, a Scotchman--most of
the naval doctors are either Irish or Scotch. He sailed with him as
surgeon’s-mate in a large frigate, where they had a good deal of
experience in wounds, and he has a high idea of his skill. He is a
very quiet sort of fellow, but a pleasant messmate. He has been full
surgeon for some time now. His ship was paid off a fortnight ago, and
the man who told me of him had a letter from him a few days since,
saying that, as he had no interest he thought that he had but little
chance of getting afloat again, and asking him to let him know if he
heard of any opening, either ashore or in an Indiaman. He thought he
would suit us very well, so I said that I would speak to you about
it.”

“I should think that will be just the thing, Martyn.”

“Very well, then, I will see the surgeon to-morrow, and get him to
write and offer him the berth at the regular naval rate of pay. Of
course we sha’n’t want him to join till we are ready to sail.”

Some days later a reply was received, accepting the berth.

For the next fortnight work proceeded rapidly. Stores of all kinds for
the voyage were brought on board and stowed away. Sixty cannon were
stowed down in the hold, with thirty carriages for them, the latter
taking up too much room to be carried for the whole of the guns. Eight
twelve-pounders, in place of the eight-pounders before carried by her,
and a long eighteen-pounder were placed in the hold in readiness to
mount on deck when they reached the Levant. The riggers and painters
had finished their work, the decks had been planed and holy-stoned
until they were spotlessly white, and the tall spars and gear were all
in their place. The guns had cost only about as much as Miller had
said, and they could have obtained any number at the same price. The
agent had made a contract with the ship’s chandlers for five thousand
muskets complete with bayonets, in good order, and delivered on board,
at ten shillings each. Some five hundred of these had been collected,
and--after passing muster, by an armourer sergeant Martyn engaged for
the purpose--put on board. The rest were to be sent by canal from
Birmingham to Liverpool, and thence shipped round to Plymouth. Five
tons of gunpowder in barrels, twenty tons of shot for the cannon, and
two hundred thousand rounds of ammunition for the muskets were also
arranged for. These were to be shipped at the last moment from
magazines at the mouth of the Sound.

Below, everything had been done to make the cabins as comfortable as
possible, and Dacent declared that she was altogether too neat and
comfortable for anything but an admiral’s yacht. Tom Burdett had
picked up at Plymouth twenty-five smart sailors, all of whom had
served in king’s ships; and then, going to Bristol, had brought as
many more from there. Uniforms, closely resembling those of men-of-war
sailors, had been served out to them, but instead of the straw hat
they wore red woollen caps. The officers had only to exchange their
navy buttons for others with an anchor to be complete; Horace had
donned similar attire.

It was just three weeks after Horace left home that he wrote to his
father saying that all was now in readiness, and that they could sail
within an hour of his arrival. They were at once going out to take
their powder on board, and would remain at anchor off the magazines,
and that he himself should be at the Falcon when it was time for the
first coach to arrive after the receipt of his letter, and should
remain there until his father came. Mr. Macfarlane, the surgeon,
arrived by the coach that evening, and was put down at the Falcon.
Martyn and Horace went out when they heard the coach stop.

“That is the doctor, for a guinea,” Martyn said, as a tall bony man
climbed down from the roof, and began very carefully to look after his
luggage.

“I think you must be Doctor Macfarlane?” he said, going up to him. “My
name is Martyn.”

“I am very glad to see you, Captain Martyn,” the doctor said; “I take
it as a sign that I shall have a pleasant time that my commander
should meet me as I get off the coach.”

“I am captain only by courtesy, and shall hardly consider that I have
got my brevet rank till we hoist the flag to-morrow. This is Mr.
Beveridge, the owner’s son, he will sail with us as third officer. I
have ordered a room for you, doctor. Boots will carry your things up.”

“Thank you; I will see to them myself, and join you in the
coffee-room. I am not fond of trusting to other folk;” and he followed
the servant upstairs with his baggage.

Martyn laughed as he went into the coffee-room with Horace. “Cautious
you see, Horace, and right enough to be so; I think we shall like him.
There is a pleasant tone in his voice, and I have no doubt he will
turn out a good fellow, though, perhaps, rather a character.”

The doctor soon came down.

“Eh, man,” he said, “but it is weary work sitting with your legs
doubled up all those hours on a coach. Four-and-twenty hours it is
since I got up at Salisbury. And so, Mr. Beveridge, we are going out
to fight for the Greeks. I misdoubt, sir, if they will do much
fighting for themselves. I was three years east of Malta. There is
good in them, we may take it that there is good in them, but it is
very difficult to get at; at least that was my experience.”

“They have not had much chance, I think, doctor, so far.”

“And how large is your ship, Captain Martyn?” the doctor said,
changing the subject suddenly.

“They call her a hundred and fifty, but she has a light draft of water
and would not carry that, yet she has excellent accommodation below,
as you will say when you see her to-morrow.”

The conversation then turned on naval matters, and the stations and
ships that both Martyn and the doctor knew; and when they separated
for the evening Martyn and Horace agreed that the doctor was likely to
be a pleasant acquisition to their party.

Marco had been intrusted with the entire charge of laying in stores
for the cabin, and these had arrived in such profusion that Will
Martyn had demanded whether he was victualling the ship with cabin
stores for a voyage round the world.

It had been given out that the ship was bound for Lisbon, but the news
of her destination had gradually leaked out, although pains had been
taken to get the military stores on board as quietly as possible.
Sympathy with Greece was general, however, and although the young
officers were quietly joked by their naval acquaintances as to their
cargo for Portugal, no official inquiries were made on the subject.

“I sha’n’t be sorry, Horace,” Will Martyn said, as they were rowed off
in the gig for the last time before getting up anchor, “when we get
some of our heavy stuff out of her. One way or another she will have a
hundred and twenty tons of stuff on board when we have taken in our
powder, and though I don’t at all say that she will be overladen she
will be a foot too low in the water to please me, and she wouldn’t be
able to do her best if she were chased in her present trim.”

“The little difference in speed won’t matter much on our way out,”
Horace said.

“No, not as to time, of course, a day more or less is no matter;
still, one always likes to get all one can out of one’s ship, Horace,
and it is a triumph to slip past other craft. If you have a slow craft
you don’t mind whether other things leave you behind in an hour or two
hours; you jog along and you don’t worry about it; you are like a man
driving a heavy cart. But when you are in a crack schooner you are
like a man on the road with a fast horse and a light gig, you expect
to go past other things, and you like to do it in good style.”

“Well, nothing will beat her in looks, I think, Will.”

“No, that is quite certain. She is a picture.”

Everything was done on board the _Creole_ in man-of-war fashion.
Tarleton stood at the top of the ladder to receive the captain as he
came on board. He touched his cap to Martyn, who touched his in
return.

“Everything ready for getting under weigh, Mr. Tarleton?”

“Everything quite ready, sir.”

“Then shorten the chain a bit; man the capstan.”

Jack Tarleton gave the order. Tom Burdett’s boatswain’s whistle rang
out loudly; the capstan-bars were already fixed, and a dozen men ran
merrily round with it till the whistle sounded again.

“The anchor is short, sir,” Tarleton sang out to Martyn.

“Very well, leave her so, Mr. Tarleton. Will you make sail, Mr.
Miller?”

The orders were given, the mainsail, foresail, and fore-staysail
hoisted, and the jibs run out on the bowsprit. As soon as the
halliards were belayed and coiled down, the capstan-bars were manned
again, and the anchor weighed. The tide had just turned to run out,
there was a gentle breeze blowing, and as the two jibs were run up the
_Creole_ began to steal through the water.

“Port your helm!” Martyn said to the man at the wheel; “let her come
round easy. Slack off the main-sheet; that will do now. Get her
topsails on her, Mr. Miller.”

Horace looked up with a feeling of pride and delight at the cloud of
white sail and at the smart active crew, all in duck trousers, blue
shirts, and red caps. Once out of the river the sheets were hauled in,
the yards of the fore-topsail were braced as much fore and aft as they
would stand, and the _Creole_ turned her head seaward, looking, as
Martyn said, almost into the wind’s eye. The red ensign was flying
from the peak of the mainsail, and from the mast-head a long pennant
bearing her name.

“She is slipping through the water rarely, Miller,” Will Martyn said,
as he looked over the side.

“Yes, she is going six knots through it, and that, considering how
close-hauled she is and that the wind is light, is wonderful.”

“She would go a good knot faster,” Martyn said, “if she had fifty tons
of that stuff out of her. Those slavers know how to build, and no
mistake, and I don’t think they ever turned out a better craft than
this.”

It was not until late in the afternoon that the _Creole_ dropped
anchor off the magazine, where she was to take in her powder, as
Martyn ran her out twenty miles to sea and back again to stretch her
ropes and, as he said, let things shape down a bit. When the trip was
over there was not a man on board but was in the state of the highest
satisfaction with the craft. Both close-hauled on the way out and free
on her return they had passed several vessels almost as if these had
been standing still, going three feet to their two; and although there
was but little sea on, there was enough to satisfy them that she had
no lack of buoyancy, even in her present trim.

As soon as the anchor was down and the sails stowed Marco announced
that dinner was ready, for all had been too much interested in the
behaviour of the schooner to think of going down for lunch. It was the
first meal that they had taken on board beyond a crust of bread and
cheese in the middle of the day, and as they sat down, Will Martyn
taking the head of the table, Horace, as his father’s representative,
facing him, and the others at the sides, Miller said with a laugh, as
he looked at the appointments, all of which had been sent over from
the house two days before by Zaimes: “This is rather a contrast,
Martyn, to the cockpit of a man-of-war.”

“Rather. I never did dine with an admiral, but this is the sort of
thing that I have always fancied it would be if it had entered into
the head of one to invite me. What do you think, Tarleton?”

“I feel shy at present, sir, and as if I oughtn’t to speak till spoken
to.”

“You will be spoken to pretty sharply if you say ‘sir’ down below. On
deck, as we agreed, we would have things in man-of-war fashion; but we
are not going to have anything of that sort when we are below
together.”

The dinner was an excellent one, and though the expectations of Miller
and Tarleton had been raised by Martyn’s encomiums of the Greek’s
cooking they were far surpassed by the reality. “It is a dinner fit
for a king,” Martyn said when the cloth was cleared away and a
decanter of port placed on the table.

“There is one misfortune in it. If this sort of thing is going to last
we shall never be fit for service in an ordinary craft again, we shall
become Sybarites. Is this the sort of dinner you always have at home,
Horace?”

“About the same, I think,” Horace laughed. “My father takes no
exercise and has not much appetite, and I think he likes nice things;
and it is one of the Greek’s great aims in life to tempt him to eat.
We always have a very good cook, but Zaimes insists on having a few
little things of his own cooking on the table, and as he is generally
at war with the cook, and they leave in consequence about every three
or four months, he often has the dinner altogether in his hands till a
fresh one arrives, and I am amused sometimes to see how Zaimes fidgets
when my father, which is often the case, is so occupied with his own
thoughts that he eats mechanically and does not notice what is before
him. Zaimes stands it for a minute or two and then asks some question
or makes some observation that calls my father’s attention back to
what he is doing. They have both been with him for two-and-twenty
years and are devoted to him. They are hardly like English servants,
and talk to him in a way English servants would not think of doing.
They are always perfectly respectful, you know, but they regard
themselves, as he regards them, as friends as well as servants.”

“Well, gentlemen, we will drink the usual toast, ‘The King, God bless
him;’ that is duty. Now fill up again, here is ‘Success to the
_Creole_.’” When the toast was drank Martyn went on:

“How did your father pick them up, Horace?”

“It was just after he went out to Greece, which was directly after he
left college. He was at Samos, and got leave from the Turkish governor
to visit the prison. In one of the cells were Zaimes and Marco, who
was then a boy about sixteen. They were condemned to death; they had
been smuggling, and a Turkish boat had overhauled them. They had
resisted. Four of the men with them had been killed in the fight, and
several of the Turks. These two had been both severely wounded and
made prisoners. My father was new to that sort of thing then. After he
had been a year or two in Greece he knew that it would take a king’s
fortune to buy out all the prisoners in the Turkish jails, but being
only out there a month or two he was touched at the sight of the two
prisoners. They were both very handsome, though, of course, pale and
pulled down by their wounds and imprisonment, and Zaimes, who was the
spokesman, had that courteous gentle manner that my father says all
the Greeks have when they are not excited.”

“At any rate he was very much interested and went off to the governor
again, and the Turk was glad enough for a bribe of a hundred pounds to
give him an order for the release of the two prisoners, on condition
that they were to be let out after dark and at once put on board a
craft that was sailing at daybreak next morning. My father went with
them, and after that they absolutely refused to leave him, and
travelled with him in Greece for some time and fought very pluckily
when some Klepts once tried to carry him away into the mountains. Then
he bought a small craft and established his head-quarters at Mitylene,
and for a year lived there and cruised about the islands. When he came
home he offered the felucca to them, but they refused to take it, and
begged so hard for him to take them home with him that he agreed to do
so, and they have proved invaluable to him ever since.”

“Your father is lucky in having got hold of two such men,” Martyn
said. “I believe the lower order of Greeks are fine fellows in their
way. They are quarrelsome and passionate, no doubt, and apt to whip
out their knives at the smallest provocation, and there is no trade
they take so kindly to as that of a bandit; otherwise I believe they
are honest hardworking fellows. But as for the upper class of Greeks,
the less I have to do with them the better. When they get a chance
they grind down their countrymen a deal worse than the Turks do. They
are slippery customers and no mistake. I would rather take a Turk’s
simple word than a solemn oath from a Greek.”

“No; veracity is hardly one of their conspicuous virtues,” the doctor
put in quietly. “I take it that the ancients were so accustomed to
swear by their gods, even after they had ceased to believe in them,
that they came to consider that an oath by them was not binding, and
so got into the way of lying generally, and their descendants have
never amended their ways in that particular since. On more than one
occasion, when there was trouble between our sailors and the Greeks, I
attended their courts, and for good downright hard swearing I never
heard them approached. I don’t wonder that the Turks refuse to allow
Christians to give evidence in their courts. We shall see when we get
out, but I have grave doubts whether there has been any revolution at
all, and whether it is not a got-up thing altogether, just to see
what the rest of the world says to it.”

The others laughed.

“There is one thing, doctor,” Miller said; “we have heard from
Europeans who are out there of what has been done, it does not come
from the Greeks only.”

“That is a confirmation, certainly, but it is well known that
travellers’ tales must always be received with caution. It has been so
since the days of Herodotus. When a man gets away from his own country
he is apt to get a certain looseness of the tongue. We will wait until
we get out there before we form any strong opinion about it.”

By this time they had finished their coffee, and Martyn, rising, said:
“Mr. Tarleton, I shall be glad if you will go along the main-deck and
see that the men are making themselves comfortable; to-morrow we will
divide them into watches and tell them off to their stations and get
things into working order.”

Accordingly, in the morning the crew were divided into two watches,
and the boat’s crews told off, and then the work of getting the powder
and small ammunition on board began; the latter did not take long, as
it was already in a flat into which it had been discharged three days
before from the coaster that had brought it from Liverpool. The flat
had therefore only to be towed alongside and the cases swung on board
and lowered into a portion of the hold that had been divided off from
the rest by thick bulkheads to form a magazine. The ammunition and
powder were all on board and stowed away, the ship was washed down,
and the men piped to dinner by eight bells. The officers went down and
divided the men into messes, examined the food, and saw that
everything was comfortable.

“More room here than there was on board the _Surf_, Dick,” Horace said
as he stopped a moment on his rounds to speak to the young sailor.

“Yes, sir, one can stand upright here. But the _Surf_ was a good boat
too.”

After dinner the men were told off to their various duties and divided
into crews for the guns, when these should be in place. The first
lieutenant (for it was agreed that they should be called lieutenants
and not mates) and Horace took the starboard watch, Tarleton and the
boatswain the port watch. The men were formed up, inspected, and put
through cutlass drill for an hour, after which the watches by turns
were exercised in setting sail, reefing, lowering, and furling, so
that each man should know his place and duty. Then they were
dismissed.

“They will be a first-rate crew when they have worked together for a
few days,” Martyn said. “I could not wish for a smarter set of men. If
we meet anything about our own size I shall have no fear of giving a
good account of her. I have no opinion whatever of the Turks as
sailors; they are good soldiers, and have always proved themselves so,
but more lubberly sailors never went to sea.”

“Well, we are not likely to meet anything else,” Horace said.

“I don’t know, lad. The Greeks at the best of times are pirates at
heart, and just at present they are not at all likely to be particular
who they lay hands on. I saw in the paper only yesterday, they had
attacked and plundered an Austrian craft, and it is probable that they
may have done the same to a dozen others, only as a rule they scuttle
any ship they may seize and nothing is ever known about her. Ships
can’t be too careful when they are in Greek waters, and a vessel
wrecked on any of the islands is looked upon as a lawful prize. There
is no fear of our being taken by surprise by the Turks, but I shall
take precious good care that we are never caught napping when we are
anchored anywhere in the Greek Archipelago. After dinner, Horace, I
will go ashore with you in the gig. I don’t think it likely your
father will be down by the night coach, as he would only get your
letter this morning, but he may come; at any rate you have got to wait
now at the Falcon till he turns up.”




CHAPTER VI

UNDER WEIGH


After seeing to a few matters that had been left till the last moment,
Will Martyn returned on board again. Horace dined at the club, of
which he had been made an honorary member, and then went back to the
Falcon. To his surprise Zaimes was standing at the door.

“Why, Zaimes, how on earth did you get here? Why, the coach does not
get in till twelve o’clock.”

“No, Mr. Horace, but we had everything ready to start this morning. Of
course your letter did not come in time for us to get over to the
early coach, but we were expecting it after what you wrote yesterday,
and your father had concluded that it would be much more comfortable
to post. He does not like being crowded, and it was doubtful whether
there would be room for the two of us; and there was the luggage, so
we had arranged for a post-chaise to come for us anyhow, and we
started half an hour after your letter came in, and have posted
comfortably. Your father is in the coffee-room. He would not have a
private room, as he did not know whether you would be taking him on
board this evening.”

Mr. Beveridge was sitting at a table by himself, and had just finished
his dinner when Horace came in. He looked up more briskly than usual.

“I am sorry I was not here to meet you, father,” Horace said; “but I
did not think you could be here until the night coach.”

“No; I did not expect to find you here, Horace, so it was no
disappointment. Well, you look bronzed and well, my boy, you and your
friends seem to have done wonders in getting everything done so soon.
I am quite anxious to see the ship. Are we to go on board this
evening?”

“If you don’t mind, father, I would much rather you didn’t go off
till morning. I said that if you came we would breakfast early and be
ready for the gig at half-past eight. They won’t be expecting us
to-night, and I am sure Martyn and the others will like to have
everything in the best possible order when you go on board. We have
been expecting those boxes of books you wrote about a week ago, but
they haven’t turned up. It will be a horrible nuisance if, after the
way we have been pushing everything forward, we should be kept waiting
two or three days for them.”

“Well, Horace, the fact is I changed my mind. The four boxes were
packed and in the hall. They really were very large boxes, and Zaimes
said: ‘Well, master, what you are going to do with all those books I
can’t imagine. Where are you going to put them? Why, they would fill
your cabin up solid. If I were you, sir, I would not take one of them.
Just give yourself a holiday. Don’t take a pen in your hand while you
are away. You will have plenty to see about and to think about, and I
am sure it would do you a deal of good to give it up altogether for a
time, and you will take it up freshly afterwards. Besides, you will
have people coming on board, and your advice will be asked, and you
will have to decide all sorts of things, and you know you won’t be
able to bring your mind out of your books if you have them on board.’
He said something like it when I first began to talk of packing, but
it seemed to me impossible that I could give up work altogether; but
the sight of those four great boxes staggered me. Then I said:
‘Zaimes, this is not like that little cabin on board the yacht. This
is quite a large vessel in comparison.’ ‘Yes, sir,’ he replied, ‘but
your cabin won’t be larger than the main cabin in the _Surf_, not so
large I should fancy.’ This surprised me altogether, but he assured me
it was so, and pressed me so much on the matter that I at last agreed
to leave them all behind.”

“That is a capital thing, father. Zaimes was quite right. Your
state-room is a very nice cabin, but except that it is a good deal
more lofty, it is certainly not so large by a good deal as the main
cabin in the _Surf_; besides, if you had your books you would be
always shut up there, and what I thought of all along, from the time
you first spoke about coming out, was what a good thing it would be
for you to have a thorough holiday, and to put aside the old work
altogether.”

“You don’t think it valuable, Horace?” Mr. Beveridge asked wistfully.

“I do, father. I think it most valuable, and no one can be prouder
than I am of your reputation, and that all learned men should
acknowledge the immense value of your works to Greek students. But,
father, after all, the number of men who go into all that is very
small, and I can’t see why your life should be entirely given up to
them. I think that at any rate it will be a first-rate thing for you,
and extremely pleasant for me, that you should be like the rest of us
while we are out on this expedition. As Zaimes says, you will have a
lot of things to decide upon, and we are going to lead an active,
stirring life, and it is new Greece we shall have to think about, and
not the Greece of two thousand years ago. It is your aim to raise, not
the Greeks of the time of Miltiades, but a people who in these two
thousand years have become a race, not only of slaves, but of ignorant
savages, for these massacres of unarmed people show that they are
nothing better; and not only to free them, but to make them worthy of
being a nation again. I think, father, there will be ample scope for
all your thoughts and attention in the present without giving a
thought to the niceties of the language spoken by Demosthenes, so I am
truly and heartily glad you decided to leave your books behind you.”

“I think you are right, Horace; I am sure you are right; but it is a
wrench to me to cut myself loose altogether from the habits of a
lifetime.”

“And now, father, what are you going to do about clothes?” Horace
said, looking at him closely.

“About clothes!” his father repeated vaguely. “I have brought two
large boxes full with me.”

“Yes, father, no doubt you have clothes, but I am sure that on board
ship--and you will be always living there, you know--it will be much
more comfortable for you to have clothes fit for the sea. Frilled
shirts, and ruffles, and tight breeches, and high-heeled Hessian
boots, and short-waisted tail-coats are all very well on shore, but
the first time you are out in a good brisk gale, you would wish them
anywhere. What you want is a couple of suits, at least, of blue cloth
like mine, with brass buttons, and a low cloth cap like this that will
keep on your head whilst it is blowing, in fact the sort of suit that
the owner of a big yacht would naturally wear. Of course when you go
ashore to see any of the Greek leaders, you might like to go in your
ordinary dress; but really for sea you want comfortable clothes, and a
good thick pea-jacket for rough weather.”

“Perhaps you are right, Horace, and I did remark that my heels left
marks upon the deck of the _Surf_.”

“Certainly they did, father; and it would be agony to Will Martyn to
have the beautiful white deck of the _Creole_ spoiled.”

“But it is too late now, it is half-past eight o’clock.”

“Oh, I can take you to a shop where they keep this sort of thing.
Besides, there are twelve hours before we start, and by paying for it
one can get pretty nearly anything made in twelve hours.”

Mr. Beveridge suffered himself to be persuaded. Fortunately the
outfitter had a couple of suits ordered by one of the officers of a
ship of war in harbour nearly completed. These he agreed to alter to
fit Mr. Beveridge by the morning, and to put on extra hands to turn
out fresh suits for the person for whom they were intended. The gold
lace, white facings, and other distinguishing marks would be removed,
and plain brass buttons substituted for the royal buttons. Two or
three pairs of shoes with low heels were also obtained. The clothes
came home at seven in the morning, and Mr. Beveridge came down to
breakfast looking like the smart captain of a merchantman.

“I feel as if I were dressed for a masquerade, Horace,” he said with a
smile.

[Illustration: A DISCUSSION ABOUT CLOTHES]

“You look first-rate, father, and a lot more comfortable than usual, I
can tell you.”

It was at Martyn’s suggestion that Horace had urged his father to make
a change in his attire.

“It would be a good thing if you could get him to put on sea-going
togs,” the sailor had said. “He is the owner of as smart a craft as
ever sailed out of British waters, and he will look a good deal more
at home on the deck of his own ship in regular yachtsman’s dress than
he would rigged up in his ruffles and boots.”

With this Horace had agreed heartily, for his father’s appearance on
occasions when he had gone out with him in the _Surf_ had struck him
as being wholly incongruous with the surroundings.

At half-past eight they went down to the steps, two porters carrying
the luggage under the watchful eye of Zaimes. As they were seen, the
smart gig with its six rowers, which was lying a short distance off,
rowed in to the steps. Tarleton was steering. He stepped out to hand
Mr. Beveridge into the boat.

“This is Mr. Tarleton, father, our second lieutenant.”

“I am glad to meet you, sir,” Mr. Beveridge said, shaking hands with
the young officer. “I hope that we shall have a pleasant cruise
together.”

“I feel sure we shall, sir. If one couldn’t be comfortable on board
the _Creole_, one couldn’t be comfortable anywhere.”

Tarleton took his seat in the centre to steer, with Mr. Beveridge and
Horace on either side of him, Zaimes and the luggage were placed in
the bow. The bowman pushed the boat off with the boat-hook. The oars,
which had been tossed in man-of-war fashion, fell with a splash into
the water, and then with a long steady stroke the gig darted away from
the steps.

“This is certainly very pleasant,” Mr. Beveridge said as they threaded
through the anchored craft and made their way seaward. “I begin to
wish I had taken up yachting twenty years back.”

“Well, it is not too late, father. When we have done with Greece, you
can go in for amusement if you like.”

“I should never find time, Horace.”

“Oh, you could make time, father. You could spare three months in the
year and be all the better for it. When you have once had a break, you
will find how pleasant it is.”

Half an hour’s row and Horace said: “That is the _Creole_, father,
lying in there near the farther point.”

“She doesn’t look as large as I expected, Horace, though her masts
seem a great height.”

“She is heavily sparred for her length,” Tarleton said, “but she has
great beam; besides she is rather low in the water now, and of course
that makes the spars look big in proportion. She will be a bit higher
by the time we get out. Fifty men consume a considerable weight of
stores and water every week. You will be pleased with her, sir, when
we get alongside. We all think she is as handsome a craft as we ever
set eyes on. She will astonish the Turks, I warrant, when it comes to
sailing.”

Another twenty minutes they were alongside. According to naval
etiquette Horace mounted the ladder first, then Tarleton, and Mr.
Beveridge followed. Martyn and Miller received him at the gangway, the
former introducing the first officer and the surgeon to him.

“She is a fine-looking vessel,” Mr. Beveridge said, “and you have
certainly done marvels with her, Captain Martyn, for my son wrote me
that she had nothing but her lower masts in her when you took
possession, and now she is wonderfully bright and clean, and these
decks look almost too white to walk on.”

“I hope that we shall always keep her in equal order, sir. We have a
capital crew, and no one could wish for a better craft under his
feet.”

Mr. Beveridge was now conducted round the ship, and expressed himself
highly gratified with everything.

“Is it your wish that we should make sail at once, sir?” Martyn
asked. “We have been expecting some heavy luggage on board, but it has
not arrived.”

“I changed my mind about it, and there is nothing coming, Captain
Martyn. I am perfectly ready to start if you have everything on
board.”

“There is nothing to wait for, sir; we are perfectly ready.”

They returned to the quarter-deck, and as Martyn gave the orders there
was a general movement on the part of the crew. Some of the men
clustered round the capstan, while others prepared to make sail, and
Mr. Beveridge felt a keen sense of pleasure as he watched the active
fellows at their work. In five minutes the sails were set, the anchor
at the cat-head, and the _Creole_ moving through the water under the
light breeze off shore.

They had favourable winds across the Bay and down the coast of
Portugal. Everything from the start had gone as smoothly as if the
_Creole_ had been six months in commission--officers and men were
alike pleased with the ship; the provisions for the sailors were of
the best quality; the duties were very light, for the sails had not
required altering from the time they had been set, although each day
the men practised for an hour at lowering and setting them, in order
to accustom them to work smartly together.

There was half an hour’s cutlass drill, and for the rest of the day,
beyond cleaning and polishing, there was nothing to be done. Mr.
Beveridge spent the greater part of his time in a comfortable
deck-chair on the quarter-deck, for there was no poop, the deck being
flush from end to end. Horace attended to his duties as third officer
regularly, and the nights were so warm and pleasant that the watches
did not appear long to him. There was no stiffness in the cabin when
they gathered to their meals, or in the evening, and Mr. Beveridge
proved in no way a wet blanket on their fun, as the three officers had
rather anticipated he would be. He talked but little, but was
thoroughly amused at their yarns and jests, all of which were as
strange to him as if he had lived in another world.

“You will certainly have to cut off our rations a bit, Mr. Beveridge,”
Will Martyn said one day as they finished dinner. “We shall be getting
as fat as porpoises if we go on like this. I can feel my togs filling
out daily; and as for Tarleton, he will have to have all his things
let out by the time we arrive in the Levant. For the credit of the
ship I shall have to give orders for us to be supplied with the same
rations as the men, and go in for luxuries only on Sundays. We are not
accustomed to be tempted in this way at every meal. It is all very
well for you who do not eat much more than a sparrow to have such nice
things always put before you; but to us who have been accustomed to a
steady diet of salt junk, except when we put into port and are able to
get fresh meat for a change, these things are beyond our power of
resistance.”

“I eat a great deal more than I did on shore,” Mr. Beveridge said. “I
find, indeed, a wonderful improvement in my appetite. It was quite an
infliction to Zaimes that I cared so little for the good things he
provided me with. I can assure you I really begin to look for my meals
now, and it is a pleasure for me to see you all eat with good healthy
appetites, and I am sure that it must be a great gratification to the
Greeks to see their efforts appreciated at last.”

“It is Tarleton I am thinking of principally, sir; as for Miller,
nature made him square, and it would be no disadvantage if he became
round; while as to the doctor, food is simply wasted on him, he will
never do credit to your cooks. But Tarleton, with those dark eyes of
his and his gentle sort of way, was what the ladies would consider an
interesting youth, and he would, I am sure, forfeit the good opinion
of the ladies altogether if he were to return looking like a mildly
animated sausage.”

Tarleton joined in the laugh. “I do think I have gained a lot in
weight the last week,” he said; “but we won’t always go on in this
quiet sort of way. As for what Martyn says, I believe it is only
jealousy on his part at seeing that my angles are filling out.”

On arriving at the Straits they put in at Ceuta and obtained a supply
of fresh meat and vegetables. In the Mediterranean they fell in with
dead calms and were a fortnight in getting to Gozo, where they again
replenished their stock. They abstained from putting in either at
Gibraltar or Malta in order to avoid being questioned as to the cargo
and destination of the _Creole_.

“Now, sir,” Will Martyn said when they were within two days’ sail of
Greece, “it is quite time to decide what port we shall make for, but
we can’t decide that until we know how matters are going on. When we
left England there were very conflicting accounts of the progress of
the revolution, and whether Corinth, Patras, Nauplia, or Athens are in
the hands of the Greeks or Turks. Well, I should say, sir, that our
best plan would be to put in at Zante, where, as it is English, and
therefore neutral ground, we shall learn all about the state of
affairs, and may meet some of our own people or foreigners who have
been fighting by the side of the Greeks. Half an hour’s talk with one
of them would give us a better idea how everything stands than a
week’s talk with Greeks.”

“I think that will be a very good plan,” Mr. Beveridge agreed. “Flying
the English flag we might go in or out of any of the harbours as
neutrals; but if by any chance it leaked out what our cargo is the
Turks would probably consider themselves justified in laying hands on
us.”

“At any rate it is well not to run the risk, Mr. Beveridge, as there
is no object to be served by it. I will take the bearings of Zante and
lay our course for it.”

There was, indeed, no spot where they were more likely to obtain
accurate news of what was going on than Zante, lying as the island
does at a short distance from the mouth of the Gulf of Corinth, upon
which were three of the most important towns in Greece--Patras,
Corinth, and Missolonghi. Here, too, the fugitives from the Morea, of
either party, would naturally make their way.

It was the 8th of October when the _Creole_, flying the English flag
at her peak, dropped anchor in the port. As soon as she did so a
custom-house officer came on board.

“What ship is this?” he asked the first officer, who was on deck.

“This is the _Creole_, a private yacht belonging to Mr. Beveridge. The
owner is below if you wish to see him.”

“You have no merchandise on board?”

“I tell you that it is a yacht,” Miller said. “An English gentleman
doesn’t bring out merchandise for sale in his yacht. The captain will
show you her papers.”

Will Martyn came on deck.

“This is the captain,” Miller said. “You had better address him.”

On hearing what was required Martyn took the officer below and showed
him the ship’s papers.

“I see it is mentioned here that you were bound from England to
Lisbon,” the officer observed.

“Yes. We did not put in there, as Mr. Beveridge was anxious to get
into a warmer climate.”

“I see you are strongly armed,” the officer said when he came on to
deck again, for after leaving Malta the eight twelve-pounders and the
pivot-gun had been got up from the hold and mounted.

“Yes, we are armed, as you see. I imagine you would hardly recommend
anyone to be cruising about in these waters without means of defence.”

“No, indeed,” the officer laughed. “The Greeks are pirates to the
core. You would be all right with the Turks, although from your
appearance I should not think they would ever get near enough to
trouble you.”

Half an hour later Mr. Beveridge and Horace were rowed ashore. As,
except at Ceuta, Horace had never set foot ashore out of England, he
was much amused and interested by the varied population. Mingled with
the native population of the island were Greeks from the mainland;
Albanians in their white pleated petticoats, bristling with arms
mounted in gold and silver; a few English soldiers walking about as
unconcernedly as if in a garrison town at home; and sailors of several
nationalities from ships in harbour.

“I should think, father, the proper thing would be to call upon the
English officer in command here and invite him to dinner. We shall get
a general idea of the state of things from him.”

Asking a soldier, they found that the small detachment there was under
the command of Captain O’Grady, whose house, at the entrance to the
barrack, was pointed out to them. The officer was in, and on Mr.
Beveridge sending in his card they were at once shown in.

“I am the owner of a schooner-yacht, the _Creole_, that dropped anchor
an hour ago,” Mr. Beveridge said. “I know very little about the
etiquette of these things, but it seemed to me the proper thing was to
call at once upon His Majesty’s representative here.”

“A very right and proper thing to do, Mr. Beveridge. I have been
wondering what that craft could be, and where she had come from. If it
hadn’t been for the flag and the tidiness of her I should have put her
down as a Greek pirate, though they don’t often rig up their crafts as
schooners.”

“She has been something like a pirate in her time,” Mr. Beveridge
said, “for she was a slaver, captured and sent home as a prize. I
bought her at Plymouth and fitted her out.”

“And a mighty nice way of spending money too, Mr. Beveridge. She is
the biggest thing in the way of yachts I ever saw. I don’t at all see
why a gentleman shouldn’t buy a big ship and cruise about the world in
her if he can afford it.”

“Well, Captain O’Grady, I won’t occupy your time now, but shall be
glad if you will come off and dine with me at six o’clock to-day. I
have come straight from England, and have heard nothing as to how
matters stand out here. If you will bring any of your officers off
with you I shall be very glad to see them.”

“I have only two here. Mr. Lester, my lieutenant, will be on duty,
and I have no doubt that Plunket will be very glad to come off with me
if he has no special engagement, which is not likely, for it is a
mighty dull life here, I can tell you, and it is glad I shall be when
the order comes to rejoin the regiment at Corfu.”

Mr. Beveridge and Horace walked about for some time, and then returned
on board. They met their two Greeks in the town shopping, and told
them that there would be guests at dinner. They met also Will Martyn
and Tarleton, who had come ashore a short time after them, Miller
remaining on board in charge; a good many of the men were also ashore.

“I have warned them solemnly,” Martyn said, “against drink and
quarrels, but I am afraid that to-night and to-morrow night we shall
have a good many of them coming off noisy. Wine is cheap, and as they
haven’t set foot ashore for five weeks it is not in the nature of an
English sailor to resist temptation. I don’t care much as long as they
don’t get into rows with the Greeks. I have told them the boats will
be ashore at nine o’clock to fetch them, and that any who are not down
there by that hour will have their allowance of grog stopped for a
fortnight.”

It had been arranged with Captain O’Grady that the boat should be at
the steps for him at a quarter to six. Horace went in charge of it,
and brought off the two officers.

“You have comfortable quarters here, indeed,” Captain O’Grady said
when Mr. Beveridge had introduced his officers to him and his
companion. “Sure I would like nothing better than to travel about in a
craft like this. It is like taking a floating palace about with you.”
But if the officers were surprised at the fittings of the cabin they
were still more so at the excellence of the dinner. Up to the time the
dessert was placed on the table they chatted as to the incidents of
the voyage; but when the wine had gone round Mr. Beveridge began
questioning them.

“Of course you hear everything that goes on on the mainland, Captain
O’Grady.”

“Everything, do you say? It is well content I would be if that was all
I heard; but the thundering lies that are told by those Greek
rapscallions are enough to take one’s breath away. To hear them talk
you would not think that such valiant men had ever lived since the
days of Noah; and yet, with the exception of a little skirmish, all
that they have done is to starve out those unfortunate heathens the
Turks, and then after they have surrendered on promise of good
treatment, to murder them in cold blood with their women and
children.”

“I hope that there has not been much of that,” Mr. Beveridge said
gravely.

“It depends upon what you call much of it. At the very lowest estimate
there have been thirty thousand murdered in cold blood since the
troubles began; and some accounts put it much higher. There has not
been a single exception; nowhere have they spared a Mussulman. The
poor beggars of farmers and villagers were killed; man, woman, and
child, in hundreds of villages the whole of them were destroyed
without resistance; and it has been the same in all the large towns.
The Greeks began the work at Kalamata, which surrendered under a
solemn promise of their lives to the Turks; but every soul was slain.
And so it has been all along. In the district of Laconia there were
fifteen thousand Mussulmans, and of these two-thirds at least were
slain. At Missolonghi there are not twenty Turks alive.

“At Navarino every soul was murdered. Tripolitza surrendered only a
week ago, and I saw by a letter from Colonel Raybonde, a French
officer, who commanded the Greek artillery during the siege, that
forty-eight hours after they entered the city they collected about two
thousand persons, principally women and children, and drove them up a
ravine and murdered them there; and altogether eight thousand
Mussulmans were killed during the sack. I have heard of massacres till
I am sick of listening to the stories; and though at the beginning I
hoped that the Greeks would drive the old Turks out, faith I have
come to think that if I were to hear that the whole race were utterly
exterminated I should feel more comfortable in my mind than I have
been for some time. Not content with murdering the poor creatures, in
many cases the villains tortured them first. I have heard fellows who
came over here boast of it. One Albanian ruffian who told me that he
had done this, told me, sir, as if it were a thing to be proud of. I
had the satisfaction of taking him by the scruff of his neck and the
tail of his white petticoat and chucking him off the pier into the
sea. When he scrambled out I offered him the satisfaction of a
gentleman, seeing that he was a chief who thought no small beer of
himself. There was a deal of difficulty in explaining to him how the
thing was managed in a civilized country, and I never felt more
satisfaction in my life than I did next morning when I put a bullet
into the scoundrel’s body.”

A wet blanket seemed suddenly to fall over the party in the cabin as
Captain O’Grady was speaking. Horace saw that Miller, who was sitting
opposite to him, was undergoing an internal convulsion in restraining
himself from bursting into a laugh; and Will Martyn, who was facing
Mr. Beveridge at the bottom of the table, looked so preternaturally
grave that Horace felt that he too was struggling to repress a smile.
The doctor nodded, as if to signify that it was exactly what he had
expected. Mr. Beveridge looked deeply concerned.

“I have heard something of this in England, Captain O’Grady, though of
course the Greek agents there suppress all news that would tell
against their countrymen, but I did not think it was as bad as this.
Yet although I do not for a moment attempt to defend such atrocities,
you must remember how long the Greeks have been oppressed by the
Turks. A people who have been in slavery for hundreds of years to
strangers, aliens in blood and in religion, and themselves in a very
primitive state of civilization, except in the cities, would be almost
certain in the first rising against their oppressors to commit
horrible excesses. The same thing happened, although, happily, on a
much smaller scale, in your own country, Captain O’Grady, in ’98, and
that without a hundredth part of the excuse that the Greeks had.”

“True for you, Mr. Beveridge,” Captain O’Grady admitted. “There’s no
denying that you have turned the tables on me there. It is mighty
difficult, as you say, to hold a savage peasantry in hand.”

“It was the same thing in the French Revolution. That again was
practically a revolt of slaves, and they behaved like fiends; and the
number of persons murdered--men of their own race and religion,
remember--was at least as great as that of those who have been
massacred here. The revolt called the Jacquerie, in the middle ages,
was equally ferocious, and the number of victims would probably have
been as great had not the revolt been nipped in the bud. I regret
deeply the conduct of the Greeks; but I think it was only what was to
be expected from a people naturally fierce and revengeful under the
circumstances.”

“Maybe you are right, Mr. Beveridge, though I did not look at it in
that light before.”

“And who are their leaders now?”

“Faith they are all leaders. One day one hears one man’s name
mentioned, that is hard enough to crack one’s jaw; the next day he is
upset and another has taken his place. Every dirty little chief of
brigands sets himself up as a leader, and as they are about the only
chaps who understand anything about fighting they come to the front.
If they only spent a twentieth part of the time in preparing for war
which they do in quarrelling among themselves as to their share of the
spoil, it seems to me they would make a much better fight than they
are likely to do. There is a fellow called Odysseus, which is their
way of pronouncing Ulysses; he used to command the Mohammedan
Albanians under Ali Pasha. Now he has turned round, and fights against
his old master. He is one of the chief of them. Then there are
Kolokotronis and Mavrocordatos. I should say they are the two
principal men just at present. Then there is a chap called Prince
Demetrius Hypsilantes. He is the brother of a fellow who got up the
rising up in the north of the Danube, and pretends to be the head of
all the Greeks. Demetrius says he is invested by his brother with a
sort of viceroyalty over Greece, and wants to have it all his own way.
Then there are the Greek bishops and priests. They are pretty well
against all the rest, and want to keep the peasantry under their
thumb. Then there are the primates; they have got a big lot of power.”

“Do you mean archbishops?” Captain Martyn asked.

“Not a bit of it. The primates are a sort of half-and-half officers.
They are supposed to be chosen by the people of their own district,
and of course they are always the big-wigs; the chaps with most power
and influence. Once chosen they became Turkish officers, collected the
taxes, and were each accountable for the money and for the doings of
their district. Nicely they ground the people down and feathered their
own nests. Naturally, when the Turks went they became the local
leaders. The people had no one else to look to but them and the
priests. In the Morea these two classes have all the power in their
hands. North of that we don’t hear much of the primates. I don’t think
they had any of them there. It’s the Albanians, and the Klephts, that
is the brigands, and some of the fighting clans, such as the Suliots
and the bands of armatoli, which are a sort of village militia, who
are the backbone of the rising.

“All the chiefs are jealous of each other, and if one fellow proposes
a plan all the others differ from him; or if there is one of the big
leaders there, and his plan is adopted, the others either march away
to their homes or do what they can to prevent it from succeeding. The
great thing with all the chiefs is to get spoil. The people are
different; they really want to fight the Turks and to win their
freedom; and it is because they see that not one of their leaders is
honest, that their jealousies keep them from any common actions, and
that they will not unite to form any central government, that the
people have no confidence in them, but just follow one man until they
get disgusted with him, and then go off to join another.

“Everything is wasted. The spoil they have taken has been enormous;
but the people are little the better for it; it is all divided among
the chiefs, and not a penny of it has gone to form a fund for defence.
They have captured enormous quantities of ammunition, but they have
fired it away like children, just to please themselves with the noise.
At one place I was told by an Englishman who was there that the two
million cartridges they captured were all wasted in what they called
rejoicings in the course of three days. What they want is a big man--a
fellow who will begin by hanging a hundred politicians, as many
chiefs, bishops, and primates; who would organize first a government
and then an army; and would insist that every halfpenny taken as spoil
from the Turks should be paid into the public treasury. Then, sir, I
believe that the Greeks would polish off these sleepy Turks in no
time, with the advantage they have in knowing every foot of the
mountains, in being as active as goats, and in possessing the idea
that they are fighting for freedom. Mind I don’t say that the Turks
will beat them even as they are. The Turkish pashas are as incapable
as the Greek leaders. Their soldiers are good, but as the Greeks have
no regular army, and no idea of standing up to fight fair, the Turks
can’t get at them, and the Greeks can move about quickly and fall upon
them at their own time; and besides they will bring them to a
standstill by starvation. They don’t care about attacking the Turkish
troops, but they are down like a pack of wolves on a baggage train,
and if the Turks venture any distance from the sea-coast they will be
harassed out of their lives.”

“Have the Turks still the command of the sea? There the Greeks ought
to be their match anyhow.”

“Yes, the Turks still send their store-ships escorted by their
men-of-war frigates and corvettes. The Greeks hover round them and
among them, but they take care to keep pretty well out of range of
the Turkish guns, and their only idea of fighting seems to be to
launch fire-ships at them. A man-of-war was burnt while at anchor a
short time back by Knaris, who is the best sailor the Greeks have got.
Still, at present the Turks are so far masters of the sea that they
take their convoys where they like and can revictual their fortresses
whenever they have the energy to do so. On the other hand, the Greeks
scour the seas in all directions, and not a single merchant ship
flying the Turkish flag dare show her nose outside the Dardanelles.”

“Is the cruelty all on one side?” Horace asked.

“Not a bit of it. Of course the Turks have not had much chance yet,
but when they have had they have naturally paid the Greeks in their
own coin. In Thessaly they have put down the rising ruthlessly. But
when the troops go into a place and find that the whole of their
people have been murdered it is not to be wondered at that they set to
to play the same game on those who began the work of massacre. The
Greeks hate the Turks, and their object is to root them out
altogether. The Turks despise the Greeks, but they don’t want to root
them out by any means, because if they did there would be no longer
any revenue to collect. The Turks seem to strike more at the leaders.
They have strung up a lot of Greeks living in Constantinople, and as
the whole affair was got up there, and the Greeks were, most of them,
taking the Sultan’s pay while they were plotting against him, it is
only just that if anyone was to suffer they should be the men. What I
am afraid of is that when the news of this horrible massacre of eight
thousand people at Tripolitza gets known, the Turks in Asia Minor will
everywhere retaliate upon the Greeks settled among them.

“They can’t do much in Greece, for most of the people can take to the
mountains; but there are almost as many of them settled in Asia Minor
as there are here, for they are the traders and shopkeepers in every
port, and I am afraid it will go mighty hard with them everywhere when
the Turks come to know the atrocities that have been perpetrated over
here. If the Greeks had thought for a moment when they began they
would have seen that it was a game two could play at, and for every
Turk they could murder the Turks had in their hands three Greeks at
least that they could put an end to. To my mind it is a bad business
altogether. Plunket will tell you that I have not put it a bit too
strongly.”

“Not in the least,” the young officer said. “The tales these fellows
tell are ghastly. We have them over here by dozens. A man is a leader
one day and a fugitive the next; and they run over here till they see
a chance of landing again and getting together a fresh band, and they
actually make a boast of the horrible massacres they have taken a part
in. If the islanders here saw their way to it they would rise against
us, and as it is, it has been as much as we can do more than once to
prevent their going on board neutral vessels that put into harbour
with a few wretched Turkish fugitives, and murdering them. The fact
is, the Greeks believe that they are Christians, but they are just as
much pagans as they were two thousand years ago. My sympathies are
altogether with them in their struggle for liberty, and I try to make
every allowance for their actions; and I do believe that if what
O’Grady says could be carried out and all their leaders, and
politicians, and bishops, and primates hung, the people themselves
would carry on the struggle with ten times the chances of success they
have at present, for they would then be forced to form a strong
central government and might find some honest man to put at its head.
They regard it in the light of a religious war rather than one for
national freedom, and I suppose that at least half the Mussulmans who
have fallen are of Greek blood, for, especially in the north, nearly
half the tribes have changed their religion and become Mohammedans
since their conquest.”

“Are there many Europeans fighting with them? You mentioned a French
colonel commanding the Greek artillery in the siege of Tripolitza.”

“A good many. There are some Austrians, Frenchmen, Italians, and a few
of our own people. Among the last is a General Gordon and a naval
lieutenant; but although the Greeks know nothing whatever of military
matters, they are jealous in the extreme of any interference or even
advice from foreigners. I believe there are altogether thirty or forty
foreign officers who came over to fight for them, and only two or
three of these have got employment of any sort. As to any attempt to
introduce military discipline, or raise anything like a body of
regular soldiers, it seems impossible. They believe entirely in
fighting in their own way and dispersing when they choose, just as the
Spanish guerilla bands did during the Peninsular War. In fact it seems
to me that the Greek character resembles the Spanish very much, the
peasantry in both countries being brave and animated by a patriotic
hate of their enemies, while the upper class are equally vain,
cowardly, given to boasting, and absolutely faithless to their
promises. If we had the Duke of Wellington here with a couple of
hundred good officers he would make the Greeks into as good soldiers
as he did some of the Portuguese, and would as likely as not wind up
the war by driving the Turks out of Europe altogether.”

At half-past ten o’clock the officers went ashore. When they had left
the ship, the others returned to the cabin.

“I should not take it to heart, Mr. Beveridge,” Will Martyn said
cheerfully, seeing how depressed his employer looked at the news he
had heard. “Of course the Greeks have behaved badly--horribly badly;
but you see it is because the poor beggars are not much better than
savages, and never will be better as long as they are kept down by the
Turks. All these things will right themselves in time. As you said,
they are no worse than the French when they rose, or than the Spanish
peasantry whenever they got a chance, or the Irish peasantry, and we
must not look at it from our own standpoint; once they are free they
will get a settled government and become a nation again, and that is
what we have got to help them to do. We are not going to land and
take part in massacres. All we have got to do is to look out for a
Turkish ship of war, and pull down her colours whenever we get a
chance. But even more than that, what I want specially to do as soon
as we can is to get rid of some of that cargo in our hold. That is
what is bothering me at present.”

“Thank you, Martyn,” Mr. Beveridge said, holding out his hand to him.
“It is trying to hear of a glorious cause being disgraced by such
horrible atrocities, but the cause remains the same, and the
atrocities are, as you say, such as have occurred among other peoples
when their blood has been heated to boiling point. This will not shake
my determination to aid Greece in her struggle for freedom.”




CHAPTER VII

A CHANGE OF NAME


The next two days Mr. Beveridge and Horace spent entirely on shore.
Speaking modern Greek fluently, they were able to converse with people
of all classes from the mainland, and they learned from their reports
that Captain O’Grady’s account of the utter confusion existing from
end to end of the country was in no way exaggerated. As soon as the
Greeks perceived that Mr. Beveridge was a well-wisher to their cause,
and judging him from his possession of a large yacht to be a wealthy
man, innumerable schemes were proposed to him, all involving his
placing himself in the hands of the proposer and advancing him a
considerable sum of money. These projects Mr. Beveridge resolutely
turned a deaf ear to, his resolution being greatly strengthened by
Horace, who distrusted all these plausible adventurers profoundly.

“We must wait, father,” he said, “until we see something like a
stable government in power. When it has been at work a bit, and you
find that it makes its authority respected, restores order, and unites
the people in a common effort, it will be time enough for you to let
them have money. To give it now would simply be to waste it, and,
indeed, worse than waste it, for it would only add to the struggle for
power on which the Greeks are wasting their strength. From all we
learn the sailors of Hydra, Spetzas, and Psara are the only men who at
present are acting with any common object. As everything depends upon
crippling the Turks at sea, I should think we could not do better than
get rid of some of our guns and ammunition by giving them to them. If
we could get rid of twenty or thirty tons of our cargo it would put us
in first-rate sailing trim, and at any rate get something off our
minds. Then from there we could sail to Athens and get the papers we
require authorizing us to act as a Greek privateer. Of course that
would be no protection to us if we fell into the hands of the Turks;
but we could do nothing until we get them without acting as pirates
and rendering ourselves liable to be hung by any European man-of-war
that might overhaul us.”

This course was determined upon, to the great satisfaction of William
Martyn; and after a stay of three days at Zante sail was again set,
and the _Creole_ left the anchorage. It was well that she did so, for
the next day all their Greek sympathies would have been insufficient
to prevent their fighting on the other side. An Algerine barque that
had separated from the Turkish fleet, which had just captured
Galaxidhi and had taken possession of thirty-four Greek brigs, was
attacked by eighteen Hydriot ships. She refused to surrender, and made
such a gallant resistance that the Hydriots did not venture to run
alongside and carry her by boarding. The Algerines, knowing that if
their spars were shot away they would all be killed, ran her ashore
near the southern cape of Zante.

The fight had been witnessed by thousands of refugee Moreots and
Zanteot peasants, who opened fire upon the Algerines when they
landed. Two English officers with twenty men had gone down from the
town to enforce obedience to the quarantine regulations, which were
very strict. They ordered the Greeks to retire, but these refused, and
continued to attack the Turks. The officer commanded his men to fire
over the heads of the crowd, when the Zanteots at once turned their
muskets against them. One soldier was killed, and the rest retired
into a house with the Turks and defended themselves until a stronger
body of English troops came down from the town and rescued them. For
firing upon the troops and killing one of them five Zanteots were
afterwards tried and executed, and the lord high-commissioner issued a
proclamation forbidding the entry of any Turk or Greek men-of-war into
any Ionian port.

The Greek commercial navy, before the outbreak of the revolution,
consisted to a large extent of the shipping of the four little islands
Hydra, Spetzas, Psara, and Cazos. These islands, which were small and
barren, had sprung into importance by the wise policy of the sultans
at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Seeing that the exactions
of their own officials rendered it impossible for the Greek and
Mussulman sailors to compete with those of other nations, they had
exempted from all taxes and other burdens persons settling on these
islands, and had allowed to them perfect self-government. The result
had answered their expectations. Colonies of Albanian sailors had
established themselves at Hydra and Spetzas, while Greek seamen had
settled in Psara and Cazos, and all four islands became populous and
flourishing, owning among them nearly three hundred craft of from
sixty to four hundred tons.

The contrast between the population and manners of the four islands
was very marked. The two Albanian islands were governed by twelve
primates, elected by the wealthy, while in the Greek islands the
government was purely democratic. The Albanians were by far the more
sincere and honest, while the people of the two Greek islands were the
more courteous. All had early thrown in their lot with the
revolution. The Peace of 1815 had caused a great reduction in the
price of grain on the Continent and a fall of freights. Consequently
many ships remained unemployed, the prosperity of the islands
diminished, and the sailors became discontented and clamorous for
employment. Spetzas had been the first to declare for the revolution,
and had at once sent off some ships, which had captured a Turkish
corvette of twenty-six guns and a brig of sixteen, which, with small
crews, were waiting at Milos to receive the contingent of sailors from
the Albanian islands. The Turks, expecting no attack, were taken by
surprise; but the first Greek naval success was dimmed by the
Mussulman prisoners being all carried to Spetzas, where some were at
once murdered and the rest put to death with horrible tortures.

Psara quickly followed the example of Spetzas, but Hydra was some time
before it raised the Greek flag. The people were in favour of the
revolution, but the wealthy ship-owners, who possessed all the power,
were averse to fitting out their vessels for unprofitable service, and
opposed the revolution until a popular insurrection broke out and
their authority was set aside. The united fleet of the three islands,
instead of attacking the Turkish fleet, which was occupied in
conveying store-ships to the besieged garrisons, swept the seas of
merchantmen, and attacked and plundered an Austrian vessel. Two
Hydriot brigs captured a Turkish ship, with a very valuable cargo,
carrying, among other passengers, a recently-deposed sheikh El-Islam,
or Patriarch of the Mussulmans, and all his family. These and all on
board were murdered by their captors; but the affair in the end
benefited the Turks, for the captors refused to conform to the
regulation that had been laid down, that all booty should be the
common property of the fleet. Quarrels began between the sailors of
the different islands, so that the fleet broke up, and was for a long
time useless for any concerted action against the Turks.

The _Creole_ visited the three islands in succession, handing over to
the authorities in each ten guns, with a considerable amount of
powder and shot, a thousand muskets, and ten thousand rounds of
ammunition. There was a large amount of shipping in each of the
harbours, and Will Martyn had the _Creole’s_ guns all loaded and
double shotted before entering.

“There is no saying what these fellows may be up to,” he remarked to
Horace. “Seeing us giving away so large a quantity of valuables, they
may think that we have got a gold mine on board. I don’t mean to close
an eye while we are in harbour, I can tell you.”

Mr. Beveridge, personally, was received with much honour at these
islands, and the guns, which Will Martyn had taken care should be the
largest of those in the hold, were dragged up by the people and placed
in the batteries.

The _Creole_ then crossed to the Piræus. The Acropolis of Athens was
still held by the Turks, who were closely besieged there. Will Martyn
landed with Mr. Beveridge. Horace told his father that he would rather
not accompany him.

“You will be going about and seeing people, father,” he said, “and, as
you say, you may have to go to other places to find some of the
nominal authorities to sign documents, and so on, authorizing us to
hoist the Greek flag, and giving us the usual papers carried by
privateers. This may take time, for you and Martyn think that as the
Greeks themselves have no such formalities, but fight the Turks just
as they find them, it may be difficult for you to persuade them that
letters of marque are really required authorizing the vessel, as a
Greek ship, to capture, burn, and destroy all Turkish vessels she may
meet.”

“It is a mere formality, Horace.”

“Well, father, I don’t think that Martyn or the others look at it at
all in that light, and I know they consider it absolutely necessary
that we should have papers of that sort. Even with such papers they
say they expect there will be a lot of difficulty, if they take any
prizes, in disposing of them, and that, unless they have papers signed
by the central government, the chances are that the moment a Turkish
prize is brought into port, the Greeks will seize it as public
property, and want to cut the throats of any Turks prisoners.
Certainly we should not stand that, and we should be in the position
of having to fight the Turks at sea and the Greeks in port. So I
should not be surprised at all if you are ten days, or a fortnight,
before you can get all the papers you want. Of course Martyn’s
signature will be necessary to all sorts of things, and as there is no
humbugging him he will be wonderfully useful to you in all sorts of
ways.”

“But why should you not go with us too, Horace?”

“I would very much rather not, father. Of course I am quite with you
in wishing to see Greece independent, but I am so disgusted with all
these stories of the horrible atrocities they have been guilty of, and
at the way in which, instead of joining together to fight the Turks,
they are all bent only on getting power or spoil, and of behaving more
like a collection of bands of brigands than a united people, that I
would rather not see any more of them at present, or I shall get
regularly to hate them. In a short time, I have no doubt, we shall
hear of a lot of things done by the other side. We may be sure that
the Turks will avenge the eight thousand Mussulmans who were murdered
at Tripolitza. We heard at Zante that they had begun it, and then one
thing will balance the other and I may get enthusiastic about the
Greeks again; but at present, father, what I should like to see is
this, that the _Creole_ should be employed as a rescue ship.”

“How do you mean, Horace?”

“I mean, father, that we should try to save as many of these wretched
Turks, and their women and children, from massacre as we can; and on
the other hand, that we should try to save as many Greeks as possible
from the vengeance of the Turks. There ought to be lots of
opportunities both ways. If we are with the Greeks when they capture a
Turkish vessel we can buy off the prisoners. The Greeks are fonder of
money than even of blood, and the money will be a deal better spent
that way than if wasted among the politicians, the captains of
brigands, or primates, and would do good to the cause of Greece by
saving it from dishonour. When the Greeks make a descent upon a
Turkish island we could send our boats ashore and take off a lot of
the inhabitants, and we could do the same thing when the Turks attack
a Greek place or island; and if either Greeks or Turks interfere with
us at the work, I should say let us thrash them whoever they are. I
consider that would be a glorious mission, and would be a credit to
the flag we fly whether it is Greek or English; and if I were you I
should speak out to Kolokotronis, or any other leader you may meet,
and tell him frankly that you have come out to help the Greeks with
arms and money, but that these massacres will turn all Europe against
them; and that unless you are provided with an authority to take and
hold all Turkish prisoners, and to protect them both from the populace
and the sailors, you will withdraw altogether, and will do your best
to prevent such atrocities, even if it comes to firing upon Greek
vessels engaged in them.”

“I will do so, Horace,” his father said in a tone of decision. “We are
a match, I fancy, for half a dozen of the Greek ships. They will find
us a very different vessel to deal with than those slow-sailing Turks.
I quite approve of what you say. For the first outburst of vengeance
when they rose I am willing to make every allowance; but the revenge
taken by the Turks at Kydonia should have reminded them that there are
at least a million of their fellow-countrymen in Asia Minor whose
lives have been endangered by their atrocities. Henceforth I will, as
you propose, devote myself to saving life, and part of the money that
I had intended for the Greeks shall go to make up to the crew for any
loss they may sustain by missing the chance of taking prizes. I will
hoist the Greek flag as I intended, and we, at least, will keep it
unsullied.”

Horace repeated the substance of the conversation to Will Martyn and
the other two officers, who cordially agreed; for although they had,
of course, heard less at Zante of the details of the massacres than
their employer and his son had done, they had heard enough to fill
them with indignation, and to disgust them with the cause that they
had come out to defend.

“That will be first-rate,” Martyn said, “and I can foresee we shall
have lots of fun, and are likely to end by fighting both parties.
There will be plenty for us to do. We will see if we can’t cut off
some of the Turkish vessels laden with Greek captives for sale as
slaves in the markets of Alexandria; while, as for the Greeks, if we
slip in and save their captives they will be like a pack of wolves
after their prey. If I am to go with your father, Horace, you may be
sure I will take any opportunity I may get of speaking out, and I
reckon I will open the eyes of some of these Greek swells by the way I
will give it them. I tell you what, Miller: While I am away do you get
up eight of those eighteen-pounders from the hold and mount them
instead of the twelves. Now that she has got so much of her weight out
of her she can carry them well enough, and I fancy we are likely to
want as heavy metal as we can mount before we have done.”

At dinner that day Horace said: “Are you thinking of changing her
name, father, when you change your nationality?”

“I wasn’t thinking of changing her name at all, Horace,” Mr. Beveridge
said in surprise.

“Well, I thought, father, the Greeks wouldn’t understand the name of
the _Creole_ at all. It was a good name for a slaver and did well
enough for a yacht, and if we ever take her back to England I should
like her to be the _Creole_; but I think it would be better to have
some name that the Greeks will understand.”

“What name would you propose, Horace?”

“Well, father, I have been thinking of it, and if you have no
objection I should like to call her the _Misericordia_, ‘the Pity.’ We
came out here because we pitied the Greeks, and now we pity the
unfortunate people, both Turks and Greeks, and you have agreed that
our mission shall be to save both of them from slaughter.”

“I think it would be a very good name, Horace. The _Misericordia_ it
shall be. What do you say, Captain Martyn?”

“I think it would be a capital name, Mr. Beveridge,” Martyn said, “and
the crew will fight all the better when they know what the name means
and what we intend to do. Sailors have no particular love for the
Greeks--they always regard them as treacherous beggars; and they have
no particular hostility against the Turks, who fought pluckily enough
on our side in Egypt, and have always been friendly with us. I am sure
that when our fellows understand that what we are going in for is to
save women and children from being murdered, whether they happen to be
Greeks or Turks, you will find them ready to do anything.”

The next day Mr. Beveridge and Will Martyn landed, and Miller set the
crew at work to mount eighteen-pounders in place of the twelves, and
to get the ammunition for them into the fighting magazines in place of
that of lighter calibre. Zaimes had accompanied Mr. Beveridge. Marco
remained on board, but had leave every morning to go on shore the
first thing after breakfast, and to remain there until late in the
afternoon, when he came off in time for dinner. He brought news that
it was believed the Turks in the Acropolis could not hold out much
longer, as their provisions were running very short. After an absence
of ten days the party on shore returned, and an hour after they did so
the English flag was lowered and that of Greece was hoisted, while a
flag with the word _Misericordia_ replaced that of _Creole_ at the
masthead. Captain Martyn called the crew together.

“My lads,” he said, “you all knew that when we arrived here we were
going to hoist the Greek flag instead of our own, and that we were
going to act as a Greek privateer against the Turks. That, you see, is
done, and we are authorized by the Greek government to capture or
destroy any Turkish vessels we may meet. You see we have changed her
name, and I will tell you why Mr. Beveridge has done this. We are
going to fight for Greece, but at the same time, as British sailors,
we are not going to stand by and see men, women, and children murdered
in cold blood, whether they are Turks or anyone else. There has been
a great deal too much of this sort of thing done on both sides, and we
mean to stop it as much as we can. We are going to prevent the
massacre of Greeks by Turks, and I hope we shall manage to lay hands
on some of the Turkish vessels carrying Greek women and children
captive to sell them as slaves; but on the other hand we intend to
save as many Turks as we can from being massacred by the Greeks, and
that is the reason why Mr. Beveridge has renamed his craft the
_Misericordia_, which means ‘the Pity.’ I am sure, my lads, that there
is not a British sailor who would not risk his life to save those of
women and children, and that is what we mean to make our first object,
although we hope to lower some Turkish flags before we have done with
them; but in any case we mean to save life whether it is Greek or Turk
we have to fight in doing so. It is a work, my lads, in which we may
all be proud to take part, and in which, whether we fight under the
English flag or the Greek, we shall be doing a duty dear to every
British sailor. Now, my lads, we will give three cheers for the
_Misericordia_.”

Three hearty cheers rang out from the sailors. They had all been on
shore at Zante, and had heard enough from the soldiers they
fraternized with there to fill them with disgust and indignation at
the conduct of the Greeks, and this announcement that they would
henceforth put a stop to such cruelty, even if they had to fight for
it, filled them with satisfaction.

“We had hard work of it,” Martyn said to Horace, talking over his
visit ashore. “In the first place they wanted us to hand over all
prisoners we took, and half the plunder and value of the prizes, to
their miserable government. We told them that we would see them at the
bottom of the sea first. I was with your father at a meeting with the
fellows they call Kolokotronis and Odysseus, and half a dozen other of
their leaders, and you should have seen how your father spoke out. He
got upon his legs and he just poured it out. I did not know, of
course, what he was saying, but he told me a little about it
afterwards, and I could see by their faces that it was hot and strong.

“He told them that their countrymen had disgraced their cause by
conduct worthy only of the lowest savages, and that if they did not
give him the authority he demanded, to interpose to save Turks from
massacre, he would sail on to Constantinople, hoist the Turkish flag,
and fight against the ships that behaved like bloodthirsty pirates
rather than Greek patriots, and that they would find his ship a very
different opponent to the Turks. I did not think your father had it in
him. It was splendid, I can tell you, and the faces of those fellows
were worth seeing. I don’t expect they ever had such a straight
talking to before. I believe altogether he spent about a thousand
pounds in bribing a dozen of them; anyhow he got what he wanted. In
the first place we are authorized to hoist the Greek flag, and to
capture and destroy Turkish vessels; and in the second, to dispose as
we please of all prisoners. We may take on board Turkish fugitives and
dispose of them at our pleasure, free from all interference from any
Greek authorities or Greek ships. We are to pay a quarter of the value
of all prizes and booty into the treasury of the central government,
and are to send ashore to-morrow five thousand muskets and twenty
rounds of ammunition for each.

“Your father has had a hard time of it. I don’t believe there has been
a single Greek politician or leader who hasn’t called upon him
privately, to what they call borrow money from him. At last I had to
regularly mount guard over him and set Zaimes at his door to tell all
comers that he was too unwell to see anyone, which was not far from
the truth, for he was regularly upset at the meanness and trickery of
the people he had come to spend his fortune to assist. However, thank
goodness it is all over. I am precious glad that I am back, I can tell
you, for I believe if I had stayed there much longer I should not have
been able to have prevented myself from walking into some of them.
Your father has been trying to find out whether they have got any
general plan of defence; but they have no more plan than a lot of
children would have if they got up a rebellion. Everyone wants to be a
leader; everyone complains of everyone else. They scarcely seem to
give the Turks a thought. All their energies are occupied by their own
miserable squabbles and rivalry. Well, I don’t want to set foot on
shore again as long as we are out here, unless it is on some real
expedition.”

“What about the Turks in the Acropolis, Martyn?”

“They are negotiating, but the poor beggars know there is no faith to
be placed in the Greeks, and that so far there is not a single
instance in which they have kept their promises for the safety of
garrisons who have surrendered. They want the guarantee of the
European consuls for their safety, but they can’t give it, as they
have no force here to protect them. I told our consul that we would
lend him the whole of our crew if he liked, and that I thought we
could pretty well clear out the town; but he said that that would be
well enough if there was no one to protect. But that as there are
something like two thousand men, women, and children up in the
citadel, fifty men could never protect them against the mob. However,
I hope the Turks will be able to hold out for some time yet. The
Greeks only guess that their provisions are running short, and if a
man-of-war, French, or English, or Austrian, comes into the harbour
the consuls will ask its commander to protect the Turks, and will then
guarantee their safety.”

“When are we going to sail?” Horace asked.

“To-morrow. The two Greeks will go ashore the first thing in the
morning to lay in a fresh stock of meat and vegetables. As soon as all
are on board we will get up anchor. I have heard lots of shocking
stories on shore from Greeks who have escaped from Asia Minor and the
Turkish islands. There have been massacres in almost every city where
there were Greeks; at Smyrna, Adrianople, Salonika, Cos, Rhodes, in
Crete and Cyprus, and as far as I can hear the Turks have altogether
massacred nearly as many men, women, and children as the Greeks have
done. I saw General Gordon, who is a warm friend of the Greeks, and
he said that it was impossible to justify the ferocity of the Greeks,
or to deny that a comparison between them and the Turks would give the
latter the palm of humanity; that is, if the term humanity could be
employed to either.

“We went up and saw some of the troops, as they call them, active,
hardy-looking fellows. They seem in earnest enough, and are ready, as
a French officer said to me, to submit to anything but discipline. He
said that the Klephts and armatoli are as fine material for mountain
warfare as one could wish to see; one day honest, hard-working
peasants, the next engaged in partisan war, or in raids on their
neighbours; frugal, hardy, active, and in their way brave; men who
would never storm a position or stand against the attack of Turkish
infantry or cavalry, as the war has everywhere shown so far; but who
would defend a hillside or hold a ravine against good troops, and when
driven out, make another stand at the first position they came to.
Anyhow they are worth a lot more than the townspeople, who brag and
vapour and go about armed to the teeth, but who take precious good
care never to get within range of a Turkish musket.”

Early the next morning some large boats came off, and the muskets and
ammunition were transferred to them, and at noon the two Greeks
brought off a boat-load of fresh meat, vegetables, fowls, eggs, fruit,
and other stores. As soon as these were slung on board, the anchor was
got up, and the _Misericordia_, under a gentle breeze, stole out to
sea.

“That is better, Miller,” Will Martyn said as he looked over the side.
“She has not gone like that since we shook out our sails for the first
time. I should say she is just about in her right trim now, and is
ready to fight or sail anything of her size afloat. How easily she
goes through the water. There is scarcely a ripple in her wake. She is
a beauty.”

“Which port now, Martyn?”

“I was talking it over last night with Mr. Beveridge, and as soon as
we get well off land I am going to shape a course that will take us
down between Cyprus and Alexandria. It is of no use cruising about
here. The Turks only move about under a convoy of their men-of-war,
and it would not be much better across on the other side, for the
Greek vessels are everywhere on the look-out. But they don’t like
going far from home, and if we cruise well to the south we shall have
a good chance of falling in with craft bound for Alexandria from
Cyprus, Crete, and Syria, and any or all of them will be likely to be
carrying Greeks captives to the slave-markets at Alexandria, Tunis, or
Tripoli.”

“Those are the sort of craft to meet with,” Miller said. “I suppose
they are sure to be armed. Of course one would be glad to rescue
captives and save them from their horrible fate. But there will be
much more satisfaction in doing it if we have a bit of a fight first.”

“Yes, I should say they were certain to be armed. No Turk would
venture to sea at present unless he thought himself strong enough to
beat off the attack of at least two or three of these Greek vessels.
After cruising about for a bit we intend to dodge about Cyprus and the
other Turkish islands, keeping near the coast so as to give Greek
fugitives a chance of coming on board. We know that there have been
massacres at all these islands, and may be again, and there must be
thousands of unfortunate creatures who would give anything for such a
chance of getting away. We can anchor in quiet bays, for we need have
no fear of any boat attack; and if the Turks come out in force we have
always the option of running away or fighting.”

“That is a very good programme, Martyn. We are not likely, as you say,
to find any Greek craft cruising about between Cyprus and Alexandria.
Turkish vessels going up towards the Dardanelles, or coming down from
there, are prizes worth taking, for they may have pashas and rich
officials on board; but down there they would be less likely to have
anything that would repay the Greeks for the risks of a fight. As for
risking anything to save their countrymen, Mr. Beveridge was saying
he heard that at the massacre of the Greeks at Kydonia, although the
Greek fleet, under Tombazes, was close at hand, and their launches
went on shore and rescued four thousand of their countrymen, they
compelled them all to purchase their passage to the nearest Greek
island by giving up the greater part of the property they had saved.”

“Brutes!” Martyn exclaimed with great emphasis. “How these fellows can
be descendants of the old Greeks beats me altogether.”

“The old Greeks were pretty cruel,” Horace, who had just joined them,
said. “They used to slaughter their captives wholesale, and mercy
wasn’t among their virtues. Besides, my father says that except in the
Morea very few indeed are descendants of the Greeks; the rest are
Bulgarian or Albanian, neither of whom the Greeks of old would have
recognized as kinsmen.”

“It is a case of distance lending enchantment to the view,” Miller
laughed; “our illusions are gone.”

“Never mind, we must make the best of them, Miller; they are not
Greeks, but at any rate they are all that is left of the Greeks. Their
actions show that their Christianity is a sham, but at the same time
they are an intelligent race capable of some day becoming a great
people again, and they are struggling to throw off the yoke of a race
intellectually their inferiors and incapable of progress in any sort
of way. That is what my father said to me as we were walking up and
down the deck this morning. That is the light I mean to look at it in
the future. It is a capable people struggling with an incapable one,
and if they are savage and vindictive and debased it is the faults not
of themselves but of those who have so long been their masters.”

“Good,” Martyn said; “that is the most satisfactory view of the thing,
and we will stick to it and shut our ears as much as possible in
future against all stories to the Greeks’ disadvantage.”

In the afternoon a fleet of vessels were seen standing out from the
land.

“There is one of the Greek fleets,” Captain Martyn said. “Now we will
try her rate of sailing with them. Stand on for a little bit longer
and then haul her wind on the same tack they are sailing.”

The trial was perfectly satisfactory. By nightfall the Greek fleet
were far behind, and the _Misericordia_ again shaped her course for
Cyprus. For a week they cruised backwards and forwards under easy sail
about midway between Cyprus and Alexandria, without meeting with a
single craft flying the Turkish flag. Half a dozen vessels were
overhauled, but these were all Austrian, Italian, or British. The
appearance of the schooner evidently excited profound distrust in the
minds of the masters of all these vessels, for they all hoisted every
rag of sail they could set and did their best to escape from her, but
Captain Martyn had no difficulty in overhauling them and satisfying
himself of their nationality. The astonishment of the masters when the
smart gig manned by six English sailors rowed alongside was unbounded,
and was only equalled by their satisfaction.

“You have given us a nice fright,” the master of one of the English
ships said to Miller, who, accompanied by Horace, had boarded him.
“What on earth are you flying that Greek flag for? We took you for a
pirate, for half these fellows are no better when they get the
chance.”

“We are a Greek privateer.” Miller said, “and carry letters of marque
issued by the Greek government. We only wanted to assure ourselves
that you were not Turks.”

“Turks be jiggered!” the master said angrily. “I should have thought
anyone with half an eye could have seen that we weren’t one of those
lubberly Turks.”

“Quite so, captain, we made that out some time ago, and we have only
overhauled you to ask whether you know of a Turkish ship likely to be
sailing from any of the Eastern ports. Our object is to rescue Greek
women and children on their way to the slave-markets.”

“Then give us your flipper,” the master said; “that is a business an
English sailor needn’t be ashamed of, though, as for sailing under a
Greek flag, I would almost as lief sail under the skull and
cross-bones, for nine cases out of ten it means pretty nearly the same
thing. I have known many a ship sail in among those Greek islands and
never be heard of again when there had been no storm to account for
her disappearance. I would as lief anchor a ship near land in the
Malay Archipelago as among the Greek islands. Still the women and
children ain’t to blame for that. I was at Broussa two months ago and
the slave-market was chock-full of Greek girls and children, and I
thought then what a burning shame it was that Europe didn’t interfere
to put down such villainous doings. Well now, as to Turkish ships, I
don’t think you are likely to meet with any hereabouts. The Greeks
have given them a bad scare, and I fancy that all the ships from
Cyprus and from Aleppo and the other Syrian ports will run down due
south till they sight land, and will hug that as near as they dare go
till they get within shelter of the batteries of Alexandria. If you
are after Turkish vessels you must stand south and anchor as close
inland as the water will let you. Get down those lofty spars of yours.
You don’t want them. That craft of yours sails like a witch. We think
the _Scarborough_ is a fast brig. You went through the water three
feet to our two, so you can do without your topsails. I can tell you
the look of your craft is enough to frighten one fifteen miles away; a
more rascally-looking vessel I never saw, she looks like a pirate all
over.”

“She was a slaver at one time,” Miller said.

“Ah! that accounts for it. I thought that long low hull and those
lofty spars were never put together for an honest purpose. You seem to
carry mighty heavy metal,” he went on, looking at the _Misericordia_,
which lay with her head sails aback a few hundred yards away. “Four
each side and a pivot; they look like eighteens.”

“They are eighteens,” Miller said. “You see we have got to keep a
sharp eye on friends as well as foes.”

“I should think so. Well, I have just come out from Larnaca. I heard
from our consul that there were bad doings in the north of the island,
and that the Christians were having a very rough time of it all
through Cyprus. I have no doubt there are a lot of Christians hiding
there who would give every stiver they have got in the world to be on
board this craft.”

“And you say there were some massacres going on when you were there?”

“Yes, and I heard that the Turks were attacking one of the Christian
villages on the north-western corner of the island. It was some way up
on Mount Olympus, a few miles from the coast. Morphou Bay is the
nearest point to it. I hear it is naturally a strong place, and
Christians from other villages round have gone in there. The people
attacking it are not troops, who I fancy have nothing to do with these
massacres, but the natives of the Mussulman villages. Some of the poor
devils may have got down to the coast, and you might pick some up if
you were to cruise along there.”

“Perhaps we might,” Horace said; “at any rate it would be worth a try.
We will go on board again at once.”

“Will you have a glass of wine first? I got hold of some good stuff at
Larnaca. Good wine is cheap there now.”

“No, thank you, we will be off at once,” Miller said.

“Well, good-bye, gentlemen, and good luck to you! There is nothing I
would like better than to be going for a cruise with you for a few
months, for no vessel can do better work than that which you are
engaged on.”

Miller and Horace dropped down into their boat, and were rowed back to
the schooner.




CHAPTER VIII

A BESIEGED VILLAGE


As soon as they gained the deck of the _Misericordia_ Miller reported
the advice the skipper of the English brig had given as to their
taking their station near the southern coast, to pick up vessels
hugging the shore on their way to Alexandria and the west.

“I have no doubt he is right,” Will Martyn said; “that accounts for
our not having seen a single craft flying the Turkish flag. Well, Mr.
Beveridge, I think we can’t do better than take his advice.”

“There is something else though,” Horace broke in; and he then told
them what the captain had said about the fighting among the villagers
on Mount Olympus.

“Don’t you think, father, we might go there first? With this wind we
should not be much more than twenty-four hours getting there, and we
might pick up a lot of fugitives in hiding and possibly bring off the
people from that village. It would not be a great loss of time
anyhow.”

“I think we might, Horace; hearing of it in the way you did, it seems
almost like a call to help them. What do you say, Captain Martyn?”

“Just as you like, sir. As Horace says, it is no great loss of time
anyhow, and we certainly may do some good.”

The order was given and the schooner was headed for Cyprus with a
brisk wind on her beam that heeled her well over and sent her through
the water at nine and a half knots an hour. The news was soon known
through the vessel that there were massacres going on in Cyprus, and
that there might be some work to be done, so there was an air of
increased activity and animation among the crew. The wind held
steadily, and next morning the mountains of Cyprus could be seen lying
like a cloud in the distance, and by eleven o’clock the
north-westerly point of the island was but five or six miles away.
Rounding the point they entered the great indentation known as Morphou
Bay. Martyn now ordered the topsails to be lowered.

“We will run along about a mile off shore,” he said; “they can make
out the flag then. We will go along as far as the other end of the bay
and then come back again. If there are any people in hiding in the
woods they will keep an eye on us, and as we come back will come off
in boats if they have got them, or will come down to the shore and
signal. We can send our boats in for them.”

As they were still going through the water faster than they wished the
foresail was also lowered, and they then went quietly along the coast,
keeping a sharp look-out with their glasses on the shore. They passed
several villages and could see that their appearance created much
excitement, and that the population at once deserted their houses and
made off.

“They are evidently all Mussulman villages,” Mr. Beveridge said.

“They are Mussulman villages at present, Mr. Beveridge,” Martyn
agreed, “but the chances are they were Christian a short time ago. You
see they have all got fishing boats either riding at anchor or hauled
up, and I fancy that most of the fishing is done by the Greek
inhabitants. I expect the Turks have cleared them out. What do you
say, Mr. Beveridge, to our firing a shot or two at each of the
villages as we pass? That will act as a warning to the Turks to keep
out of range. If there are any Christians left they may take the
opportunity of seizing the boats and coming off. We might lie-to for
half an hour opposite each village to give them a chance of doing so.”

“That would be a very good plan, I think, Captain Martyn.”

As they were passing a village at the moment the _Misericordia_ was at
once brought round. Two of the broadside guns were loaded, and two
shots were sent over the village. Then the craft was hove-to, and
waited for half an hour. As there were no signs of life, she again
proceeded on her way. Three more villages were fired at with the same
result. Half a mile beyond the furthest Tarleton exclaimed: “There is
someone swimming off, Captain Martyn; he has just put off from that
point! There, do you see that black spot a little way off the point?”

Martyn turned his glass in that direction. “I see him,” he said.
“Lower the small gig, Mr. Tarleton; take four hands, row off, and pick
him up. You had better go too, Horace. The chances are he won’t speak
anything but Greek.”

In a couple of minutes the boat left the side of the schooner and
rowed in the direction of the swimmer, the vessel being again thrown
up into the wind. Horace stood up while Tarleton took the tiller
lines.

“Can you see him, Horace?” he asked.

“No, not yet. There is too much ripple on; but if you keep her head as
it is now I shall make him out before long.” Three or four minutes
later he exclaimed: “I see him, he is dead ahead!”

Five minutes later the swimmer was alongside. He was a lad of about
Horace’s age.

“Are you Greek?” he asked in surprise and in some alarm, as he looked
at the uniforms of the crew as Horace helped him on board.

“We are fighting for Greece,” Horace said, “although we are all
English. We heard that there was some trouble here, and came to see if
we could save any fugitives.”

“I saw the flag,” the lad said, “and heard you fire twice at the
village. My mother and sisters, and twenty or thirty others, are
hidden in the wood there. The Mussulmans came down from the mountain
villages three days ago and killed all they could find; but we were
expecting it, for they had gone to the next village first, and a man
from there brought the news just before they arrived. We lived on the
outskirts and had time to get away, but I think my father and brothers
have been killed. Do go on shore and take them off.”

“We must go back to the ship first,” Horace said. “This boat is too
small to be of any use; besides, we must send a stronger crew. No
doubt the Turks are watching us, and will come down if they see us
landing.”

The schooner had filled again and was following the boat, so that in
two or three minutes they were on board. Horace lent the young Greek
some of his clothes, and the schooner stood in towards the point, with
a man in the chains sounding as they went.

“Ask him whereabouts they are, Horace.”

“Just on the other side of the point; but they will see us coming.”

“I see no signs of them yet,” Tarleton said when, having got within
three hundred yards of shore, the anchor was let go.

“It is likely enough,” said Martyn, “that some of the Turks may have
been coming down through the wood, and if the poor beggars heard them
they would not dare show themselves. Now, Mr. Miller, you take charge
of the long-boat with ten men. We will cover your landing.”

The four broadside guns were loaded with grape, and their crews
mustered to quarters, while the rest, armed with muskets, lined the
side.

“Take the boy with you, Mr. Miller, he can lead you to where his
friends are hiding. Don’t stop to fire as you make for shore. We will
dispose of any Turks there may be about.”

The boat had not rowed more than fifty yards before five or six musket
shots were fired from the bushes near the edge of the water.

“Give them a round with the aftermost gun,” Captain Martyn said; and
in a moment the water near the bushes was torn up with a shower of
grape. “Give the next gun more elevation, boatswain. Send the shot
well into the wood. That’s it. The same with the other two guns. That
will clear them all out.”

There was no further firing at the boat. As soon as it touched the
shore Miller jumped ashore with eight of the men, while the other
two pushed the boat off a few yards. Led by the Greek boy, the party
ran along the shore and were lost to view round the point. Two more
rounds were fired into the wood, but everything was quiet there, and
in five minutes Miller’s party made their appearance round the point
with a number of fugitives. No time was lost in getting them into the
boat, which at once rowed off to the schooner. There were but three
men among them, the rest were women and children. Most of them were
completely exhausted.

[Illustration: “GIVE THEM A ROUND,” SAID CAPTAIN MARTYN]

Horace, after asking them a question or two, said to Zaimes: “You had
better prepare some soup, Zaimes, as quickly as you can. They have had
nothing to eat for three days.”

While this was being done, a sip of wine and a mouthful of bread were
given to each. In the meantime some sailors were rigging up a
partition with sail-cloth across the main deck, and here hammocks were
slung for the use of the women and children. As soon as the poor
creatures had taken a basin of hot soup they revived a good deal and
poured out expressions of profuse gratitude to their rescuers. They
had passed a terrible three days crouching among the bushes, and
expecting every moment to be discovered. A few of the women had
snatched up their jewels before taking to flight, but most of them
were absolutely destitute. Mr. Beveridge and the two Greeks persuaded
them to go below and take the sleep they so much needed. As soon as
the deck was clear the anchor was got up, and the schooner proceeded
on her way. She reached the farthest headland of the bay just as night
began to fall, and Martyn decided to anchor there till morning. From
the Greek lad who had first swum off, they learned that the village
among the mountains still resisted.

“They say there are two or three hundred there who have taken refuge
from the villages round. There are some rich men among them, and that
is the reason why the Mussulmans are so anxious to take the place.”

“How many men are besieging it?”

“That I don’t know,” the boy replied. “I should think four or five
hundred.”

“But you have heard nothing for the last three days? The place may
have fallen since then.”

“No, I went last night to the village in hopes of finding bread in
some of the houses, but there were too many Turks about. I was near
enough to hear them talking. Some of them were going up to-day to join
in the siege.”

“How far is the place from the sea?”

“It is ten miles from this north shore, but it is not more than four
or five from the western coast.”

“Is there any road?”

“Not from that side. The roads from the mountain villages all lead
down to the bay.”

“Is it too steep to climb from the other side?”

“Not too steep to climb on foot. Donkeys and mules could get up
there.”

The matter was talked over in the cabin that evening, and it was
agreed that if a guide could be obtained an attempt should be made to
carry off the occupants of the village. During the night a boat with
twelve fugitives came off from the shore and as the _Misericordia_
sailed slowly along the coast on the following day several parties of
from three to ten people came out from the trees and waved white
handkerchiefs and scarfs. All these were brought off, and four or five
boats full of people were picked up during the day. Their occupants
had seen the schooner passing on the previous day, and had at night,
when the Mussulmans in the village were asleep, stolen down to the
beach, launched boats, and put out to sea in the hope that the
schooner would return next day. All were overwhelmed with joy at
finding themselves under the Greek flag, although the greater portion
of them had lost everything they possessed. The women and children
were, like the first batch, provided for below, while the men and boys
were told they must sleep on deck, which was no hardship in that balmy
climate.

Among those in the last boat picked up near the west point of the bay
was a young man who was a native of a village lying a short distance
from the one that was besieged. He happened to be down in the coast
village when the Turks commenced hostilities there, and hearing that
the village to which he belonged had been destroyed, he had remained
in hiding near the coast. Marco and his brother, who mingled with the
fugitives, had learned this, and at once took the news to the cabin.
“He says he has been a goat-herd, and knows all the paths among the
mountains.”

“Then he is the very fellow we want to get hold of,” Will Martyn said.
“We had better have him in here and question him.”

The young Greek was brought in. He knew of several paths from the
village down to the western shore.

“Now what sort of place is this village?” Captain Martyn asked.

“It stands at the top of rocky ground that slopes away all round it.
There are vineyards and gardens among the rocks. Since the trouble in
Greece began, the people have been frightened, and have built a wall
five or six feet high round the village, and the Christians in all the
villages round decided that if there was trouble from the Mussulmans
they would go there to help defend it.”

“Is there high ground round the village?”

“Yes, the hills rise very high on three sides, but they are too far
away for guns to do much harm; besides, the houses stand thickly
together. My people will fight till the last, but I don’t know how
long the provisions will last. I know they all made up their minds
that if they were besieged and saw no hope of succour, they would at
last kill all the women and children to prevent their being made
slaves by the Turks, and then they would march out to fight until the
last man was slain.”

“How long would it take us to get up from the shore to the village?”

“One can come down in an hour, but it takes three hours’ hard work to
get up.”

“Could you after dark take us close to the point where one of these
paths comes down to the shore?”

“Oh, yes, I could do that easily.”

“Very well, that will do for the present. Now, Mr. Beveridge, it is
for you to decide,” Martyn said. “Of course the affair is a risky one;
but it seems to me that forty well-armed English sailors ought to be
able to make their way into the village without very much difficulty,
for of course the Turks will be scattered about all round it. The
difficulty is not in getting in, but in getting out. We should have to
bring perhaps two or three hundred women and children, and cover their
retreat down to the water. Of course the men would help us, but still
it would be a stiff job in the face of four or five hundred of the
enemy. These Turks may know nothing of soldiering, but they are
mountaineers and are used to arms, and for irregular fighting like
this, would be quite as formidable as the best troops. If we knew
anything about the ground we should be able to give a more decided
opinion. What of course we should want, if possible, would be some
post, either a defile or a steep eminence that we could hold for half
an hour and keep the Turks back until the women and children are well
on their way down the mountain. After that we could make a bolt for
it, and might get down without much loss; but if there is no place
where we could make a stand anywhere along the road, we should be in
an awkward fix, especially if the path is a bad one, as I expect it
is. You see the whole party would have to go in single file, and if
there are four or five hundred of them, it would be next to impossible
to guard the flanks and keep the Turks off if they made a rush, while
every shot they fired would tell on such a long line. You understand,
Mr. Beveridge, I am putting the matter to you in the worst light so
that we should all understand the sort of business it is likely to
be.”

“I see that it is a very serious affair, Martyn; but at the same time,
when we know that there are so many lives at stake, I think that we
must run the risk, however great.”

“Very well, then, that is settled, Mr. Beveridge, and I am sure we are
all glad that you have decided so. The next question is, who shall go,
and who shall remain behind.”

“I shall certainly go,” Mr. Beveridge said. “I am not going to allow
others to take risks that I do not share myself.”

“We ought to be as strong a party as possible,” Martyn said. “At the
same time we must leave enough to sail the schooner, if not to fight
her. It is probable that yesterday morning, as soon as our flag was
seen, messengers were sent off at once to Limasol and Larnaca to tell
them that a Greek vessel was in the bay; and if there are any Turkish
vessels of war in either of these harbours, we shall be having them
coming round.”

“That is likely enough,” Miller said. “We must certainly be ready to
get up our anchor and be off at a minute’s notice.”

“Well, Miller, then you must remain on board with ten men. We will
load all the guns before we go. Ten men are enough to get up sail and
to fight the pivot-gun. You had better not waste any time in getting
up the anchor, but buoy and then slip the cable. We can recover it, if
we like, afterwards. If you should be driven off the coast while we
are away, lower a sail under her fore-foot so as to deaden her way and
encourage the Turks with the hope that they are going to catch you.
Lead them a dance for seven or eight hours, then cut the drag adrift,
set every stitch of sail, and run back again. You will be here in
plenty of time to get us all on board before they can come up again.
Of course if we see that you are gone we shall choose some position
where we can make a stout defence, and shall hold it until you come
back to the anchorage.”

“All right, sir. I will obey orders. Of course I would rather have
gone with the expedition ashore; but someone must stay on board, and
if you are going I must take the command in your absence. Ten men will
be quite enough for me. We can leave the main and foresail standing
when we anchor, so that will be plenty of strength.”

“Well, as that is all settled, we will bout ship and cruise east
again. It will be dark in an hour, and it is well they should think on
shore that we are off again to the east. I daresay they can make us
out from points on the mountains not far from the village. If they see
us sailing away, it will never enter their heads that we have any
intention of interfering in their little game up there.”

Accordingly the schooner was again put about, and retraced her course
along the shore until it became quite dark; then she stood out to sea
until well out of sight of land, when she was headed west again. The
news had already got about through the ship that there was to be a
landing party to rescue a number of Christians besieged by the Turks
among the mountains, and the sailors were in the highest spirits,
cutlasses were ground, pistols and muskets served out to those who
were to land, and the disappointment of those who were to remain
behind was mitigated by Horace mentioning to them that not improbably
they might have a brush with the Turks on their own account.

Cartridges, muskets, and pistols were served out, and the arms
carefully examined. Each man was ordered to take with him a
water-bottle filled with weak grog, and two pounds of bread in his
haversack, and a hearty supper was served out. Once round the point of
the bay the schooner was kept close in shore. The Greek kept a sharp
look-out on the hills looming high above them, and about nine o’clock
announced that they were now near the place where a track from the
mountain came down to the shore. The anchor was at once dropped and
the headsails lowered. Then the sailors took their places in three
boats, two of the men who were to stop behind going in each to bring
them back to the schooner when the landing had been effected. Zaimes
was to accompany the party, while Marco remained with Mr. Miller on
board.

Ten of the fugitives, active young men, had begged to be allowed to
accompany the expedition, but the offer had been declined, and they
were told that they might be more useful helping to work the guns of
the schooner should a Turkish ship-of-war come round. When the arms
had been purchased a dozen good rifles had been among them, and after
Mr. Beveridge, Zaimes, and the three officers had each armed
themselves with one of these, the rest were divided among the best
shots of the party. Tom Burdett, much to his disappointment, was left
on board to assist the first lieutenant.

As soon as the boats reached the shore the men were formed up.
Tarleton was to lead the advance party of ten men, having with him the
guide. Close behind these were the main body, twenty strong, led by
Martyn; behind them Mr. Beveridge, with Zaimes and the surgeon, who
was also accompanying the party, had their place. Horace commanded the
rear-guard of ten men. Although this nominal division was made, the
whole party kept closely together, as the night was so dark that they
might otherwise have missed each other. None of the fire-arms were
loaded, lest an accident should occur by a gun being discharged by a
fall, by striking against a rock, or by the trigger catching in a
bush.

After a few hundred yards’ walk along the shore the Greek struck upon
the track and led the way up, the rest following in single file. The
climb seemed interminable to Horace. At times it was so steep it was
difficult to scramble up, and in the darkness there were many falls.
There were frequent stops, to enable the men to get their breath; but
after three hours’ climbing they at last reached comparatively level
ground, and the guide told them they were within half a mile of the
ridge from which they could look down upon the village.

“Well, we will move slowly forward until we come either to some bushes
or a bit of a hollow where we can get some shelter, for it is quite
sharp up here, and as soon as the men begin to cool down a bit they
will feel it. I wish we had brought blankets now, but it never struck
me that it would be cold. Mr. Tarleton, let your ten men scatter.
Don’t let them wander too far, but let them search about for some
place where we can get shelter. We will remain here; and if any of
the men find a place, send one back to bring us up. We have got
another four hours to wait before daylight.”

In ten minutes one of the men came back with news that they had found
a patch of bush large enough for them to take shelter in. In a short
time they all arrived at the spot. The bushes were sweet smelling and
free from thorns, and the men soon crushed their way into them and lay
down.

“You will remain in charge, Mr. Tarleton. I shall go on and take a
look down at the village. I don’t suppose we shall see much, but we
may be able to make out whether they are still holding out. Will you
go on with me, Mr. Beveridge, or stay here?”

“I will go on with you. I find it bitterly cold here; for not being
accustomed to hard work, as your men are, I found that climb almost
too much for me; and hot as I have been, I should not like to stop
still in this keen air, even with the shelter of the bushes.”

“Well, we will take it easy this last bit, Mr. Beveridge. Come along,
Horace.”

Again preceded by the guide, and followed by Zaimes, they ascended the
shoulder of the hill. It was a steep pull, but in a quarter of an hour
they reached the crest. Just as they did so they heard the report of a
gun, followed at once by several others. An exclamation of
satisfaction broke from them. Their climb had not been in vain; the
village was still holding out. Fifty yards farther the ground fell
away suddenly in front of them, and they stood at the edge of a deep
descent. Extending round the foot of the hills that formed the
amphitheatre in the centre of which the village lay, was a line of
fires; some blazing brightly, others dim red spots. Another chain of
fires, much closer together, extended across the mouth of the valley.
The village, lying in the black shadow of the hills, was invisible to
them, and not even a single light indicated its position.

“That is where it is,” the guide said, pointing down to the centre of
the hollow.

As he spoke a flash of flame, followed a second or so later by a
report, shot out from the spot towards which he was pointing.

“They are keeping a sharp look-out,” Martyn said; “they are not to be
caught napping. Now the point is, which is our best side for going
down on the village without being seen?”

“The best point,” the guide said, “would be from the head of the
valley. Orchards extend from the village to the foot of the hill, and
a ravine runs some distance up there. If we could get into that, we
might get some distance through the orchards before we are noticed.”

“Could you lead us along the side of the hill to this ravine in the
dark?”

“I think so. I am sure I could lead you. The danger would be from
setting stones in motion and so calling the attention of the enemy.
The hillside is very steep, and a stone set rolling would go right
down to their fires.”

“We must risk that,” Martyn said. “It would be a great thing to be
able to take them by surprise. Don’t you think so, Mr. Beveridge?”

“I should say it was well worth trying. But it is the getting out, not
the getting in, that seems to me the difficult part of the business.”

“There is no doubt about that,” Martyn agreed. “Will you ask him if
this part we are standing on goes straight down to the village? The
slope looks to me almost too steep.”

Mr. Beveridge put the question to the guide.

“He says the road zigzags. Olive-trees grow up for some
distance--about a third of the distance, he says.”

“That is good,” Martyn said, “because if we get the people with a
sudden rush across the open we can defend the lower edge of these
trees, and the women and children will be hidden from below till they
get up above the trees, where they would be pretty well out of danger
except from a chance shot. I think, Mr. Beveridge, it would be a good
thing to leave Tarleton with fifteen men here. If we can take them by
surprise five-and-twenty of us ought to be quite enough to make our
way in. Even if there are six hundred of them they must be scattered
pretty thinly round this circle, and are probably thickest down at the
mouth of the valley. The rear-guard here will of course be concealed
until we sally out. Then if the Turks from the other side and the end
of the valley try to climb the hill on either side of the path so as
to cut us off, our fellows here could open fire and prevent them doing
so, and as the enemy would not be able to see how many men there are,
it would stop them a bit.”

“I think that would be a very good plan, Captain Martyn.”

“Very well, then. Horace, do you go back to the bushes, bring Mr.
Tarleton and the men up. Tell them to move as quietly as they can when
they get near this point.”

The men got up willingly when Tarleton gave the word, for although the
bushes afforded some shelter, they were already feeling very chilled,
and were pleased to be in motion again. They met Martyn a short
distance from the spot where Horace had left him. The men were halted.

“Now, Mr. Tarleton, you are to take the fourteen men who came ashore
with you in the gig. For the present you had best return with them to
the bushes and wait there till daylight. Then you will come back to
this point. Post the men where they cannot be seen from below. Be sure
that not a head is shown. Take your own post at a point whence you can
see down into the valley without being seen yourself. You will remain
in hiding while we fight our way into the village. As soon as you see
the sortie begun get your men ready for action, and let them lie down
without showing themselves more than they can help at the edge of the
brow from which they can fire down into the valley. Your duty is to
prevent any parties of the enemy working along the side of the hill to
take the fugitives and us in flank as we come up the path. As the
women and children arrive tell them to push on along the path as fast
as they can, without stopping or paying attention to any fire that
may be opened upon them. They will be told before they start that the
schooner is in readiness to take them off. Still, you may as well
hurry them along. You will remain here until the last and form the
rear-guard. But we shall all make a stand here as long as we can so as
to give the women and children plenty of a start. Do you quite
understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Shall I go with you or wait here?” Macfarlane asked.

“I think you might as well stay here, doctor. There won’t be any time
for you to be dressing wounds till we are back here again.”

Tarleton called out the men who had landed with him, and marched off
with them.

“Now, my lads,” Martyn said to the others, “we are going to work along
the side of the hill so as to come down behind them. But I fancy it
will be very steep in places. Sling your muskets behind you so as to
have both hands to hold on by. If you once begin to roll you go right
down to the bottom, and then there is an end to our chance of
surprising them. Be careful, above all things, how you walk, for if
you set a stone rolling it will put them on their guard. We have to go
as quietly as mice. Now follow me in single file, and keep as close as
you can to each other, yet so far off that if you stumble you won’t
touch the man in front of you.”

The men fell in, and Horace took his place at the rear. A few steps
and they halted. The guide then went on in front of Martyn, and Mr.
Beveridge and Zaimes fell in behind him. The hill rose so abruptly on
the right that it was necessary to keep along on its slope, and very
cautiously the men made their way along the hillside. Each step had to
be felt before they put their weight down. Sometimes it was slippery
grass, and so steep that they were obliged to crawl on all-fours to
make their way along it. Sometimes they passed patches of bare rock
and sometimes slides of loose stones. They had gone but a short
distance when Martyn passed the word along in a whisper for them to
sit down, pull off their shoes, and fasten them round their necks.
Indeed, had it not been for this precaution, there were places across
which it would have been impossible to pass. As it was, it took them a
full hour to traverse the half-mile between the point from which they
had started and the head of the valley. At last a sharp fall told them
that they were at the edge of the ravine. As soon as they descended
into it there was a short halt to allow Mr. Beveridge to rest.

“I am sorry I came,” he said as he sat down faint and exhausted. “I
did not reckon on this sort of thing, Captain Martyn. If I had done so
I would have remained with Tarleton.”

“It is all right now, Mr. Beveridge. We have done our climbing, and it
is a marvel that we have done it without alarming those fellows below,
for some small stones rolled down once or twice. But if they noticed
them, no doubt they thought that it was some sheep or goats on the
hillside. Now, my lads, before you go any further, you had better take
a drink from your bottles. You will have to be careful in going down
the ravine, for there are sure to be loose stones lying about.”

After a halt of five minutes they proceeded cautiously down, and at
last, to their great satisfaction, stood on level ground, and soon
entered a grove of fruit-trees, where they halted and lay down. There
was a short consultation whether their guide should try and make his
way into the village to inform the besieged of the help that was near
in order that they might assist by opening a fire upon the besiegers
as soon as the sailors made their attack. The idea was, however,
abandoned, because, were he seen by the Turks, it would put them on
the alert; and because, in the second place, he might be shot by the
besieged as he approached the village. It did not seem to Martyn that
there could be any difficulty in their getting in. It was not likely
that more than fifty of the enemy at the outside could interpose
between them and the village, and these, taken by surprise, and
ignorant of the number of their assailants, could offer no effectual
resistance, and they would be up under shelter of the guns of the
defenders of the village before the Turks could rally from their first
surprise.

Another two hours and daylight began to appear. Martyn waited until it
was light enough to make their way through the trees without
difficulty. Then the men, most of whom had fallen asleep as soon as
they lay down, were roused.

“Now, my lads, you are to keep together. Keep your muskets slung, and
use cutlass and pistol. I don’t expect there will be any serious
resistance, but, at any rate, don’t straggle. Of course we don’t want
any prisoners. Shoot or cut down any one who opposes you, and follow
me straight on. Now, load your pistols.”

As soon as this was done they proceeded through the wood. The guide,
as before, led the way. His instructions were that directly they were
through the Turks he was to run on at the top of his speed, shouting
to the villagers not to fire, as those approaching were friends.
Martyn, Mr. Beveridge, Horace, and Zaimes, followed close behind the
guide, the line of seamen extending behind them. They were nearly
through the orchard when a shout was given and they saw a dozen
figures leap up from the ground.

“Come along, lads!” Martyn shouted.

The sailors gave a cheer, and at a run the party rushed forward. The
Turks, astounded at the appearance of this body of sailors, snatched
up their muskets, one or two fired at random, and then the whole fled
when their assailants were still thirty yards away. A few pistols were
emptied at the fugitives, and then, paying no further attention to
them, the party kept straight on. When they emerged from the trees the
village was but some three hundred yards away. The Greek, waving his
red sash and shouting “Friends, friends, do not fire!” dashed forward
at full speed across the gardens that intervened between the orchard
and the rocky knoll upon which the village stood. A row of heads
appeared above the wall and a line of musket-barrels pointed outward.
As the Greek approached shouts of welcome and triumph broke from the
besieged, which swelled more and more loudly as the party of sailors
were seen running in a compact body towards the wall.

A few straggling shots were fired by the Turks, but these passed
harmlessly overhead, and the party reached the wall without a single
casualty, and were soon helped over. The delight of the Greeks was
only equalled by their astonishment at the approach of this body of
foreign sailors. All hope of either escape or rescue had left them,
and they had thought only of fighting to the last. As soon as they
understood from the guide, Zaimes, Horace, and Mr. Beveridge that
there was a ship in readiness to take them off, and that there was a
chance of fighting their way through the besiegers, the village was
the scene of the wildest delight. The men shouted, screamed, danced,
laughed, and wept by turns. The women seized the sailors’ hands and
kissed them, to the confusion of the tars, threw themselves on their
knees, and poured out passionate ejaculations of thanksgiving that a
hope of rescue should be afforded them, and it was some time before
anything like order was restored. By this time the alarm had spread
round the circle of the besiegers, and their anger was exhibited by
shots being fired into the place, many of them pressing forward so
threateningly that the defenders manned the walls, and opening fire
upon the Turks drove them back out of range of their guns.




CHAPTER IX

RESCUED


As soon as the excitement subsided a little, Mr. Beveridge assembled
the heads of the families in the village church. “You must prepare to
leave at once,” he said. “Our landing will be shortly known, and it
will be guessed that we intend to take you off in our ship. The
consequence is, in addition to the enemies now round you others will
gather, and it will be no longer possible to cut our way through. What
we propose to do is to make a rush out, the women and children
following us. As soon as we have gained that wood and driven the
Mussulmans out the women and children will hurry up the path, while
all the fighting men will hold the wood and keep the Turks at a
distance. There are some more of my men at the top of the hill there;
these will keep off any parties of the enemy who try to scale the
hillside at other points. As soon as the women are fairly at the top
the men will fall back gradually. The sailors will cover the retreat.
We shall hold the top of the hill till we know that the women have got
nearly down to the sea-shore, and then fall back. We are risking our
lives here to save you, and we shall expect all the men to fight
valiantly and to obey our orders. It is only by working well together
that we can hope to beat off the Turks as we retreat, and to get
safely on board ship. You must not load yourselves with baggage; of
course each man can take anything he can carry wrapped in his sash,
and the women can take bundles such as they can carry on their heads,
but they must beware not to take too great weights. Anyone who lags
behind will have her bundle taken off and thrown away.”

“Would it not be better to wait till night?” one of the elders of the
village asked.

“No. The captain of the ship says that in the dark we should not be
able to keep off the enemy nor to travel fast. We may lose rather more
in the first rush in daylight, but after that the light will be all in
our favour. How many men have you armed with muskets?”

“There are a hundred and forty-six men, and all have guns.”

“How many women?”

“There are about two hundred women and girls, and a hundred and eighty
children of all ages.”

“Very well, I leave it to you to make preparations. You must tell the
women that they are to keep together, and to follow about a hundred
yards behind the men as they advance. As soon as the wood is taken
they are to hurry through it, mount the hill by the path, and then
without stopping a minute go on at the top of their speed to the
sea-shore. It is just possible that some Turkish ships-of-war may have
driven our vessel away, but if that is so she will be back again this
evening. If they find she has gone they must sit down under shelter of
the rocks near the shore, and we will keep the Turks at bay till the
ship arrives. Make your preparations and get your valuables together,
for in an hour from the present time we shall sally out.”

While this was going on Martyn had formed up the villagers, for the
firing had now ceased. The besiegers had before shrunk from attacking
the wall, relying upon famine to compel the defenders to surrender,
and the addition, small as it was, to the garrison rendered any idea
of assault more formidable than before. Horace acted as Martyn’s
interpreter.

“Now,” he said, “I expect we shall have no difficulty in carrying the
wood, for the enemy can have no idea that we intend to escape in that
direction, or that we mean to sally out at all; therefore it is not
likely that they will have more than fifty or sixty men at that point.
In the first place I want forty determined men who can be trusted to
obey orders.”

One of the leaders of the defence chose out that number of men. Martyn
divided them into two parties and told off five sailors to each.

“Horace, you will take command of one of these bands, and you, Jones,”
he said to the coxswain of his gig, “will take command of the other.
Your bands will fall in behind the main body, which I shall lead. We
shall go straight at the wood. You will follow us till you are
half-way across the open, and will then take post, one to the right
and the other to the left, fifty yards from the line we take. Your
work will be to check any of the Turks who may come running down from
the ends of the valley, and to cover the passage of the women. As
soon as they have all passed along you will both run in and join us in
the wood. Now, lads, I want the wall undermined for a width of ten
yards or so, so that when we push it it will all fall together and
leave a wide front for us to pour out. It is not above three hundred
and fifty yards or so to the wood, and we shall be half-way across
before the Turks can pull themselves together, and they won’t have
time for much more than a shot each before we are upon them.”

In an hour the whole of the villagers were gathered. There were five
or six wounded men unable to walk. These were laid on doors, and four
Greeks were told off to each. The children were told off, one to each
woman. Twenty of the Greeks were to form a special escort for the
women, and Martyn’s order to their leader was, “See that each woman
takes along the child told off to her. If she doesn’t help it along,
take off her bundle and throw it away; force her to look after the
child. Not a single child shall be lost if we can help it. Life first,
property next.”

Martyn was well pleased with the bearing of the Greeks. The men looked
ready and eager for the fight; the women, stern and determined. All of
them had knives or daggers in their sashes. Some, in addition, had
their husbands’ or fathers’ pistols. Their bundles were poised on
their heads, and each, with the exception of a few of the old women,
had an infant in her arms or held a child by the hand. The twenty
English sailors formed the first line; behind these came the main body
of the Greeks. Horace’s and Jones’ parties were drawn up three or four
paces in their rear, and behind these were gathered the women.

“Now,” Martyn said to the Greek fighting men, “on one point my orders
are distinct. Not a shot is to be fired until we reach the trees.
Firing would be no good whatever; it would be a loss of time, and your
guns would be empty just when you want them; besides, you would be as
likely to shoot those in front of you as the enemy. All you have got
to do is to follow me closely until you get into the olive grove,
then scatter and clear it of the Turks; but don’t go a foot beyond
them in pursuit. Directly it is clear let each man take up his station
behind a tree at its edge, and defend himself there until the order is
given to fall back.”

Zaimes translated the order, then the sailors advanced to the wall,
from which the lower stones had been removed as far as was safe. “Now
put your shoulders to it, my hearties, and heave all together. One,
two, three; now!”

The walls shook as the sailors flung themselves against it. “It is
going. Now another try.” There was a shout as the wall toppled over.
Then with a cheer the sailors sprang forward, led by Martyn, dashed
over the fragments of the wall and down the steep rock, the Greeks
pouring after them in a confused mass, and then the whole dashed
across the flat cultivated ground towards the olive grove. As Martyn
had foretold, not a shot was fired until they were nearly half-way
across, though loud shouts of alarm were heard, then a straggling fire
was opened; but the enemy were evidently too flurried and alarmed to
take aim. Without a check the sailors ran on, cutlass in hand, but the
Turks did not await the attack. Outnumbered and surprised they had no
sooner fired than they dashed away among the trees to join their
companions right and left, and the olive grove was deserted when the
sailors entered.

“That will do, lads!” Martyn shouted. “Leave the Greeks to hold the
wood. Sheath your cutlasses and unsling your rifles. Come back with me
to help the others; keep back the enemy in the open.”

There was, however, no occasion for assistance. The women, instead of
waiting, had followed close behind the flanking parties, and were
already coming into the wood. By the time Martyn joined the flanking
parties the women had all passed, while Horace and Jones were just
beginning to fall back with their commands. By this time the valley
rang with shouts and cries, and guns were being aimlessly discharged,
but the sailors were back in the olive grove before the Turks had
mustered strongly enough to think of advancing. The sailors lay down
in the intervals between the trees, and as soon as the enemy began to
advance a heavy fire was opened upon them, the twelve rifles telling
with deadly effect. The Turks on the opposite side of the valley
instead of advancing at once to the assistance of their comrades, made
a rush at the village as soon as they perceived that it was no longer
defended, thinking for the moment much more of plunder than of
attacking the retiring Greeks, while the parties who had begun to
advance towards the wood rapidly retired again before the heavy fire
opened upon them.

“Go round and stop those Greeks firing, Horace; the fools are simply
wasting their ammunition,” Martyn said savagely as the Greeks
continued to blaze away when the enemy were already out of range of
their guns. Horace hurried off one way and Zaimes the other, and in a
minute or two the firing ceased. As it did so the report of guns could
be heard on the hill above them.

“That is Tarleton’s party at work,” Martyn said to Mr. Beveridge. “Of
course the Turks have seen the women mounting the hill, and I suppose
some of them were beginning to climb up to cut them off. Tarleton’s
fire will stagger them a bit.” From the shouts in the valley it was
evident that the enemy were gathering for a serious attack. Horace had
returned to Martyn’s side.

“Now, Horace, do you take ten of the men and ascend the path half-way
up the hill. Post five of them on each side of it to act as flanking
parties. Zaimes, do you tell your countrymen it is time for us to be
off. We must get well up the hillside before these fellows make their
rush. Mr. Beveridge, will you make your way up the path at once. These
Greeks are as active as goats, and I should recommend you to be
pushing on to get a start of them.”

In a couple of minutes the entire party had left the wood and were
mounting the path, Martyn and his sailors forming the rear-guard. The
Greeks sprang up the path with such speed that the sailors, active as
they were, had hard work to keep near them. Mr. Beveridge was speedily
overtaken.

“Jones, you take Mr. Beveridge’s rifle; and do you, Hawkins and
Baldock, help him along. Make haste, lads! we shall have a storm of
bullets coming up after us in no time;” for as soon as the fugitives
appeared on the path above the level of the tree-tops a loud shout had
broken from the enemy, and it was certain they would soon be upon
them. So rapidly, however, was the ascent made that Martyn and the
sailors reached the spot where Horace with his party had taken up his
position before a shot rang out from below. There was a slight
shoulder on the hillside at this point, and lying down here the men
were sheltered from the fire below.

“Wait here, my lads, until you get your wind. Their guns will hardly
carry this height, and there is no fear of their showing themselves
above the trees, at any rate for the present.”

Mr. Beveridge threw himself down on the grass, and even the sailors
were glad of a pause, for in the five minutes that had elapsed since
they left the wood they had climbed half-way up the hill and were
fully three hundred feet above the olive grove. A roar of musketry
broke out from below, and some of the Mussulmans dashed out from the
trees, waving their guns and calling upon the others to follow them;
but as soon as they showed themselves the sailors under Horace opened
fire. Some of the others would have joined them, but Martyn forbade
them.

“It is no use trying to take aim, lads, just after such a run as that.
You must wait until your breath comes quietly, and your hands get
steady again. You would be only throwing away powder and ball, and we
shall probably want all we have got before we are on board the
schooner again.”

The firing above still continued, and looking along the hillside men
could be seen straggling up in considerable numbers on either side.

“Forward, lads! we must move on again. Horace, you may as well bring
your men straight up. There is no fear of their venturing on an attack
up this path. Bring your father on with you. There is no occasion for
haste; we will push straight up now. Forward! Don’t run, but go at a
steady pace that you can keep up till we reach the top.”

Horace followed with the rear-guard at a leisurely walk wherever the
inequalities of the ground sheltered the path from the bullets that
still came singing out from below, and stepping out briskly whenever
they were exposed to fire. The coxswain was waiting with orders when
they reached the top.

“The captain’s orders are, Mr. Beveridge,” he said to Horace, “that
your party is to remain here for the present with these twenty Greeks.
You are to spread along the edge here for a bit and keep up a fire, if
the Turks try to climb the hill hereabouts. The captain is with a
party away there on that high ground back on the left, and Mr.
Tarleton with the rest back there on the right, so as to prevent the
varmint working round in front of us. You are to let them know if you
see any large bodies of men climbing the hill, either right or left of
you.”

Horace divided his party in two, telling Jones with five sailors and
ten Greeks to take post a hundred yards to the left of the path, while
he with the others went the same distance to the right.

“Don’t let them waste their ammunition, Jones. My father and Zaimes
will go with you, and as you three have rifles you may do something to
check those fellows from climbing up away to the left. It is no use
the others firing, their guns won’t carry half the distance. Of course
if the Turks try to come straight up from the wood your party will all
open fire upon them.”

As soon as he got to his station Horace lay down, and with one of the
sailors with him who had a rifle, opened fire upon the stream of men
ascending the hillside near the head of the valley. After firing three
or four rounds he told the sailor to desist.

“We are only wasting our ammunition, Frost,” he said. “They are seven
or eight hundred yards away, and the rifles are of no real use at more
than half that distance.”

Ten minutes later he sent off sailors to Martyn and Tarleton, to tell
them that the Turks continued to climb the hill in large numbers, and
that he should think that at least two hundred men must have gone up
on each flank, that flames had broken out in the village, and numbers
of men were pouring out from there, and would probably join in the
attack. A few minutes later a message came from Martyn:

“The captain says, sir, that now the women have got half an hour’s
start we shall fall back. Your party are to retire by the path. He and
Mr. Tarleton will work down the hill on your flanks. You are to keep
your eye on them, and regulate your pace by theirs, keeping about a
hundred yards in their rear, unless you are pressed, when you can
double on till you are in line with them. He has sent orders to Mr.
Tarleton, sir.”

Horace was expecting the order. A sharp fire had broken out on either
side, and he knew that the Turks were trying to work round to cut them
off.

“Run on,” he said to the sailor, “and tell the other party over there
to join me in the path.”

In three minutes the united body was marching to the rear. The crackle
of musketry was now incessant, and Horace soon caught sight of the two
flanking parties making their way down the hill at a distance of a
hundred yards or so on either side of the path. They were in scattered
order, loading as they retired, crouching behind rocks to take a
steady aim, and then retiring again; going at a run when the ground
permitted it, hanging to the rocks and bushes when they afforded
shelter. On the higher ground, to the left of Martyn’s party, were a
number of Mussulmans. They were pursuing similar tactics to those of
their opponents--at times crouching behind rocks, and then bounding
forward with loud yells.

“Get ready to fire, lads,” Horace said. “The next time those fellows
make a rush give them a volley. They are not thinking of us yet, and
we shall take them by surprise. Take steady aim; don’t hurry. Halt;
drop on one knee. They will be crossing that open space in a minute.”
He repeated the order to the Greeks. “There they come,” he said a
moment later. “Get ready! Now fire!”

Thirty guns rang out; several of the Turks fell, and the rest, with a
shout of surprise, bounded back into the bushes.

“Now retire briskly for a bit, and load as you go.”

After a hundred yards’ running they again fell into a walk. Horace
kept his eye upon Tarleton’s party. They did not seem so severely
pressed, and had the advantage that their foes were on somewhat lower
ground than they were. Presently a sailor came in from the left.

“Captain Martyn’s orders are that the two flanking parties are to fall
back quickly to the path, then to double down the hill to that
shoulder a mile below. You are to act as rearguard, and to follow
close behind them.”

In two or three minutes the two flanking parties, taking advantage of
cover which concealed them from the enemy, made a rush to the path.
The body under Tarleton gained it first, and at once started down at
the top of their speed. Martyn’s party were but a minute later. He
himself paused till Horace came up at a run.

“We can go faster down this path,” he said, “than they can follow over
the rough ground, and there are such a lot of them that they will
jostle each other on the path, and won’t get along as fast as we
shall. How are you feeling, Mr. Beveridge?”

“I am all right now we are going downhill, Martyn. It is only the
climbing I can’t stand. This is really very exciting work, though I
don’t like running away.”

“We will make another stand presently, but I wanted to be getting on.
They will get stronger every minute, and we shall have to fight hard
presently. Do you see that the schooner has gone?”

An exclamation broke both from Mr. Beveridge and Horace. In the
excitement of the fight neither of them had thought of the schooner.

“There she is, five-and-twenty miles away to the northwest, with two
Turkish frigates lumbering after her.”

The firing had ceased; the yells of the Turks rose loudly in the air,
but they were fully two or three hundred yards in the rear.

“We are in plenty of time,” Martyn said. “We will line the other side
of that flat step when we reach it. We can keep them back there for
some time.”

There was no attempt at keeping in order, the path was too steep and
broken; but they went down running and leaping, each as he best could.
Down the path, in front, was a long straggling line of Greeks, with
the sailors, keeping in two distinct bodies, among them. As soon as
the head of the line came down on to the flat step in the hill they
spread out right and left, and in less than ten minutes from the issue
of the order to retreat the hundred and eighty men were lying down
along the lower edge of the level ground, which was some forty yards
across, the centre of the position being left vacant for the last
party that arrived. The instant the rear-guard threw themselves down
they opened a heavy fire upon the Turks, who were crowding down the
path. Horace was lying next to his father.

“Do keep your head lower, father,” he said, as the Turks left the path
and bounded in among the rocks and shrubs and opened fire.

“But I can’t take aim if I don’t see, Horace.”

“No, father, that is right enough; but you might move a foot or two
back, so as to be in shelter while you are loading. Then, if you push
your rifle up before you, you would only have to raise your head to
look along the barrel and fire. Some of these mountain fellows are
good shots.”

The firing in front of them increased every moment as the Turks poured
down and took up their positions, until puffs of smoke seemed to dart
out from every bush and rock. Martyn now went along the line posting
the men. Horace’s party were left lying thickly opposite the path, in
case the Turks should attempt a rush. The rest were disposed two yards
apart, the sailors being placed at regular intervals among the Greeks.
Fortunately the ground fell sharp away from the flat, so that even
from the higher ground those lying behind it were completely
sheltered, except when raising their heads to fire. This, by Martyn’s
orders, they did but seldom.

“Let them blaze away as much as they like,” he said, “they do us no
harm. The great thing is to have every musket loaded in case they make
up their minds to try a rush, and I don’t think they will do that. The
more smoke they make the better, for it prevents them taking aim. We
can stop them here for hours, as long as they don’t work round our
flanks.”

Satisfied that all was going on well, Martyn returned to Mr.
Beveridge.

“We have stopped them for the time effectually, sir.”

“Yes, this is a capital position, Martyn.”

“Capital as far as it goes, sir. Of course if these fellows were
soldiers they would either gather and make a rush, or march away and
work round our flanks; but being only peasants, there is no one to
command, and every man fights for himself. Macfarlane is at work with
the wounded.”

“Did you lose many men in your retreat, Martyn?”

“No; three of the Greeks were killed and half a dozen of them were
wounded, fortunately not severely. Two of our own fellows were hit,
but neither of them badly. I have sent them and the Greeks on ahead to
join the women on the shore. Tarleton lost two Greeks, killed, and had
about as many wounded as I had. One poor fellow was so badly hit that
he could not keep up with the others on the retreat. Two of our men
tried to carry him; but it hurt him so much that he begged them to put
him down; and as soon as they did he drew his pistol and shot himself.
So, altogether, we have lost six, which is little enough, considering
we are more than half-way down to the shore.”

“If they do try to outflank us, I suppose we must fall back again?”

“Yes, if they succeed we must do so. Of course we shall try to prevent
it. Directly I see any signs of their trying it on, I shall make a
strong effort to drive them back; but I don’t think they will try it
at present, the sole object of each man seems to be to fire away his
ammunition as quickly as he can. I have just been giving orders to the
Greeks and our fellows to shove their caps up in front of them on the
ends of their ramrods, so as to encourage the Turks to keep on firing,
and to push a musket up and fire occasionally, without raising their
heads to take aim. The smoke hanging about along the line will hide
the trick of the caps, and the shots will keep the Turks blazing
away.”

For two hours the firing continued; but towards the end of that time
it slackened considerably.

“I expect a good many of them are running short of ammunition,” Martyn
said. “Now they have done firing they will have time to talk a bit,
and may arrange to march off somewhere, and come down between us and
the shore; so I think it is time for us to be making a move. I will go
along and tell every third man to fall back at once. I think, Mr.
Beveridge, it would be as well that you should go with them. I shall
send Tarleton in command, and tell him to pick out a spot, from a
hundred to three hundred yards from the shore, and place the men in
position there. Five minutes later you shall pick out every second
man, Horace, and go down and join them. We will keep up a more rapid
fire now, so that they sha’n’t have any idea we are falling back. Of
course, when you join Tarleton, you will take up your position with
him. I shall be down five minutes after you. When we are all there we
can form a semicircle, with the ends resting on the sea, and there
will be an end of this constant fear of being outflanked.”

Five minutes later Tarleton, with a third of the men, went off at the
double down the path. Those left behind renewed their fire, taking aim
among the rocks and bushes, and this at once provoked a fresh outburst
of firing on the part of the Turks. In a short time Martyn told Horace
to get his men together and be off, and in twenty minutes he joined
Tarleton, who had taken up his post at a little more than a hundred
yards from the shore. The men were slashing down bushes with their
cutlasses, and piling them and stones so as to make a low breastwork.
The party Horace had brought at once joined in the work.

“It is a screen we want more than a defence,” Tarleton said. “You see
we are commanded everywhere from the hill, but these bushes will hide
us, and they will only be able to fire into them at random; besides,
we want them cut down in front of us to be able to use our guns.”

They were soon joined by the rear-guard.

“The Turks must be some distance behind,” Martyn said. “We could hear
them blazing away when we were nearly half a mile on the road. That is
a good work, Mr. Tarleton; we shall get it finished by the time they
come.”

So strong a party made quick work of it, and in another quarter of an
hour the screen of bushes was completed down to the shore on either
side, the sweep being some three hundred yards in length, and the
breastwork in most places three feet high.

“It won’t keep out bullets,” Martyn said; “but from the distance they
won’t see how thin it is. At any rate it is a good screen.”

The whole of the Greeks and twenty of the sailors were placed at
intervals of about six feet apart behind the screen, and each man was
told to dig up the soil with a knife or cutlass in front of him, and
with that and a few rocks to make a protection for himself against
stray bullets. The other twenty sailors Martyn retained under his own
command to carry to the assistance of the defenders at any point
against which a serious attack might be made. Mr. Beveridge had gone
down at once to the women and children who were sitting under shelter
of the bank by the sea-shore, and cheered them by assurances that the
schooner would be sure to return some time during the night. It was
not until a quarter of an hour after the screen had been completed
that parties of Turks could be seen descending the side of the hill.
They did not seem to be hurrying.

“They think they have got us in a trap, Horace,” Tarleton said, “and
that they have only to wait a bit to starve us out. Perhaps it is just
as well the schooner made off, for it would have been hot work all
getting on board under their fire, whereas now we shall be able to
slip off in the dark almost without their knowing it.”

When the Turks approached to within a distance of three or four
hundred yards of the breastwork, the party with the rifles opened fire
upon them, and they at once fell back some little distance. For half
an hour nothing was done, and then a party of fifty or sixty men were
seen reascending the hill.

“They are going to make a siege of it,” Martyn said. “They don’t like
the look of this breastwork.”

“But what are they sending the men away for, Martyn?” Horace asked.

“Because it is just as necessary for them to eat and drink, Horace, as
it is for us. We have got our water-bottles and biscuits, and the
Greeks have all brought something with them; they were warned to do so
before they started. But those gentlemen all came off in a hurry. I
don’t expect any of them had breakfast, and in the excitement not one
in twenty is likely to have caught up as much as a gourd of water, so
I have no doubt those men you see going up the hill are on their way
to their villages for a supply of food and water, and perhaps to get
some more ammunition if they can find any. I will warrant half those
fellows in front of us have fired away their last shot. You will see
they won’t disturb us any more to-day.”

[Illustration: THE CAPTAIN IS WOUNDED]

A few shots only were fired from either side during the course of the
day, this apparently being done on the part of the Turks from pure
bravado, as they generally showed themselves conspicuously, brandished
their long guns over their heads, and shouted defiantly before firing.
One of them, however, having been shot by a sailor armed with a rifle,
the amusement ceased, and during the afternoon all was quiet. An
anxious look-out was kept seaward all day. At five in the afternoon
one of the sailors sang out, “Sail, ho!”

“Where away, Baldock?”

“About west-north-west I should say, sir, though I ain’t sure of my
bearings here.”

Martyn went up to where the man was standing on a rock that projected
eight or ten feet above the surrounding ground, a position which would
have been dangerous had not the Turks been almost out of range.

“There, sir, do you see just under that streak of white cloud? it is a
little black patch.”

“I see it, Baldock.”

“I believe it is the schooner’s gaff top-sail, sir; it is too narrow
for a square sail.”

“I think you are right, Baldock. It might be the peak of one of the
native lateen sails, but I think it is too far away for that. It is
about the direction we might expect the schooner to come from. She was
more to the north-west when we saw her last, but to get round the
Turks she would have to bear either one way or the other, and if she
ran to the south that is just about where she would be on her way
back. Hullo! that was a near shave; we had better get off this,
Baldock.”

“Are you hit, sir?”

“Yes, but I don’t think it is of any consequence; it is in the arm,
but as I can move it all right, it is only through the flesh.”

Half a dozen guns had flashed out in reply to the shot, which had been
fired from a distance of less than a hundred yards, the man having
crept through the bushes unseen. Martyn’s coat was taken off and his
arm bandaged at once.

“It is rather foolish to expose yourself like that, Captain Martyn,”
Mr. Beveridge said as he came up. “Your life is too valuable to us all
to be risked in that way.”

“It was rather foolish,” Martyn laughed; “but I thought the fellows
were out of range, and did not give them credit for enterprise. Anyhow
there is no great harm done. I think we have made out the schooner,
sir, and it is worth getting a ball through one’s arm to know that she
is on her way back.”

“Do you feel sure it is her?”

“Well, I can say that it is not a square top-sail; that is certain,
and it must either be her gaff top-sail or the peak of a lateen sail
of one of these native craft; but I think it is the schooner. If it
is, we sha’n’t be long before we can make out her fore-top
gallant-sail. No native craft carries a lateen and anything like a
square sail.”

“If it is the schooner, how far is she off, do you think?”

“Five-and-twenty miles, I should say. There is not much breeze, but
that is all the better, for she will be slipping along now at least
two knots to the Turks’ one, while in a strong breeze she would not go
more than five to their four. It is five o’clock now, and though we
can’t feel any wind here, I expect she is making five or six knots an
hour. Anyhow she ought to be here between ten and twelve.”

A quarter of an hour later Baldock said: “May I take another squint
from the look-out, sir?”

“Yes, but don’t stand there long, Baldock. I expect that fellow has
moved off again if he was not hit by any of our shots. Still it is as
well not to give him another chance.”

Baldock stood on the rock shading his eyes from the light of the
western sun, which was now getting near the horizon. For a minute or
two he stood uncertain, and then said:

“It is the schooner, sir, sure enough. I can just make out a black
line below the sail; that must be her fore-top gallant-sail just
showing.”

A cheer broke from the sailors lying along the shelter of the screen
of bushes.

“That is good news, Baldock,” Martyn said. “Come down now; another
half-hour will settle it anyhow, and there will be light enough till
then.”

The next observation settled the question. It was certainly a square
sail underneath the sharp peak of a gaff top-sail. The joy of the
Greeks was extreme when they heard that the vessel that was to carry
them away was in sight.

“The schooner will be in a nice mess,” Martyn grumbled to Tarleton.
“With what there are on board now, and all these, there will be
something like six hundred of them; a nice cargo that.”

“There is one thing,” Horace laughed, “I expect she has carried as
many before.”

“Yes, I daresay she has taken six hundred slaves, but we can’t pack
these Greeks as they pack slaves. There will be no moving on board,
and as to fighting the guns if we fall in with a Turk, it will be
well-nigh impossible. Why, she will be as deep in the water as she was
when we sailed out of Plymouth. What is the weight of them all,
Horace, do you suppose?”

“Not very great, Captain Martyn. I don’t suppose there are a dozen of
the men weigh over ten stone. I suppose the women average seven, and
the children, counting babies, say four. As there are as many children
as there are men, that would make the average seven stone all round,
but even if you said eight stone, which is a hundredweight, and they
are certainly not that, or anything near it, that would make thirty
tons, and it won’t be over that if you throw in all the bundles. You
calculated that you got fifty tons out of her hold.”

“Oh, well, that is not so bad. If it comes on to blow we will make
shifting ballast of them, and pack them all up to windward on both
decks; that ought to make her as stiff as a church. It will be a big
job getting them all on board tonight. There is one thing, I don’t
suppose the Turks have made her out. Of course they don’t know that we
are expecting a vessel, or anything about her rig. We must make a
fire down on the shore as soon as it gets dark, and keep a sharp
look-out for her, putting the fire out as soon as she is near enough
for the light to begin to show on her sails. Then we will open fire
all along the line as if we thought we heard them creeping up towards
us, and that will cover the rattling of the anchor chain. I will hail
Miller to muffle the oars, and in that way we may manage to get most
of them on board at any rate before the Turks have an idea of what is
going on. By firing an occasional shot we shall keep their attention
fixed, and gradually withdraw from the line as we did from that place
we held up there.”




CHAPTER X

A DARING EXPLOIT


Soon after nine o’clock Will Martyn took his post on the shore at the
northern end of the position. A dropping fire was kept up all round
the semicircle, as if the defenders feared that the assailants might
be trying to crawl up towards them. Martyn continued to listen
intently for half an hour, then he thought he heard a sound on the
water. In another minute or two he could make out the sound of voices.

“Miller has got his head screwed on the right way,” he said to
himself. “He is showing no lights.” Another five minutes and he could
dimly make out the outline of the schooner.

“_Misericordia_ ahoy!” he shouted.

“Ay, ay,” came across the water.

“I am going to put out the fire so that the light won’t show on your
sails, and in a minute or two I am going to open fire heavily to cover
the rattle of the chains. Directly you hear us begin let go the
anchor; don’t answer.”

Horace was standing by the fire, and he at once scattered the brands
and threw sand over them. Martyn ran up to the front of the position
and shouted, “Open fire!” and the rattle of musketry broke out all
round the screen. The Turks, surprised at the sudden din, and fearing
that a sortie was going to be made, replied briskly, and for four or
five minutes the fire was maintained. Horace down on the shore heard
the rattle of the anchor chain and the creaking of the blocks,
followed shortly by the sound of the tackle as the boats were lowered.

“Please muffle the oars, Mr. Miller!” he shouted, and the answering
hail came across the water. Twelve of the sailors came down from their
posts to assist with the boats, and in three or four minutes there was
a slight splash of oars, and the four boats of the schooner ran gently
ashore.

“All well, I hope?” Tom Burdett asked as he jumped out.

“All well, Tom, with the exception of about half a dozen slightly
wounded.”

“Thank God!” the boatswain said. “I tell you we felt mighty sore at
having to run away and leave you just at daybreak this morning, and
you can’t tell how glad we were when we caught sight of the fire first
and then made out the popping of the guns. Have you got the Greeks
out, Mr. Horace?”

“Yes, there are over five hundred of them here.”

“My eye!” the sailor said, “that is something like a cargo.”

“I have got twelve men here, Tom. That will give you four and a
helmsman to each boat with what you have got. Has Marco come ashore
with you?”

“Yes, Mr. Horace. I thought I might be useful if you had got the
Christians with you.”

“Yes, that is what I wanted you for, Marco. Now, then,” he said to the
women who were clustered behind him, “take your places in the boats.
Help them in, lads; there are lots of children among them. You need
not be afraid of packing them closely so long as you leave yourselves
room to row, for there is not a ripple on the water. Father, would you
mind going off with the first lot?” he said as Mr. Beveridge came up.
“Marco has come ashore to help here, and Mr. Miller does not talk
their language. If you take Zaimes with you he can help settle them
down as they come on board. Mind, lads, you are to make as little
noise as you can. There are six hundred of those Turks lying round us,
and if they got a notion of what was going on they would be coming on
us like a pack of wolves, and in the dark they would be among us
before we knew that they were coming, and your first boatload would be
your last. Impress upon the Greeks, father, when they get on board,
that not a word must be spoken.”

“Mr. Miller will see to that, sir, no doubt,” the boatswain said. “He
has got the whole lot of them down between decks, and he and Bill
Scoons have got the deck to themselves.”

The women and children were crowded into the boats, which were first
backed stern on shore to allow them to enter. The sailors lifted the
children, and wading into the water put them in. The smaller boats
pushed off as soon as they were filled, and they were back again just
after the two larger ones started. The schooner was but a hundred
yards away, and so quickly did the work go on that in little more than
a quarter of an hour the last batch of women and children left the
shore. Horace directed Marco to see that the wounded were carefully
lifted into the next boat, and to go on board with them; he then ran
up to Martyn. The continuous fire had ceased now, but dropping shots
were kept up all round the position.

“The last batch has gone on board, Captain Martyn,” he reported.

“Thank God for that, Horace! That is a load off one’s mind. It is a
smart piece of work to have got them on board so soon. I did not
expect you for some time yet. I have been listening sharply. Of course
I heard sounds, but even here they were faint, while the Turks, being
twice as far away, can hardly have heard them, and if they did would
not have made them out, knowing nothing of what is going on. Now do
you and Tarleton go off, one each way, and send every third man down
to the boats; but if the third man is a sailor send the next Greek to
him. When you get down to the shore go along to the boats and see the
men off. As soon as they are in the boats start back again, sending
the rest of the Greeks down to the shore. Then when you join me here I
shall know that there are only our own men to draw off. Tell them all
to keep up a pretty sharp fire when the Greeks have left.”

In a very few minutes they were beside him again. “The boats took the
first batch off in one trip, sir,” Tarleton reported, “and they will
be back again by the time the last fellows we have sent down get to
the shore.”

“We will give them five minutes and then be off.”

“Mr. Miller sent word by the boatswain, sir, that he had got the guns
loaded with grape, and blue lights ready, so that if they should at
the last moment press you he will sweep the hillside as soon as you
bring the men down to the shore.”

“I hope we shall not want it,” Martyn said; “but it is well to be on
the safe side. I am sure we don’t want to kill any more of these poor
beggars than we can help. Of course they wanted to massacre the
Christians, but as they know their own people have been massacred in
tens of thousands by the Greeks, it is only human nature they should
take revenge. Anyhow I am glad there has not been much bloodshed. The
only time we got fairly at them was when they first gathered for a
charge at that olive grove, and again when they came down the path to
that place where we stopped them. Of course a few fell while we were
falling back, but I should say that from forty to fifty would be quite
the outside; and likely enough it may not have been half that. It has
been a much easier business than I expected. I must say, when we first
got into the village and I saw what a crowd of women and children
there were there I thought we were going to have a very tough job
before we got on board the schooner again. Now I think we can fall
back. Go down to the shore again, please, and start the men from that
end, so that we can keep on firing from here up to the last moment.”

In a very few minutes the last of the defenders stepped into the boats
and rowed off to the ship.

“All safe, Captain Martyn?” Miller’s voice asked as the boats came
alongside.

“All safe, Mr. Miller.”

“Then we will give a hearty cheer, sir. They will know in a few
minutes that you have gone, and it will make no difference. Now, lads,
all together.”

And three hearty cheers broke from the English sailors, swelled by
shouts and yells from the Greeks clustered on deck. As they stepped on
to the deck Miller shook hands heartily with Martyn, Tarleton, and
Horace.

“Thank Heaven you are all back safe again!” he said, “and, as I hear,
without the loss of a single life. We have had an anxious time of it,
as you may guess, since you have been away. I suppose we may as well
get the boats up, sir?”

“Certainly. We sha’n’t want to go ashore again, Miller.” The
boatswain’s whistle rang out, the falls were hooked on, and the boats
run up to the davits.

“Don’t swing them in at present,” Martyn said. “We want all our room
on deck. What have you done about the Greeks, Miller?”

“The cook had a big copper of soup ready, and they each had a basin as
they came on board. We have given up the whole of the lower deck to
the women and children. Our fellows and the men sleep on deck.”

“I thought that was how you would manage, Miller; indeed I don’t see
any other way that it could be done.”

“I have got all the scuttles open down below,” Miller said, “and the
hatchways off, so I think they will manage. It will be pretty close,
no doubt, but none of these people are particularly fond of fresh
air.”

“You have got supper ready for the men, I hope, Miller. They had
something to eat in the village at daybreak, and they have had the
biscuits they took with them; but I expect they are all ready for a
regular meal. Of course they will have a ration of grog all round.”

“I have seen to all that, sir, and Marco came up just before you came
alongside, to say that supper would be ready for us in five minutes.
How he managed it I don’t know, for he, Mr. Beveridge, and Zaimes have
been busy settling the women below ever since they came on board. How
did the chief get through it?”

“As well as anyone, except in the climbing. There is a lot more in him
than we thought, Miller. I watched him when he was loading and firing,
and he was just as cool and quiet as if he was sitting here on the
quarter-deck, and what was better, he always fell in with what I
suggested without any talk or argument, and if I were asked I should
say that he really enjoyed the whole business. I have never seen him
look so bright and animated. Well, I am quite ready for supper; at
least I shall be when I have had a wash.”

In a short time the party in the cabin was seated at supper. All were
in the highest spirits. Their enterprise had been a complete success
in every respect, and they were the more pleased that it had been
accomplished without the loss of a single life on the part of the
crew. The supper was not quite so varied as usual, and Marco
apologized for its shortcomings.

“There is no occasion to say a word, Marco. It is excellent,” Martyn
said. “I don’t know how on earth you have managed it.”

“I had most of it ready before we dropped anchor, Captain Martyn,” he
said, “but I went ashore with the boats and have been helping with the
women until a few minutes ago, so I have not had time to finish the
things properly; but I thought you would rather have them so than
wait.”

“Much rather, Marco. Now, Miller, let us hear your report. I have not
had time to ask you a single question since I came on board. We made
you out from the top of the hill twenty-five miles away, with two
Turkish frigates after you.”

“Yes,” Miller said, “we were as near as possible caught in a trap. It
was lucky I had had the anchor buoyed and the chain ready to slip. Of
course we kept a sharp watch all night; I was on deck half an hour
before day began to break, for I knew that that was the dangerous
time. It was very dark then.”

“Yes, we know that,” Martyn put in. “We pretty nearly broke our necks
scrambling along the face of a hill nearly as steep as a wall.”

“Just as the first gleam of daylight came,” Miller went on, “I made
out two large craft coming along about a mile and a half from shore.
They were not quite abreast of us, perhaps half a mile south. You may
guess we lost no time in slipping the chain and getting up our head
sails. Fortunately there was enough breeze even in here to fill our
sails. I knew they could not make us out as yet, lying in here under
the shadow of the land, and, indeed, I was half inclined for a moment
to lower the sails and trust to their not making us out at all, but as
it would soon be light, and no doubt they would be keeping a sharp
look-out for us, I saw it wouldn’t do. It was not long before I saw
that, though, of course, they had a good deal more wind than we had,
we were holding our own with them.

“Ten minutes after we got under weigh they made us out and changed
their course, steering so as to cut us off before we were clear of the
northern point, while I stood a little more out so as to get farther
from the shelter of the land and catch a little more breeze. They
closed a bit with us, and one of them began to try the distance with
his bow-guns, but though we were not quite out of range, the shot went
altogether wide of us. I never saw such lubberly shooting. We were
better than a mile ahead when we came out beyond the point and got the
true wind. As soon as I felt her beginning to walk along I got a
couple of sails overboard to deaden her way and stood for the
north-west. The Turks got out stun-sails and did their best to come up
to us, and as the wind was pretty fresh they walked along faster than
I should have given them credit for, and I had to get one of the sails
on board again to keep my distance. They fired occasionally, but as I
kept them in line they could only bring a couple of bow-chasers to
bear.

“I don’t think we altered our distance by a ship’s length for six
hours, by which time we were a good thirty miles away from the island,
and nearly dead to leeward; so I thought it was about time to begin to
have some amusement. Directly we had started I had got the cook to
make a tremendous fire in the galley, and had put six eighteen-pounder
shot in it. I kept coal heaped on, and stuck a couple of extra lengths
on to the chimney to make it draw, and by this time the balls were
red-hot. We did not begin with them at first, but having got the
second sail out of water we luffed a little so as to get the pivot to
bear, and Tom Burdett sent the first shot smack into the frigate’s
fore-foot. She yawed a bit, and let us have four or five of her
forward guns on the starboard side, and this time a couple of shot
went through our sails. As I did not want to run any risks I held on
till I put another half-mile between us; then I began again with the
pivot.

“The boatswain is a capital shot and hulled the leading frigate every
time. Evidently she did not like it. I expect she had no idea that a
craft of this size carried such heavy metal, and she came up into the
wind and gave us a broadside. I put the helm down at the same moment
as she did and returned the compliment. We trained the guns high, and
as good luck would have it one of the shots struck the maintop-mast
and down it came bringing the fore and mizzen-topgallant masts down
with it. We gave a cheer, and the Greeks yelled like fiends. I had
sent the women and children down into the hold, but the men were on
deck, and they danced about like lunatics when they saw the top hamper
of the Turk go over her side. We wore round and gave her the other
broadside, then I set the Greeks to work to load the broadside guns,
while our fellows went to the pivot again.

“Now was the time to try the red-hot shot while she was lying
broadside on to us, and we plumped the whole six into her, one after
the other; then we stood off again, for the other frigate had come up
and was joining in the game. If we had had a spar knocked out of us it
would have been all up, for they each carried something like forty
guns. As soon as they got pretty well out of range I hauled my wind
and stood south. The first frigate was still in complete confusion.
With my glass I could make out the men trying to cut away the wreck,
but it was not long before I saw a thin wreath of smoke rising from
her forward hatchway, and presently I saw her ensign half hauled down
as a signal of distress to her consort, which at once gave up the
chase, which she must have already seen was useless, and bore down to
her. Thinking I had done enough, and being in such a stew about you
all, I left them to settle matters as best they could and began to
beat back to the island. When we were five miles away a pillar of
smoke was rising from the frigate, and with the glass I could make out
boats passing backwards and forwards between her and her consort,
which was lying-to near her; and the last we could make out of her was
that she was in flames from keel to truck.”

“Capital, Miller, that was splendidly done!” Martyn exclaimed. “Fancy
a schooner with ten men on board destroying a forty-gun frigate. That
was a capital idea of yours of heating the shot.”

“The cook is in a great way,” Miller laughed, “for we pretty well
melted the galley, and we shall have to get a fresh one next time we
put into port. And now tell me about your share of the day’s work.”

“Well, we have done very well,” Martyn said; “but you have quite taken
down any conceit we may have felt. I quite envy you.”

“You need not do that, Martyn,” Mr. Beveridge said; “one may be as
proud of saving five hundred lives as of destroying a frigate,
admirable as the action was. I will tell you about our doings. I have
no doubt Martyn will be too modest to do justice to himself. Ah! what
is that?” He broke off as he heard the report of a gun, followed by
several others.

“The Turks venting their dissatisfaction,” Martyn said. “I expected
it before this. Of course they heard our cheer, but at the distance
they were they may not have made out it came from the water, and I
expect they were some time before they crawled forward and found out
that our lines were deserted. We will fire a round of grape over their
heads as a hint to them that they had better clear off, and as there
is no hope of either plunder or blood they will not care about risking
their lives for nothing. Will you go up, Mr. Tarleton, and just touch
off one of the port guns. Don’t fire in the direction they are
shooting from. We only want to frighten and not to hurt them.”

In a couple of minutes the vessel quivered as an eighteen-pounder sent
its contents rattling among the rocks. Tarleton soon rejoined the
party, and Mr. Beveridge proceeded to relate to Miller the events of
the day.

“The next time I land, Mr. Miller,” he concluded, “I shall take good
care to ascertain the nature of the ground we have to cross. I have
never been accustomed to active exercise, even as a boy I never cared
for it; but I could not have believed that human lungs could have
failed in their action so completely, or human heart bump as mine did
in going up that hill. As for the scramble along it in the dark, it
was a sort of nightmare. Martyn and Zaimes hauled me along like a
helpless bundle. I was only conscious of my feet continually slipping
from under me, of grasping at the grass, of having my knees bruised
against rocks, and of thinking every moment that my coat collar must
give way and that I must roll to the bottom of the hill. Zaimes had
hold of that, and Martyn of my arm, and I should say that my flesh
will be black and blue for weeks. I mentally registered a vow that
though I was ready to fight for the Greeks I was not ready, and never
would again undertake to climb among mountains for them. There is a
limit to the endurance of human nature, and the limit was very
distinctly passed upon that occasion. Moreover, my dignity as a man
suffered. I was humiliated at my own helplessness, and was deeply
impressed with the thought that my whole life had been a mistake when
it resulted in my being hauled along by Zaimes, who is a year or two
older than I am, I believe. I made a resolution to practise athletic
exercises, but I am afraid that, like many other good resolutions, it
will be dropped with the memory of that terrible hour.”

“Where are you thinking of landing all these people, Mr. Beveridge?”

“I have not the least idea, Martyn. Where do you think?”

“So that we get rid of them as quickly as possible, sir, it doesn’t
matter in the slightest. There is one thing certain, it will be weeks
before we shall get the decks white again, and I should say that a
thorough fumigation of her from stem to stern will be advisable. I
don’t suppose the British authorities would be grateful to us if we
were to dump them all down in Zante or Corfu, because it is certain
they would have to feed the greater portion of them for a considerable
time. On the other hand, if you land them at any Greek port there is a
very strong risk of their all dying of starvation; the new government
have other things to think about.”

“It is very awkward, Captain Martyn, very awkward,” Mr. Beveridge said
seriously. “However, it is evident that now we have rescued them they
can’t be allowed to starve.”

“There is one thing, father,” Horace put in. “I think that money would
be much better laid out in feeding them than in enabling the
politicians and the Klephts to spend it in gaudy dresses and in
keeping bands of armed ruffians round them.”

“Certainly it would, Horace. As to where they had better be landed, I
should say that we might give them their choice of say four or five
places. It would be much better that they should be divided, as they
would in that way be more likely to get employment than if they were
all turned out at one place. Some might be landed at some of the Greek
islands, some in the Morea, others at Athens, and some, perhaps, in
the Ionian Islands, where they would be under the British flag.”

“I think they would be a deal better off there, father, than in Greece
or the Greek islands, where at present everyone is thinking of war,
and the fields are going out of cultivation. They certainly would do a
great deal better in Corfu, Cephalonia, and the other islands than
they would elsewhere; and if they were landed in small batches they
might find work. I expect most of them have got a little money, and as
living is very cheap, if you were to give them a couple of pounds a
head it would enable them to live a long time while they are looking
for work. Besides, there are committees on those islands for helping
refugees; so I do think it would be better to land all those who have
no friends in Greece, or any particular wish to go there, in our
islands. I should say Zaimes and Marco might go round among them in
the morning and ask if any of them have friends in the Greek islands
or the mainland, and to put it to the others, that though they can be
landed in Greece if they like, they will probably be better off and
certainly much more free from anxiety and danger, in the Ionian
Isles.”

“I think that that would be a very good plan,” Mr. Beveridge said.
“When are you going to get under sail again, Captain Martyn?”

“As soon as I have finished this cup of coffee, Mr. Beveridge, we will
get a boat lowered and find the buoy and pick up the anchor Miller
slipped this morning. I don’t want to lose that, and the chain. As
soon as we have got it on board we will be off. There is not much
breeze here after dark, but we may as well get what benefit we can
from it. I have no fear of the other Turkish frigate looking in here
on her way back; and if she did, now that we have got all our crew on
board, I have no doubt we could give a good account of her. But I want
to be under weigh. There will be no comfort on board till we have got
rid of our passengers. Whereabout do you think the buoy is lying,
Miller?”

“I fancy we were anchored a couple of hundred yards or so farther out,
and a quarter of a mile astern. You know where you landed last night.
You had to march along the beach some little distance before you came
to the path on the hills.”

“That is so, Miller. I am afraid we shall have some little trouble in
finding it. However, we will have a try. It is just eight bells now,
and it won’t be light for another six hours. I don’t want to waste
that time if I can help it.”

“Well, I will take one of the gigs, and Tarleton can take the other.
We will take some blue lights with us, and I expect we shall soon find
it.”

“Very well. Directly you do, hang on to the buoy-rope and get the end
of the chain into your gig. Hail me, and send Tarleton back. We will
get up her anchor at once, and the gig and the long-boat shall tow the
schooner up to you. Then you can pass the end of the chain on board,
and we will get it round the capstan and have the anchor up in no
time. Now, Mr. Beveridge, if you will take my advice you will turn in
at once. You only got a couple of hours’ sleep last night in that
orchard, and have had twenty-four hours’ really hard work.”

“I will take your advice, Martyn;” and Mr. Beveridge touched the
hand-bell beside him. “Marco, you must help me to my cabin, for I am
so stiff I don’t think I could get out of my chair by myself.”

“We will help you in, sir,” Martyn said; and he and Miller raised Mr.
Beveridge from his chair and almost carried him into his cabin. Then
they lit their pipes and went on deck.

The buoy was found after a few minutes’ search, and in another ten
minutes the schooner was under-weigh and stealing out from the land.

“I will take the watch,” Miller said. “You had better all turn in. I
will put a couple of the hands who remained with me at the wheel, and
let all the rest lie down. As they will be on deck one can rouse them
up in a minute if they are wanted.”

The next day the two Greeks went among the fugitives and questioned
the heads of each family as to the number of their party, the means
they possessed, and whether they had any friends in Greece. Most of
them possessed a little money, the proceeds of their last harvest and
vintage, and some eight or ten had sums varying from a hundred to four
hundred pounds, besides the jewels of their females, which, in their
cases, were of considerable value. Some of the poorer ones had
literally nothing beyond the clothes in which they stood and a few
almost worthless trinkets. There were not half a dozen of the whole
number who had friends or connections in Greece. Some thirty of the
unmarried men expressed their desire to join the Greek army and fight
against the Turks; the rest thankfully embraced the offer of being
landed on islands under the protection of the British flag. It took a
whole day to ascertain all these particulars, and on the following day
the exiles were asked to divide themselves into parties according to
the villages from which they came, in order that acquaintances and
relations should be landed together.

When this had been done, Zaimes distributed, in the name of Mr.
Beveridge, to the head of each family a sum amounting to two pounds
for each of its members, except to those whose resources were
sufficient to maintain them for a considerable time.

The wind was very light, and it was six days after they weighed anchor
before they entered the port of Zante. Another week was spent in
landing the fugitives among the Ionian Islands, each party being in
proportion to the size of the island and the facilities of obtaining
employment there. The gratitude of the poor people to Mr. Beveridge,
and indeed to all on board the schooner, was very great, but they were
all much depressed on landing. At first their delight at having
escaped with their lives was unbounded. But as the days went on, and
the feeling that they had lost all else, were separated for ever from
their birthplace and home, and were in future to live among strangers,
overwhelmed them.

Mr. Beveridge went a great deal among them, and endeavoured to cheer
them with the assurance that the war could not last very long, and
that at its termination, whenever that might be, there would certainly
be a general amnesty, and that all fugitives would then be permitted
to return to their homes. He therefore advised them to keep this
always in mind, and to lay by every penny they could spare of their
earnings, so that they would eventually be able to return to Cyprus
and resume their former life. When the _Misericordia_ left Cyprus
there remained on board only some half a dozen families who had
friends in Greece, and the young men who intended to join the Greek
army. Never did a vessel undergo a more thorough washing and cleaning
up than the schooner on her voyage round to Athens. The deck was
scrubbed and holy-stoned twice a day; the lower deck was equally
cleaned, and, in addition, the woodwork received two coats of fresh
paint, after having been thoroughly fumigated.

“The Greeks may have their virtues,” Martyn remarked to Miller, “but
cleanliness on board ship is marked by its absence.”

“There is no doubt about that,” Miller agreed. “I have always heard
that a cargo of Mohammedan pilgrims to Mecca was about the most
painful experience a sailor could have; but I back the Greeks against
them. I don’t think the schooner herself liked it. She seemed to have
lost all her liveliness and to be depressed at being turned into a
human pig-stye. I don’t believe it was worse between decks when she
had a cargo of slaves on board.”

“Mr. Beveridge has just told me,” Martyn said, “that I am to tell the
crew that at the next pay he shall give three pounds a head to each
man as a reward for their work at Cyprus and the inconveniences they
have been since put to.”

“They will appreciate that,” Miller said. “They certainly have been
put about a good deal, and they will be pleased at the recognition of
it as much as with the money. Besides, the same thing may happen
again, and it is a good thing to keep them all in a good humour,
especially as at present there hasn’t been any chance whatever of
prize-money.”

“What are the next orders, sir?” Martyn asked Mr. Beveridge when they
had finished supper.

“There will be nothing particular going on for some time, I should
imagine, Captain Martyn. The Turkish army does not seem to be ready to
advance, and the Greeks are not troubling themselves to get up an army
at all. After the last affair every man made off with the booty he had
gathered to his own village; and there, I am afraid, they are all
likely to stay till a Turkish army invades them. Athens and Nauplia
may hold out for some time longer--for weeks, perhaps, possibly for
months. Therefore, for the present I leave it entirely with you to
cruise where you think best.”

“Then, sir, we will go south. Since we have come out we have not taken
a prize worth having; and I think that as prize-money was certainly
one of the inducements held out to the sailors when they joined, we
might as well try to pick up a few Turkish merchantmen. There is no
doubt that the ships from Smyrna and all the Syrian ports, as well as
from the islands, keep near land, and that even those bound for
Alexandria and the African ports coast round there also. Some of these
no doubt carry rich cargoes, and many will be taking Greek slaves to
Alexandria and Tunis; so we shall be carrying out your object by
releasing them, as well as picking up some prize-money. I think the
men well deserve a little indulgence in this way. Their work has not
been altogether pleasant for some time. They have been turned out of
their quarters, and have had to sleep under the awning forward. I have
heard no grumbling among them, for I am sure they were glad to do all
they could to help the poor creatures we have had on board. Still,
they will be glad of a chance of what they would consider legitimate
business.”

“Very well, Captain Martyn, let it be so. I quite agree with you as to
the excellent conduct of the men. They have certainly had a good deal
of hardship to put up with, for everything has been very uncomfortable
since our visit to Cyprus.”

In a few minutes the boatswain’s whistle was heard, followed by the
tramp of the men round the capstan and the stir of getting up sail.
Then the watch was set, and the schooner sped along under a gentle
breeze towards the south.

For the next two months the _Misericordia_ cruised on the coast of
Syria. Scarce a day passed without some vessel being overhauled. Many
of these were small coasters laden only with grain or other cargoes of
small value. These were permitted to proceed on their way without
interference. Of the larger vessels some contained mixed cargoes. In
the cases where no Greek captives were on board, the valuable portion
of the cargo was transferred to the schooner, and the ship was then
permitted to proceed on her voyage. Where Greek slaves were found on
board, the captain was given the choice of having the vessel burned,
or giving a bond for an amount equal to half her estimated value and
that of the cargo, signed by himself, the representative of the
owners, if there was one on board, and the principal passengers.

These bonds could not, perhaps, have been enforced in any court; but
Mr. Beveridge had confidence in the honesty of the Turks, and in every
case the amounts were duly forwarded to the agents he named. Seven
ships contained valuable cargoes of silks, tobacco, and wine. These
were all bound for Alexandria and Tunis, and carried a considerable
number of Greek women and children, the survivors of massacres in
towns in Asia Minor. In these cases the Turks were all placed in their
boats within two or three miles of land, and the vessels with prize
crews on board were consigned to Greeks at Corinth and Athens, who had
undertaken to act as Mr. Beveridge’s agents, and who were to dispose
of them and their cargoes to Greek merchants.




CHAPTER XI

IN THE HANDS OF THE TURKS


Towards the end of the cruise the schooner had just returned to the
coast of Asia Minor after having run across to Athens and taken on
board the officers and men who had sailed the last prizes taken there.
On the day after they took up their place on their cruising ground
they fell in with a large polacca brig. The vessel mounted ten small
guns, and fought with some obstinacy, and it was not until Martyn
placed the schooner so that she could rake the brig’s decks, which
were crowded with men, that she hauled down her flag.

“Lower two boats, Miller. You take charge of one and Tarleton the
other. By the look of those fellows I don’t believe they are Turks at
all. I believe they are from Algiers or Tunis; pirates at ordinary
times, but who have come here to pick up slaves cheap. They are
treacherous beggars, so be on your guard. There is a very strong crew.
Don’t row alongside till I lay the schooner broadside on.”

In five minutes Miller hailed from the deck of the prize, “You are
right, sir, they are Algerines, and as cut-throat a looking lot as
ever I came across. She is crowded below with Greek women and girls,
and as far as I can see at present she has no cargo of any sort. I
have sent one of the boats for Marco. He can speak to the women, who
are making a fearful hubbub down below.”

“Have you disarmed the crew, Mr. Miller?”

“Mr. Tarleton has just finished that. We have had to knock a good many
of the scoundrels down. They are as savage as wildcats.”

The schooner was brought alongside the polacca and lashed there. The
deck of the prize showed that the fire of the schooner had been
terribly destructive. Over twenty bodies lay scattered about,
principally round the guns.

“Are they all dead?” Martyn asked as he stepped on board.

“They are all dead now, but they were not when we boarded her. But as
they lay there they fired their pistols among us. Two or three
pretended to be dead, and then sprang up, knife in hand, and several
of the men have got nasty cuts; so that was soon put a stop to. Some
of the fellows below made quite a fight of it, and the men had to use
their cutlasses pretty freely. However, they are all disarmed and
bound now. I have no doubt they are Algerine pirates, and deserve to
be hung to the yard-arm every man-jack of them.”

“Have you overhauled the hold yet?”

“Yes, sir. It is filled with these unhappy slaves. She evidently came
merely in ballast, with money to buy them.”

“Well, no doubt these fellows have been pirates, Mr. Miller, but as we
have no means to prove it we must let them go as we have the others,
though it is a nuisance, for they only warn the people at the ports
against us. We won’t put them on the mainland this time, but land them
on one of the little islands. They may be some time in getting a craft
to take them to the mainland, and then they will find it rough work
making along the coast. However, we can settle upon that later. The
first thing to do is to get the decks roughly cleaned and the dead
bodies thrown overboard.”

A dozen men were set to work with mops and buckets, while others
fastened shot to the feet of the Algerines and dropped them overboard.
As soon as this was done Marco was sent below to tell the captives
that they could come on deck.

As the women poured up, looking almost dazed at their sudden release,
and at the bright sunlight after the stifling atmosphere of the dark
hold in which they had been confined for six days, Horace saw one of
them, a woman of some five-and-thirty years of age, to whose side a
girl of fifteen was clinging, looking round with an air of excitement,
in strong contrast to the comparative apathy of the others. She
glanced round at him and the men engaged in tidying up the deck,
and then with a cry sank fainting on the deck. He hurried up to her,
and partly raised her, when he was struck by the cry of the girl, “Oh,
mother, mother!” He looked at her in astonishment.

[Illustration: THE GREEK CAPTIVES ARE BROUGHT ON DECK]

“Are you English?” he exclaimed.

“Yes,” she cried, “we are English; but we have been seized and carried
away by these horrid Turks. Mother said she fancied she heard some
shouts in English, but she thought she must have been mistaken, as
only a Greek came down and spoke to us in the hold, and she did not
think it possible that it could be English. And have you rescued us
out of the hands of the Turks, sir? Mother said they were taking us
away to sell us as slaves.”

“Yes, we have rescued you,” Horace said. “You are free now. If you
will hold your mother’s head for a moment I will fetch the doctor; we
have one on board.”

“If you would get a little water, sir, she will soon come round. She
has fainted several times since we were captured.”

Horace, however, caught sight of Macfarlane.

“Doctor, here is an English lady among the captives. She has fainted.
Please see to her. I will run to get some water;” and he sprang over
the bulwark on to the deck of the schooner.

“Bring some brandy with you too,” Macfarlane said as he hurried to the
side of the fainting woman.

Horace rushed down to the cabin, and returned with a jug of water, a
decanter of brandy, and a tumbler. The doctor sprinkled some water on
the lady’s face, poured a few drops of spirits between her lips, and
in a minute or two she opened her eyes.

“It is all right now, madam,” he said as she looked round in a
confused way. “You are safe among friends and British sailors.”

“Thank God for His mercies!” she murmured, while tears fell down her
cheeks. “It seems almost too great happiness to be true.”

In a few minutes she was well enough to be assisted down to the cabin
of the schooner, where she was left to the care of her daughter for a
time. Half an hour later she was able to relate her story to Mr.
Beveridge. She was, she said, the wife of an English merchant at
Smyrna. They lived a short distance out of the town, and had, since
the troubles began, gone but little abroad, for although it was only
the Greeks who had been involved in the massacre that had taken place
there some months before, there was a good deal of hostility upon the
part of the lower class of the population against all Christians. One
evening she had been with her daughter in the garden, her husband
being engaged till late at his business in the town. It was just
getting dark, and she was about to re-enter the house, when five or
six ruffians of the lowest class rushed into the garden, seized her
and her daughter in spite of their shrieks, threw thick cloths over
their heads, and then carried them away. They were taken for some
distance, when they stopped, and she heard an animated conversation
and the clink of money. Then they were placed in a boat, and presently
carried up on to the deck of a ship and taken below.

When their mufflings were removed they found they were in the hold of
a vessel with a large number of Greek captives. She endeavoured in
vain to make herself understood by the sailors who came below, and
who, she perceived at once, were not Turks. She told them that she was
English, and that her husband would pay a large sum if she and her
daughter were set on shore unharmed. No attention was paid to her
entreaties, but on her persisting she was brutally knocked down, and
in a short time a man, who was evidently an officer, came down and
forced them both to take off their European dresses and put on others
that some of the Greek women were ordered to hand over to them. It was
now evident to her that they had been seized by some of the ruffians
of the town and sold to the Algerines, who were in no way particular
as to the nationality of their slaves, and that they were destined to
be sold in the slave-market of either Tunis or Algiers.

A few hours after they were taken on board they heard the anchor run
up, and could soon tell by the ripple of the water against the planks
that they were under weigh. All hope now left them, and they had
passed a terrible six days, overcome by despair, and half suffocated
by the foul air of the hold. Hope had again sprung up when a gun was
fired overhead, and it was soon evident that the vessel was engaged in
an encounter with an enemy. At last the firing ceased, then there was
a sound of shouting and the clashing of swords on the deck above their
heads. Presently the hatchways had been opened and a Greek had come
down and told them that the vessel had been captured from the Turks,
and that they were free. She fancied that she heard English voices,
but until she had reached the deck and saw the faces and uniforms of
the sailors, she thought that she must be mistaken. After that she
remembered no more until she heard the doctor’s voice.

“I am rejoiced indeed that I have been enabled to save you and your
daughter from the horrors of slavery,” Mr. Beveridge said. “We have
had the pleasure of rescuing many hundreds of Greek women and children
from the hands of the Turks, but I never expected to find a
countrywoman among them. This cabin will be at your disposal, except
that we must, I fear, take our meals here. The cabin adjoining will be
wholly yours. In the course of a week I hope to land you at Corfu,
thence you will be able to write to your husband and arrange either
for joining him again at Smyrna, or taking a passage for England,
which would, I should think in the present state of things, be the
wisest course. My purse will be entirely at your disposal. I am the
owner of this schooner, which is called the _Misericordia_, and
although we fight under the Greek flag, and have come out to assist
them to obtain their independence, we are principally devoting
ourselves to saving the unhappy victims of this war.”

The lady, whose name was Mrs. Herbert, expressed her deep gratitude,
and Mr. Beveridge at once took possession of Miller’s cabin, as the
lieutenant would, he had no doubt, remain in charge of the prize. When
the capture was made, the schooner was some eighty miles to the east
of Rhodes, and after talking the matter over with Miller, Martyn
decided to land the Algerines on Caxo, an islet lying some fifty miles
to the south-west of Rhodes. Miller and Tarleton were for the present
to continue on board the prize. The prisoners, forty-eight in number,
were transferred into the schooner. The next evening they arrived off
Caxo, where the Algerines were landed in boats. Martyn then went on
board the polacca.

“I have been thinking, Miller, that as we seem to have frightened all
the Turks into remaining in port for the present, I will leave you and
Tarleton on board the polacca, and give you twenty men and let you
cruise on your own account, while we take these women and children
round to the Ionian Isles. We will shift two of the eighteen-pounders
on board this craft. No one will suspect you, and you will have a good
chance of picking up some more prizes, while the sight of our white
sails sends everything running into port as far off as they can be
seen. We can rendezvous here again this day fortnight.”

“I should like that very much,” Miller said, “and I think it is a
capital plan. I must ask Mr. Beveridge to let me have Marco, or I
shall have no means of making myself understood either by Turk or
Greek.”

A fortnight later the schooner returned to the island. She had had
rough weather for the last three days of her voyage, but the sky had
now cleared again.

“There is the island,” Martyn said, as Horace came up at six o’clock
in the morning to take charge of the watch, for he had now command of
the starboard watch, and Tom Burdett had the port. “There is the
island, but there is no sign of the polacca yet. I wonder Miller is
not here first. If we had been having calms I should not have been the
least surprised at his not turning up, but with this strong southerly
wind there is no reason why he should not have been here. Go up to the
main-top, Horace, and take a look round.”

But Horace could see no sail in sight.

“You are not uneasy about Miller surely,” Mr. Beveridge said at
breakfast, seeing that Martyn was not in his usual spirits.

“Well, I am rather uneasy, sir. Miller would be more likely to be a
day too soon than too late, and with the wind from the south he could
have calculated his time here from wherever he happened to be, within
an hour or two. The wind has been strong with us, and for aught I know
it may have been blowing a gale more to the east. We don’t know much
about the sailing qualities of the polacca, certainly she was very
light in ballast, and if she has been caught off a lee shore in a
heavy gale she may not have been able to claw off, especially if she
happened to be embayed when it came on. Of course we must give him
twenty-four hours more, but if he does not come then we will shape our
course north-east and cruise along the coast; as we get eastward we
may pick up some fishing craft or small coaster and hear what the
weather has been there, possibly even get news of the polacca. If
Miller gets here after we have left, he will guess what course we have
taken. Very likely he will land a boat and learn that we have been
here, and the course we took when we sailed away, and would then be
guided by circumstances. At any rate, if nothing has happened to him,
we are sure to meet sooner or later.”

“Do just as you think best, Captain Martyn. I most sincerely trust
that there are no grounds for your uneasiness. Hitherto everything has
gone well with us, and it would be terrible indeed if anything should
have happened to our two friends and so many of our brave fellows.”

The day passed slowly. A look-out was kept in the top, but until the
sun went down no sail was seen above the horizon. The crew shared the
anxiety of their captain, and gathering in groups, discussed what
could have occurred to prevent their consort arriving at the
rendezvous.

“I don’t believe as the Turks have caught them,” one of the sailors
said. “You won’t never gammon me into taking in such a yarn as that. I
don’t believe as there is a Turk living would get the weather gauge of
Lieutenant Miller. As to tempests, that is different. We don’t care
for tempests one way or the other on board the schooner, but then she
is a craft such as you don’t see twice in a v’yage round the world. If
they had been in her I shouldn’t have felt noways uneasy; but seeing
as how they are in a outlandish brig whose ways they don’t understand,
it may be that if they was caught off a lee shore by a heavy gale,
even the first lieutenant with our men at his back couldn’t get her
out of the mess.”

“I said all along,” another sailor put in, shaking his head, “as there
was bad luck coming. Three days ago I dreamed of a black cat, and
everyone as knows anything knows as there ain’t nothin’ more unlucky
to dream about than a black cat.”

“Surely, Bill,” another said, shaking his head gravely.

“Well, mates, it is my opinion,” Tom Burdett said gruffly, “as there
is something in dreams, but in nine cases out of ten it is something
as has gone afore and not what comes after. I know once when I came
back from a v’yage I had written a letter to tell my old woman what
time I should arrive. I reckoned to be in to dinner. Well, the coach
broke down and I did not get in till nine o’clock. The old woman had
made a plum-duff pretty nigh as big as my head, knowing as I was fond
of it, and she was in such a taking at my not having been in to eat it
at dinner that I sat down and I finished that there pudding cold for
supper. Well, I dreamt of about ten million black cats and about as
many sharks mixed up together, but if you will believe me nothing came
of it; and ever since that I have held to the opinion that when you
have a bad dream, what you have got to think about when you wake ain’t
what it means in the future, but what you have been having for supper.

“Now, I expect if Bill there was to turn his mind back he would
remember that the night as he had that dream, he had been filling
hisself up with fruit or such like trash afore he turned in. I don’t
say as nothing has happened to Lieutenant Miller and our mates, but I
am cocksure as that black cat Bill said he dreamt on hadn’t nothing to
do with it either way. Why, bless me, in my village there is hundreds
of women as thinks of nothing but dreams and tokens. It is no matter
what you dream of, they have got a ’terpretation of it, and if the
’terpretation happens to be a bad one they bother their husbands and
brothers and sons, as the case may be, not to put to sea, and there is
many a good fisherman whose cupboard is bare half the year, through
listening to them. I may have my ideas as to whether harm are come to
that polacca or not, but if every seaman on board the ship was to
dream of a black tom-cat and his wife and family, it wouldn’t make not
so much as a shade of difference, in my opinion.”

Martyn did not wait for daylight, but when the middle watch was
relieved sail was made, and the schooner bore away to the north-east.
Land was sighted about four o’clock, and by nightfall they were
coasting along at the distance of about a mile. When it became dark
they stood on and off the shore, as Martyn wished to examine every
inlet and bay as they went on. As soon as it was daylight the schooner
proceeded on her way. The sails of several craft were made out seaward
during the course of the day, but none of these resembled the canvas
of the polacca, and attention was concentrated upon the shore, every
rock being closely scanned with glasses, and a sharp look-out kept for
signals of any kind.

In the evening a small fishing-boat was overhauled as it made its way
into a village. The fishermen were interrogated by Zaimes, who
understood a little Turkish. They had seen nothing of any craft
answering to a description of the polacca. Interrogated about the
weather, they replied that the storm four days before had been an
exceptionally severe one, coming on very suddenly and blowing with
tremendous force for some hours.

The next morning they were at the mouth of the Gulf of Adalia.

“If Miller has gone to grief anywhere,” Martyn said to Horace, “it is
as likely as not to be somewhere in this bay. He might very well have
been cruising about in here to pick up anything coming out of Adalia,
which is the principal port along this part of the coast. It is a
large bay, you see, and if he happened to be well up it when he was
caught in that sudden gale it is probable enough that he would not be
able to beat out in that craft. I see on the map there are three or
four small towns between this Cape and Adalia. I don’t want to show
ourselves inside the cape, for the probability is the schooner would
be recognized directly. What I think will be the best plan would be
for you and Zaimes to take one of the boats and coast along close in
to the cape. There is a place called Grambusa a mile or two around the
corner, and another place called Yanar a little farther on. I want you
either to board a fishing-boat and find out whether they have news of
a wreck between this and Adalia, or have heard of any Greek or
European prisoners being brought there from farther east. If you can’t
succeed in getting hold of a fishing-boat, Zaimes might land and try
to pick up the news at some cottage in the outskirts of the village.
There are Greeks in all these sea-side villages, for most of the
fishing is in their hands, and though in the towns there were
massacres I don’t suppose they would be disturbed in quiet villages
where they had been settled for generations.”

Zaimes was summoned, and agreed at once to land, as both Martyn and
Horace were of opinion that there was more probability of their
getting trustworthy information that way than from fishermen, who
would be scared at finding their boat suddenly overhauled.
Accordingly, taking a gig with six men Horace and Zaimes started for
the shore, while the schooner turned her head west.

“I shall cruise backward and forward,” Martyn said. “I sha’n’t go more
than four miles from the cape; so when you come out again you will
only have to lie on your oars till I come back for you.”

They rowed direct to shore, crept along close to it till they saw the
village half a mile ahead, and then rowed in and landed Zaimes. He was
absent an hour, and his walk assured Horace that he had bad news even
before he reached the side of the boat.

“I am afraid you have bad news, Zaimes.”

Zaimes shook his head. “Very bad; it could hardly be worse. There are
several Christians in the village, and I learned from them that four
days ago a brig that was caught in the storm was driven ashore close
to Adalia. It was found that she was a Turkish vessel which had been
captured by pirates. The people would have torn them to pieces, but
the pasha, who had come down to the shore with a body of troops to try
and save those on board the ship when she was seen to be driving
ashore, protected them from the mob and lodged them in prison. They
say that he has sent off to Smyrna, where the governor of Anatolia
resides, to ask for instructions, and it is expected that orders will
come for their execution in a day or two.”

“Stretch to your oars, men,” Horace said. “The others have been
wrecked and captured by the Turks, and the sooner we are on board with
the news the better.”

The men bent to their oars and made the boat fly through the water,
and when they rounded Cape Khelidonia they saw the schooner a quarter
of a mile away in the act of going about. They were seen almost as
soon as they caught sight of her, and she remained thrown up in the
wind until they got alongside. Martyn and Mr. Beveridge were both on
deck, and as soon as Zaimes had told his story they went down into the
cabin for a consultation.

“What on earth is to be done?” Martyn said; “Adalia is a large town.
Zaimes says there are troops there, likely enough a whole regiment. It
would be hopeless to try to attack it with thirty men. The only thing
I can see at present would be for us to sail right in, anchor off the
town, and threaten to bombard it with red-hot shot if they don’t give
up the prisoners. The objection is that they are likely to have some
batteries there, and in that case we might get the worst of it.
Besides, it is likely enough that they might hang Miller and the rest
of them at the first shot we fired.”

“No, that is not to be thought of,” Mr. Beveridge said. “It seems to
me that we might anchor within sight of the place, send a boat ashore
with a white flag, and offer to pay any ransom they might fix for the
prisoners. I would rather pay ten thousand pounds than that harm
should come to them. What do you think, Horace?”

“If we could have got at the pasha before he sent off to Smyrna that
might have done, father; but having once referred the case to Smyrna,
I am afraid he might consider it too risky to let them go. But we
might try that if everything else fails.”

“But what else is there, Horace?”

“Well, I should say, father, the best thing would be to land Zaimes
and myself again. He has already made some acquaintances in the
village here, and no doubt they could rig us both up in dresses like
their own. Then we could go boldly on to Adalia, find out exactly how
things stand, what sort of a place they are imprisoned in, how strong
is the guard, and how close the barrack of the troops is to the
prison. I should suggest that you sail away west, so that if, as it is
likely enough, the schooner has been noticed by any of the peasants in
the villages scattered about among the hills and word sent to Adalia,
the report may also go that it has sailed right away. Then you should
capture a small Turkish craft; a large fishing-boat would do. Leave
ten men on board the schooner, and sail in the prize nearly up to
Adalia. If you anchor, say a couple of miles this side of the town,
and hoist a little flag, say a red flag over a white, to your
mast-head we should recognize you and come down to the beach.

“If it is in the daytime you will make us out with your glasses easily
enough, and send a boat ashore for us. If it is nighttime we will
empty out a little powder, moisten it, and flash it off; then you can
send ashore for us. I should order the schooner to come every night,
keeping three or four miles off shore, sailing up nearly to Adalia,
and then returning so as to be round the cape again before daylight.
In that way we could communicate with her and go on board again when
we liked. Till we examine the place there is no saying whether there
is a possibility of rescue or not. If we find that there is no
possibility of anything being done in that direction we can embark on
board the schooner again, and carry out the plan you suggested: anchor
off Adalia, and send in to offer a ransom, with the alternative that
if it is not accepted we will bombard the place about their ears. In
that way, you see, we shall anyhow lose nothing by this expedition of
Zaimes and myself ashore.”

“I think your plan is an excellent one, Horace,” Martyn said, and Mr.
Beveridge equally approved of it.

“I don’t think there will be any great danger about it, Martyn. There
seems no reason why any suspicion should fall upon him and Zaimes if
they are dressed in the same way as the Greeks in these villages.”

“No, I don’t see why there should. Of course they will only speak with
other Greeks. I certainly think the plan of our getting hold of a
small native craft and anchoring near the town is a capital one. It
will save a great deal of time, for it is somewhere about fifty miles
from the cape to the town, and it would, in fact, save a whole day,
as, if they come off to us in the evening we could do what there is to
do that night, whereas, if they had to walk all the way down the coast
to the cape and come on board there it would be too late to do
anything that night, and we should have to wait until the next.”

Zaimes was called in, and eagerly embraced the proposal when it was
explained to him. He was passionately fond of his brother, from whom
he had never been separated, and was ready to dare anything to attempt
his rescue. It was agreed they had better wait till dark before they
landed. Accordingly the schooner sailed west for some hours and did
not return to the cape until after darkness had fallen. Then Zaimes
and Horace were landed, and as soon as the boat returned the schooner
again sailed away. Before leaving the ship Horace had dressed himself
as a Greek, and on landing they walked to the village.

“You had best remain outside for a few minutes, Mr. Horace,” Zaimes
said, “while I see the man I conversed with this morning. I told him
then that my brother was on board the polacca that was wrecked, and
that I should endeavour to get the ear of some person of importance at
Adalia. He said that he was sure that I could do nothing, but anything
he could do to help me he would, for his people came years ago from
Naxos, which, as you know, is our native place. I will just go in
first to see if he is alone and to tell him that I have a friend with
me. As soon as I see that he is in the same mood I will call you in.”

In three or four minutes the door of the cottage opened again and
Horace was called in.

“This is the young friend who accompanies me,” Zaimes said to the man.
“He is not a relation, but he has been with my brother ever since he
was born, and is willing to join me in the effort to save him.”

“It is quite hopeless,” the peasant said. “You are only risking your
lives. Still, that is your business. You are ready, you say, to buy of
me two suits of our clothes. I have one suit belonging to my son, who
is at present away in a coasting ship, and I have a suit of my own
that I can let you have.”

Zaimes and Horace had both brought on shore a considerable amount of
gold stowed in belts beneath their clothes, in case they should find
any opportunity of bribing a prison official, and had in their pockets
an ample sum for any ordinary expenditure. As the peasant only asked
about three times the amount which the clothes would cost new, they
paid for them without bargaining, and at once put them on.

“I have a brother at Adalia,” the man said, well pleased with the
bargain he had made; “and if you go to him and say that you come from
me, his brother Alexis, of this village, I am sure he will be glad to
lodge you, especially when you tell him that you too belong to Naxos.”

After receiving instructions as to how to find the man’s brother in
Adalia they started at once upon their journey. They lay down for
three hours in the middle of the night in a wood, and entered Adalia
at eight o’clock in the morning. They went straight to the address the
peasant had given them. It was a small house with but two rooms, and
its master was a cobbler. As soon as Zaimes mentioned his brother’s
name, and said that they were ready to pay for the accommodation, the
shoemaker agreed at once to receive them. He was a chatty fellow, and
was very anxious to hear news about affairs in Greece, when they told
him that they had but lately arrived from there.

“Now,” he said, “what is your business? Of course I can see that you
do not belong to us. You are from Naxos, as you say; I notice a few
turns of speech such as my father used to use. But what have you come
here for? and why have you bought my brother’s clothes from him, for I
recognized them directly you came in? I like to know things, not
because I am inquisitive, but because I do not want to have the
pasha’s executioner suddenly coming in at the door and taking off my
head, without even explaining the reason why.”

“I am what I told you, a Greek of Naxos,” Zaimes said; “and as I
explained to your brother, I have a brother who is one of the crew of
that ship that was wrecked here six days ago; and I have come to see
whether, by greasing the palms of some of the officials, I can manage
to get him out.”

“That you can’t,” the man said decidedly. “If he were in the civil
prison it might be done; but the pasha, guessing perhaps that many of
us Christians would sympathize with them, or possibly having an idea
that the mob might rise, handed them over to the soldiers, and they
are confined in a room in the military prison in the centre of the
barracks, where there are lots of sentries. The gates have been
closed since they were taken there, and no civilian is allowed to
enter under any pretence. So you see there is no bribing to be done.
Of course the sentries are changed frequently. There is no knowing
what officer has the prisoners specially under his charge. And even if
he were bribed, there would be no getting them past the sentries. So
you can give up the idea altogether of getting your brother out.”

“How long does it take for a messenger to go from here to Smyrna?”
Zaimes asked, with a slight glance at Horace to show that he was
changing the conversation purposely.

“By ordinary travelling some two weeks; but a mounted messenger, with
relays of horses, can do it in four days.”

“Then in another three days the answer may come from Smyrna?”

“That is so. I wonder myself that the pasha took the trouble of
sending to the governor of Anatolia, instead of hanging the prisoners
at once.”

“I suppose he thought that the governor might like to have them sent
to him, so that he could forward them to Constantinople.”

“Are you thinking of delaying the messenger’s return? That might be
done, you know.” And the man drew his finger across his throat
significantly.

“I don’t see that the delay would be of any use,” Zaimes replied. “If
there is no chance of getting my brother out, it matters not whether
the messenger arrives to-day or a fortnight hence. However, it is a
matter that may be worth thinking over later. At any rate we will go
out and have a look at the barracks. Will you go with us? I am not
without money, and can make it well worth your while to aid us by your
advice.”

“I am ready enough,” the man said. “Trade is dull, and a man must
live; and besides, I would gladly save a Christian and a native of my
own island from the Turks.”

“I would not trust him too far,” Zaimes said in an undertone to
Horace when the man went into the apartment behind to speak to his
wife. “He is now inclined to help us, especially if he thinks that he
will be well paid for it. But we had better not let him know anything
of our plans. When he saw there was danger, what with fear as to his
own safety and the hope of a bigger reward than he could expect to get
from us, he might decide to turn traitor. We had better let him
suppose that we have given up all hope.”

“I agree with you, Zaimes. His hint about the messenger may be a
useful one. I don’t mean, of course, that we should cut the poor
beggar’s throat; but we might bind him and fasten him up for a few
days if we find there is need of time to make our preparations.”

“I am afraid time will not help us,” Zaimes said. “The fellow can have
no motive for lying; and if what he says is a fact, I don’t see a
shadow of a chance of our getting them out, even if we had all the
crew of the schooner here.”

“We shall know more about it when we have seen the place, Zaimes. I
expected they would be securely locked up, and it is not much worse
than I looked for. It is hard if we can’t hit on some plan for getting
them out.”




CHAPTER XII

PLANNING A RESCUE


“Even Horace was obliged to admit, when he with Zaimes and their guide
had walked round the barracks, that he saw no chance whatever of being
able to get the prisoners out by force. The barracks consisted of an
old castle, a portion of which was, as the shoemaker told them, now
used as a military prison; and round this at some distance ran a
strong wall some fifteen feet high, loopholed for musketry. The troops
were lodged in huts between this wall and the castle.

“There you see,” the guide said, “what I said was true. You could not
get a bird out of that place, much less a man.”

“That is so,” Zaimes agreed. “Well, what cannot be done, cannot.
However, we will talk it over this evening at your house. Now let us
walk about and view the city. Truly it is a fine one.”

Few towns, indeed, have a finer situation than Adalia, standing as it
does at the head of a noble bay, a great portion of which is fringed
with lofty and precipitous cliffs. The town, which at that time
contained some ten thousand inhabitants, stands on ground sloping
upwards from the sea in terraces rising one above another. It was
surrounded by a ditch and a double wall of massive construction, with
square towers every fifty yards. Beyond the walls stretched gardens
and groves of orange, lemon, and mulberry trees. Ten mosques with
their domes and minarets reared themselves above the houses, and there
were several churches belonging to the Christian population, which
was, the guide told them, about two thousand in number, the great
proportion of whom spoke only the Turkish language. “I can talk
equally well in both, for it is but fifty years since my father
settled here, and we always talked Greek in the family as long as he
lived. Now I always speak Turkish; it is safer, and does not remind
the Turks continually that we are of Greek race.”

“Where does the pasha reside?” Horace asked presently.

“I will show you his place; it is at the lower corner of the north
wall. His gardens stretch down to the wall by the water, and another
high wall on this side separates them from the town.”

Passing through several streets they arrived opposite the residence of
the pasha of the sanjak of Tekeh, of which Adalia is the chief town.
The residence itself stood at the angle of the two walls dividing the
garden from the town. It was a massive building. Some soldiers sat on
benches at either side of the gate that opened into the court-yard,
and townspeople and officials passed in and out.

“The public offices are in the court-yard,” the guide said. “The
pasha’s private dwelling and his harem lie behind it.”

“I suppose we can walk in?”

“Certainly,” the guide said; and they passed through the gates into
the court-yard. On one side was a guard-room, stables, and other
offices; on the other were the rooms of the secretaries and officials
and that in which the pasha transacted business and received visitors.
The portion of the house facing the gates was blank on the basement
story, except that a door faced the gateway. Above were a line of
windows, all closed with jalousies. “That is the dwelling-house,”
their guide said. “I believe all the apartments of the family face the
garden. Those windows you see there are only those of the apartments
of the servants and slaves.”

After leaving the pasha’s they walked down to the bottom of the town,
where two gates with strong flanking powers opened upon the port,
which was smaller than Horace had expected to find it. However, he was
glad to see that there were several craft anchored in the roadstead,
some near the port, some at a distance, showing that vessels did not
come in unless for shelter in bad weather or to discharge heavy
cargoes. Whatever the craft, then, in which the crew of the schooner
might arrive, it would not attract attention by anchoring outside the
port, as arranged. They returned with their guide to his house and had
a meal there. Zaimes was profoundly discouraged. He saw no prospect
whatever of rescuing his brother or the other prisoners, and the
strength of the walls and the guns that were mounted upon them--a step
which, the host told him, had been taken a few months before to defend
the town against the Greek fleet, should it make its appearance
there--showed that there was no prospect of the Turks being alarmed by
the appearance or threats of a craft like the schooner.

“It seems altogether hopeless,” Zaimes said to the Greek.

The latter shook his head, “I can see no possible way,” he replied.
“If it had been an ordinary prisoner in the jail it could be managed
without difficulty. I could have got one of our countrymen of some
influence to have approached the prison officers, or I myself could
have worked with the warders; a small sum of money would have done it.
But now it seems to me hopeless, and even if we stop the messenger and
gain another eight days while the pasha sends again to Smyrna, we
should only run some risk and gain nothing.”

Zaimes assented mournfully.

“You had better make the man a present, Zaimes,” Horace said when they
were alone for a minute after the meal was finished. “Tell him that it
seems to us to be hopeless, and that we shall probably go right away;
but that if, thinking it over, we can hit upon any possible plan we
will be back again this evening and sleep here.”

Zaimes carried out the suggestion, gave their host a gold coin, and
said that they saw no use in staying longer, but would think it over
in every way and might return that evening.

“If you go outside the town you must be back by sunset,” the man said;
“the gates are closed at that hour.”

“We will not forget, but I do not think you will see us again.”

“Even if our people don’t arrive this evening, Zaimes, I think it will
be just as well not to go back into the town,” Horace said as they
issued out through the gates into the country. “I don’t say for a
moment that the man is not honest, but it is just as well not to put
temptation in his way. He knows that we are friends of the prisoners,
and he, no doubt, guesses that we belong to the craft that captured
the polacca that was wrecked. No doubt he would not openly betray us;
that would bring him into discredit with all the Christians in the
town. But a few words whispered to some Turk, and an agreement to
share any reward that may be given for our capture, would answer the
purpose just as well. I don’t say he would do it, you know, but it
would be just as well not to run the risk.”

On issuing from the gate, Horace saw that there was a narrow road
running between a deep dry ditch at the foot of the city walls and the
outlying gardens and orchards.

“This will be our shortest way down to the water, Zaimes, let us
follow it.”

The Greek turned without question. When they had gone half-way down
between the gate and the bottom of the hill, Horace stopped. “Now, let
us have a good look at this place. On the other side of that wall is
the garden of the pasha’s house. I counted the number of steps up from
the house to the cross-road leading to the gateway, and I have counted
them coming down again; we are about fifty yards below the upper wall
of the garden.”

“I daresay it is so,” Zaimes replied listlessly.

“This ditch is about ten feet deep, and from the bottom of the ditch
to the top of that first wall is from five-and-twenty to thirty;
between that wall and the higher one inside it is about fifteen feet;
and the inner wall is about fifteen feet higher than the outer one;
those square towers form junctions between the two walls. Now, we may
be quite sure that there are no sentries either on the wall or on the
square towers. I don’t suppose there are sentries anywhere except in
the batteries on the water-face, but there certainly won’t be here,
for they would command a view down into the pasha’s garden; so we may
quite conclude that except for the trouble of scaling the walls there
is nothing to prevent our getting over. A couple of rope-ladders and
one or two twenty-foot planks with bits nailed across them to give a
foothold would take us on to the inner wall; then we should need
another long ladder to get down into the garden. That would be about
thirty-five feet, I should say.”

“Yes, I see all that,” Zaimes, whose face had again become animated as
he listened, agreed; “but what would be the good of getting into the
pasha’s garden?”

“No good at all, if we were by ourselves, Zaimes, but with Martyn and
twenty men from the schooner a good deal of good, I should say. We
have only got to make a sudden rush into the house, which will, of
course, be open to the garden, seize the pasha, and carry him and some
of his wives and children off to the craft that our fellows come in,
and then on to the schooner. Then we can send ashore to say that
unless the prisoners are sent off in a boat to us by twelve o’clock in
the day we shall hang the pasha. Maybe when we get hold of the pasha
there will be no occasion to carry him and his women off; the mere
threat of it might be enough. We can tell him that it will be painful
to us to have to hoist them up to the top of the wall in sacks, but
that we shall be obliged to do it unless he signs an order for the
prisoners’ release, and sends it off at once by an officer to the
jail. A handsome bribe that will enable him to make his peace with his
superior at Smyrna may help to quicken his perception.”

Zaimes seized Horace’s hand with fervour, shook it wildly, clasped his
hands on his breast, raised them to heaven, and poured forth a stream
of exclamations of delight. The quiet habits of many years had been
thrown to the winds in a moment, and the excitable Greek nature burst
through all restraints. “You have given me new life,” he exclaimed as
soon as he had calmed down a little. “Just now there did not seem even
a shadow of hope. Now there is a chance that once again I may clasp my
brother in my arms. Your plan is difficult, it is dangerous, and yet
we may succeed. It is a desperate undertaking, but what is that? I
would give my life for my brother, and your sailors would all risk
theirs for their comrades.”

“Let us sit down here quietly for a few minutes, Zaimes, and take a
good look at these walls. It is evident by the look of this road that
it is very little used, and even if anyone did come up they would only
think that we had been working in the orange groves behind us and were
taking a quiet smoke. It is lucky that there is a moon to-night; it
would be an awfully difficult job to get over those walls and into a
place we know nothing of if it were a dark night. There will be no
difficulty in throwing up a grapnel and getting on to the first wall.
The greatest difficulty will be in crossing from that one to the one
behind it. Of course with a regular gangway it would be easy enough,
but we should not be able to get materials for making one. However,
with a couple of stout spars put up a foot apart with ropes between
them a foot from each other so as to make ratlings, we could get up,
though it wouldn’t be a very easy job passing women down. Still, I
hope it won’t come to that. I should think if we capture the pasha and
his children, if he has any--and I suppose with half-a-dozen wives he
will be sure to have some--we might leave the women alone, though, of
course, we should threaten to take them. But I’ll tell you what we
shall want, and that is a man who can speak Turkish well, so as to
explain exactly to the pasha the fix he is in.”

“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.”

[Illustration: THE CAPTURE OF THE PASHA]

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 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.

“Now, Miller,” he said as he started, “we are fairly out of it. I am
delighted, indeed, to see you and Tarleton again. I thought at one
time it was all up with you.”

“So did we,” Miller said, “and I can hardly believe we are free even
now.”

“It is due to Horace and Zaimes, Miller, though it is to Horace
entirely that the credit of hitting upon the plan by which we have got
you out belongs. However we will talk all about that when we get on
board. You will have to tell your yarn to the chief; besides, as I
have told the men not to talk, I don’t want to set a bad example.”

Horace had greeted Marco warmly in the court-yard, and as soon as they
started he fell behind with him, chatting with him in low tones.

“Zaimes couldn’t come with us, Marco, for he and the doctor had to
stay on board with my father to look after some prisoners there, but
he was here with me this morning and made all the arrangements for the
escape. We landed at the mouth of the bay and walked here last night,
both disguised in peasants’ dresses we got hold of. I know it was a
great privation to him not to be able to come himself and aid in your
rescue.”

Here Martyn, catching the murmur of voices, passed the word for
silence, and nothing more was said until they reached the boats which
they had drawn up on the shore. A few minutes later they were
alongside the brigantine. Mr. Beveridge hailed them as they
approached.

“Is that you, Martyn?”

“Yes, sir. Horace’s plan has worked perfectly, and we have got them
all out. The boats can only carry half. He is waiting with the rest on
the beach.”

“Thank God for that, Martyn! No one hurt at all?”

“No one, not even a Turk has been knocked down. The only scrimmage has
been with one of the pasha’s wives’ maids, who fought like a wild-cat
before two of our men could make her a prisoner.”

Directly the rest of the party came off the anchor was weighed and
sail made on the brigantine, and she was headed from the land. In half
an hour a look-out in the bow called out: “I think I can make out the
schooner away on our beam, sir.”

“I think it is her,” Martyn said after going forward to have a look.
“Light that red flare-up we brought with us, Horace.”

As soon as the red flame broke out, a similar signal was shown by the
craft in the distance. The brigantine was headed for her, and the two
vessels rapidly approached each other. Presently a hail from Tom
Burdett came across the water.

“Captain Martyn ahoy!”

“Ay, ay, Tom! We have got them all. Everyone is safe and well.”

A cheer broke out from the schooner, which was answered by a louder
one from the brigantine.

“Throw her up in the wind, Tom,” Martyn shouted, “and we will bring
this craft alongside.”

In two or three minutes the vessels lay side by side. Before leaving
the brigantine its crew were released. Mr. Beveridge, in his delight
at the success of the plan, made them each a handsome present for the
inconvenience they had suffered. The cobbler of Adalia had not come
aboard with the boats, Horace having given him his reward of
twenty-five pounds before embarking. As soon as the crew of the
schooner were all on board the head-sails were filled, and she rapidly
drew away from the brig. The boatswain was ordered to serve out a
ration of grog all round, and the officers then assembled in the
cabin, where the Greeks placed some cold meat and wine on the table,
to which all, especially Miller and Tarleton, fell to with a good
appetite. When they had done, Martyn told the story of the steps that
had been taken for their rescue.

“You see, Miller, it was entirely Horace’s plan; he made the whole
arrangements, and we had only to carry them out, which was the
simplest thing in the world. Now let us have your account.”

“We were not very lucky,” Miller said. “We overhauled five or six
craft, but for the most part they contained little of value. One or
two of them had some silk and other goods on board, and these were
transferred to the polacca. The weather kept fine, and thinking that
our rig would not alarm the Turks we sailed in within three miles of
Adalia. I was intending to go right into the roads and anchor there,
when we saw the clouds banking up to the south. I had no barometer on
board, but it looked so bad that we headed out again for the mouth of
the gulf.

“We had not gone far when the gale struck us, blowing like fury right
into the bay. We did everything we could, but the old tub drifted to
leeward two feet for every one we worked out. The wind got higher and
higher till it was blowing a hurricane. As soon as the water shallowed
sufficiently to anchor, I let both anchors go; but the gear was all
rotten, and the cables snapped like packthread. Finally we drove
ashore about half a mile to the east of the town.

“There was a mob there waiting us, and the pasha with a lot of troops.
We tied a line to a keg and it floated on shore. They hauled on it,
and then we sent a hawser and swarmed along it. The Turks behaved very
pluckily, joining hands and rushing into the breakers to get us
ashore. As soon as they saw by our uniform who we were there was a
regular hubbub, and I thought we should all have been killed then and
there. However the pasha made the troops form up round us, and marched
us into the town, and there we were stowed away in a room in that old
castle. The prospect didn’t look good, for as we went in we saw that
the troops were in huts all round us, and that there was besides a
high wall outside them. The window of the place we were shut up in was
about eight feet from the ground and very strongly barred, and in
addition they kept four soldiers always on guard in the room.

“Two or three fellows came to us and spoke in different lingoes, of
which we could neither make head nor tail. Then a chap came who spoke
Italian. I don’t know much of it, but enough to make out what he
meant when he spoke very slowly. The upshot of it was that they had
sent to Smyrna for orders as to what was to be done, and that it would
take five or six days for the messenger to go there and back. It did
not seem to make much odds to us what the answer was. Knowing how they
go on on both sides it was a moral certainty that we should be hung
either here or at Smyrna, and it did not seem to us that there was
much choice between the two places.

“Of course we often talked about you. We knew you would do everything
you could, and that when you found we did not turn up at the
rendezvous you would sail along the coast till you got news of us; but
it did not seem likely that you could do anything to help us. We knew
that you could not land more than twenty men, and with twenty men you
could do nothing at all against about a thousand Turks with that
strong wall in front of them. Besides, the old castle itself was
capable of defence, and there were lots of them stationed in it.
Things looked about as black as they could be. We were not starved;
the Turks gave us plenty of bread and a sort of thin broth.

“This evening we stretched ourselves out as usual about nine o’clock.
We were all asleep when the outer gates of the castle were opened,
then there was a loud trampling of feet, then our door was unlocked.
When an officer came in, followed by a lot of soldiers, we thought
that it was all up with us. The officer made signs that we were to go
with him, and I made so certain that we were being taken out either to
be shot or hung that I said a few words to the men, telling them that
the end had evidently come, and that we must die as Christians and
British sailors. We were led out, and about a hundred Turkish soldiers
closed round us. We were surprised when they marched us out of the
place, but as we went on through the streets of the town we supposed
they were taking us to some quiet spot outside the walls. Then we
turned in through that gateway, and then you know the rest, Martyn. I
don’t think that I am a coward, or that I felt afraid to die; but
when you and Horace rushed out to speak to us, you could have knocked
me over with a feather. It was not until I got out into the garden and
found your party formed up there that I was quite sure it was not all
a dream.”

When they had talked over the rescue Mr. Beveridge said: “Well, we
have had enough of cruising for the present; we will make for Athens
at once, Captain Martyn; by this time probably something will be going
on there.”

It was late in February when anchor was dropped in the harbour of the
Piræus. Mr. Beveridge at once went on shore with Martyn, and returned
the next morning.

“Any news of importance, father?” Horace asked as they came on board.

“Yes, Hypsilantes is likely to be succeeded by his rival
Mavrocordatos. A Samian adventurer named Lykourgos has got together a
fleet and has proposed a landing at Chios; there can be no doubt that
his intention is simply plunder, for even if he could drive the Turks
out of Chios he could not possibly hold the island, as a large Turkish
fleet will very shortly be ready to sail out of the Dardanelles. The
worst of it is that the Chiots are utterly opposed to any movement of
the kind. They are an agricultural people, and the island has always
been mildly governed and lightly taxed; their municipal administration
is already in their own hands, and their taxes collected by
themselves. When Admiral Tombazes appeared off Chios with the Greek
fleet during its first cruise, the inhabitants turned a deaf ear to
his invitation to them to rise. In fact there is no doubt that the
people of Chios have everything to lose and nothing to gain by
becoming a part of Greece.

“They have sent urgent remonstrances against the landing of any Greek
troops on the island, pointing out that there is a strong body of
Turkish troops there; that the citadel could not be captured, and that
the attempt would only inflame the passions of the Mohammedan
population and end in ruin and disaster to the Christian inhabitants.
Hypsilantes has written a mild letter to Lykourgos suggesting that it
would at any rate be prudent to defer the enterprise. It is feared,
however, that, like Greek commanders in general, the fellow will pay
no attention to this, but will proceed on his own account. Martyn
agrees with me that it would be as well for us to cruise about the
island and see how matters go on, and endeavour to rescue some of the
Turks from the fury of the Greeks, or some of the Greeks from the fury
of the Turks.”

“I should say the best thing to do, father,” Horace said indignantly,
“would be to attack the ship of this fellow Lykourgos and to hang him
at his own yard-arm.”

“It would be a good action, no doubt, Horace; but as he has with him a
fleet of seventy or eighty vessels it is probable that if we made the
attempt we should decorate the yard-arms and not Lykourgos. At any
rate we will stop here for two or three days, and give the men a run
on shore. Just at present, owing to the fact of our having destroyed
that Turkish frigate, they will be very popular characters, and are
not likely to get into any serious row. They have still got the money
I paid them for their conduct at Cyprus, and when sailors have got
money in their pockets they are never happy until they have got a
chance of spending it.”

Accordingly, the crew had twelve hours on shore, a third of their
number going each day. On the fourth day the vessel sailed for Chios.
They cruised round the island for a fortnight and frequently
overhauled fishing-boats and had conversations with the crews. They
learned that fresh troops had lately arrived at Chios, and that as
these bands were principally composed of volunteers, Vehid Pasha, the
governor, had great difficulty in maintaining order among them. He had
persuaded the Christians to raise a monthly contribution of
thirty-four thousand piastres to give regular pay and rations to the
troops and so keep them in a good temper.

On the 22d of March the schooner made out a large fleet of vessels
approaching the island. They kept away until they saw them anchor, and
then themselves cast anchor at a short distance from them. A boat at
once put off from the ship flying the flag of Lykourgos, to demand who
they were and with what intentions they were there.

“We fly, as you see, the flag of Greece,” Mr. Beveridge replied to the
officer, “and we have the authority of the Greek government to fight
against its enemies. I do not, however, recognize any authority on the
part of your commander, unless he is acting at the present time under
the explicit orders of Prince Mavrocordatos, who is now President of
Greece, and shall therefore consult only my own feelings as to whether
or not I take any part in the proceedings on shore.”

“Our admiral will know how to make you obey orders,” the officer said
angrily.

“Is he an admiral?” Mr. Beveridge asked, as if for information. “I was
not aware that he had received any commission that would authorize him
to use that title either from the last president or from the present
one. When I am well assured that this is the case it will naturally
modify my views; as to compelling me, you can look round at the
armament of this craft. Three months ago we destroyed a Turkish
frigate, and I fancy that if we were interfered with we could give a
good account of many of those vessels anchored there. If, therefore,
Lykourgos is really bent upon the capture of Chios, I should advise
him to set about it without wasting his time in meddling with us. You
may mention to him that I am an English gentleman who has fitted up
this vessel for the purpose of aiding Greece to achieve her
independence, and that in all honourable warfare I am ready to take my
part. If I see that the object of your expedition is honourable
warfare I shall lend all assistance in my power. If I find that it is
merely plunder and destruction, I shall also do all in my power to
prevent the Greek flag from being disgraced by acts only worthy of
pirates; and, moreover, I will take care that my countrymen and the
various nations of Europe shall obtain a fair account of what has been
done here.”

The Greek was completely cowed by the calmness and confidence of the
owner of the schooner, and returned to his boat without any of the
swagger with which he had quitted it. Horace translated his father’s
speech to Martyn and the other two officers as soon as Mr. Beveridge
had returned to his cabin.

“The chief is a perfect brick,” Martyn said enthusiastically. “Fancy
sending off such a message as that from this schooner to a fellow
commanding sixty or seventy sail. Sir Richard Grenville could hardly
have sent from the deck of the _Revenge_ a more defiant message to the
Spanish fleet.”

Miller rubbed his hands. “Shall I get the men in readiness for making
sail and casting off the guns, Captain Martyn?”

“There will be time enough,” Martyn said, “when we make out a movement
among them. We can get up sail in half the time they can. I should not
be surprised if this fellow Lykourgos knuckles down. Did you see how
his officer came down from his stilts? If this fellow had any pluck he
would be sailing to meet the Turkish fleet instead of landing to
pillage here, for, from what Mr. Beveridge said, that can be his only
motive. Still, we will keep a sharp look-out on them. If we see the
flag-ship signalling to the others, or her boats putting off to them,
we shall know what to expect. You may as well get a buoy on the
anchor-chain and have everything ready to slip. We are too near them
to be pleasant if they open fire. Once under way and out of close
range we can talk to them as we like.”




CHAPTER XIV

CHIOS


A quarter of an hour after the Greek officer left the schooner Miller
said: “They are lowering a large boat from the Greek flag-ship, sir.”

Martyn brought his glass to bear upon it.

“There is a stir on board,” he said. “It looks as if the commander
were going on shore.”

“Yes, there is some officer of importance being handed down the
ladder. Now she is putting off. By Jove! I believe she is coming here;
at any rate she is heading straight for us. Perhaps Lykourgos himself
is coming to blow us out of the water.”

“Quite as likely he is coming to pay his respects,” Miller said. “The
betting is ten to one the fellow is a coward; and that if the officer
gave the message as he got it, he is impressed with the idea that the
chief is an Englishman of great importance, possessed, perhaps, of
unknown powers of destruction.”

“Horace,” Martyn said, “you had better tell your father. I can make
out that the fellow in the stern is got up in gorgeous uniform. I
expect it is Lykourgos himself.”

Mr. Beveridge came up on to the quarter-deck just as the boat came
alongside. Martyn went to the gangway as a Greek officer came up and
announced that Admiral Lykourgos had come to pay a visit to the
English lord. Lykourgos mounted to the deck.

“I am the commandant of this craft, sir,” Martyn said. “This is Mr.
Beveridge, the owner.”

Lykourgos advanced with an air of great pleasure and with outstretched
hand.

“I am delighted to make the acquaintance of an English friend of
Greece,” he said.

Mr. Beveridge bowed and shook hands with the Greek.

“What a contrast there is between them!” Miller whispered to Horace.
“This theatrical-looking Greek with his oily manners, and your father
in his quiet blue serge! Ah! he is asking him to go down into the
cabin.”

The interview lasted about ten minutes, and then the two men returned
on deck. Lykourgos entered his boat and rowed away.

“Well, sir, is it peace or war?” Martyn asked.

“Peace, as far as we are concerned,” Mr. Beveridge said. “The fellow
made no allusion to my message to him, paid me a large number of
absurd compliments, expressed boundless admiration at the result of
Miller’s action with the frigate, of which he had heard, and hoped
that he would have our assistance against the Turks. I told him what I
thought of his enterprise, and that he was bringing destruction upon
the heads of the unfortunate Christians. He assured me that I had been
misinformed, that the Christians would join him to a man, and that he
should make short work of the Turks, and should at once besiege them
in their citadel. I said that I wished him success in that part of his
undertaking, and that there would be no time to waste, as the Turkish
fleet might, I understood, appear any day. But that, if he undertook
siege operations, and his own force proved inadequate, we would land a
party to assist him. He hinted that money might be required to support
the siege. I told him that I had arranged with the central government
that any assistance I had to give in that way should be given through
them; but that, if the people of the island really did rise, I should
be happy to furnish a thousand muskets and ammunition for their use.
Seeing that nothing was to be got out of me he took his leave. He said
the landing was to take place in half an hour.”

“Shall we send a party on shore with him, Mr. Beveridge?” Martyn
asked.

“No, Martyn. He says he has got two thousand five hundred fighting men
ready to land, and that being the case we should be powerless to
interfere in any way. Besides, for the present I think it would be
best to keep the men on board. I don’t trust the fellow in the
slightest; and if he thought the vessel was left weak-handed, he is
perfectly capable of making a sudden attack on her. No doubt he thinks
we have money untold below, and I should say a great proportion of his
vessels are no better than pirates, who have merely joined him in the
hope of booty. I know that he has none of the Psara ships with him,
for Chios lies so near their island that they would have no wish to
draw the vengeance of the Turks upon themselves; and I know that they,
as well as the Chiots, sent to Corinth to protest against the
expedition. I don’t think he has any of the Hydriot ships with him
either. They only sail under their own admirals, and do, to a certain
extent, respect the orders of the central government. His ships, I
fancy, all belong to the smaller islands, and are the sort of craft
that are honest traders one day and pirates the next if they see a
chance--the riffraff of the islands, in fact. If they really do
besiege the Turks in the citadel, and I see that we can be of any
assistance, we will land a party; but at any rate we will take matters
quietly until we see how things go.”

“The vessels are all lowering their boats, Captain Martyn,” Tarleton
reported.

“Very well, Mr. Tarleton. Let the men go to their quarters, unloose
the guns and load with grape. It is quite upon the cards that these
fellows may make a sudden dash upon us, thinking to catch us napping.”

The boatswain’s whistle was heard, and then Tom Burdett shouted out:
“All hands to quarters! Cast loose the guns and load with grape!” And
in a moment a scene of animated bustle succeeded the quiet that had
reigned on board the schooner since her anchor had been dropped. In a
few minutes, however, the crowded boats left the ships and rowed
towards shore.

“That will do, boatswain; you can call the men away from the guns,”
said Martyn.

“Shall we take the cartridges out, sir?”

“No, leave them as they are. Put a fold or two of sailcloth over the
touch-holes. It is just as well to be on guard as long as we are in
the neighbourhood of these slippery gentry. Horace, you take my glass
and go aloft, and see if you can make out any Turks in the
neighbourhood. It is four or five hours since the Greek fleet first
hove in sight, and there is ample time for the Turks to have come down
to oppose their landing if they thought themselves strong enough to
fight in the open.”

Horace ascended the shrouds, and sitting on the cap of the mainmast
examined the shore.

“There are half a dozen horsemen riding about, a short distance from
the shore, sir,” he called down, “but I can see no signs of troops
anywhere.”

“Then it is evident they don’t mean to fight,” Martyn said to the
first lieutenant. “Between ourselves, Miller, I am very glad they are
not here to oppose a landing; for if they had been, no doubt the chief
would have wanted to fire a few shots to help cover the operations,
and I should be sorry to lift even a finger to help in this wretched
business. It is like a landing from one of the old buccaneer fleets on
the Spanish Main. They used to pretend they went to attack the
Spaniards, while in reality they simply fought for plunder. Still,
those fellows had courage--plenty of it, which is more, I fancy, than
these Greeks are likely to exhibit when they once get in front of the
Turks.”

Lykourgos, with his twenty-five hundred men, marched without
opposition into the town of Chios, where they burnt the custom-houses,
destroyed two mosques, and plundered generally the houses of the
inhabitants. They occupied the houses nearest the citadel, and placing
riflemen in them opened fire, while a party began to throw up a
battery on a commanding position known as Turloti.

The following morning Mr. Beveridge landed, and, accompanied by Miller
and Horace, and a party of twenty sailors armed with rifle, cutlass,
and pistol, proceeded to Chios. He found the streets of the town in
disorder, the troops--or rather the armed men, for they were under
neither discipline nor control--were wandering about, occasionally
going within sight of the citadel, and discharging their muskets two
or three times in that direction. They looked with surprise at the
orderly little party of British sailors; but as they supposed these
had come to help them, they received them with exclamations of
good-will. They visited Turloti, where a score or two of men were
working lazily, and then went down to the port, where another battery
had also been begun.

“What on earth are they putting up a battery here for?” Miller said.
“At this distance they might as well fire potatoes at the citadel. Ask
that officer, Horace, what they are up to?”

The Greek replied that they were going to run their trenches forward
against the citadel from this point.

“Well, then, they are fonder of work than I gave them credit for,”
Miller said when he understood the reply. “If the whole of them were
to set to work in earnest, it would take them a month to run their
trenches from here up to the citadel, and, at the rate at which they
are working now, it would take them a couple of years.”

Returning to the town Mr. Beveridge called upon Lykourgos, who had
taken up his quarters in the bishop’s palace. The Greek received him
with an air of much greater pomposity than he had shown at their first
meeting. He evidently believed that the work was almost accomplished,
and that he was already the conqueror of the island.

“I have been doing some good work this morning,” he said. “I have
deposed the Demogeronts (the Municipal Council). You know they were
poor creatures and lukewarm, and I have appointed a Revolutionary
Committee.”

“Indeed!” Mr. Beveridge said gravely. “And what military work have you
in hand? It seems to me that the men would be much better employed in
working at the batteries than in idling about the streets.”

“The citadel will soon fall,” Lykourgos said loftily. “Cut off from
all succour and surrounded by my army they must speedily surrender.”

“Undoubtedly they must, if they were so situated,” Mr. Beveridge said;
“but, so far as I see, there is nothing whatever to prevent the Turks
from sending reinforcements from the mainland.”

“I am writing to ask the government at Corinth to order the fleet here
to blockade the island and oppose the Turkish fleet when they come in
sight.”

“That would be excellent,” Mr. Beveridge said; “but the central
government are not famous for speed, nor are the ships of Hydra and
Psara very apt to obey orders unless these happen to suit their own
views. Could you not send a few of those vessels of yours to prevent
the Turks from sending reinforcements?”

“That would be quite impossible,” Lykourgos said decidedly. “In the
first place, they are mere transports, the greater proportion carrying
no guns, and those that do have guns of such light calibre that they
could not oppose the Turkish cruisers that would no doubt convoy any
vessels bringing Turkish troops across. In the second place, I could
not spare a ship, for, were the Turkish fleet to arrive before the
Greek fleet comes to my assistance, I should have to re-embark my army
at once. I shall soon be in a position to press the siege more
vigorously. I have already received messages saying the peasantry
among the hills are about to join me.”

Mr. Beveridge, seeing that there was no prospect of any vigorous
efforts to restore discipline among the Greeks, returned to the
schooner. Day after day passed and nothing whatever was done. A few
soldiers, when the fancy took them, worked for an hour or two at the
batteries, or fired away their ammunition in the direction of the
citadel. Neither Lykourgos nor his committee made any attempt to
introduce either discipline among the troops or order in the town.

No news came from Corinth as to the movements of the Greek fleet, but
a vessel arrived with a few heavy guns for siege purposes, and also
brought several Philhellenes--as foreigners who had come to assist the
Greeks were called--to direct the service of the guns.

In consequence of the disorder in the town the position of the better
class of Christians became intolerable. Mr. Beveridge landed but
seldom. He saw that nothing could be done, and that the expedition
must certainly end in disaster, and accordingly preferred to remain on
board and await events.

Two of the officers generally landed every day. Some of the men were
also allowed to go on shore, but were forbidden to approach the
neighbourhood of the town lest they should become involved in quarrels
with the Greeks. One day, when Horace was ashore with Tarleton, he
spoke sharply to a drunken Greek soldier who ran against him.
Presently Tarleton said:

“There has been a Greek following us since you spoke to that drunken
man, Horace. He looks a respectable old card. I fancy he wants to
speak to you, having heard you talking Greek.”

“Why doesn’t he speak then?” Horace said.

“Perhaps he wants to talk to you in quiet, Horace.”

“Very well. Let us turn down this narrow street. There is no one
about, and that will give him a chance of speaking if he wants to.”

The Greek, indeed, quickened his steps as soon as they turned down,
and was soon alongside of them.

“You speak Greek, sir?” he said to Horace. “I have been wanting to
speak to some of you officers, but this is the first time I have heard
one of you speaking Greek.”

“Yes, I speak the language. Is there anything I can do for you, sir?”

“Do you belong to an English ship-of-war, may I ask?”

“No; I belong to an armed ship, which is the property of my father,
who is a Philhellene, and has fitted it out at his own expense for the
service of Greece, whose flag we now fly.”

“Your sailors are taking no part in the siege of the citadel?”

“No, sir. My father does not think the expedition a useful one, and we
are only remaining here to see what takes place, and perhaps to give
assistance to any who may need it.”

“We all need it, sir,” the man said eagerly. “We have been robbed and
plundered by these ruffians, who call themselves our friends, and when
they run away, which they will do directly the Turks come, we shall be
held responsible for all their misdeeds, and a terrible vengeance will
fall upon us. I was a wealthy man, sir, a fortnight ago; now I would
give all I possess to save the lives of my family and myself, and
there are eight or ten of my friends in the same position. We have
jewels and money, and are ready to pay any sum to be taken off the
island before the Turks come. You have but to name a price, and if it
is within our means we shall be happy to pay it.”

“We are not Greeks,” Horace said angrily, “to make money out of the
miseries of others.” And then, seeing the depressed look of the
merchant, he went on more mildly: “We do not wish to make money out of
your misfortune, sir; but I will speak to my father, and I think I can
answer for him that he will be ready to afford you and your friends
and families shelter on board his ship. We lately took five hundred
Christians off from Cyprus and landed them on the Ionian Isles. We
came out to fight, but my father has since named his ship the
_Misericordia_, and his desire is to help persons in distress, whether
they be Turks or Christians. I will speak to him when I return on
board, and if you will be here to-morrow at eleven o’clock in the
morning I will give you his answer.”

The merchant overwhelmed Horace with thanks.

“What is the old chap so excited about, Horace?” Tarleton asked as
they resumed their walk.

Horace repeated the conversation.

“Poor beggars!” Tarleton said. “A nice position they are in! I wish
we had the crew of a man-of-war here; we would clear out the town
pretty sharply of these ruffians who call themselves soldiers, and
send these peasants who are swarming about the streets back to their
mountains. I see they have got the muskets your father sent on shore
yesterday. Much good will they do them! The men had far better be at
home looking after their vineyards and orchards.”

Mr. Beveridge agreed at once to afford shelter to the merchants and
their families.

“I thought it would come to this,” he said, “and expected some of them
would come off and ask to be taken on board before; but I suppose they
did not know our real character. We shall have plenty more applying
before this matter is concluded; but I doubt whether Lykourgos and his
crew will allow them to come on board so long as they have a penny
left to be wrung out of them. The scoundrel ought to be hung, if it
was only for being named as he is. It is downright profanation to hear
such names as Ulysses, Lycurgus, Leonidas, and Miltiades applied to
men who do not seem to possess one single good quality, not even that
of courage. Tell them, Horace, that we will carry out any arrangements
for getting them off that they may suggest, and that at any hour by
night or day the boats shall be at the spot they appoint, and that a
strong body of men shall be sent on shore to cover their embarkation.”

Martyn himself accompanied Horace the next morning to shore, as he
thought it would be better that he should hear what were the plans of
the merchant, and might be able to make suggestions as to their being
carried out. The Christian merchant was awaiting them. When they
approached he entered the house by the door of which he was standing,
and invited them also to enter.

“I know the owner of this house,” he said, “and arranged with him to
have a room where we could speak undisturbed. Did any of the officers
or soldiers happen to come down the lane when I was speaking to you,
suspicion would be at once roused that some plot or other was on
foot. Well, sir, what is your father’s answer?”

“He cordially invites you and your friends and their families to take
refuge on board his vessel, and he will land you at Athens, Corinth,
or in the Ionian Isles, as you may desire.”

The Greek clasped his hands in delight. “Oh, sir, you cannot tell what
a load you have taken off my mind, or what we have been suffering of
late, with the certainty that ere long the Turks will return.”

“This is Captain Martyn, who commands the vessel,” Horace said; “he
has come ashore to concert measures for getting you on board, that is,
if you think that there will be any obstacle in the way of your coming
off openly.”

“Certainly there will. I am sure they would not allow us to leave.
Three of my friends went to Lykourgos yesterday and said they desired
to go with their families on board the Greek ships. He got into a fury
and threatened to have them thrown into prison as traitors, fined them
a thousand piastres each, and said that anyone leaving the island
would be deemed a traitor to the cause of Greece and all his property
confiscated.”

Horace translated this to Martyn.

“Then they must get off quietly, Horace; ask him if they have formed
any plans. Tell him that I will land thirty men and bring them up
close to the town, if they can slip off and join us.”

Horace put the question.

“We were talking it over last night,” the merchant said; “it is not
easy, because we all have men who call themselves officers quartered
in our houses. We think that the best way will be for our daughters
and servants, with the exception of one or two, to slip off as soon as
it becomes dark, going in pairs and carrying with them all the
valuables they can. We ourselves and our wives will remain for two or
three hours, so that the men seeing us will suspect nothing. Some of
our servants, after escorting the ladies and children beyond the
town, can return and take with them another load. It would not do to
take large bundles, but the men can carry casks or barrels on their
shoulders filled with valuable clothes and stuffs, and as there would
be nothing unusual in a man carrying a cask of wine or a barrel of
flour, they might pass without exciting suspicion. Then, at the moment
agreed, we ourselves might slip away and join the rest.”

“That seems a likely plan,” Martyn said when he understood the
details. “Now it is for them to name some spot where we can be
awaiting them.”

“We have arranged that,” the Chiot said. “One of my friends has a
large farm-house where he and his family take up their residence in
summer; it stands half a mile from the town, on the brow looking down
upon the sea; it is a white house with two large store-houses for wine
and produce standing behind it.”

“I know the house,” Horace said; “the road passes a hundred yards
behind it.”

“That is the house, sir. It will be dark by seven o’clock, and at that
hour our servants will begin to start. It is probable that most of the
children will be sent on there during the day. This could certainly be
done without exciting attention. We ourselves will leave our houses as
the clock strikes ten.”

“I should think, Martyn,” Horace said when he had translated this,
“that we might manage to make things more easy for them if we send
Marco on shore with half a dozen men directly we get back to the ship.
We can tell him to hire a couple of carts and then to come to these
people’s houses. At one they could take into the carts a dozen barrels
of wine, that is to say, wine barrels filled with valuables; at
another a dozen barrels of flour, at another a cask of currants or
olives, and so on. I will go round with them, and it will merely seem
as if we were buying stores for the ship. These rich merchants are
certain to have the best of everything, and it will be natural that we
should choose a time like the present to lay in a stock, and that
they would be glad to sell cheaply. Marco and half the men could go
with one cart and I could go with the rest with the other. That way we
should attract less attention than by both going about in a crowd.”

“I think that is a capital plan, Horace; explain it to him, and get
the names and addresses of the people who are going and the houses
that each cart should go to, so that they may not cross each other on
the way.”

Horace explained the matter to the merchant.

“That is kind indeed,” he exclaimed, “and will enable us to save all
our most precious goods without fear of detection. I will go round at
once to my friends and tell them to pack up their things. There are
ten of us who have agreed to make the attempt together, which will
make five houses for each cart to call at.” And taking out his
pocket-book he wrote the addresses on two slips of paper.

There was nothing more to arrange.

“It will take us an hour and a half to get on board,” Horace said.
“That will be one o’clock. At two we will start, and you may expect
the carts to be at the houses somewhere about four.”

He and Martyn walked briskly back to the landing-place, where a boat
met them, having put off as soon as they were seen approaching. Mr.
Beveridge warmly approved of the plan, and at two o’clock ten sailors
were landed. Zaimes as well as Marco accompanied them, and Miller also
went to take charge of one party, as it was thought that they were
less likely to be questioned if an officer went with them. They
stopped at a farm-house by the way and hired two carts. It was
arranged that the two Greeks should purchase in the town several
carcasses of sheep and a quantity of fruit and vegetables to place on
the carts with the other goods, so as to carry out more completely the
idea that they were laying in stores for consumption on board, and on
their way Zaimes suggested they should also get a small cask or two of
currants and a cask of wine for each cart. In packing the goods these
should be placed most conspicuously, so that if necessary they could
knock in the head of the cask with currants, or bore holes in that
with the wine, and show that the contents were what they seemed to be.

The operation was carried out without difficulty. At each place they
visited, casks and barrels were at once rolled out from the warehouses
and placed in the carts. There had evidently been an arrangement
between the various families as to quantity, and by the time the last
houses were visited the carts were filled to their full capacity, and
the meat, vegetables, and fruit piled on the top of all. There was
some joking from the soldiers as the carts passed down the streets,
but the sight of the meat and vegetables dispelled any suspicions, and
the Greeks joked back in return. Neither party knew how the other was
getting on, as they had not caught sight of each other after
separating before entering the town. Horace was first to reach the
spot, a mile out, where they had agreed that whichever came first
should await the other. In ten minutes the second party was seen
coming in the distance, and when it arrived within a quarter of a mile
Horace moved forward again.

Tarleton with the three largest boats was awaiting their coming on the
beach abreast of the schooner, and by the time the contents of the
first cart were transferred to the boats the second arrived. As soon
as everything was on board the drivers of the carts were paid the sum
agreed upon, and the boats rowed off to the schooner.

“Have you had any difficulty?” Mr. Beveridge asked as they came
alongside.

“Not the slightest, father,” Horace replied. “We were chaffed a little
about our stores, but no one had the least suspicion that they were
not what they seemed.”

The casks were soon got on board and were slung down into the hold.

“What do you suppose they contain, father?” Horace asked.

“Well, of course all their jewels and money are in them, and no doubt
all their valuable dresses. I expect that the bulk is made up of silk
and brocades, most of which is extremely costly. Then there will be
embroidered stuffs, some of the more valuable of which are worth
almost a fortune in themselves. Chios is an extremely rich island and
its revenues are a special appanage of the Sultan and his harem, and
doubtless the merchants here supply the ladies of the court with many
of their most valued robes and embroideries.”

While the boats had been ashore the sailors had again rigged up the
screen across the main-deck for the use of the ladies and children,
and had also made a smaller compartment for the use of the merchants.
“There is one comfort,” Miller said, “as these people are swells they
are not likely to turn the ship into such a pig-stye as that last lot
did. How many do you suppose there will be, Horace?”

“I suppose they will run seven or eight to a family, that is
seventy-five, and likely enough they may bring five or six men and
women servants with each family; so I suppose you may calculate on a
hundred and fifty, Miller.”

“Ah! well, we can manage that. I should like to see the face of that
fellow Lykourgos to-morrow morning when he finds that some of the men
out of whom he had expected to make most money have slipped through
his fingers.”

As soon as it became dark thirty men were landed, armed to the teeth.
Miller took command, and Horace accompanied him with the two Greeks to
assist to look after the fugitives. When they reached the farm-house
they found about thirty young children with their nurses assembled
there with some eight or ten older girls. They were evidently in a
state of great alarm, but their spirits rose when Horace and the
Greeks entered and told them that a guard of English sailors were
without and that there was no longer a fear of their being discovered
by any straggling soldiers who might chance to visit the house. In a
short time the servants, accompanied by young women and boys, began to
arrive. Most of them carried bundles, and their bulky appearance
suggested that they had put on a large quantity of clothes under the
plain dresses they wore. The men all carried barrels or boxes. These
all returned to the town and came back by half-past nine with another
load.

Some excellent wine was served out to the sailors by the man who was
in charge of the house, who told Horace that he had received orders
from his master that the sailors were to carry away as many barrels of
wine as they could take for the use of the schooner; and as it was
certain that its owner would never have an opportunity of drinking it,
Horace did not hesitate to accept the present, and thirty barrels of
wine, each containing about five gallons, were brought out and placed
in readiness for the sailors to take up.

“What are you going to do about your loads?” Horace asked one of the
servants.

“We have orders, sir, to carry one of them as we go with you, and then
when the others go off to the ship to return here for the second, if
you will consent to our doing so.”

“Certainly,” Horace said. “There can be no possible objection to that,
providing we all get down to the beach without any alarm being given,
and of that I do not think there is any likelihood. The soldiers will
have all returned to their quarters before this. The only chance is of
our coming across parties of sailors returning to their ships. None of
these would be strong enough to interfere with us, and even if they
reported the matter when they got on board, I should say that none of
the captains would feel sufficient interest in the news to take any
steps about it.”

Soon after ten o’clock the merchants with their wives and grown-up
sons began to arrive, and by half-past the last of the party were in.
No further time was lost. Fifteen of the sailors, each with a barrel
of wine on his shoulder, led the way under Lieutenant Miller. The
merchants and their families followed, then came the servants with
Horace and the rest of the sailors as rear-guard. The road was
entirely deserted, and they reached the shore without encountering a
single person. As soon as they did so, Horace told the servant men to
set down their burdens and start back at once. The merchants with
their wives and families were first transferred to the schooner, the
sailors on shore taking charge of the rest of the fugitives and the
baggage. Another trip conveyed the remaining Chiots to the vessel.
When the boats returned the casks and barrels of wine were placed on
board, and the sailors then took their places and rowed off. Horace
found that the first party had already retired. Hammocks had been
slung for the women and children, the female attendants sleeping on
the deck. The merchants and their sons occupied a compartment screened
off for them. The men-servants coiled themselves away between the guns
on deck.

The two Greeks had gone off in the first boat, and already prepared
some supper, to which Martyn and Horace sat down.

“I did not wait for you,” Mr. Beveridge said, “as I knew that it must
be half-past eleven by the time you reached the shore, and another
good half-hour before you were off. Poor people! their gratitude was
quite distressing; the men considered that it was certain they would
be massacred by the Turks, and their women carried off as slaves. I
was obliged at last in self-defence to pack them off to bed. The women
all wanted to kiss my hand, which would have been well enough for you
young fellows, for some of the girls are lovely. The Chiots are
celebrated for their good looks; but for a man my age it would have
been simply embarrassing.”

“Perhaps they will renew the demonstrations to-morrow,” Miller
laughed. “If so, I shall get Horace to explain to them delicately that
our English custom is to salute on the face and not on the hand. I did
not see any of the girls. I left it to Horace to do the polite
indoors, while I kept a lookout with the men outside. I don’t know
whether he came in for any kisses; if so, he kept it to himself.”

“No,” Horace laughed. “They were all too anxious about their parents’
safety to think of doing the civil thing to me; but, as you say,
Martyn, there will be time enough to-morrow when we see what they are
like. I expect to-morrow we shall have Lykourgos or some of his
officers off here to protest.”

“That we sha’n’t,” Martyn said, “for we will get up the anchor at
daybreak and be off before anyone knows what has happened. Your father
agrees with me that the best plan will be to get rid of this cargo at
once, and then we can come back again for another.”

“I have asked them where they would like to be landed,” Mr. Beveridge
said, “and they had already agreed among themselves to go to Corfu. In
the first place they have no love for the Greeks of the mainland, with
whom they are furious for bringing destruction upon the island by
coming here without a sufficient force to hold the citadel even if
they captured it, and they would vastly rather be landed under the
protection of the British flag. They will have time to settle
afterwards where they will make their homes.”




CHAPTER XV

A WHITE SQUALL


All hands were called at five o’clock, when daylight was beginning to
break in the east; the anchor was got up, sail set, and the decks
washed down, the usual scrubbing being for once omitted in order to
avoid disturbing their passengers.

“What are we going to do about feeding them, Miller?” Horace asked.
“It was all very well for the people we had on board before to get
their meals anyhow they could, but these have been accustomed to
wealth and luxury, and, as the leading merchants of Chios, were people
of importance.”

“Your father and the two Greeks were talking it over yesterday
evening before you landed, Horace. Of course it is out of the question
that they could all take their meals in the cabin, which your father
at first proposed to give up to them. Marco suggested that a table
should be rigged on the quarterdeck. We reckoned that there would be
about fifty grown up or nearly so, that was allowing five for each
family. Of course the children would have their meals with their
nurses below.”

“That would certainly be the pleasantest way, Miller. There is plenty
of room for two tables, and as far as length goes twelve or fourteen
could sit on each side easily enough without the tables extending
forward of the mainmast. I see Tarleton is getting the awning rigged
up already. But the tables will want to be cleared away after each
meal, or there will be no room for anything.”

“Oh, yes, five minutes will be enough for that. The men will bring up
all their mess tables, they can be rigged and unshipped in no time.
The order is that the men are all to get into their white ducks at
eight bells, as your father means to show these Greeks what an English
yacht is. Your men have rigged up another stove in their cooking
place, and have borrowed a couple of the sailors, I suppose to wash
and cut up vegetables, and to act as kitchen-maids.”

At seven o’clock the Chiots began to come up. Mr. Beveridge was
already on deck, and requested Horace to assist him to set them at
their ease. The men were all of the best Greek type, courtly and
gentle in manner, with refined faces. The older women were all more or
less inclined to corpulence, while some of the young ones fully
deserved the terms of praise in which Mr. Beveridge had spoken of them
the evening before. At first they looked timid at finding themselves
in scenes so strange to them, but they were soon chattering and
laughing with each other. They were immensely astonished at the
exquisite neatness and cleanliness of the vessel and her fittings.

“Are all English ships as white and clean as this?” one of them
asked.

“All ships of war and yachts. A yacht is a vessel kept by a gentleman
simply for his own amusement and not for trade. This is a yacht,
though we have mounted guns, and have come out prepared to fight.”

“It would be a great pity to fight and spoil everything,” the girl
said.

“Oh, we can fight without spoiling everything; though of course
sometimes a shot may knock things about a bit, the damage would soon
be repaired.”

“But you can’t have been fighting yet,” one of the younger men said,
looking round.

“We have only had one fight, and that was when most of us were ashore.
That officer, whom you see there, was on board, and he only had ten
men with him; but for all that he engaged two Turkish frigates, and
destroyed one of them.”

There was an exclamation of astonishment, mingled with a little
incredulity, from the group round Horace, some of whom thought he was
trying to make fun of them.

“I can assure you that it is a fact,” Horace said. “He first crippled
her, and then set her on fire by firing red-hot balls into her.”

“Was that near Cyprus?” one of the young men asked.

“Yes; the rest of us were on shore there, and we brought off five
hundred Christians from a village that was besieged by the Turks.”

“Yes, that is true,” the young fellow said. “I was told about it by
one of the officers who lodged in our house. He said it was wonderful,
and so it was; and the men you have here all look so quiet too.”

“They are on their best behaviour now,” Horace laughed; “but they are
all picked men, and have all served in British men-of-war.”

As eight bells rang out a party of sailors came along to the
quarter-deck, bringing with them half a dozen mess tables, which they
arranged together, according to the direction of Zaimes.

“But these are nothing like enough, Zaimes,” Horace said, going over
to him.

“We are not going to sit down, Mr. Horace. We shall have two
meals--one at eleven and one at six. We shall put things on the table
now, and let them eat standing.”

The cloth was soon spread, and upon it were placed fruit, bread and
butter, and eggs, a great tureen filled with coffee, and another with
hot milk; the whole of the cabin tea and coffee cups, and a score of
the men’s mugs.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen,” Mr. Beveridge said, “you must help
yourselves. I am sorry to say that our breakfast service is quite
insufficient for our needs, and that the gentlemen will have to put up
with the sailors’ mugs.”

Everyone seemed to enjoy the meal; the women sat about on the deck in
little groups, and the men waited upon them, the three officers making
themselves very busy in this work.

“It is disgusting, Horace,” Miller said, “to hear you jabbering away
with these girls, while we poor beggars can’t say a word to them.”

“But you speak a little Italian, don’t you, Miller?”

“Yes, I picked up a little when I was on the Mediterranean station.”

“Oh well, a little will go a long way sometimes, Miller, and some of
them are sure to know something of Italian. I will soon find out which
they are, and introduce them specially to you.”

Five or six of the girls knew a little Italian, and most of the young
men could speak it, Italian being the general language of commerce in
the Mediterranean, and Miller was soon engaged in conversation with
some of them. Martyn had broken the ice for himself with a mixture of
French and Italian; but Tarleton, who knew no language but his own,
kept away from the quarter-deck.

“What’s the odds,” he said, when Horace tried to induce him to go aft.
“If they were going to be on board for a year, I would try to get hold
of a few Greek words, and do what I could; but as it is, it is not
worth while bothering one’s self. It is no use my trying to make
myself agreeable to girls when I haven’t a word to say to them. On the
whole I am rather glad I can’t talk, to them. I never had any practice
at that sort of thing; and if I ever do fall in love, I hope it will
be with an Englishwoman. Look at Miller there,” he laughed, “jawing
away with five or six girls at once, and I don’t believe one of them
has the least idea of what he is saying, though they all try to look
interested.”

“They understand he is trying to make himself agreeable, Tarleton, and
I have no doubt they are grateful and pleased. I daresay some of them
don’t understand any more Italian than he does. Still they are just as
much amused, if not more, as if they understood him perfectly.”

After the meal was over some chairs and benches were brought up, but
the ladies all preferred sitting on the deck, and were much pleased
when a number of the men’s hammocks were brought up, unrolled, and
laid down for them to sit upon. Mr. Beveridge chatted with the
merchants, the younger men smoked and lounged about, Martyn and Miller
and Horace devoting themselves to the ladies, until eleven o’clock,
when two long tables were set. Zaimes arranged them tastefully with
flowers and silver, and a very excellent meal was served. After the
meal was finished, and the decks cleared, the men were exercised at
cutlass drill and in getting down and setting the sails, and the
Chiots were astonished at their discipline and activity.

“I have seen vessels get up sail at Chios hundreds of times,” one of
the young men said to Horace, “and everyone shouts and bustles about;
but with all the noise they take five or six times as long to get them
up as your men do, and, except when the officer gives orders, there is
no more sound than there would be if they were all dumb.”

“Captain Martyn says that he will have gun drill to-morrow,” Horace
said, “and you will see that they are just as quiet at their work then
as now. You see the three officers have all served in our navy as
well as the men, and we have just the same discipline as there would
be in a king’s ship.”

“One would scarcely think,” Horace remarked to his father that evening
as they were standing together looking at the groups scattered about
the deck, “that these people were fugitives who have just left their
native land, probably for life.”

“I don’t think they quite realize that at present, Horace. One or two
of the men have been telling me what anxiety they have suffered at
Chios since the revolution broke out. When the news came of some of
the massacres of the Greeks, they were in constant fear of a
retaliation upon them by the Mussulmans, and they made sure that
sooner or later, if the war went on, Chios would become involved in
it. Of course they did not suppose that such a mad-brained expedition
as that of Lykourgos would be undertaken, but supposed that a
sufficient force would be sent to ensure the capture of the island,
accompanied by a fleet that would protect it from that of the Turks;
but even that was greatly dreaded by them.

“They knew that the Turkish provinces governed by Greek officials were
much more heavily taxed and oppressed than those in which the Turks
collected the taxation, and knew that the change would be, for them,
very much for the worse. Except that they have the same religion, they
have little in common with the Greeks in the mainland, and dreaded the
thought of the Albanians, who would be sure to send over armed bands,
who would harass and oppress them. Of course they have been for
centuries under Turkish rule, and the island has certainly flourished
exceedingly under it. Their trade has been almost entirely with
Constantinople, and all their connections are Turkish. I can quite
understand, therefore, their repugnance to a change which would ruin
their trade and vastly increase their burdens; while, as to masters, I
should imagine that no one in their senses could prefer Albanians to
Turks.

“Seeing the storm coming, most of the wealthy Chiots have prepared in
some way for it by sending much of their available capital, for
safety, to correspondents abroad, or by investing in foreign
securities. I believe that all these merchants have done so; and as
the greater part of their money and valuables that remained are at
present down in the hold, they will be able to live, if not in as
great luxury as before, at any rate in comfort at Corfu, or wherever
they may settle themselves; while several of them have told me that
they intend again to embark in trade, and, if possible, under our
flag. They have been asking me a good many questions about ourselves,
and don’t seem at all able to comprehend the interest that the Greek
revolution has created in Europe; still less that an Englishman like
myself, who could live comfortably at home, should come out here to
take part in a struggle that in no way concerns him.”

“What did you answer, father?” Horace asked with a slight smile.

“I told them that I was but half an Englishman, and that my mother was
Greek, and that I was devoted to the study of the language and customs
of the ancients.”

“I suppose they knew nothing about the ancients, father?”

“No,” Mr. Beveridge admitted reluctantly. “They had heard of the name
of Homer, and had a vague sort of knowledge of the early history of
Greece--about as vague as the ordinary Englishman has of King Arthur
and the Knights of the Round Table. An English school-boy of twelve
knows more about ancient Greece than do nineteen Greeks out of twenty;
though, seeing the interest felt by civilized Europe in the matter, it
is the fashion among them now to pretend to feel great enthusiasm on
the subject. No; I am not surprised at these poor people being
cheerful, Horace. They have escaped the risk of a terrible fate; and
as to patriotism, it is a feeling of which people who have been under
foreign masters hundreds of years know absolutely nothing. They may
regret their easy, quiet life in Chios; but beyond that, I think they
have little feeling in the matter.”

The next morning, after breakfast, the sailors were exercised at the
guns, three rounds being fired from each piece. Scarcely were the men
dismissed from their quarters, and the guns secured, before the
boatswain went up to Martyn.

“I beg your pardon, captain, but look over there. Do you see that
white cloud?--how quick it rises. I know these seas, sir; and that is
a white squall, or I am a Dutchman. We sha’n’t have more than three or
four minutes before it is on us.”

“By Jove, you are right, Tom! All hands get off sail. Look smart, my
lads; there is a bit of a squall coming down on us. Down topsails; in
jibs. Miller, take six hands and get this awning off. Horace, get the
ladies below at once.”

As Martyn began to give his orders, Tarleton had run forward to see
them carried out; but Miller and Horace had continued their
conversation without paying much attention to them, believing that he
was only giving the orders as an exercise to the crew, and to show the
passengers how quickly they could get off sail. His sharp, decided
tone, however, soon showed them that he was in earnest. Horace looked
round almost bewildered, for there was scarcely a breath of wind; the
sky was a deep blue overhead. Miller’s experience in the
Mediterranean, however, told him which way to look.

“White squall, by Jove!” he muttered, as his eye fell on the cloud
that had attracted the boatswain’s attention. Springing forward he
called six of the men, and ran aft with them again. Horace, still in
ignorance of the reason for the order given him, at once proceeded to
carry it out.

Calling out in Greek, “Please go below at once, ladies;” and then to
the men, “Escort the ladies below as quickly as you can, please.”
Then, running forward, he shouted to the Greek servants, “All below,
all below! Take the children with you; you are in the way here. Hurry
down.”

His orders on the quarter-deck were more quickly obeyed than he had
expected, for the Chiots, accustomed to these sudden and tremendous
squalls of the Ægean, glancing round when they heard the order,
perceived the reason for it at once, and hurried the ladies below with
all speed.

With so strong a crew it took but a minute to lower the gaff topsail
from the mainmast and to get the foretop gallant sail and topsail down
on the caps, and almost before the halliards had been let go a dozen
men were aloft furling the sails. The foresail came down with a run,
and the jibs flew in from the bowsprit. Martyn himself saw to the
lowering of the mainsail.

“Belay there!” he called when it was half-way down. “Reef it down
fully, Mr. Tarleton,” as the young officer, with twenty men, sprang to
the reef-points. “Now haul on the reef-earing. That is it. Well
together, lads. Harden it down; that will do. Now a pull on the main
halliards; that is enough. Belay. Lower the peak a bit more; that will
do. Now we are ready for it. Boatswain!”

“Ay, ay, sir,” came from forward.

“Lower that fore-staysail down, and reef it fully.”

He looked to windward. A white bank of clouds extended half-way up the
sky, in front of which were white streamers blown out ahead of it. The
schooner had already been brought round with her head in the direction
of the wind, and an extra hand had been placed at the wheel.

“Starboard a little,” Martyn cried to the men at the wheel. “Slack off
the mainsheet a bit, Mr. Miller. I don’t want to be taken aback.”

A minute later a white line was seen approaching them on the water
with the speed of a race-horse, and then with a shriek the squall was
upon them. Stripped as the vessel was of all her canvas, save the
diminished fore-staysail, the mainsail being too far over to draw, she
lay down until the water poured in over the lee gunwale from the
pressure of wind on her masts and rigging. Her head payed off.

“Now haul on the mainsheet,” Martyn shouted to a dozen sailors who had
hold of it, and dragged it in hand over hand. As the sail fluttered in
her head again came up into the wind. “That will do. Belay there!
keep her at that, lads,” Martyn said, taking his place by the side of
the men at the helm. “Keep the staysail full, but nothing more.”

The schooner had now begun to move fast through the water as
close-hauled to the wind as her sails would stand. Though still
heeling over, her deck was now free of water, as that which she had
taken on board had rushed out through the port-holes.

“She will do nicely now,” Martyn said to his first lieutenant. “You
can get the peak up again, Mr. Miller; she will stand it now.”

The schooner was now retracing the course she had before been sailing
on.

“It is lucky it came when it did, Miller. Another couple of hours and
we should have been in the thick of the islands. As it is now, we have
clear water, and at any rate, if we are obliged to change our course,
we can run down south comparatively clear of everything. It is lucky
we saw it coming in time. It was the boatswain warned me. If we had
not got the sail off her we should have lost our spars, and perhaps
been dismasted, and with all these islands down to leeward we should
have been in an awkward fix.”

“Yes, indeed;” Miller agreed. “We are all right now. Of course we
shall get some sea soon, but these squalls don’t last many hours. It
is only the first blow that is to be feared.”

“Do you think, Miller, you could get that pivot-gun sent down below?
It is a big weight on deck, and when the sea gets up she will feel
it.”

“I think so, sir. There is no sea on yet to speak of.”

The gun was amidships, half-way between the fore and mainmasts, and
there was a hatchway just beyond the framework on which it travelled.
Calling the crew together, Miller got tackles on the mainmast, and
these with the blocks of the throat halliards of the foresail were
hooked on to strops round the gun. Ropes were attached to it and
manned to prevent it from swinging away to leeward when hoisted from
the carriage.

“Now all ready,” Miller said. “Hoist on the falls handsomely, inch by
inch. Stand fast to those stay-ropes; that is right. Now haul her aft.
Lower away a little forward and let her swing gradually aft; that does
it. Now she is over the hatchway. Lower away a little aft. Let her go
down, breech foremost; that will do. Now a dozen of you go down to the
main deck. You go down with them, Mr. Tarleton, and steer her clear
through the lower hatchway.”

Gradually the muzzle of the heavy gun sank below the deck, and in five
minutes it was safely stowed in the bottom of the hold. Then the
hatches were put on again and battened down securely, and Miller went
aft.

“That is a good job, Miller,” Martyn said. “The sea is getting up
fast, and in another five minutes it would not have been safe to do
it. It will make all the difference to us in such a short choppy sea
as we shall be having.”

For six hours the wind blew with unabated force. A heavy sea got up,
and, buoyant as she was, the schooner shipped water heavily over the
bow, the seas being too short to give her time to rise and fall
regularly over them. At the end of that time the wind fell almost as
suddenly as it had risen, and half an hour later the schooner was on
her course again, with all her lower sails set. It was not until
evening that the sea had gone down sufficiently for the passengers to
begin to make their appearance again on deck, looking worn out and
exhausted by sea-sickness.

By this time the schooner was among the islands, and was passing
through the Mykonos Channel, between the island of that name and
Tenos. Syra rose above the water almost ahead, while Rhenea and Delos
lay on her beam to the south. Her topsails were set now, and she was
running fast through the water, her course being laid to pass between
Seriphos and Siphnos, beyond which it was a straight course to Cape
Malea, at the southern point of the Morea. A sharp look-out was kept
at night for Anti-Melos on the one hand, and Falconera on the other.
The former was made out, the land being high; but Falconera, a mere
rock, was passed unobserved. In the morning the schooner was running
through the Cervi Channel, between Cythera and Cervi, which island
almost touches the mainland. A quiet night’s rest had completely
restored the passengers, who came on deck early, and watched with
interest the rocky shore of the Morea as they coasted along it.

Three days later the _Misericordia_ dropped her anchor in the harbour
of Corfu.

Mr. Beveridge was again overwhelmed with thanks by the grateful
Chiots. Upon the way they had inquired of him if he had a wife or
daughters, and were quite disappointed at hearing that he had no near
female relatives, as they had intended to send a consignment of choice
stuffs and embroideries to them in token of their gratitude. Before
landing they handed to Martyn a hundred pounds to be divided among the
crew, and on the day after landing sent off a very handsome case of
pistols to each of the officers. As their goods were being got up from
the hold they pointed out four barrels which were to remain behind.

“We brought them off specially for you, Mr. Beveridge,” they said.
“They are the very choicest vintage of Chios, and we do hope that
though you have refused to accept any substantial proof of our
gratitude, you will not refuse to take these.”

The decks of the _Misericordia_ seemed curiously still and deserted
after the departure of their guests. It had been a very pleasant week
while the Chiots had been on board, and Martyn and Miller both looked
out of spirits, having temporarily lost their hearts to two of the
Greek girls.

“We have the best of it now,” Tarleton laughed to the doctor. “What is
the use of a week’s flirtation? Look at the parting at the end of it.
The girls were pretty enough, no doubt; but what good would it be to
take home a wife who did not speak your language, who was ignorant of
English ways, and would be miserable in our climate, besides being of
a different religion. I think it is just as well that the voyage was
not longer; as it is, they will soon get over it.”

The captain and first officer had indeed but little time to think over
it, for on the evening of the day after their arrival sail was again
set on the schooner, and she started on her return to Chios, where, as
Mr. Beveridge said, they were likely to find plenty more opportunities
for doing good. The wind held steady, and they made a quick passage.
Scarcely had they dropped anchor when a boat came off to them bearing
an angry message from Lykourgos.

“You have assisted deserters to escape from the island,” he said, “and
if any of you set foot on shore you will at once be arrested.”

They learned shortly afterwards from a boat that came alongside to
sell fish that many of the richer inhabitants had been arrested and
very heavily fined upon the accusation that they also intended to
desert, and that all who had property had been compelled to pay
considerable sums for protection against the excesses of the troops
who had come, as they pretended, to deliver them. The officers were
furious at the message from Lykourgos, and proposed going ashore with
a strong party of armed sailors. Mr. Beveridge, however, decided that
no steps should be taken for a day or two.

“We don’t want to become actually embroiled with these people unless
it is necessary,” he said. “The Turkish fleet is expected here every
day now, and Lykourgos and his crew will, we may be sure, take flight
as soon as they appear, and we shall then have plenty of scope for our
work. At any rate we will wait two or three days and see how matters
turn up. If necessary we can then do as you propose, seize half a
dozen of the ships, and tell the rest we will sink them if they don’t
put to sea; that will bring the fellow to his senses at once. I don’t
want to do it if I can help it, because we should afterwards be liable
to attack at any of the islands we might happen to put into.”

A few hours later a fast Greek felucca came up and anchored between
the schooner and the other vessels. A boat was lowered and rowed at
once towards the transports.

“I fancy that fellow must have brought some news,” Martyn said.
“Horace, will you go on board of him and find out where he comes from,
and whether he has heard anything of the Turkish fleet?”

In ten minutes Horace reported:

“The Turks are only a few miles from the north of the island. The
felucca has been watching them for the last week. They have been
taking troops on board at all the ports on the mainland as they came
down.”

Already the fleet had diminished by at least two-thirds since
Lykourgos landed; but a small proportion of the plunder had fallen to
the sailors, and as it was for this alone that the craft had taken
part in the expedition, the greater portion soon became discontented
and sailed away. As the Turkish fleet approached the island, a Turkish
sloop, which had gone on ahead to ascertain the position of the
Greeks, ran ashore and fell into the hands of the Greeks, who at once
put to death every soul on board--the fate that had befallen every
prisoner they had taken. Having thus done their utmost to exasperate
the Turks, and to imperil the safety of the Christian inhabitants of
the island, the Greeks made no effort to oppose the landing of the
Mussulmans, but retired precipitately on their approach, and the Turks
entered Chios, plundering the town of everything that had escaped the
bands of Lykourgos, the irregulars who formed part of the army
murdering every Christian they met.

Lykourgos had retreated to the village of St. George, whence, after a
feeble attempt at defence, he escaped with his followers on board some
Psarian ships that had, fortunately for him, arrived. These islanders
had strongly opposed the expedition to Chios, and had taken no part in
it, fearing to bring down the Turkish fleet upon themselves, as Psara
lay but a short distance north of Chios. They maintained their fleet
in port to aid in its defence should the Turks attack them. As soon,
however, as they saw the Turkish fleet sail past Psara on its way to
Chios they at once put to sea with the intention of harassing the
Turks and rendering some assistance to the Christians.

The vengeance of the Turks now fell upon the unfortunate Chiots, who
had been perfectly innocent of all share in the proceedings of
Lykourgos, and who had already suffered so heavily at the hands of him
and his robber bands. In the city the wealthier class generally
succeeded in purchasing the protection of Turks in authority by paying
large sums of money, but the rest were either slaughtered or seized to
be sold into slavery. Three thousand Chiots, mostly the peasantry that
had come down from the hills, retired to the monastery of Aghios
Minas, five miles south of the city. The Turks surrounded them and
summoned them to surrender. They refused to surrender, and the
building was carried by storm, and all within it put to death. Two
thousand persons were similarly slain at the capture of the monastery
of Nea Mone; most of them were put to death by the sword, and the rest
perished in the conflagration of the monastery.

Kara Ali, the capitan-pasha, did all in his power to save the island
from being laid waste, knowing that the loss of the revenue derived
from the island would greatly vex the sultan and his seraglio, to whom
this revenue was specially appropriated. The regular troops were kept
fairly in order, but the Bashi-Bazouks, that is the volunteers who had
flocked to his standard, scattered over the island, plundering and
slaying, but more especially carrying off women and children for sale
in the slave-markets. The sultan, determined to strike terror into the
hearts of the Greeks of the island, executed at Constantinople some
Chiot hostages that had been sent there, and ordered the archbishop
and seventy-five other Chiots to be executed by the capitan-pasha.
During the whole time Lykourgos had been there the vessels from Psara
they had been carrying off the Chiots from small ports and quiet bays
round the island, and it was estimated that some fifteen thousand had
been taken off in this way either before the arrival of the Turks or
during the continuance of the massacres by them. The work was carried
on with great vigour by the Psarians who reaped a rich harvest from
their operations, demanding and receiving all the valuables of the
unfortunate fugitives as the price for their passage to another
island. Thus large numbers of wealthy Chiots were reduced to the most
abject poverty by the avarice and extortion of those who professed to
save them.

The _Misericordia_ was very busy during the three weeks that followed
the Turkish re-occupation of the island. Cruising round and round she
carried off large numbers of fugitives, conveying them across to the
nearest Greek islands. After making three such trips, and carrying
over some twelve hundred fugitives, she left the work of rescue to the
Psarians, and took up her station between the island and the mainland
to cut off the craft that were, as they learned, conveying the women
and children to the slave-markets of Smyrna. As speed was here of the
greatest utility, vessel after vessel was overhauled and compelled to
bring to by her guns. Then the boats went alongside, forced the
Turkish sailors and Bashi-Bazouks to take to their boats, and then
after transporting the rescued women and children to the schooner, set
fire to the ships.

No less than eighteen were overhauled and destroyed in the course of a
week--fourteen hundred women and children being rescued, the first two
batches being landed at Psara as the nearest Greek island, while the
last batch was taken to Athens. On returning from that trip they found
that the destruction they caused had so alarmed the ship-owners of
Smyrna that the traffic by sea had almost entirely ceased, and that
the slaves were now carried across in boats or small vessels to the
mainland opposite the island, which was but six or seven miles away.
Here it was difficult to interrupt it, for the Turkish fleet lay off
the town of Chios, and the smaller ships cruised about in the
channel.

Trusting to her superior sailing power, the _Misericordia_ entered by
the southern, which was the broader end of the straits, and kept
hovering about between the island and the mainland. She was frequently
chased by the Turks, and several times engaged their cruisers at a
distance, the superior rapidity of her fire, and the ease with which
she manœuvred, giving her a great advantage over her clumsy
opponents. Two of the Turkish corvettes were so severely handled that
they had to retire under the shelter of the guns of the fleet. Over a
score of small craft were intercepted and destroyed, and two hundred
and fifty more slaves rescued. At night she generally ran across and
anchored in some indentation on the Turkish side, going in after
nightfall, knowing that the Turkish cruisers always retired before
dark to their anchorage off Chios.

One night they were at anchor in a deep bay near the narrow and
northern mouth of the straits. At about three in the morning Horace
was on the watch with Miller, and was walking up and down the
quarter-deck with him, when one of the quarter-masters came aft.

“It seems to me, sir,” he said to the first lieutenant, “that I can
hear some sort of noise out seaward.”

Miller stopped in his walk and listened intently. “There is some sort
of noise, sure enough, quarter-master.”

It was a quiet night, not a breath of wind was stirring, but a
confused sound was audible like that of small waves breaking on a
stony beach. “What do you make it out to be?” he asked the
quarter-master. “It is too irregular and confused for oars.”

“I don’t know, sir; it ain’t the sound of the oars of one boat or of
two, but I should say that it might be the sound of a dozen.”

“I think you are right,” Miller said after listening for a while. “I
don’t see what else it can be. Go down and call Captain Martyn.”

In two or three minutes Martyn was on deck. “You make out oars, I
hear, Miller?”

“I am not sure that it is the sound of oars, but it may be.”

Martyn listened attentively.

“I have very little doubt it is that,” he said. “It is possible some
boat may have gone over from this side with the news that we are here,
or they may have arranged some fire signal and given notice in that
way, and they have sent the boats of the fleet across to cut us out.
Well, if so, we have got to fight; there is not a breath of wind. Call
the other watch on deck, quarter-master.”

The men soon tumbled up.

“Will you see to getting the boarding nettings up, Mr. Miller. Mr.
Tarleton, get a boat put in the water, ship a light anchor, and drop
it a cable length of her quarter. Get springs into both cables, so
that we can work her round and keep her broadside on to an attack.
Horace, will you call up your father in the first place, and go down
with the two Greeks to the lower deck and get all that mob of women
and children down into the hold. Call the men to quarters, boatswain;
open the magazine, get up canister and grape; let the men muster with
muskets and boarding-pikes.”

The guns were run in and loaded, and when everything was in readiness
a dead silence reigned fore and aft. The noise was now much louder,
and there could be no doubt any longer that it was caused by the
approach of a large number of boats; then Martyn spoke in a clear
voice that could be heard from end to end of the schooner.

“As you can hear for yourselves, men, it is evident that we are about
to be attacked by a flotilla of boats. Well, we have got to beat them
off. You know, without my telling you, that there is no mercy to be
expected at the hands of the Turks if they become the masters of this
ship, so we have got to beat them off; and as it is a choice between
doing so and of being murdered afterwards, I am sure I need not tell
you that we must fight to the last, and I for one have very little
fear of what the result will be. We have done good work as British
sailors in saving life up to this point, and now we have got to show
them what British sailors can do when they are fighting for their own
lives. Don’t cheer, lads, they might hear it across the water, and
they may as well think they are going to take us by surprise; we will
cheer when we have beaten them off.”

A hum of approval ran round the ship, and then the men stood to their
guns with their pistols in their belts, and their muskets and
boarding-pikes ready at hand. Mr. Beveridge with the two Greeks had
taken their positions, armed with rifles, near the wheel.

“They must be coming very slowly, Tarleton,” Miller muttered
impatiently. “They must be a mile away still.”

“I expect the boats are crowded with troops, Miller, and I daresay
they are rowing easily so as to keep well in a body.”

“I suppose that is it; but I wish the beggars would make haste. I hate
this waiting.”

“So do I,” Tarleton agreed. “Well, we shall give them a hot reception
when they do come. If it were anyone but Turks, I should say we were
going to have very hot work of it. The Turks are good fellows to fight
on shore, but they are no good on the water, and I expect they will
attack us pell-mell without the least plan or order. Well, we shall
soon know; another ten minutes, and they will be near enough to
begin.”




CHAPTER XVI

FIRE-SHIPS


The time passed slowly as they were waiting for the attack by the
Turkish boats. The men muttered and growled to each other at the
delay. In order to give them something to do, Miller sent all those
who were not stationed at the guns down below to fetch up a number of
32-pound shot and place them in the racks, and some of the men were
told off to jump up on to the rail as soon as the boats came
alongside, and to throw the shot over the top of the boarding-netting
down into the boats.

“I wish it was not so confoundedly dark, Miller, and that we could
make the fellows out,” Martyn said.

“I have got rockets and blue lights, sir. Shall I send a rocket up?
They are sure to find us, so we lose nothing by showing them where we
are.”

“Yes, they are sure to find us. I don’t like their being such a long
time in getting to us.”

“They do come wonderfully slow,” Miller agreed.

“Do you know, Miller, I have been thinking for some time that there
must be some cause for it, and the only reason I can see is that they
may be towing.”

“By Jove, so they may! I did not think of that. It will be awkward if
we have got a ship to fight as well as the boats.”

“Very awkward. Send up a rocket, we may as well settle the question.
Pass the word round for the men to train their guns as nearly as they
can in the direction in which we can hear the oars, and to fire when
they get light.”

A minute later a rocket shot up in the air. As it burst a number of
boats were seen crowded together, towing behind them two large brigs.
There was a moment’s pause while the men at the guns adjusted their
aim, then the pivot-gun roared out, and the four on the broadside
followed in quick succession. The distance was about six hundred
yards, and the crashing of wood, followed by a chorus of shouts and
cries, arose as the storm of grape swept down upon the boats.

“Load again, lads, as quick as you can,” Martyn shouted. “Show a
couple of blue lights, quarter-master. Boatswain, load the pivot with
ball, and fire as fast as you can at the brigs; never mind the boats,
we will attend to them.”

The blue lights were lit and a rocket sent up, so as to burst over the
enemy, and again a broadside of grape was poured in, while a shot from
the pivot-gun crashed into the bows of one of the brigs; these had
apparently been lashed together, so that the boats could tow them on a
broad front. A confused din came across the water; shouts, cries, and
orders mingled together. As far as could be seen everything was in
confusion. Some of the boats had sunk, and the occupants were being
pulled on board of the others. Some had thrown off their tow-ropes and
were heading for the schooner, others lay helpless in the water.

[Illustration: REPELLING THE TURKISH BOARDERS]

“Keep the rockets going, quarter-master,” Martyn said; “the more light
we have the better. Horace, tell the men at the aft and forward guns
to aim at the boats rowing towards us; let the two midship guns keep
on at the crowd in front of the brigs. They have sent a pretty strong
force against us. There must have been fully twenty of these boats at
first; there are about sixteen of them now, and they are all large
ones. Depress the guns on the other broadside as far as they will go,
Mr. Tarleton, we shall have some of them round on that side presently.
Cant them down as much as you can.”

Two more of the boats towing were disabled by the next broadside, and
the rest, throwing off the ropes, rowed straight for the schooner.

“Aim steadily, men!” Martyn shouted. “Pick out your boats before you
fire.”

Two of the boats were sunk as they approached, three others fell
behind crippled; but the others, with loud shouts, made straight at
the vessel. As they approached her they opened a fire of musketry,
which was answered by the rifles and muskets of the sailors. As they
swept up alongside shots were heaved down into them, and the crashing
of planks told that they had done their work. The guns on the
starboard side were silent at first, as the first boats came up so
close alongside that they could not reach them; but those that
followed were further out, and two were instantly sunk.

As the Turks strove to climb up the side and cut their way through the
boarding-netting, they were shot down by pistols or run through by
boarding-pikes. A few managed to climb over or force their way
through the netting, but these were cut down before they could obtain
a footing on deck. For ten minutes the fight went on by the flare of
the blue lights, and then eight Turkish boats, which alone floated,
rowed away, crowded with the survivors from the others. A loud cheer
broke from the schooner.

“Never mind them, my men,” Martyn shouted; “load with ball now and aim
at the brigs.”

These had taken no part whatever in the fight. Left by the boats head
on to the schooner, and almost without steerage-way, they had in vain
endeavoured to get broadside on so as to bring their guns to bear. The
lashings had been cut, and the rudders been put in opposite
directions; they had drifted a little apart with their heads outwards,
and as the boats rowed away from the schooner they opened fire with
their bow-guns. The boatswain, with the men working the pivot-gun, had
from the first continued steadily at their work regardless of the din
around them, Horace taking his place beside them, in order to call
them off to aid in repelling the Turks should they gain a footing
anywhere on the deck. When the boarding-netting had been triced up,
a gap had been left opposite the gun, and the fire at the brigs had
been kept up without intermission, every shot raking one or other of
them fore and aft.

As soon as the boats were fairly away, the guns from the starboard
side were run across, the spare ports being thrown open, and the eight
guns all brought into play to aid the pivot-gun. As soon as the boats
reached the brigs they took shelter behind them, and in a short time
both craft began to swing round, their guns firing as they were
brought to bear.

“Eight guns a side,” Miller said; “but it would not matter if there
were twenty, if they did not aim better than that;” for not a single
shot had struck the schooner. One or two passed overhead, but the rest
went wide.

Instead of the brigs being left broadside on as they had expected,
their heads swept round until they were stern on to the schooner, then
they began slowly to glide away.

“They have had enough of it,” Miller exclaimed, and another cheer
broke from the schooner.

“Cease firing!” Martyn said. “If they leave us alone we are content to
leave them alone; they must have suffered tremendously as it is.”

An examination was now made as to the casualties. Four men had been
killed, all were shot through the head, as they had fired over the
bulwark at the boats as they came alongside; six others were wounded
more or less seriously, by pistol shots that had been fired by the
Turks as they tried to climb on board--a small total indeed,
considering the nature of the attack. When morning dawned the brigs
could be made out near the opposite shore, they were still being towed
by the boats; but as they were looking at them, sail was made as a
light breeze sprang up. When the wind reached them, the mainmast of
one was seen to go over the side, having doubtless been wounded by the
raking fire, and carrying in its fall the fore top-gallant mast and
topmast. A quarter of an hour later the breeze reached the schooner.
The decks had been already washed down, and everything had resumed its
ordinary aspect, and before getting up the anchor the four men who had
fallen, and who had already been sewn up in hammocks, were committed
to the sea, Mr. Beveridge reading the funeral service over them. Mr.
Macfarlane reported that the wounded were all likely to do well.

As soon as the fight was over the women and children, who had been
suffering agonies of terror while it had been going on, had been
brought out from the hold and allowed to sleep as usual on the lower
deck, which had been entirely given up to them; and when the schooner
got under weigh they were permitted to come up on deck. Although they
had been assured by Zaimes and his brother that all danger was over,
their first action on coming up was to look round timidly, and they
were evidently greatly relieved when they saw that the sea was clear
of enemies. They looked much surprised at seeing everything going on
as usual, and at the absence of any signs of the terrible conflict
they had heard raging round them the night before--the bullet marks in
the bulwarks being the only evidences of what had passed. It had
already been decided to sail for Greece in the course of a day or two,
as they had as many fugitives on board as they could carry, and it was
now determined to do so at once. As they sailed west they made out a
large number of ships approaching, and were soon running through the
Greek fleet.

“I am sorry we left now,” Miller said; “we shall miss a fight.”

“I expect we shall be back in time,” Macfarlane remarked; “the Greeks
are in no great hurry to fight. It is two months since they were sent
for, when the landing was made at Chios; and after taking all this
time to make up their minds about it, they are likely to take a few
days before they make up their minds to have a tussle with the Turks.
The Greek mind, I observe, is full of contradictions; sometimes,
especially if there is plunder to be got, their eagerness is just
wonderful; but when it is a question of fighting, their caution is
very remarkable.”

Miller laughed. “I daresay you are right, doctor, and I don’t feel at
all confident that there will be a fight. So far the Greek fleet has
done nothing, and their only idea of fighting a Turkish ship has been
to launch a fire-ship against it.”

“Fire-ships are no good against enemies who know what they are doing,”
Martyn said. “A couple of boats can always tow a fire-ship clear; but
the Turks are lubberly sailors, and these fire-ships seem almost to
paralyse them.”

“I can’t make it out,” Miller put in, “why the Turks should
manœuvre their vessels so badly, considering that their sailors are
for the most part Thessalians, drawn from the Mohammedan sea-side
villages, Albanians by blood, just as the Hydriots are.”

“They want British officers,” the doctor said. “Officers are always
the weak point with the Turks. There are no braver soldiers in the
world when they are well led. But they never are well led now; their
pashas seem to be chosen for stupidity and obstinacy. It is a great
pity that we did not make up our minds to take Turkey instead of
India. Eh, man! we should have made a grand country of it when we had
once got it into order.”

“We shall make a grand country of India some day, doctor. I have never
been out there; but there is no doubt that just what you say about the
Turks is true of the natives there, and they make very good soldiers
when they have British officers to lead them.”

“So they say, Captain Martyn: but you must remember that they have
only fought against other natives without British officers to lead
them. We must wait till we see them fighting against European troops
of some other nation before we can say that they are fine soldiers.”

“If we wait till then, we are likely to wait a long time, doctor.
Besides, you must remember they did fight well against the French
troops under Dupleix.”

“So they did, but not till they got the idea that our soldiers were
better than the French. But, as you say, it will be a long time before
they get the chance again. The French are no longer a power in India;
nor are the Dutch; and the distance is too long for either ever to
send out an army big enough to wrest India from us; and as to marching
by land--well, it could not be done.”

“The next day they reached the port of Athens, and got rid of their
cargo of passengers, and then, with every sail set, hurried back to
Chios, touching at Psara on the way, as, from the direction in which
the Greeks were steering, they thought it probable they might have
made a stay there. A small Psariot vessel had just come in from the
fleet, and Horace, who had gone ashore with Marco, learned that
Miaoulis, the Greek admiral, had coasted along the north of Chios, and
that the Turks had at once weighed anchor and gone out to engage him.
The Greeks, not caring to fight in the narrow waters, where their
power of manœuvring would be thrown away, had stood out, and an
engagement had taken place at the mouth of the Gulf of Smyrna.”

“We fought most valiantly,” the Greek said, “and it was a drawn
battle.”

“But what was done?” Horace asked. “How many vessels were sunk on each
side?”

“Oh, there were no vessels sunk. They fired at us, and we fired at
them.”

“Were there many killed and wounded?”

“No; I don’t think there were any killed and wounded. You see we
manœuvred round the Turks. We could not go near, because their guns
were much heavier than ours. We sent down a fire-ship among them; but
unfortunately they evaded it, and some of our most daring captains
ventured so close that their ships were struck by the Turkish shot.
Yesterday the combat was renewed again. The cannonading was like
thunder, and this morning we again fought. Then we needed rest, and to
get fresh meat we sailed back.”

Horace had difficulty in restraining his expressions of disgust at the
conduct of the fleet that had, after two months’ delay, at last sailed
to annihilate the Turks; and as they walked back to their boat Marco
poured out, in an undertone, volumes of execrations in choice Greek.

As they reached the schooner the doctor looked over the side. “We are
not too late, Horace; there’s the Greek fleet rounding the point. As
we can’t make out with our glass a shot-hole in their sails or a
splinter on their bulwarks, it is evident that I was right, and that
we are in plenty of time to see the engagement.”

“You are mistaken, doctor,” Horace said as he reached the deck. “There
has been a great naval battle, lasting three days. There are no killed
or wounded; but one or two ships, commanded by daring captains,
ventured within gun-shot of the Turks, and were struck. That is the
exact history of the affair, as I learned it from one of the heroes.”

“Is that really the story you have heard, Horace?” Mr. Beveridge
asked.

“It is, father; almost in the words that it was told to me.”

“I really think,” Martyn said, seeing how depressed Mr. Beveridge
looked at the news, “that much more could hardly be expected from the
Greeks. Their ships are for the most part small, and their metal very
light. They have not the slightest idea of discipline or of working in
concert. A Turkish broadside would sink half a dozen of them if they
ventured to close quarters; and of course their superior seamanship is
not of the slightest avail as long as they fight at a distance.”

“It would avail if they had pluck,” Horace said bitterly. “The English
ships that went out to engage the great galleons of the Spanish Armada
were as inferior in tonnage and in weight of metal as the Greeks are;
but for all that they gave a good account of them.”

“Yes, Horace; but you must remember that the English sailors had been
fighting and thrashing the Spaniards for years before, and had come
almost to despise them; while the Greeks have never fought before,
have no confidence in themselves, and hold the Turks in high respect.”

“You can’t expect,” the doctor put in, “that bulldogs are going to be
manufactured out of mongrels in one generation, Horace. A fighting
race grows up little by little. The Greeks fought just as pluckily in
the old days, against big odds, as we ever did, and may do it again in
time; but they have got to be built up to it.”

“Thank you, doctor,” Mr. Beveridge said. “We keep on forgetting that
the Greeks have been slaves, and that slaves lose all their military
virtues. It was just the same thing with the Britons. Their valour
excited the admiration of Cæsar; but after being under the domination
of the Romans for generations, they completely lost all their manhood,
and fell easy victims to the Saxons. We must not be too hard on the
Greeks, Horace, or expect them to behave as men whose fathers have
been free and independent.”

In the evening Miller went ashore with Mr. Beveridge and had a talk
with some Philhellenes who had joined the expedition. They all agreed
that Miaoulis had manœuvred his ships well, always keeping the
weather-gauge of the Turks; but there was no shadow of discipline
among the ships, and their fire was as wild and inefficient as that of
the Turks, the men loading and firing as quickly as they could, quite
regardless of the direction or distance of their shot, the great part
of which entered the sea half-way between the combatants.

“Kanaris is here,” they said, “and you will see that he at least will
attempt something against the Turks before he is done.”

It was not, however, until fifteen days later that any move was made.
Kanaris had paid a visit to the _Misericordia_, and was greatly struck
by the order and discipline that prevailed.

“Our men will not submit to it, Mr. Beveridge. It is in vain to assure
them that nothing can be done unless we can introduce discipline such
as prevails on ships of war of other nations. Unfortunately they have
been accustomed to another state of things. The sailors are always
paid by a share in the profits of our voyages, and everyone has a say
as to the ports to be visited and the course to be steered. Before any
change is made there is always a general council of all on board, and
the matter is decided by vote. Such being the habit, you can
understand the difficulty of getting these men to submit to anything
like discipline. Another thing is, that the ships belong to private
persons, and not to the state, although they may receive pay from
government. They are therefore very chary of exposing their vessels to
the risk of loss, for which, more likely than not, they would never
receive a penny from the central government, which has plenty of
objects of much greater interest to its members to spend its money
upon. Until some total change takes place in the organization and
manning of our fleet, I can see no hope of any improvement.”

On the 18th of June two ships got up anchor and sailed. On board the
schooner their progress was watched with interest. Kanaris had
confided to Mr. Beveridge that the ships were loaded with
combustibles, and that he was going to attempt to set fire to the
Turkish fleet. The wind was contrary, and the two craft tacked
backwards and forwards off the north of Chios as if intending to beat
up the Gulf of Smyrna. Four hours after they had started the schooner
also got under way, as all were anxious to see what would take place,
and Mr. Beveridge had told Kanaris that he would go within a short
distance of the Turkish fleet and burn a blue light, so that the boats
on leaving the fire-ships could row off to him and be taken back to
Psara.

It was the last day of the Ramazan, and a number of the principal
officers of the Turkish fleet had been invited by the Capitan Pasha to
dine with him on board his flag-ship to celebrate the feast of Bairam.
The night was a dark one, but the whole of the Turkish vessels were
illuminated in honour of the festival, and their outlines were clearly
visible. The _Misericordia_ had entered the northern passage an hour
after nightfall; the two Greek ships being, when last seen, about
three miles ahead. The schooner lay to a couple of miles distant from
the anchorage. They had scarcely done so when they made out the sails
of two vessels between them and the lines of light on the Turkish
war-ships.

“There they go,” Martyn said, “steering straight in. One of them is
making straight for the Capitan Pasha’s own ship. No doubt that is
Kanaris himself. The other is making for that seventy-four that
carries the flag of the Reala Bey. You can tell them by the variegated
lamps along their yards. The Turks evidently have not caught sight of
them yet or they would open fire. On such a dark night as this I don’t
suppose they will make them out till they are close alongside.”

Kanaris, a man of the greatest calmness and courage, was himself at
the helm of his craft. Running straight before the wind, he steered
down upon the eighty-gun ship of the Capitan Pasha. Not until he was
within a ship’s length was he observed, when a startled hail sounded
from the deck of the Turkish ship. Steering straight on he ran his
bowsprit through one of her port-holes. The sailors instantly threw
some grapnels to retain her in her position, and then jumped into
their boat lying alongside. As soon as they did so Kanaris fired his
pistol into the train. The fire flashed along the deck, there were a
series of sharp explosions, and then the flames ran aloft, the
riggings and sails being soaked with turpentine; and Kanaris had
scarcely stepped into his boat before the ship was in a mass of
flames.

Lying to windward of the Turk the flames were blown on to her, and
pouring in at the open port-holes at once set fire to a quantity of
tents stowed on the lower deck, rushed up the hatches, and, mingling
with the flames from the sails which had ignited the awning extending
over the deck, ran up the rigging and spars of the man-of-war. The
most terrible confusion instantly prevailed throughout the ship. The
few boats alongside were sunk by the crowds who leapt into them. The
crews of the ships lying round at once began to haul them farther away
from the blazing vessel, and the boats that were lowered feared to
approach it because of the falling spars and the flames that poured
from the lower port-holes.

In addition to her crew, the soldiers on board, and the Pasha’s
guests, were a great number of prisoners who had been brought off from
the island to be taken to Constantinople, and the shrieks and cries as
they were caught by the flames, or sprang overboard to evade them,
were terrible. Kara Ali himself sprang from the ship into a boat that
approached near enough for the purpose of saving him; but before it
could put off a blazing spar fell on it, and the Capitan Pasha was so
severely wounded that he died shortly after being carried on shore.

His loss was a severe one for the Turks, for he was their most skilful
naval officer. A few of those who leapt overboard were picked up by
boats, or swam to the other ships; but with these exceptions the whole
of those on board the vessel perished. The other fire-ship had been
less calmly and skilfully managed. In his haste and excitement the
commander, after running her alongside the ship of the Reala Bey,
fired the train and made off without attaching her to it, consequently
the fire-ship drifted away without the flames communicating to the
Turk, and burned out harmlessly.

As soon as it was seen that Kanaris had succeeded, a blue light was
burned on board the schooner, and in twenty minutes the two boats
rowed alongside. Not a shot had been fired at either, the Turks being
too much occupied with the danger of fire to pay any attention to
them. Kanaris was heartily congratulated on his success when he
reached the schooner, which at once set sail and was back at Psara in
the morning, where the news of the destruction of the Turkish
man-of-war was received with the wildest enthusiasm.

The Turkish vessels, leaving a strong garrison on the island, sailed
north a few days later. They were pursued by the Greek fleet, which,
however, did not venture to interfere with them, although they stopped
at two ports on the way, and finally anchored under the guns of the
forts of the Dardanelles. The _Misericordia_ took no part in harassing
the Turkish fleet. Martyn had asked Mr. Beveridge’s opinion upon the
subject, he himself being in favour of doing so.

“I think we could give the Greeks a lesson or two in this sort of
thing, sir, and show them what can be done, even against a fleet, by a
craft that means business.”

“I am sure you could do all that, Martyn, but I do not think we should
be justified in running the slightest risk of loss of life among the
men merely for that purpose. We could do no more than the Greeks do
unless we were willing to expose ourselves more. You could not hope
either to capture or sink one of the Turkish ships in the face of
their whole fleet. I know you would give them a great deal of trouble,
but more than that you could not do. When the Greeks show themselves
willing to fight we will fight by their side, but not before.”

They were indeed glad that they so decided, for on the evening before
the Greeks set sail a boat arrived at Psara with six fugitives from
Chios. They reported that the destruction of the Capitan Pasha’s ship
with all on board had brought fresh misfortunes upon the Christians,
for that the Mussulmans, infuriated by the details of the disaster,
had fallen upon the Christians all over the island, even in the
villages where hitherto there had been no trouble.

The second massacre was indeed far more fatal than the first, the
women and children being, as before, spared as slaves, many thousands
being carried away. Small craft from Psara hovered round the island
and succeeded in taking off numbers of fugitives, while the schooner
returned to her cruising grounds between the island and the mainland,
or up the Gulf of Smyrna, where she captured and burnt large numbers
of small craft laden with slaves. They had to make four trips to the
islands to clear her crowded decks of the hapless Chiots.

The news of the massacres of Chios, which, unlike those committed by
themselves, the Greeks spread sedulously over Europe, excited deep and
general horror and indignation. The numbers of those killed or sold
into slavery were never known. The estimates varied considerably, some
putting them down at twenty thousand while others maintained that
those figures could be doubled without exaggeration. It is probable,
however, that they really exceeded thirty thousand.

The details of the terrible massacres, which they learnt from the
women they rescued, aroused among the officers and crew of the
_Misericordia_ a far deeper feeling of enthusiasm for the cause of
Greece than they had hitherto felt. Since they came out their interest
in the cause had been steadily waning. The tales of wholesale and
brutal massacre, the constant violation of the terms of surrender, the
cowardice of the Greeks in action and their eagerness for plunder, the
incessant disputes between the various parties, and the absence of any
general attempt to concert measures for defence, had completely damped
their sympathy for them; but the sight of these hundreds of women and
children widowed and orphaned, and torn away from their native land
and sold into slavery, set their blood boiling with indignation. The
two Greeks took care to translate the narratives of the weeping women
to the sailors, and these excited among them a passionate desire to
punish the authors of these outrages; and had any of the craft they
overhauled made an active resistance little mercy would have been
shown to the Turks. As it was they were bundled headlong into their
boats with many a hearty kick and cuff from the sailors, and the
destruction of their vessels was effected with the alacrity and
satisfaction of men performing an act of righteous retribution.

“The poor creatures seemed terribly cast down,” Martyn said one day at
dinner as they sailed with the last batch of Chiots for Corfu. They
had transported the three previous cargoes to the Ionian Islands, as
the former ones had been most unwillingly received in the Greek ports,
the authorities saying that they had no means of affording subsistence
to the fugitives who were daily arriving. In the Ionian Islands
committees had been formed, and these distributed money sent out from
England for their support, while rations were issued to them by the
British authorities of the islands.

“One can’t wonder at that,” Miller said. “Still, I must say that the
women even at first don’t seem as delighted as one would expect at
getting out of the hands of the Turks.”

“I am not so very sure, Miller, that they are delighted at all,”
Macfarlane said quietly. “You think you are doing them the greatest
service possible, but in my opinion it is more than doubtful whether
they see it in the same light.”

“What! not thankful at being rescued from being sold as slaves to the
Turks?”

“That sounds very terrible, and no doubt it would not be a pleasant
lot for you, seeing that they would set you to work, and your life
would be worse than a dog’s. But you have got to put yourself in the
position of these unfortunate women and girls, and then you would see
that you might think differently about it. To begin with, till now
there has been no animosity between them and the Turks. It is
admitted that the Turks have been gentle masters to Chios, and the
people have been happy, contented, and prosperous. Their misfortunes
have been brought upon them, not by the Turks, but by the Greeks, who
came to the island contrary to their entreaties, plundered and ill
used them, and then left them to the vengeance of the Turks. So if
they have any preference for either, it will certainly not be for the
Greeks.

“As to their being sold as slaves, I do not suppose they view it at
all in the same way we do. They are not going to be sold to work in
the fields, or anything of that sort, and the Turks treat their
domestic slaves kindly. To one of these Chiot girls there is nothing
very terrible in being a slave in the household of a rich Turk. You
know that the Georgian and Circassian girls look forward to being sold
to the Turks. They know that the life at Constantinople is vastly
easier and more luxurious than that at home. I do not say for a moment
that these women would not prefer a life of ease among their own
people and friends. But what is the life before them now?--to have to
work for their own living in the fields, or to go as servants among
Greek and Italian families. A dark and uncertain future. I tell you,
man, we think we are doing them a mighty service, but I doubt whether
there is one of them that thinks so. The Chiots are celebrated for
their docility and intelligence, and these women and children would
fetch high prices in the market, and be purchased by wealthy Turks,
and their lot would be an enviable one in comparison to that which
awaits most of them.

“The word slavery is hateful to us, but it is not so many years since
we were sending people out in hundreds to work as slaves in the
plantations of Virginia. The word slavery in the East has not the same
terror as it has with us, and I doubt if the feelings of a Chiot
peasant girl on her way to be sold are not a good deal like those of a
girl who goes up from a Scotch or English village to Edinburgh or
London, to go into service in a grand family. She thinks she is going
to better herself, to have fine clothes, and to live among fine
people; and, as it turns out, maybe she is better off than she was
before, maybe she is worse.”

“You are a most disagreeable man, Macfarlane,” Martyn said after a
pause. “Here have we been thinking that we have been doing a good
action, and you put us altogether out of conceit with ourselves.”

“We have been doing a good action,” the doctor said. “We have been
acting according to our lights. To us it is an abominable thing that a
Greek woman or child should be sold as a slave to the heathen Turk. I
am only pointing out to you that from their point of view there is
nothing so terrible in their lot, and that we have no reason to expect
any very lively gratitude from them; and that, looking at the matter
only from a material point of view, they are not likely to be
benefited by the change. I know that, if I were a Greek woman, I would
rather be a slave in the family of a rich Turk than working as a
drudge, say, in the family of a Maltese shopkeeper, though, if I were
a Scotch girl, I should certainly choose the other way.”

They all sat silent for a minute or two. The idea was a wholly new one
to them, and they could not deny that, according to the point of view
of these Chiot captives, it was a reasonable one. Mr. Beveridge was
the first to speak.

“What you say has certainly given me a shock, doctor, but I cannot
deny that there is some truth in it. Still, you know there is
something beyond mere material advantages.”

“I do not deny it, sir, and, as I say, we, as Britons and Christians,
feel that we are doing a good work. Still, we can hardly be surprised
that these Chiots naturally view it differently. Their Christianity
is, like that of all Eastern Christians, of a very debased form; and
living so long among the Turks, they have no very great horror of
Mohammedanism. You know, on the mainland, tens of thousands of the
Albanians have become Mohammedans. We think that we are justified in
inflicting what one cannot but see is, from the material point of
view, a distinct injury to these people, because, as Christians, we
feel it is for their moral advantage; but then, that is just the same
feeling that caused the Spaniards to exterminate the natives of the
West Indian Islands who declined to become Christians.”

“Oh, I say, doctor, that is too strong altogether,” Miller exclaimed
indignantly.

“Well, prove it by argument,” the doctor replied calmly. “I am not
saying that from our point of view we are not more than justified. I
am simply explaining why these Chiots do not feel any extraordinary
gratitude to us. We are benefiting them, if they did but know it. We
are saving them, body and soul; but that is not the light in which
they see it.”

“You are right, doctor,” Mr. Beveridge said. “And now you put it
before us, I am really not surprised that these poor creatures do not
feel any very lively gratitude. They are fond of ease and comfort, and
have been accustomed to it, and to them the utter uncertainty of their
life among strangers is not unreasonably more terrible than the
prospects of an easy life as a favoured slave in a Turkish household.
It is sad that it should be so; but it is human nature. Still, the
consideration must not weigh with us in carrying out what we know to
be a good work. We have saved in all more than three thousand souls
from Turkish slavery, and can only trust that in the long run most of
them will recognize the inestimable service we have rendered them.”




CHAPTER XVII

RESCUING THE GARRISON OF ATHENS


“I tell you what it is, Mr. Beveridge,” the governor said when the
latter went up to call as usual upon his arrival at Corfu, “I quite
begin to dread the appearance of that smart schooner of yours; during
the last five weeks you have added a thousand mouths to my anxieties.
What we are to do with all these poor creatures I have not the
slightest idea. We can’t go on feeding them for ever; and what with
the voluntary fugitives and those brought over to us, there are at
present some forty or fifty thousand strangers in the islands, and of
these something like half are absolutely dependent on us for the means
of living.”

“It is a very difficult problem,” Mr. Beveridge said. “Of course, when
the war is over the great proportion of them will return to their
homes in Greece; but the fugitives from the Turkish islands and
mainland are in a different position. Doubtless, when peace is made,
there will be some arrangement by which those families which have men
among them can also return to their homes without being molested; but
those consisting only of women and children could not do so. Some of
the women and girls can find employment in Greek families, and I
suppose the rest will finally become absorbed as servants in the towns
on the Adriatic.”

“I see nothing else for it, Mr. Beveridge; unless you choose to
continue your good work, and transport them in batches across the
Atlantic. I believe there is a great dearth of women in Canada and the
United States.”

“You will have to set up schools and teach them English first, sir,”
Mr. Beveridge laughed, “or they would not be welcomed there. When they
can all speak our language I will think over your suggestion.”

“Do you think that Greece ever will be free, Mr. Beveridge?”

“I think so. Certainly I think so. These terrible massacres on both
sides seem to render it absolutely impossible that they should return
to their former relations. The Turks have not yet made their great
effort, and I believe that when they do they will reconquer Greece.
But I do not think they will hold it. The hatred between the races is
now so bitter that they can never live together in peace; and I
believe that the Greeks will continue their resistance so long that
Europe at last will come to their assistance, and insist upon a
frontier line being drawn. This terrible affair of Chios, dreadful as
it is, will tend to that. The Christian feeling of Europe will become
more and more excited until, if the governments hold back, the people
will force them forward, and England and France at least will, if
necessary, intervene by force. I believe that they would do so now
were it not for jealousy of Russia. It is Russia who fomented this
revolution for her own purposes, and it is solely the fear that she
will reap the whole benefit of their action that causes England and
France to look on this struggle with folded arms.”

“I fancy you are right, and that that will be the end of it,” the
governor said. “I need not say how earnestly I wish the time would
come. I can assure you I have a very anxious time of it. What with
providing for all these people, what with preventing breaches of
neutrality by the Greeks, and what with the calumnies and complaints
that the Greeks scatter broadcast against us, I can assure you that my
task is not an enviable one.”

“I can quite imagine that. The Greeks make it very hard for their
well-wishers to assist them; indeed, if they were bent upon bringing
obloquy upon their name they could hardly act otherwise than they are
doing. The one man they have hitherto produced who goes his way
regardless of intrigue and faction, fighting bravely for the country,
is Constantine Kanaris, who has destroyed two Turkish ships with his
own hand. A hundred of such men as he is, and Greece would have
achieved her independence without foreign assistance; and yet, even
in his own ship, he is unable to maintain even a shadow of what we
should consider discipline. He himself acknowledged as much to me at
Psara.”

“I hear you took him off after he had burned the Turkish war-vessel.”

“Yes; we were lying off the port and saw it. I am glad we were not
nearer, for it was a terrible business. It is a barbarous war
altogether.”

“Then why do you mix yourself up in it, Mr. Beveridge?”

“My mother was a Greek, and I have always lived in Greek thought
rather than in English. I desire not only the independence but the
regeneration of the Greeks. They have lost all the virtues of their
ancestors save their intelligence; but once free they will, I hope and
trust, recover their lost virtues and become, if not a great
people--which they can hardly do, their numbers being comparatively so
few--at least a worthy one.”

“I hope they may. They certainly have enthusiastic friends. Only a
week or two since, a young fellow named Hastings, a lieutenant of our
navy, came out. He has a fortune of some seven or eight thousand
pounds, which he intends to devote to buying and fitting out a ship
for their service. There are scores of English and French officers
kicking their heels at Corinth, vainly asking for employment. And I
hear they are organizing a corps, composed entirely of foreign
officers, who will fight as private soldiers without pay, simply for
the purpose of endeavouring to shame the Greeks into a feeling of
patriotism.

“Where are you thinking of sailing now? If you have no fixed plans, I
should advise you to go round to Athens. They say the Turkish garrison
is at the last extremity. I have had a message from the consulate
there, asking me to send a British ship of war round to insist upon
the conditions of surrender being observed; but unfortunately the
insane rage for retrenchment at home has so diminished the strength of
our fleet that we haven’t a single ship in these waters at a time
like this. I hear that the French consul has also sent urgently asking
for ships of war. At any rate, your influence might do something.”

“I fear not,” Mr. Beveridge said gravely. “However, my men and guns
might have some weight, and at any rate I will go round at once and do
my best. If possible, I am even more anxious to save Turks from
massacre by Greeks, than Greeks from massacre by Turks.”

“I can understand that,” the governor said cordially. “Well, I wish
you every good fortune, Mr. Beveridge; but I say honestly that I do
not wish to see your saucy schooner again unless she comes in with
empty decks. Give them a turn at Malta next time, my dear sir, and I
shall feel really grateful towards you.”

Four days after leaving Corfu the schooner dropped anchor in the port
of Athens. Learning from the first boat that put off to them that the
capitulation of the Turks was to be signed on the following morning,
Mr. Beveridge determined to land at once, in order that he might see
as many of the leading officials as possible, and urge upon them the
necessity of preventing any repetition of the breaches of faith which
had brought such disgrace to the Greek name.

“I shall take Zaimes with me,” he said to Martyn, “and should I see
any signs of an intention upon the part of the populace to commence a
massacre of the Turks I will send him off instantly. In that case,
Captain Martyn, you will at once land the whole of the crew fully
armed, with the exception, say, of five men, and march them to the
British consulate in Athens. You know where it is. Take a Greek flag
with you, for two reasons; in the first place, if you were to go
without it the Greeks would spread the report that the crew of an
English ship of war had landed; and in the second place, it may
quieten and appease the mob if they see that we are in the service of
Greece.”

“Very well, sir, I will carry out your instructions. I don’t think
that rascally mob will venture to interfere with us.”

“I hope not, Martyn; but at any rate we must risk that. Any other
message I may have to send off to you I shall send by an ordinary
messenger; but if you are wanted, I shall trust no one but Zaimes.”

Late in the evening a Greek came off with a letter. All would, Mr.
Beveridge hoped, be well. The Turks had agreed to surrender their
arms, and the Greeks had bound themselves to convey them to Asia Minor
in neutral ships. By the terms of capitulation the Turks were to be
allowed to retain one-half of their money and jewels, and one-half of
their movable property.

“I have every hope that the treaty will be respected,” Mr. Beveridge
wrote. “I am happy to say that the Bishop of Athens, who is a man of
high character, and President of the Areopagus, has insisted upon all
the civil and military authorities taking a most solemn oath to
observe strictly the terms of capitulation, and so far to redeem the
good faith of the nation, which has been so deeply stained by the
violation of so many previous treaties.”

The next morning the Mussulmans marched out from the Acropolis. Out of
the 1150 remaining only 180 were men capable of bearing arms, so
stoutly and obstinately had they defended the place, yielding only
when the last drop of water in the cisterns was exhausted. They were
housed in some extensive buildings in the town. Three days passed
quietly. Two ephors, who had been ordered by the Greek government to
hasten the embarkation of the Turks, took no steps whatever to do so.
On the morning of the fourth day, Horace, who had been twice on shore
to see his father, saw a boat rowing off to the ship. He turned a
glass upon it and exclaimed:

“There is Zaimes on board that boat, Captain Martyn. I am sure my
father would not send him on board unless there is trouble in the
town.”

Martyn did not wait for the boat to arrive, but instantly mustered and
armed the crew, and the boats were in the water by the time Zaimes
arrived alongside. He handed a note to Martyn; it contained only the
words:

“Land instantly, they are murdering the Turks.”

With a hearty execration upon the Greeks, Martyn ordered the men to
take their places in the boats, and gave his final orders to Tarleton,
who was to remain in charge.

“Get all the guns loaded with ball, Mr. Tarleton. For aught I know we
may have to fight our way down to the beach. Fire the first shot over
their heads. If that does not frighten them, plump the others into
them.”

The three boats pushed off, the doctor taking his place by the side of
Horace, who was in command of one of them.

“Have you got your instruments, doctor?” Horace asked smiling.

“I have got these instruments,” Macfarlane said, tapping the butts of
a heavy pair of pistols. “Just for once I am going as a combatant. I
thought there was a limit to everything, but there really doesn’t seem
to be any limit to the faithlessness of the Greeks. I should like very
much to help to give them a little lesson as to the sanctity of an
oath.”

The sailors marched in a compact body from the port to the town. They
had been told the errand upon which they had come, and from the pace
at which they marched, and the expression of angry determination on
their faces, it was evident that they entered thoroughly into the
business. They were met at the entrance to the town by Mr. Beveridge.

“It is of no use going to the British consulate,” he said; “there are
no English officials there, the place is simply in charge of a Greek,
who dare not, if he would, move in the matter. The Turks are taking
refuge in the French, Austrian, and Dutch consulates. It is more than
doubtful whether the flags will be respected. You had better place say
eight men at each, with orders to defend the places till the last if
the mob attacks them; while with the rest of the men you can endeavour
to escort the fugitive Turks to the consulates. Don’t let the men use
their arms till the last extremity, Martyn.”

“Very well, sir. Where will you be?”

“I will go to the French consulate and aid them there in pacifying the
mob. My son had better go to one of the others. Harangue them from the
windows, Horace; point out to them that they are disgracing Greece in
the eyes of all Europe, and implore them not to bring Austria on their
backs by insulting her flag. At the same time see that all the lower
shutters are barred, and be ready to sally out with your men to bring
in any fugitives who may approach.”

“Mr. Miller, do you take eight men to the Dutch consulate,” Martyn
said, “and follow the instructions Mr. Beveridge has given to his
son.”

“Zaimes shall go with you, Mr. Miller.”

“Thank you, Mr. Beveridge; if he will do the haranguing I will look
after the fighting if there is any to be done.”

The three parties, each of eight men, at once started for the
consulates. Martyn waited till they had gone, and then turned to the
remainder. “Boatswain, you take ten men and go one way, I will go
another way with the rest. You heard Mr. Beveridge’s instructions,
that the men were not to use their arms unless absolutely attacked. At
the same time, if you come upon any of the Greeks engaged in murdering
women and children you will remember there are no orders against your
using your hands, and that there are windows as well as doors by which
a Greek can be made to leave a house.”

“Ay, ay, sir!” Tom Burdett replied with a grin; “we will be as gentle
with them as possible.”

Martyn had provided several small Greek flags which had been fastened
to boat-hooks, and each party, taking one of these, proceeded on its
way. They had gone but a little distance when shrieks and cries were
heard, and, bursting into the houses from which they proceeded, the
sailors came upon Greeks engaged in the diabolical work of torturing
women and children. With a cheer they fell upon them, striking right
and left with their fists, and levelling the astonished Greeks to the
ground. Then the Turks were placed safely in their midst, and with a
few hearty kicks at the prostrate ruffians they marched out. The scene
was repeated again and again; the punishment inflicted upon the Greeks
being more and more severe each time.

When some twenty fugitives had been collected they were marched
through a yelling rabble to one or other of the consulates, to which a
large number of fugitives had made their way when the massacre began.
Several times the leaders of both bands had to call upon their men to
present arms, the mob falling back and flying the moment they did so.
After a time the two bands joined, Martyn considering it imprudent to
venture out among the enraged populace in smaller force. The aspect of
the crowd became more and more threatening, but it still confined
itself to execrations and curses, being overawed by the determined
attitude of the men with their muskets, cutlasses, and pistols, and
with the apparent fact that the sailors were only prevented from using
their arms by the exertions of the two officers, for the doctor kept
close by Martyn’s side. At two o’clock the boom of a cannon was heard
from the port; again and again it sounded at regular intervals.

“That is a ship of war saluting,” Martyn said.

The crowd fell away rapidly, many of them hurrying down to the port,
and Martyn, taking advantage of it, was able to bring in a good many
more fugitives to the consulates, the sailors from within rushing out
when they approached, and clearing the way through the crowd with the
vigorous use of their elbows and sometimes of their fists.

“We shall have help up soon,” Mr. Beveridge said, the first time
Martyn brought in a party of fugitives after the guns fired.

An hour later a strong party of French sailors and marines with loaded
muskets and fixed bayonets marched up to the French consulate from two
French vessels, a corvette and a schooner, which had come from Syra in
response to the consul’s earnest appeals for assistance. They placed
in their midst three hundred and twenty-five Turkish fugitives who
had found refuge there, escorted them down to the port, and placed
them on board their ships. On the way they were surrounded by a
menacing crowd of Greek soldiers and by a great mob, yelling,
shouting, and brandishing their arms; but their valour went no
further, and the fugitives were taken off in safety. The sailors of
the _Misericordia_ were now divided between the Austrian and Dutch
consulates, and their appearance at the windows with loaded muskets
intimidated the mob from making an attack. During the night the bishop
and some of the better class exerted themselves to the utmost in
calming the passions of the mob; and they themselves in the morning
accompanied the crew of the _Misericordia_, who, guarding the
fugitives, were allowed to proceed down to the port and embark on
board the schooner without molestation from the people. Some seven
hundred and fifty persons were saved by the French and the crew of the
schooner. Four hundred were massacred in cold blood by the Greeks.

The French vessels had sailed away during the night, and the question
arose what was to be done with the rescued Turks. Of these there were
some forty soldiers, ten or twelve Turks of superior rank, military
and civil officials; the rest were women and children. Two or three of
the Turks spoke Italian, and four or five of them Greek. Mr. Beveridge
held a consultation with these, and it was finally agreed that they
should be landed at the Isle of Tenedos close to the mouth of the
Dardanelles, as from thence they would have no difficulty in making
their way to Constantinople.

“If there are no ships of war in the port we will hoist the white flag
and sail straight in; but if there are, we must land you in the boats
somewhere on the island. We have been in action with your ships of war
and would at once be recognized, and the white flag would not be
respected.”

“We owe you our lives, sir, and the lives of all these women and
children,” a bimbashi or major of the Turkish garrison, a fine
soldierly-looking man, said earnestly; “for had it not been for you
and your brave crew even the flags of the consulates would not have
sufficed to protect us. Assuredly my countrymen would never fire at
you when engaged in such a work of mercy.”

“They might not in cold blood,” Mr. Beveridge said; “but we have just
been saving Chiot prisoners as cruelly treated, and for every Turk who
has been massacred in Athens, well-nigh a hundred Chiots have been
murdered. I do not defend them for breaking their pledged faith to
you, but one cannot be surprised at their savage thirst for
vengeance.”

Martyn had got up the anchor and set sail on the schooner directly the
fugitives were on board, and as soon as he learned that Tenedos was
their destination her course was laid north. Then came the work, to
which they were now becoming accustomed, of stowing away the
unfortunate passengers. The screened partition was allotted to the
women and children of the officers and officials, most of whose
husbands had fallen during the siege, and the rest of the women and
children were stowed down on the main-deck, while the male passengers
stayed on deck, where the women remained for the most part during the
day. Those who had been rescued from the hands of the Greeks had been
plundered of everything; but those who had at the first alarm fled to
the consulates had carried with them jewels and money. The women of
the upper class were all closely veiled, but the rest made but little
attempt to conceal their faces, and all evinced the deepest gratitude
to the crew of the schooner; murmuring their thanks whenever an
officer or sailor passed near them, and trying to seize their hands
and press them to their foreheads.

The fugitives of the upper class, both men and women, were more
restrained, but there was no mistaking the expression with which their
eyes followed their protectors. Many of the women and children were
worn out with the sufferings they had sustained during the last days
of the siege, and some of the soldiers were so weak as to be scarce
able to stand. The doctor attended to many of the children, while the
Greeks and the ship’s cook were kept busy all day in preparing
nourishing soups. The next day they were off Tenedos. No Turkish ship
of war was lying near the town. A boat was lowered, and Miller,
accompanied by Horace as interpreter, took his place in her with one
of the Turkish officers. A white flag was hoisted in her stern, and
six men rowed her ashore.

Their movements had been watched, and a body of Turkish soldiers were
drawn up at the landing-place with several officials. The Turkish
officer mounted the steps and explained to the governor of the island,
who was among those at the landing-stage, the purpose for which the
_Misericordia_ had arrived at the port. There was a rapid conversation
as the officer, frequently interrupted by exclamations of indignation,
and questions from the Turks, narrated what had taken place. Then the
governor and his officers ran forward, seized Miller and Horace by the
hand, patted them on the shoulder with the liveliest demonstrations of
gratitude and friendship. The Turk who had come ashore with them
translated to Horace, in Greek, the governor’s earnest request that
the owner of the ship and his officers would come ashore to visit him.

“The governor says that he himself would at once come off to visit the
ship and return his thanks, but that, as she is flying the Greek flag,
he cannot do so, much as he desires it; but that if the flag were
lowered, and a white flag substituted, he would come off instantly. He
has heard of the fight between the Greek ship with an English crew and
the boats of the Turkish fleet, and of the many craft she has taken
and destroyed, always sparing the crews and sending them ashore, and
he has great esteem for so brave an enemy; now he cannot view them but
as friends after their noble rescue of so many of his countrymen and
women and children.”

Horace in reply said that he would give the governor’s message to his
father, and that the fugitives should at once be landed.

“Do you think that he really meant that he would come on board if we
hoisted the white flag, Horace?”

“I think so, father. He and the officers with him certainly seemed
thoroughly in earnest. What do you think, Martyn? There can be no
objection to our lowering the Greek flag, I should think, while acting
as a neutral.”

“I should think not,” Martyn said, “and I should not care a snap of
the fingers if there was. The Greek flag is all well enough, Mr.
Beveridge, when we see an armed Turk of superior size in sight, but at
other times I don’t feel proud of it.”

“We will lower it down then, Martyn.”

The Greek flag was lowered from the peak and a white one run up. Then
the work of debarkation commenced, the Turks insisting upon shaking
hands with Mr. Beveridge and the officers, thanking them in the most
fervent way, and calling down the blessing of Allah upon them; while
the women, many of them weeping, threw themselves on their knees and
poured out their thanks, some of them holding up their infants to gaze
on the faces of those to whom they owed their lives. The sailors came
in for their share of thanks, and were quite embarrassed by the warmth
with which they were greeted. Just as the first batch left the ship, a
large boat flying the Turkish flag was seen putting out from the
shore, and in a few minutes the governor with seven or eight civil and
military officials came on board.

They brought with them a merchant who spoke English to act as
interpreter. Martyn drew up the whole of the crew who were not engaged
in boat service as a guard of honour to receive them, while he, with
Mr. Beveridge, met the governor as he mounted the gangway. The
governor, who was a tall and dignified Turk, expressed to them his
warmest thanks in the name of the Sultan for the rescue of so many of
his subjects from the fury of the populace of Athens. Mr. Beveridge,
through the interpreter, explained to the pasha that, although an
Englishman he had Greek blood in his veins, and had therefore joined
them in their attempt to achieve independence, and was prepared to
fight on their side but that, as an Englishman, he revolted against
the barbarity with which the war was carried on by both combatants;
that his vessel was named the _Misericordia_, and that while he had
saved a great number of Christian fugitives on the one side, he was
equally ready and pleased at being able to render the same service to
Mussulman fugitives on the other side.

[Illustration: THE GOVERNOR COMES ON BOARD]

“Your errand is a noble and merciful one,” the Turk said, “and must
have the approval of Allah as well as of the God of the Christians. We
have heard of your terrible vessel, how she destroyed a frigate off
Cyprus, beat off the boats of our fleet at Chios, and played havoc
among the shipping from Smyrna. We knew her when we saw her, for we
had heard of her white sails and tall masts; but we had heard too that
no prisoner was injured by you. I never thought to set foot on the
deck of the ship that had become the dread of the traders of Smyrna
and other ports, but I am glad to do so since those who sail her,
although our enemies in battle, have proved themselves indeed our
friends in the time of distress.”

When this had been translated, Mr. Beveridge invited the governor and
his companions into the cabin, where coffee and chibouks were served;
then they were conducted round the ship. The governor conversed for
some little time with two or three of the principal Turks from Athens,
and learned the full details of the surrender and the subsequent
events as he watched the debarkation of the fugitives; and then, after
obtaining a promise from Mr. Beveridge that he and his officers would
come on shore at sunset to dine with him, he entered his boat and was
rowed back.

At sunset Mr. Beveridge and all the officers, with the exception of
Tarleton, who remained in charge of the ship, went ashore. They were
received at the landing-place by a guard of honour of Turkish soldiers
in charge of one of the principal officers of the governor, and were
conducted to his house through a crowd of people cheering and
shouting.

The governor received them at his door. The dinner was served in
Turkish fashion, all sitting on cushions round a table raised about a
foot from the floor. A band of music played without, and a great
number of dishes, of most of which Horace could only guess at the
ingredients, were served; and after the meal, which was of great
length, was concluded, slaves brought round ewers of water, in which
all dipped their fingers, wiping them on embroidered towels. A variety
of sweetmeats were then handed round, followed by coffee. Three or
four interpreters had stood behind the guests, who were all placed
between Turks, and thus conversation was rendered possible. At ten
o’clock they took their leave with many cordial expressions on both
sides, and were again escorted by a party of soldiers to their boats.

“There is no gainsaying,” Macfarlane said as they rowed off, “that
there seems to be a good deal livelier feeling of gratitude among the
Turks than there is among the Greeks. We have come all the way out
from England to fight for the Greeks; we have sunk a Turkish ship,
beaten off their boats with very heavy loss, and rescued nearly three
thousand women and children from their hands, and yet there isn’t a
Greek official who has said as much as thank you. They seem to
consider that it is quite sufficient reward for us to have been of
service to so great a people as they are. Upon the other hand, here
are these Turks, though we have done them a great deal of damage,
putting aside all enmity and treating us like gentlemen because we
have saved a ship-load of their people. He was a very fine old heathen
that governor.”

“The Turks, too, were a deal more grateful than any of the Greeks have
been, except that batch from Cyprus,” Horace said.

“They were in better heart for being thankful, Horace,” Mr. Beveridge
replied. “We have taken them back to their native land, and they will
soon rejoin their friends and families; whereas the Chiots were going
into exile and had lost everything that was dear to them, and the lot
before them was, as the doctor pointed out, little if anything better
than that we had saved them from. Still, I will do them the justice to
say that the Turks were really grateful to us; and though we are not
working for the purpose of obtaining gratitude, it is pleasant to see
that people do feel that one has done something for them.”

“I suppose you won’t get up sail until morning, Martyn?” Mr. Beveridge
said as they went down into the cabin.

“Yes, sir, if you have no objections I shall get up the anchor as soon
as we are on board. You see we are not many miles from the mouth of
the Dardanelles, and with a good glass they could make out our colours
from the mainland; and if word were sent to their admiral that a Greek
craft is at anchor here, he might send two or three ships out to
capture us. I don’t give the Turks credit for such enterprise, but it
is just as well not to run any risk. What is to be our course next,
Mr. Beveridge?”

“There is likely to be a regular battle in a short time between the
Greek army and the Turks. Indeed the Greeks will have to fight if they
really mean to gain their independence. Dramali Pasha has some twenty
thousand men collected on the banks of the Spercheus. Of these they
say eight thousand are cavalry drawn from the Mussulman clans of
Macedonia and Thrace, and he may move forward any day to reconquer the
Morea and relieve Nauplia. If he is suffered to do this there is
virtually an end of the war. I have not a shadow of faith in any of
the Greek leaders, or in the Areopagus, but I still do believe in the
vast bulk of the people. The Morea consists almost wholly of hilly and
broken country, just the ground where an armed peasantry, knowing
every pass and place of advantage, ought to be able to render the
passage of a regular army with their wagons and baggage well-nigh
impossible.

“In such a country the Turkish cavalry would be of little use, and
there are only the infantry to cope with. The artillery would probably
have to be left behind altogether. If ever an effort is to be made by
the Greeks it must be made now. I propose therefore, Martyn, to sail
down to Nauplia and to land there. The Turks, of course, still command
the harbour with their guns, but the Greek vessels land supplies and
ammunition for the besiegers, so there can be no difficulty about
that. We have still a good many thousand muskets in the hold, and
ammunition for them. I shall see what spirit prevails among the
peasantry, shall issue arms to all who need them, and help with money
if required. The peasantry will not want it, but the patriotism of
their primates and captains may be a good deal strengthened by a
little judicious expenditure of money. The Morea is the key of the
whole position, and the present will be the critical moment of the
revolution. If the Turks succeed, Greece is at their feet; if the
Turkish army is defeated, Greece may conquer. Now, therefore, is the
time for me to do my utmost to aid them.”

“Very well, sir; then I will lay her course to-morrow morning for the
south-eastern point of Eubœa.”

On the voyage down Mr. Beveridge discussed with the others the course
that he intended to take. He had quite determined himself to leave the
coast and go into the interior, where, if the Turkish army was to be
checked, the decisive battle must be fought. It was decided that
Horace and the two Greeks should accompany him. The question most at
issue was whether he should take with him any portion of the crew of
the schooner; he himself was somewhat averse to this.

“I need hardly say, Martyn, that I have no intention whatever of
mixing myself up in any fighting that may take place. I go simply to
rouse the enthusiasm as much as possible of the peasantry, and to get
the small local leaders to stir. If I can do nothing I shall simply
come back to the schooner again. If the Greeks dispute the passage of
the Turks I shall, if I can, take up my position where I can see what
takes place, and if the Greeks are beaten, retire across the hills.
What good then would it be for me to take any of the sailors with me?
You may want them all on board, for it is possible, indeed it is
probable, that the Turkish fleet will come round to Nauplia with
supplies for the Turkish army when it arrives there.”

“Well, sir, I shouldn’t require the whole crew to get up sail and make
off if I see them coming, and I do think that it would be very much
better for you to have some men with you. In the first place, your
having a guard of that sort would add to your importance in the eyes
of the Greeks, and give more weight to your counsels. In the second
place, if you are going to take arms and money on shore you will
certainly require a guard for them, or run the risk of getting your
throat cut. And lastly, if there should be a fight, and the Greeks get
beaten, if you have fifteen or twenty men with you your chance of
getting off safely would be very largely increased, for they could
beat off any small party of horsemen that happened to overtake you.
What do you think, Horace?”

“I certainly think so too. After what we have seen of the Greeks,
father, I do think it would be better in every way to have a party of
sailors with us. If it were known that you were going about the hills
with a considerable sum of money you might be safe enough among the
peasants, but I should say there were any number of these miserable
primates and captains who would think nothing of cutting our throats
to get it.”

Mr. Beveridge gave way at once, and it was arranged that a party of
fifteen men, under the command of Miller, should land from the
schooner and accompany him.

“Don’t you think, Mr. Beveridge,” Macfarlane said, “that it would be
as well for you to take your medical attendant with you?”

Mr. Beveridge smiled. “I have scarcely regarded you hitherto, doctor,
in the light of my medical attendant, but as the attendant of the
ship’s company, and I don’t think that Horace or I, or any of the
landing party, are likely to take any fever among the hills of the
Morea.”

“I hope not, sir, but you see there may be some preliminary skirmishes
before the regular battle you expect will take place, and I don’t
suppose the Greeks will have any surgeons accustomed to gunshot wounds
or capable of amputations among them, and therefore, you see, I might
be of some service.”

“In addition to which, doctor,” Martyn laughed, “you think you would
like a ramble on shore a bit.”

“Well, what do you think, Martyn?” Mr. Beveridge said; “it is for you
to decide. The doctor may be, as he says, useful on shore; but then
again his services may be required on board.”

“We are not likely to do any fighting, sir, and if he will mix up a
gallon or two of jalap, and such other medicines as he thinks might be
useful for ordinary ailments on board, I daresay Tarleton will see to
their being administered as required.”

“Oh, yes, I will see to that,” Tarleton said. “Make them as nasty as
you can, doctor, so that I sha’n’t have any unnecessary applications
for them.”

And so it was settled that Dr. Macfarlane should form one of the
landing party.




CHAPTER XVIII

A TURKISH DEFEAT


The town of Nauplia stood on a projecting point at the head of the
gulf which was in old times known as the Gulf of Argos, but was now
more generally known as the Gulf of Nauplia, that town being the most
important port in Greece, carrying on a large trade in sponges, silk,
oil, wax, wines, and acorns. It was the seat of government of the
Venetians at the time they were masters of the Morea, and had been
very strongly fortified by them. The Acropolis, or citadel, stood on a
craggy hill where the point on which the town stood joined the
mainland. The Venetians had taken the greatest pain in fortifying this
rock, which was well-nigh impregnable, and was considered the
strongest position in the Morea.

The Turks had long been besieged here. Negotiations had at one time
been carried on with a view to its surrender, and had the Greeks acted
in good faith they could have gained possession of the place before
Dramali advanced to its relief. Six weeks before, the Turks, having
entirely consumed their provisions, signed the capitulation. The Turks
had little faith in the Greeks observing its conditions, but were of
opinion that it would be better to be massacred at once than to slowly
die of hunger. By the terms of capitulation the Turks were to deliver
up their arms and two-thirds of their movable property, while the
Greeks were to allow them to hire neutral vessels to transport them to
Asia Minor; and bound themselves to supply them with provisions until
the vessels arrived to take them away.

The Greek government at once sent some of its members to Nauplia to
register the property of the Turks. These immediately pursued the
usual course of endeavouring to enrich themselves by secretly
purchasing the property of the Turks, and by selling them provisions.
The Greek ministers took no steps to charter neutral vessels,
professing that they were unable to raise money for the purpose, but
really delaying to enable their secretaries at Nauplia to make larger
gains by bargaining with the wealthy Turks there. The Turks having now
got provisions enough to enable them to hold on, were in no great
hurry to conclude the surrender, as they knew that Dramali was
advancing. Such was the state of things when the schooner arrived in
the Gulf of Argos, and landed the party on the opposite side of the
gulf.

They at once proceeded into the interior, stopping at every village.
At each place they came to messengers were sent out to summon the
peasantry of the neighbourhood to come in. When they had assembled Mr.
Beveridge harangued them, pointing out that now or never was the time
to win their independence; that if the Turkish invasion were rolled
back now they might hope that the enemy would see that such a country
could not be conquered when the inhabitants were determined to be
free, for that if they thoroughly established their hold of it, and
occupied all the fortresses, there would be no chance of their ever
again shaking off the yoke. He said that he himself, an Englishman and
a stranger, had come to aid them as far as possible, and that all
unprovided with arms, or lacking ammunition, would receive them on
going down to the ship anchored in the bay.

At each place, previous to addressing the assembly, he had distributed
money among the local leaders and priests. These seconded his
harangues, and numbers of the men went down to the coast and obtained
guns and ammunition.

While Mr. Beveridge was travelling over the country the army of
Dramali was advancing unopposed. The troops which the central
government had placed to defend the passes fled without firing a shot,
and Dramali occupied Corinth without resistance. The Acropolis there
was impregnable, but the commander, a priest named Achilles
Theodorides, in spite of his Christian name and the fact that the
citadel was amply supplied with provisions, murdered the Turkish
prisoners in his hands, and fled with the garrison as soon as Dramali
approached the place.

The ease with which the Turkish general had marched through Eastern
Greece and possessed himself of Corinth, raised his confidence to the
highest point. It had been arranged that the Turkish fleet should meet
him at Nauplia, and he therefore determined to march with his whole
army there, obtain possession of the stores brought by the fleet,
relieve the town, and then proceed to the conquest of the Morea. Two
of his officers alone disagreed with him. Yussuf Pasha and Ali Pasha,
the latter of whom was a large land-owner of Argos, and both of whom
knew the country well, proposed that Corinth should be made the
head-quarters of the army, and great magazines be formed there; that
the army should be divided into two divisions, one of which, under
Dramali, should march to Nauplia and then recover Tripolitza, while
the other should march along the Gulf of Corinth to Patras, recovering
possession of the fertile province of Achaia. Dramali, however,
confident in his power to overcome any opposition that might be made,
determined to carry out his own plan, and started with his own army
for Nauplia.

Owing to the fact that Dramali had met with no opposition, and had
advanced with much greater rapidity than was expected, the
preparations for resistance were altogether incomplete at the time he
moved forward from Corinth, though the people were firmly determined
to resist his advance from Nauplia. Accordingly, to the great
disappointment of Mr. Beveridge, he moved without opposition through
the narrow defile of Dervenaki, where a few hundred men could have
successfully opposed the advance of an army, and arrived without
firing a shot at Argos, almost within sight of Nauplia, sending
forward Ali Pasha with five hundred cavalry to take the command at
Nauplia.

Had the Turkish fleet now arrived with supplies, as had been arranged,
it is probable that Dramali would have overrun the Morea, and that the
revolution in Greece would have been stamped out; but instead of doing
this it passed round the Morea to Patras in order to take on board
Mehemet, who had just been appointed Capitan Pasha. Dramali therefore
found himself at Argos without provisions, as, relying upon obtaining
supplies from the fleet, he had not encumbered himself with a baggage
train.

The members of the Greek government whose head-quarters had been at
Argos, had fled precipitately at the approach of Dramali. Argos had
been crowded with political leaders and military adventurers who had
gathered there in hopes of sharing in the plunder of Nauplia. All
these fled in such haste that the national archives and a large
quantity of plate that had just been collected from the churches and
monasteries for the public service, were abandoned. A wild panic had
seized the inhabitants, whose numbers had been vastly increased by
refugees from Smyrna, Chios, and other places, and thousands deserted
their houses and property, and fled in frantic terror. As soon as they
had left, the town was plundered by bands of Greek klephts, who seized
the horses, mules, working oxen, and carts of the peasantry round and
loaded them with the plunder collected in the city, and the Turks,
when they entered Argos, found that it had already been sacked.

While, however, the ministers, senators, and generals of Greece were
flying in panic, the spirit of the people was rising, and a body of
volunteers took possession of the ruined castle where the ancient
Acropolis of Argos had stood, and defended the position successfully
against the first attack of the Turks. Of all the Greek leaders,
Prince Demetrius Hypsilantes alone showed courage and presence of
mind. Hastening through the country he addressed energetic harangues
to the people, who responded enthusiastically to his impassioned
words, and took up arms without waiting for the call of their nominal
leaders. The work of the little English party now bore fruit, and the
peasants, with arms in their hands, some without leaders, some
commanded by their captains and primates, flocked from all parts of
the Morea towards the scene of action.

Having seen the work well begun, Hypsilantes hastened back to Argos,
and, accompanied by several young chiefs, threw himself with some
eight hundred men into the ruined castle, raising the force there to a
thousand men. The place was, however, badly supplied with provisions
and water, and the Turks closely invested it. The object with which
the first volunteers had occupied the place had been gained: the
advance of the Turks had been arrested, and time had been given to the
people of the Morea to rise. Hypsilantes and the greater portion of
the garrison accordingly withdrew during the night; but a small band
held it for three days longer, cutting their way out when their last
loaf was finished on the 1st of August, having occupied it on the 24th
of July.

By this time the Greeks had five thousand men assembled at Lerna, the
port of Argos, where the cowardly leaders had embarked, and they held
a very strong position where the ground rendered it impossible for the
Turkish cavalry to act. Other large bodies of Greeks occupied all the
mountains surrounding the plain of Argos. Had Dramali, when he first
found that the fleet had gone past with the supplies, returned to
Corinth, he could have done so without a shot being fired; but it was
not until the 6th of August, after wasting a fortnight, that he
prepared to move. He had brought with him from Corinth ten thousand
men, of whom half were cavalry, and already much greater numbers of
Greeks were gathered round him. Kolokotronis was nominally in command,
but the villagers obeyed their local leaders, and there was no order
or system among them. Had there been, they could have occupied strong
positions on the various roads leading up to the hills, and compelled
the surrender of the whole Turkish army. Instead of doing this, each
of the local chiefs took up the position that seemed to him to be
best.

The advance guard of the Turkish army consisted of a thousand
Albanians, trained and seasoned troops. These were allowed to go
through without even a skirmish. A body of cavalry were then sent
forward along the road by which they had come, and ordered to occupy
the Dervenaki defile, which Dramali had left unguarded behind him.
They found the Greeks intrenched there. The first Turkish division
therefore moved by another pass. Niketos, one of the bravest of the
Greek commanders, with two thousand men barred the valley and fell on
their left flank, while another body of Greeks, under Hypsilantes and
Dikaios, attacked them on the right. The Turkish cavalry charged
forward and tried to clear the valley, but a picked body of marksmen,
on a low hill overlooking a ravine, shot them down and blocked the
ravine with the bodies of the horses and their riders.

The pressure from behind increased, and a body of well-mounted
horsemen managed to dash through and reach Corinth in safety. Behind
them the slaughter was terrible. The Turks were shot down in numbers,
and fled in every direction. Many were killed, but more succeeded in
escaping, for the Greeks directed their whole attention to plundering
the great baggage-trains, consisting of mules and camels laden with
the valuables of the pashas and the rich spoil that had been gathered
in their advance. The news of the destruction of the first division of
his army astounded Dramali; but it was impossible for him to remain at
Argos, and the following day he moved forward by another road up the
steep hill known as Kleisura. Dikaios opposed them in front; Niketos
and Hypsilantes fell on their left flank.

As on the previous day, the baggage-train proved the salvation of the
Turkish soldiers. The Greeks directed their entire attention to it;
and while they were occupied in cutting it off, a brilliant charge by
a chosen band of Turkish horsemen cleared the road in front, and
Dramali, with the main body of his cavalry, was enabled to escape to
Corinth. His military chest, and the whole of the Turkish baggage,
fell into the hands of the Greeks. The troops under the immediate
command of Kolokotronis took no part whatever in either day’s
fighting, the whole of which was done by the two thousand men under
the command of Niketos, under whom Dikaios and Hypsilantes acted. As
Kolokotronis, however, was the nominal commander, the credit of the
defeat of Dramali was generally ascribed to him.

The Moriots returned to their native villages, enriched by the spoil
they had gathered. The party from the schooner had been spectators of
the fight. They had scarcely expected so good a result, for the
disorder, the want of plan, the neglect of any attempt to seize and
occupy the roads, and, above all, the utter incapacity of
Kolokotronis, seemed to render success almost hopeless; and, indeed,
out of the fourteen thousand Greeks assembled but two thousand fired a
shot.

Fortunately the brunt of the Turkish attack fell upon the one little
division that was ably commanded. Had the main body aided them, not a
soldier of Dramali’s army would have escaped. As it was, their loss in
men was comparatively small; but the total destruction of their
baggage-train, and, still more, the disorganization and depression
which followed the disaster, inflicted upon them by an enemy they
despised, completely paralyzed them, and no forward move was again
attempted. Dramali himself was utterly broken down by the humiliation,
and died at Corinth two months later.

Mr. Beveridge was well contented with the success, which was due
partly to his efforts. He had expended upwards of five thousand
pounds, and eight thousand muskets and a large quantity of ammunition
had been distributed from the schooner to the peasants. The victory
ought, he felt, to have been much more conclusive; but the spirit
awakened among the Moriots, and the confidence that would be
engendered throughout Greece at this victory over an army that had
expected to overrun the whole country without difficulty, immensely
improved the chances that Greek independence would be finally
established.

There was, however, one unfortunate consequence of the affair. The
success of these armed peasants at Argos confirmed the Greeks in their
idea that discipline was wholly unnecessary, that regular troops were
a mistake, and that all that was needed to conquer the Turks was for
the people to muster under their local leaders whenever danger
threatened. This absurd idea was the cause of many heavy disasters
which subsequently occurred. When the second day’s fighting was over
the English party made their way back to the schooner.

“I congratulate you heartily, sir, on the success the Greeks have
gained,” Martyn said; for the news of the victory had already reached
him.

“Thank you, Martyn. It might and ought to have been a great deal
better. Still, I am very thankful that it is as good as it is. I can
feel now that, come what may, my mission out here has not been
altogether a failure. We have done much good work in the cause of
humanity. My work during the last three weeks has been exactly what I
pictured it would be before I left home. By my personal efforts I did
a good deal to arouse the enthusiasm of the peasants. My money
increased my influence, and the arms we brought out contributed
largely to the success of the fight. I am pleased and gratified.”

“What sort of time have you had, Miller?” Martyn asked his comrade as
they walked up and down the quarter-deck together, as Mr. Beveridge
descended to his cabin.

“It has been good enough, for we have done a lot of tramping up hill
and down. The chief bought a horse the day he landed, or I am sure he
never could have stood it; it was pretty hard work even for us. You
should have seen him, day after day, haranguing crowds of villagers.
Of course I could not understand a word he said; but I can tell you he
worked them up into a regular frenzy; and the way they shouted and
waved their hands, and, as I imagine, swore terrible oaths that they
would kill and eat every Turk they saw, was something tremendous. It
quite electrified our fellows, who have been accustomed, I suppose, to
consider the chief as a quiet, easy-going gentleman, and they cheered
and shouted as loudly as the Greeks. Zaimes and his brother went off
on expeditions, on their own account, to villages we could not spare
time to go to. We were all right as to quarters and grub. The primates
and captains, or whatever the leaders call themselves, naturally made
a lot of us--and no wonder, considering how the chief scattered his
money among them all. The mule that carried the money was pretty
heavily laden when he went up, but the boxes were emptied before we
returned. The food, of course, was pretty rough, though it was the
best they had; but one has been spoiled for roughing it by our living
here.”

“I found a difference, I can tell you, Miller, since you went, and I
am heartily glad that Marco is back again. How has the doctor got on?”

“I think he has found it harder than he expected,” Miller laughed. “He
confided to me to-day that he shall not volunteer for another
expedition. But I was very glad he was with us; for Horace, of course,
was always in the thick of it, with his father, jawing away with the
village notables, and I should have had a dull time of it if it had
not been for the doctor, whose remarks upon the real enthusiasm of the
peasantry and the bought enthusiasm of their leaders were very
amusing. The doctor does not say much when we are all together; but he
is not at all a bad companion, and there is a lot of dry humour about
him. And now I sha’n’t be sorry when supper is ready, for we have been
on our legs since daybreak, and I have had nothing to eat but some
bread we carried with us and some wine with which we had all filled
our water-bottles.”

After this, for a time, the _Misericordia_ had a quiet time of it
cruising idly about among the Ionian Islands, and then crossing to
Venice, where they stayed for three weeks. Then they crossed the
Adriatic again, and put in at the port of Missolonghi. Mr. Beveridge
was very anxious to hear the result of the battle that was expected
between the Greek army, under Mavrocordatos, and the Turks advancing
south. He had himself strongly wished to go with the Greek army, but
had been dissuaded by Horace.

“My dear father, if we do any fighting at sea, we assuredly do our
share without taking part in fighting on shore. When we have once seen
the Greeks make a successful stand it will surely be time enough for
us to take any share in the matter. The Philhellenes will fight, that
is quite certain; but I think the odds are all against the Greeks
doing so. Besides, as you have often said, Mavrocordatos is no more
fit to command an army than any old woman in the streets of Athens
would be. He knows nothing whatever of military matters, and will take
no advice from those who do. I think there would be a tremendous risk
in joining the Greek army, and no advantage to be gained from it. Of
course, if you wish to go I will go with you, and we can take some of
the men if you like; but I certainly think we had better keep away
from it altogether.”

And so, instead of joining the Greek army, they had sailed to Venice.
As soon as they dropped anchor off Missolonghi Horace was rowed ashore
to get the news. He returned in an hour.

“It is lucky indeed, father, that we went to Venice instead of with
Mavrocordatos.”

“What, have the Greeks been beaten?”

“Completely smashed up, father. I have been talking to two or three of
the Philhellenes who were lucky enough to escape. Mavrocordatos sent
the army on to Petta, and established himself some twenty miles in the
rear. His chief of the staff, General Normann, felt the position was a
very bad one, but could not fall back when the Turks advanced, as he
had no orders. The regular troops, that is, the one regular regiment,
the hundred Philhellenes, and a body of Ionian volunteers, were
stationed in a position in front. The Greek irregulars, two thousand
strong, were placed some distance in the rear, and were to cover the
regulars from any attack from that direction. Two leaders of the
irregulars were in communication with the Turks; when these advanced,
the eight hundred men in front, who had two guns with them, repulsed
them; but Reshid Pasha sent round six hundred Albanians, who advanced
against a strong position in the rear. The whole body of the Greek
irregulars bolted like rabbits, and then the Turks in front and the
Albanians from the rear attacked the front division on all sides. They
fought gallantly. Of the hundred Philhellenes, seventy-five were
killed, the other twenty-five broke their way through the Turkish
ranks. The Greek regiment and the Ionians were cut up by the Turkish
infantry fire, followed by charges of their cavalry. Half of them were
killed, the others broke their way through the Turks. So out of the
eight hundred men over four hundred were killed. They say that not one
surrendered. So I think, father, it is very well that we did not go up
to see the fight, for you would naturally have been somewhere near the
Philhellenes.”

“This is bad news indeed, Horace.”

“It is, father; but how the Greeks could suppose that it was any use
getting up a regular army, consisting of one regiment of six hundred
men, to fight the Turks, is more than I can imagine. As to their
irregulars, except for fighting among the mountains, I do not see that
they are of the slightest good.

“I am awfully sorry for the foreign officers. After coming here, as
they did, to fight for Greece, and then forming themselves into a
corps to encourage the natives to fight, to be deserted and left to
fight a whole army is shameful. Those I spoke to are terribly cut up
at the loss of three-quarters of their comrades. The Turks are
advancing against Missolonghi. The Suliots have made terms, and are to
be transported to the Ionian Islands. The British consul at Prevesa
guarantees that the terms shall be honourably kept on both sides.”

Mr. Beveridge went ashore later, and returned completely disheartened
by his conversation with the leading inhabitants. He learned that, so
far from the defeat at Petta convincing the Greeks that it was only by
submitting to discipline and forming regular regiments that they could
hope to oppose the Turks, they had determined, on the contrary, that
there was no hope of fighting in that way, and that henceforward they
must depend entirely upon the irregulars.

“Their blindness is extraordinary,” he said. “They saw that, few as
the disciplined men were, they repulsed the attack of the Turkish
troops in front, and were only crushed when totally surrounded; while,
on the other hand, two thousand five hundred irregulars were unable
even to attempt to make a stand against six hundred Albanians, but
deserted their comrades and fled after scarcely firing a shot; and yet
in the future they intend to trust solely to these useless bands.

“At present everyone is quarrelling with everyone else. While Reshid
Pasha is preparing to invade Greece the captains and primates, instead
of uniting to oppose them, are quarrelling and fighting among
themselves for their share of the national revenues. The district of
Agrapha is being laid waste by civil broils; the province of Vlochos
is being devastated by the bands of two rival leaders; Kravari is
pillaged alternately by the bands of two other scoundrels; Gogos and
half a dozen other captains have openly gone over to the Turks. There
is only one hope I can see,” he added bitterly.

“What is that, Mr. Beveridge?” Martyn asked.

“It is, that the Greeks will continue their civil broils until they
make their country a complete desert; and that the Turks, finding that
they can obtain no food whatever, will be obliged by starvation to
quit the country. One thing I am resolved upon, and that is, that
until the Greeks fight for themselves I will do nothing further
whatever in the matter. I will still try to save women and children,
but I will do nothing else. I will neither interfere with Turkish
commerce nor fire a gun at a Turkish ship of war. We will lower our
long gun and four of the others down into the hold, Captain Martyn,
and we will cruise about and enjoy ourselves for a bit.”

“Very well, sir. It is just a year since we arrived out here, and a
little peace and quiet and amusement will do us no harm. I don’t know
how it would be with our flag, and whether we can sail into Malta or
into the Italian ports with it, or whether we can hoist our own
again.”

“The papers are all right, I believe,” Mr. Beveridge said. “You see,
she was nominally sold to the agent here of a Greek firm in London,
and is therefore registered as the property of a Greek subject. I have
papers signed by them selling the vessel again to me, with blanks for
the dates, which can be filled in at any time; but these, of course, I
could only fill in and use in the event of my deciding to leave Greece
altogether and return to England. So that, at present, we are simply a
Greek ship, owned by natives of that country, and holding letters of
marque from the Greek government to act as a privateer. I do not think
that the transaction would be recognized by any European power in the
case of two European belligerents; but this is an exceptional case,
as the sympathies of all the Christian powers are with the Greeks. As
far as the Turks are concerned, it makes no difference; whether Greek
or English, they would hang us if they caught us. But I don’t think
any very close inquiries are likely to be made in any European port.
Our Greek papers are all correct, and as we know that the account of
our having saved large numbers of fugitives from Chios has been in the
English papers, and doubtless our interference to save the Turks at
Athens has also been published, I think that we should be received
well by the sympathizers of either party.”

The next morning they sailed to Corinth, where they remained a few
days. John Iskos, Mr. Beveridge’s agent at Athens, came across to see
him. He informed him that he had sold but a very small portion of the
goods consigned to him in the prizes, but had shipped the great bulk
in neutral vessels and consigned them to the firm in London; the
vessels themselves he had disposed of to Hydriot merchants. He
recommended Mr. Beveridge to hand over to him the store of silks and
other valuables that had been retained on board the schooner, and he
would put them at once on board an Italian ship at present in the
port, and consign them to a Greek house in Genoa, as he certainly
would not obtain anything like fair prices for them in Greece.

The operation occupied two days, but all the most valuable goods were
retained, as the prizes might have been recaptured by Turks on their
way to Athens. The prizes had been brought in by Miller and Tarleton
alternately, Marco or Zaimes accompanying them to interpret, the crews
being taken back in native boats to Naxos, to which island the
schooner had made several trips to pick them up.

For the next two months the schooner cruised in Italian waters, from
Venice round to Genoa, putting in to many ports, making a circuit of
Sicily, and paying a short visit to Malta; then learning that the
Turks were about to besiege Missolonghi, and that the town was going
to resist until the last, they crossed over there in the second week
in November. They found that the port was blockaded by some Turkish
ships from Patras, but that some Hydriot vessels were expected to
arrive shortly. Mavrocordatos was himself in the town organizing the
defence, and taking really vigorous measures for holding out to the
last.

A week later seven Hydriot brigs arrived; the _Misericordia_, which
had again mounted all her guns, joined them; but as they approached
the port the Turkish vessels got up all sail and made for Patras, and
the Greeks entered the port. Missolonghi was protected by a low mud
wall, with a ditch six feet deep by sixteen feet wide. It contained
but a foot of water, but at the bottom was a deep clay, rendering it
quite impassable. There were eight guns mounted on the ramparts, and
Mr. Beveridge landed at once six more of those still lying in the
hold, with a supply of ammunition for the whole.

As soon as the port was open a thousand men crossed over from the
Morea under the command of partisan chiefs, and from time to time
others came in, until the garrison, originally but six hundred strong,
was increased to two thousand five hundred. For some weeks nothing was
done; but on the eve of the 6th of January, which was the Greek
Christmas-day, a Greek fisherman brought in news that the Turks were
preparing to assault the next morning at daylight, when they believed
the Christians would generally be in their churches. Forty men were
landed from the schooner to take part in the defence. At daybreak the
defenders were all in their places, hidden behind the rampart or
concealed in the houses near.

The storming party was led by eight hundred Albanian volunteers. One
division was intended to scale the wall on its eastern flank, while
another was to endeavour to penetrate the town by wading through a
shallow lagoon at its eastern extremity. The whole Turkish army turned
out, and suddenly opened a tremendous fire of musketry against the
ramparts, while the storming parties moved forward. The defenders
remained in their concealment until the Albanians were close at hand,
and then, leaping up, poured their fire into them. Expecting to take
the defenders by surprise, the Albanians were astounded at the sudden
and heavy fire poured into them, and at once broke and fled in
confusion. For some hours the Turks kept up a heavy fire, but did not
renew their attack in earnest. Tons of ammunition were fired away on
both sides, and then the Turks fell back to their camps, and on the
following day raised the siege.

The wildness of the fire was evidenced by the fact that only four
Greeks were killed. The blue-jackets from the schooner joined in the
fire upon the storming parties, but when it was evident that the Turks
had no idea of renewing the attack they returned on board ship. Their
remarks upon the combatants were the reverse of complimentary.

“It is well-nigh enough to make a man sick, Tom,” one man said to
another in Horace’s hearing. “To see them both blazing away good
powder and lead like that, I reckon to be downright sinful.”

“You are right there, mate. It is a downright waste of the gifts of
Providence. Why, there was powder and ball enough to have killed a
good five thousand Englishmen and Frenchmen thrown away in accounting
for four or five of them yelling fellows. It is more like play-acting
than fighting. Why, if you was to arm a couple of gals’ schools and
put ’em to fire at each other they would do ever so much better than
that. And to think them Greeks calls themselves Christians and don’t
know how to aim a musket no better than that; they might just as well
be heathen.”

While Missolonghi had been resisting successfully, the Turkish
garrison of Nauplia had at last surrendered. After Dramali’s army had
abandoned it the only hope that remained to them was that the fleet
might return. The Greeks retained possession of a small fort that had
been given up to them at the time that the first negotiations for
surrender were going on. From this fort combustible missiles were
fired into the town, and a brisk cannonade kept up with its defences,
but without much damage being done on either side. On the 20th of
September the Turkish fleet appeared off the entrance to the gulf, and
the Greek fleet from the islands of Hydra and Spetzas stood out to
meet them.

Unfortunately Admiral Kanaris was not present. For four days the two
fleets remained in sight of each other, firing at such distances that
no harm was done on either side. There was nothing to have prevented
the Turkish admiral relieving Nauplia and landing the troops and
provisions in his transports; but he feared to enter the gulf, while
the Greeks shrank equally from an attack upon him. After thus
exhibiting for four days his cowardice and incapacity, the Turkish
capitan-pasha abandoned Nauplia to its fate. The resistance only
continued because the Turks could put no reliance upon the oaths of
the Greeks. Women and children dropped dead from hunger in the
streets; the soldiers were so weak from starvation that but few were
able to carry their arms. The citadel was at last abandoned simply
because the soldiers who went down into the town to fetch the scanty
rations for its defenders were too weak to climb the hill again; and
the Greeks, as soon as they learned that it was abandoned, occupied
the position. Kolokotronis and a number of other leaders, attracted by
the prospect of booty, hurried to the spot like vultures round a
carcass.

Negotiations were again opened, and the Turks surrendered on the terms
of the Greeks engaging to transport them to Asia Minor, allowing each
to retain a single suit of clothes, a quilt for bedding, and a carpet
for prayer. As soon as the terms were signed, Kolokotronis and the
captains entered the town with their personal followers and prevented
all others from entering. The soldiers assembled before the gates,
declaring that they would not allow the chiefs to appropriate to
themselves everything valuable, threatening to storm the place, murder
the Turks, and sack the town. Greece was saved from fresh dishonour by
the timely arrival of the English frigate _Cambrian_, commanded by
Captain Hamilton. He was a strong friend of Greece, and was known to
many of the Greek leaders.

He at once held a conference with them, and in the strongest language
urged upon them the necessity of taking measures for the execution of
the capitulation, for that another breach of faith, another foul
massacre, would render the name of Greece despicable in civilized
Europe and ruin the cause of the country. Hamilton’s character was
greatly respected, and his words had their effect. He insisted upon
their chartering ships to embark the Turks. He himself took five
hundred of them on board the _Cambrian_, and nine hundred were
embarked in the Greek transports. This interference of Captain
Hamilton excited great anger in Greece.

The Turkish fleet did not escape absolutely scathless after its
inglorious departure from Nauplia. Although unmolested by the Greeks,
it sailed north, and anchored inside the island of Tenedos.

Kanaris persuaded the people of Psara to fit out two fire-ships. He
took the command of one, and both sailed for the Turkish fleet, which
they approached at daybreak. Two line-of-battle ships were anchored to
windward of the rest of the fleet. Kanaris undertook the destruction
of the ship to leeward, that being the most difficult operation. He
succeeded as well as he had done on two previous occasions. He ran the
enemy aboard to windward, lashed the fire-ship there, and fired the
train. The Turk was at once enveloped in flames, and the whole of the
crew, eight hundred in number, perished.

But Kanaris seemed to be the only Greek naval officer who had the
necessary courage and coolness to manœuvre successfully with
fire-ships. The other captain ran his fire-ship alongside the
man-of-war which carried the flag of the capitan-pasha. The position
of the fire-ship was, however, ill chosen, and after being set on fire
it drifted away without doing injury to the Turk. The rest of the
Turkish fleet cut their cables and made for the Dardanelles, while one
corvette ran ashore on Tenedos. Another was abandoned by her crew.
Kanaris and the crews of the two fire-ships returned safely to Psara
in their boats.




CHAPTER XIX

PRISONERS


One day, after cruising along the coast inside the island of Eubœa
or Negropont, the _Misericordia_ entered the Gulf of Zeitouni, the
Sinus Maliacus of the ancients. When they were nearly at the head of
the gulf Horace asked Captain Martyn to let him go ashore to a little
village at the water’s edge to get some vegetables and fruit, of which
the supply had run out.

“Just as you like, Horace. A boat-load of green stuff of some sort or
other would be very welcome, and if you can pick up half a dozen kids
so much the better.”

“I am thinking I will go with you, Horace,” Macfarlane said; “it does
a man good to stretch his legs ashore once in a way.”

The gig was at once lowered, and on Horace and the doctor taking their
seats in the stern, four sailors rowed them ashore.

“I sha’n’t take the trouble to anchor,” Martyn said as they left the
ship. “I expect you will be back in an hour, and I shall keep her
standing off and on till I see you put out.”

Leaving two of the men in charge of the boat, Horace told the other
two to take some of the baskets they had brought ashore and follow
him. Some women looked out timidly at the doors of the houses, but no
men were to be seen about.

“We are friends,” Horace said; “do you not see we are flying the Greek
flag? Where are all the men?”

“They have gone away with Vriones. He came with an armed band and said
that every man must go with him to fight.”

“Who have they gone to fight?”

“Ah! that we don’t know. He talked about fighting the Turks, but we
think it more likely that he is going to fight Rhangos. They are at
war with each other. Oh, these are bad times! What with the war with
the Turks, and the war of one captain with another, and what with
bands of klephts who plunder everyone, there is no peace nor quiet.
They say Rhangos is going to join the Turks, as many other klepht
leaders have done. To us it makes little difference who are masters,
so that we know who they are. In the time of the Turks we had peace;
we had to pay taxes, but we knew what they were. Now everybody wants
taxes. These are evil days.”

“We want some vegetables and some fruit,” Horace said. “We do not wish
to rob you, and are ready to pay a fair price for everything.”

“Those we can sell you,” the woman said, “it is nearly all we have
left. There are vegetables everywhere, and they are not worth
stealing.”

The news soon spread, and the women and children of the village were
soon engaged in gathering and tying up vegetables. The sailors made
several trips backwards and forwards to the boats with laden baskets,
while the doctor and Horace, seated upon a low wall, watched the women
at work in the gardens, and paid the sum agreed upon for each
basketful that was carried off. Suddenly, without the slightest
warning, there was a rush of men behind them, and before they could
draw their pistols they were seized, thrown down, and bound.

“What is the meaning of this?” Horace asked indignantly. “We are
officers of that ship there, which is in the service of Greece. As you
are Greeks, what do you mean by molesting us?”

No reply was given. There was a sudden outburst of firing down by the
boat, and the screams of women rose in the air. The men who had bound
them moved away at the order of an officer, leaving two with muskets
standing over the prisoners.

“This is a nice business, doctor; I expect we have fallen into the
hands of Rhangos, the fellow the women were speaking about, and the
men of this village have gone out with some other scoundrel to fight.
I suppose he had spies about, and came down to plunder the place in
their absence. She said she heard Rhangos was going to join the Turks;
his capturing us certainly looks as if at present he was hostile to
the Greeks. If he takes us away and hands us over to the Turks it is a
bad look-out.”

“He will have to be quick about it,” the doctor said, “they are still
firing occasional shots down by the water. That looks as if the boat
has got away, and you may be sure Martyn won’t be long before he sends
as many men as he can spare ashore to find us. There, do you hear?”
and as he spoke there was the deep boom of a gun, followed by the rush
of a shot overhead.

Orders were shouted angrily directly afterwards. Some men ran up, cut
the cords that bound the prisoners’ legs, and then, seizing them by
the arms, hurried them away, threatening them with instant death if
they did not keep up with them. As they mounted the high ground behind
the village Horace glanced round. Three boats were just leaving the
schooner. A blow from one of the Greeks that, bound as he was, nearly
threw him down, compelled him to turn his head and hurry forward
again. For hours they hastened along. When about a mile from the
village a sharp fire was heard to break out in that direction. As they
had only eight men with them, they doubted not that Rhangos was with
the main body opposing the landing.

“Our fellows will soon clear them out of the village,” Horace said to
the doctor. “I only hope that, as they retire, the Greeks will follow
us, for you may be sure that Martyn and Miller will press hard on
them, and may perhaps overtake us.”

Up to nightfall, however, none of the band came up. The country had
been getting more and more hilly, and at sunset they halted far up on
the side of a mountain. Here a fire was lit, and some portions of a
kid that had evidently been part of the plunder of the village were
put over it to roast. The fire was kept blazing, and the doctor and
Horace agreed that it was probably intended as a signal to their
comrades. A lump of meat was thrown to each of the captives, their
cords being loosed sufficiently to enable them to use their hands,
their legs being tightly bound again as soon as they had halted. At
eight o’clock a sound of voices was heard, and presently a party of
Greeks, fully a hundred strong, came up. They were evidently in an ill
temper, and replied sulkily to the questions of the guard of the
prisoners. Horace gathered from their answers that they had fired a
volley upon the boats as they approached; then, seeing they came on
without a pause, had at once run from the village and scattered,
reuniting some miles on.

“We lost everything we had taken,” one of the men said. “We had it all
packed and ready to carry away, when those confounded sailors came.
Some of us did start with our bundles, but they came so fast up to us
that we had to throw everything away, and even then we had a lot of
difficulty in keeping away from them. I expect they caught some. It
was lucky we started off when we did; if we had waited till they
landed very few would have got away.”

“Didn’t they shoot?” one of the guards asked.

“No, they never fired a shot. I don’t know whether they came ashore
without powder, but from first to last they never fired.”

“They knew we had these two in our hands,” the guards said, “and they
were afraid if they killed any of us we should take it out of our
prisoners, and I think they were about right. Ah! here comes Rhangos.
He had to take to a farmhouse before he had gone half a mile, and I
suppose if any of them looked in they would have seen him feeding pigs
or something of that sort, with his finery and arms hidden away.”

The klepht had now come up to the fire. He was a spare man, some fifty
years old, with a keen hungry face.

“Are all here?” he asked briefly.

“We are six short of our number,” a man, who by his dress had
evidently the rank of an officer among them, replied.

“Killed?”

“No, there was no firing; I expect those sailors ran them down.”

“Then we must march in half-an-hour, they will make them lead them
here. Now, then, who are you?” he asked the doctor as the elder of the
prisoners.

“My friend does not speak Greek,” Horace replied. “As you must be well
aware we are officers of that schooner that was lying off the village.
This is the doctor, I am third lieutenant. We are friends of Greece,
we have been in action against the Turkish ships of war, we have saved
great numbers of Greek fugitives from the Turks, now this is the
treatment that we receive at the hands of the Greeks.”

Horace’s reticence as to the fact that he was the son of the owner of
the schooner was the result of a conversation with the doctor.

“These scoundrels have no doubt carried us off either for the purpose
of getting a ransom for us or of handing us over to the Turks as an
acceptable present. I expect the idea of ransom is at the bottom of
it. We have heard of this fellow Rhangos before. He is a noted klepht,
and more Albanian than Greek. Whatever you do, Horace, don’t you let
out you are the owner’s son. If you do there is no saying how much
ransom they might ask for you. They think that an Englishman who fits
out a ship at his own expense to come out here must be rolling in
money. As long as they think that they have only got hold of a doctor
and a third lieutenant they cannot ask a high price for them, but for
an owner’s son there is no saying what figure they might put him at.
Have you got a second name?”

“Yes, I am Horace Hendon Beveridge. Hendon was my mother’s name.”

“That is lucky; you can give them Horace Hendon. It is likely they may
know your father’s name, for the _Misericordia_ and her doings have
been a good deal talked about. I am not in favour of anyone telling a
lie, Horace, but as it is no lie to give your two first names without
giving your third, I cannot see that there is harm in it.”

“The ship belongs to the Lord Beveridge?” Rhangos asked next.

“Yes, that is his name,” Horace replied.

“What is your name and that of your companion?”

Horace gave his two Christian names and the name of his companion.

“Have you paper?” the klepht said.

“I have a note-book in my pocket.”

“That will do. Now write in Greek: My Lord Beveridge, This is to give
you notice that--now write the two names--‘Donald Macfarlane and
Horace Hendon,’” Horace repeated as he wrote them, “surgeon and third
lieutenant of your ship, are captives in my hands, and that unless
three hundred pounds in gold are paid to me as ransom for them they
will be put to death. If there is any attempt to rescue the prisoners
they will at once be shot. The messenger will arrange with you how and
where the ransom is to be paid.”

The klepht added his own name in scrawling characters at the bottom of
the note, then called one of the men and gave him instructions as to
where and how the ransom was to be paid, and then sent him off. As
soon as the band had satisfied their hunger the march among the
mountains was continued for another two hours. Then they threw
themselves down by the side of a stream in a valley surrounded on all
sides with craggy hills, and two men with muskets were placed as
sentries over the prisoners.

“Well, this is not so bad,” Horace said. “It is certainly very lucky
you gave me that hint about my name. Three hundred is not very much to
pay to get out of such a scrape as this. I suppose there is no fear
about their giving us up when they get the money.”

“I think not,” the doctor replied. “They would never get ransoms if
they did not keep their word. I only hope that no one may let out
before the messenger who you are. If they do, there will be a very
serious rise in prices.”

“Fortunately none of them speak Greek but my father, and probably he
would read the note before he would ask any questions.”

“Maybe yes, and maybe no,” the doctor said. “He is as like as not to
say when he sees a messenger, ’Is my son alive and well?’ and then the
cat would be out of the bag. Still, your father is a prudent man, and
may keep a still tongue in his head, especially when he sees that the
note is in your own handwriting. However, we will hope for the best.”

Morning had dawned some time before there was any movement among the
band. Then their fires were lighted and breakfast cooked.

“Will the English lord pay the ransom for you, do you think?” Rhangos
asked, sauntering up to Horace.

Horace shrugged his shoulders.

“It is a large sum to pay for two officers,” he said.

“He is rich, it is nothing to him.”

“He is well off, no doubt,” Horace said; “but it is not everyone who
is well off who is disposed to part with money for other people.”

“Well, it will be bad for you if he doesn’t pay,” the klepht said
significantly.

Three hours later the messenger was seen coming up the valley. Horace
looked at him anxiously as he approached, and was pleased to see that,
as he spoke to Rhangos, there was no expression of surprise or
exultation in the latter’s face. He nodded when the other had
finished, and then went to the fire where two or three of his
lieutenants were sitting, saying briefly to Horace as he passed him,
“He will pay.” Horace could hear what he said to the others.

“Demetri says the Englishman did not like paying the money. There was
a good deal of talk between him and his officers before he came back
to him and said, that though the demand was extortionate he would pay
it. He said he should complain to the central government, and should
expect them to refund it and settle with you.” There was a general
laugh among his hearers.

“I ought to have asked more,” the klepht went on; “but I don’t know
these English. Of course if any of you were taken, my dear friends, I
would give all I have to ransom you.” The assertion was received with
mocking laughter, as he went on calmly: “But you see other people are
not animated by the same generous feeling as we Greeks, and I don’t
suppose this milord sets any particular value on the lad, or on that
long-shanked doctor. He can hire more of them, and I expect he only
agreed to pay the money because his other officers insisted on it.
They are rolling in wealth these English, but they are mean; if not,
how is it that our pockets are not filled with English gold when we
are fighting for a sacred cause?”

His hearers were highly tickled by this sentiment.

“When are they to be delivered up, Rhangos?”

“At mid-day to-morrow at Pales, the village halfway between the foot
of the hills and the sea. Four men are to take them down to within a
quarter of a mile of the village; then Demetri will go in and get the
gold; then when he returns with it to the others the prisoners will be
freed.”

“I should have thought the matter might have been arranged to-day,”
one of the men said.

“So it might have been,” the klepht replied; “but I could not tell
that. I thought that Demetri would not be able to go off to the ship
this morning. He had six hours’ walking, and would not be there until
two hours past midnight; then he would have to rest for an hour or two
after he had seen them, and then six hours to walk back. It would have
been too late to deliver them up before dark, and I should never think
of sending them in the dark--their guards might fall into an ambush.
As it was, Demetri found them in the village. They had not returned,
as I thought they would do, on board their ship. He walked in,
thinking the place was empty, when two of those sailors jumped out on
him with cutlasses. Thinking that they were going to cut his throat he
showed them the letter. They led him to the principal house in the
village, and one went in while another held him fast outside. He heard
a great talking and excitement in the house, and presently he was
taken in. Then, as I told you, there was a great talk, and at last
they agreed to pay the ransom. As soon as he got his answer he started
on his way back, lay down for an hour or two in an empty cottage, and
then came on here. We will stay where we are until to-morrow morning;
then, Kornalis, you shall start with four men, and Demetri and the
captives, and we will go on our way. We will deal another blow to
Vriones, and then we will be off. We will fix on some place where you
can join us after you have got the ransom.”

“It could not have happened better for us,” Horace said to his
companion after he had translated the klepht’s story. “As it turned
out, you see, my father got the note before he could say a word to the
messenger. That was a capital move their pretending to hesitate about
paying the ransom. If they had jumped at it this scoundrel is
perfectly capable of raising his terms. As it is, he thinks he was
clever enough to hit upon just the maximum sum that could be got for
us. Well, it is all right now.”

“It will be all right when we are among the others, Horace; there is
never any saying what may happen in this country. Some of the peasants
these fellows have been robbing may fall on us, seeing we are but a
small party. This Vriones with his bandits, who I daresay are just as
bad as these fellows, may happen to meet us. No, we won’t calculate
too confidently. Things have gone on very well so far. We will just
hope they will go on to the end.”

Now that the affair was considered to be settled, but little attention
was paid to the prisoners. Their cords were taken off, and they were
permitted to move about, two men keeping an eye upon them, but not
following them closely. They congratulated themselves that the sailors
had withheld their fire, for undoubtedly their position would have
been very different had some of the brigands been killed. So far from
bearing any animosity now, the men chatted with them in a friendly
manner, asked questions about their ship, and their encounters with
the Turks.

“We would rather fight for the Greeks than the Turks,” one said: “but
we follow our captains. There is neither pay nor plunder to be
obtained with the Greeks; and as Odysseus and all the other chiefs
play their own game, and think only of making money, why should poor
devils like us be particular? All Albanian tribes have had their wars
against each other as long as we or our fathers can remember. We know
nothing about the Greece that they talk so much of now. There were the
Morea and other provinces, and so there have always been so far as we
know, and it is nothing to us whether they are ruled by Turks or by
their own captains. As to religion, many of our tribes are Mussulmans,
many are Christians. We do not see that it makes any difference.

“Everyone plunders when he gets a chance. Why should I want to cut a
man’s throat because he is a Mussulman? His father was a Christian
before him; my son may be a Mussulman after me. What does it matter?
Since the fight at Petta many chiefs have gone over to the Turks, and
if the Greeks win a battle most of them will go back again. The affair
is nothing to us. On the mountains we hunt where we are most likely to
get game. You like to hunt for amusement, and so you have come out
here on a matter which does not at all concern you. We hunt to live,
and don’t much care whether we take a sheep out of one flock or
another.”

Horace smiled at the man’s avowal of the want of any principle
whatever.

“I was a schoolmaster,” one of the lieutenants of the band, who was
stretched at full length smoking and listening to the conversation,
remarked. “I know about the old time, but I don’t know anything of
this Greece you speak of. Where was it? What did it do? It was just
then as it is now. There were a number of little tribes under their
own captains. Athens, and Corinth, and Sparta, and Argos, and Thebes,
and the rest of them always fighting against each other just as our
Albanian clans do; not even ready to put aside their own quarrels to
fight against an invader. Pooh! There never was a Greece, and I
neither know nor care whether there ever will be. Why should we throw
away our lives for a dream?”

“Yes; but at any rate the Greeks have a common language, which shows
they are one people.”

“Families fall out more than strangers,” the man replied with a laugh.
“You English and the Americans have a common language, and yet you
have been fighting against each other, and they refuse to remain one
nation with you. These things signify no more than the smoke of my
pipe. A Christian’s money, and a Christian’s goods and cattle, are
worth just as much to me as a Turk’s; and my captain, who pays me, is
more to me than either Mavrocordatos or the Sultan. I daresay that
English milord is a worthy man, though he must be a fool, and yet the
wine I shall buy out of my share of his money will be just as good as
if it had grown in my father’s vineyard.”

Horace laughed. He was not skilled in argument, even had he any
inclination to indulge in it at the present time; and he sauntered off
and sat down by the doctor, who, not being able to talk with the
Greeks, found the time hang heavy on hand. Horace repeated to him his
conversation with the two brigands.

“I own I did not know how to answer the last fellow, doctor.”

“There is no answer to be made, Horace. To argue, men must have a
common ground to start from. There is no common ground between you and
him. His argument is the argument of the materialist everywhere,
whether he is Briton, Frenchman, or Greek. To a man who has neither
religion nor principles there remains only self-interest, and from
that point of view there is no gainsaying the arguments of that
Albanian scamp any more than it would have been of use for a lowland
merchant carried off by Highland caterans to urge upon them that their
conduct was contrary to the laws both of morality and political
economy. They would have said that they knew nothing about either, and
cared less, and that unless his goodwife or fellow citizens put their
hands in their pockets and sent the ransom they demanded, his head
would be despatched to them in a hamper with small delay. He certainly
had you on the hip with what he said about ancient Greece, for a more
quarrelsome, cantankerous, waspish set of little communities the world
never saw, unless it were the cities of Italy in the middle ages,
which at any rate were of a respectable size, which was, by the way,
the only respectable thing about them. Religion and principle and
patriotism are the three things that keep men and nations straight,
and neither the Greek nor Italian communities had the least glimmering
of an idea of either of them, except a love for their own petty states
may be called patriotism.”

“A good deal like your Highland clansmen, I should say, doctor,”
Horace laughed. “The head of the clan was a much greater man in the
eyes of his followers than the King of Scotland.”

“That is so, Horace; and the consequence was, that while there was
peace and order and prosperity in the lowlands, the Highlands scarcely
made a step forward until the clans were pretty well broken up after
Culloden. It was a sore business at the time, but no one can doubt
that it did good in the long run. And now, lad, I think that I will
just take a sleep. It was not many hours we got of it last night, and
you see most of these fellows have set us an example.”

The next morning they started at daybreak. The main body of the band
had moved off hours before, leaving the Lieutenant Kornalis, Demetri,
and four of the men. Three hours’ walking took them out of the
mountains. There was little talking. The Greeks would have preferred
going with their leader to plunder another village, for although the
booty taken was supposed to be all handed over to the chief for fair
distribution, there were few who did not conceal some trinket or money
as their own special share of the plunder. They were but a mile or
two beyond the hills, when, from a wood skirting the road, four or
five shots rang out.

Two of the Greeks fell; the rest, throwing away their guns, fled at
the top of their speed. Before the prisoners had time to recover from
their surprise a number of men rushed out, and with the butts of their
muskets and pistols struck them to the ground. When they recovered
their senses a group of men were standing round them, while at some
little distance they could hear the sound of firing, showing that the
pursuit of their late captors was being closely maintained. By this
time they had become sufficiently accustomed to the various costumes
to know that they had now fallen into the hands of men of one of the
Albanian tribes, probably Mussulmans acting as irregulars with the
Turkish army, engaged upon a raiding expedition. One of them asked
Horace a question, but the dialect was so different to that of the
Greeks of Athens and the Morea that he was unable to understand it.
Presently the men who had gone in pursuit returned, and the whole
party set off to the north, placing their prisoners in their midst,
and warning them by pointing significantly to their knives and pistols
that they had better keep up with them.

“Eh! man,” the doctor said; “but it is dreadful. Just as we thought
that everything was settled, and that in another couple of hours we
should be with our own people, here we are in the hands of a pack of
villains even worse than the others.”

“You said that we should not shout until we were out of the wood,
doctor, and you have turned out a true prophet; but at present I am
thinking more of my head than of anything else, I am sure I have got a
couple of lumps on it as big as eggs.”

“It shows the folly of man,” the doctor said philosophically. “What
good could they expect to get from knocking us down? We were neither
fighting nor running away. We had not our wits about us, lad, or we
should have just taken to our heels.”

“I expect they would have caught us if we had. We have neither of us
had much walking lately, and those fellows are always climbing among
their mountains. Do you think it is of any use trying to make them
understand that if they will take us a few miles farther they will
find three hundred pounds waiting for them?”

“You might try, Horace; but I don’t think that it will be of any use.
I expect they are just skirting along at the foot of the hills to see
what they can pick up. There are not above thirty of them, and they
would not like to go far out upon the plains; besides, I don’t know
that it would turn out well. If they were to go on in a body, Martyn
would as likely as not fire at them, and then they would think that we
had led them into an ambush, and shoot us without waiting to ask any
question. Still, you can try if you like; we might be sorry afterwards
if we didn’t.”

But when Horace tried to speak to the men he was threatened roughly,
and he lapsed into silence. For three hours they ascended a great
range of hills running east and west. When they gained the crest they
could see stretched away far in front of them a flat and fertile
country.

“The plains of Thessaly,” the doctor said; “the fairest and richest
portion of the Greece of old. There is little chance of its forming
part of the Greece of the future, at least not until a complete
overthrow of the Turkish Empire. If Greece attains her independence
the frontier line will be somewhere along the crest of these hills,
for Thessaly, although there was some slight trouble there at first,
has not joined the movement. There are no mountains and fortresses
where they can take refuge, and a troop of Turkish cavalry could scour
the whole country. There is where we are bound for, I expect;” and he
pointed to a large clump of white tents far out on the plain. “I
expect that is the camp of the Pasha of the province. I suppose he is
going to operate on this side when the main force advances to the
west.”

It took them another four hours’ walking before they approached the
camp. When within a short distance of it their captors turned off and
entered a village where numbers of their countrymen were sitting in
the shade smoking or dozing. The band went on until they reached the
principal house in the village, and four of them entering took their
prisoners into a room where a tall old chief was sitting on a divan.
They talked for some minutes, evidently explaining the circumstances
of their capture. When they had done, the chief asked the prisoners in
Greek who they were.

“We are Englishmen,” Horace replied; “we belong to a ship lying off a
village whose name I don’t know. We had landed to buy fruit and
vegetables, and then we were suddenly seized and carried away to the
mountains by some Greek brigands led by a fellow named Rhangos. We had
arranged for a ransom and were on our way under a guard to the village
where the money was to be paid when your band put the Greeks to flight
and made us prisoners.”

“How much ransom was to be paid?” the Albanian asked.

“Three hundred pounds, and if you will send us there now our friends
will be glad to pay it to your people. I tried to explain that to them
on the way, but they would not listen to me.”

“They are fools,” the chief said decidedly; “and besides, they don’t
speak Greek. It is too late now. I must take you to the Pasha, who
will deal with you as he chooses.” Then rising, and followed by a
group of his officers and the prisoners in charge of four men, he
walked across to the Turkish camp.

“They are a picturesque-looking set of cut-throats,” Macfarlane said.

“That they are. People at home would stare to see them with their
white kilted petticoats and gaudy sashes, with their pistols inlaid
with silver, and their embroidered jackets and white shirt sleeves.
Well, what are we to say if we are asked about the ship?”

“We must tell the truth, lad; I doubt not they have had news before
now that the schooner is cruising about on the coast; and even if we
were disposed to tell a lie, which we are not, they would guess where
we had come from. No English merchantman would be likely to be
anchored off the coast here to buy vegetables; and, indeed, there are
very few British vessels of any sort in these waters now. You need not
just tell them that the schooner is the craft that has been playing
the mischief over on the other coast and robbed them of their Chiot
slaves; nor is it precisely necessary to enter into that affair near
Cyprus. We need simply say, if we are asked, that we are Englishmen in
the naval service of Greece; I don’t expect they will ask many
questions after that, or that we shall have any occasion to do much
more talking.”

“You think they will hang us, doctor.”

“It may be hanging, Horace, or it may be shooting, and for my part I
am not very particular which it is. Shooting is the quickest, but then
hanging is more what I may call my family way of dying. I should say
that as many as a score of my ancestors were one way or another strung
up by the Stuarts on one miserable pretence or other, such as
cattle-lifting, settling a grudge without bothering the law-courts,
and trifles of that sort.”

Horace burst into a fit of laughter, which caused the Albanian chief
to look round sharply and inquiringly.

“It is all right, old chap,” Macfarlane muttered in English; “we are
just laughing while we can, and there is no contempt of court
intended.”

The Pasha was in a tent considerably larger than those that surrounded
it. The Albanian went in, leaving the prisoners in charge of their
guard. In five minutes he came out and signed to them to follow him
in. The Pasha was an elderly man with a snow-white beard. He looked at
the prisoners with some interest.

“I hear that you are Englishmen,” he said in Greek.

“That is so, sir.”

“And that you are in the Greek service.”

“We were in the Greek service, but after being carried off by Greek
brigands I do not know that we shall have any inclination to remain in
it.”

“If you had been taken fighting against us I should have ordered you
to be shot,” the Pasha said; “but as it is I do not know. Do you
belong to that schooner with white sails that has been cruising off
the coast some days?”

“We do,” Horace admitted.

“I am told,” the Pasha went on, “that she is the ship that did us much
harm at Chios.”

“We were attacked, and we beat off the boats,” Horace said. “That is
fair warfare. Our principal object has been to rescue people in danger
or distress, whether Christian or Turk. We rescued numbers of Chiot
slaves. And on the other hand we saved numbers of Turks at the
surrender of the Acropolis at Athens, and conveyed them safely to
Tenedos, where we landed them; and the governor there recognized our
service to his countrymen, and came off to the ship and invited us on
shore to dine with him.”

“Yes, I have heard about that,” the Pasha said. “We have all heard of
the white schooner. She has been a dangerous enemy to us, and has done
us more harm than the whole of the Greeks together; but after your
humanity at Athens I cannot feel animosity against you. It was a noble
deed and worthy of brave men. Thus it is that nations should fight,
but the Greeks began by massacre, and have been false to the oaths
they swore twenty times. How can you fight for men who have neither
courage nor faith, and who are as cruel as they are cowardly?”

“There have been cruelties on both sides,” Horace said, “though I own
that the Greeks began it; but in England we love freedom, and it is
not long since we drove the French out of Egypt and preserved it for
you. Our sympathies are with the Greeks, because they were oppressed.
We have never killed a Turk save in fair fight, and the crews of every
ship we have taken we have permitted to return to shore in their boats
without injuring one of them.”

“This also I have heard,” the Pasha said, “and therefore I will do you
no harm. I will send you to Constantinople, where the Sultan will
decide upon your fate. He has given orders that all foreigners taken
in arms against us shall at once be put to death for interfering in a
matter in which they have no concern; but as you were not taken in
arms I do not feel that the order applies to you, and will therefore
take upon myself to send you to him.”

“I thank you, sir,” Horace said, “though I fear it will only be a
reprieve.”

“I cannot say,” the pasha replied gravely. “The Sultan strikes hard
when he wishes to give a lesson. You see, his people were massacred
wholesale by the Greeks, and at Chios he taught them that he could
retaliate; but he is not cruel by choice. He is unswerving when his
mind is made up. Whether he will make an exception in your case or not
is more than I can say. I can only send you to him, and hope that he
will be as merciful in your case as I would be had I the power.”

Then he ordered one of his officers to take charge of the prisoners,
to see that they had a comfortable tent and were well cared for, and
that none molested them. Four soldiers were to be always on guard at
the tent, and to answer for the safety of the prisoners with their
lives. In a short time they were placed in a tent among those allotted
to the officers, and four sentries were placed round it. After sunset
two soldiers brought large trays with meat, vegetables, and sweets
from the pasha’s own table, and also a bottle of raki.

“The Turk is a gentleman, Horace,” the doctor said as, after having
finished dinner, he mixed himself some spirits and water. “I am not
saying, mind you, that I would not have mightily preferred a bottle of
good whisky; but I am bound to say that when one has once got
accustomed to it, raki has its virtues. It is an insinuating spirit,
cool and mild to the taste, and dangerous to one who is not accustomed
to it. What do you think of it, Horace?”

“I don’t care for it, but then I don’t care for any spirits,” Horace
said; “but I thoroughly agree with you that the pasha is a good
fellow, only I wish he could have seen his way to have let us go. The
Sultan is a terrible personage, and the way he has hung up hostages at
Constantinople has been awful. If he has made up his mind that he will
deter foreigners from entering the Greek service by showing no mercy
to those who fall into his hands, I have no very great hope that he
will make any exception in our case.”




CHAPTER XX

AT CONSTANTINOPLE


Upon the following morning horses were brought round and they were
ordered to mount. An officer with twelve Turkish troopers took charge
of them. The pasha came out from his tent.

“I am sending a letter to the Porte saying what I know of the doings
of your ship, and of the service you rendered by saving our countrymen
at Athens. I have also given directions that the vessel conveying you
shall touch at Tenedos, and have written to the governor there asking
him also to send on a letter in your favour.”

After an hour’s riding they reached the town of Larissa, and then
followed the river on which it stands down to the sea.

“What a lovely country!” Horace exclaimed as he looked at the
mountains to the right and left.

“We are travelling on classical ground,” the doctor replied. “This is
the vale of Tempe, that hill to the right is Mount Ossa, that to the
left is Mount Olympus.”

“They are grand,” Horace said, “though I should certainly enjoy them
more under other circumstances. Fancy that being the hill that Jove
used to sit on. It would be a grand place to climb, wouldn’t it?”

“I should be quite content to look at it comfortably from the deck of
the schooner, Horace, and should have no desire whatever to scale it.”

“Where is the schooner now, do you think, doctor?”

“Where we left her. They would wait at the village where they expected
us to be handed over to them till late in the afternoon, and then most
likely march back to the shore. This morning they will be trying to
get news of us. It is possible that one of the Greeks has taken down
the news of our capture by the Turks, in hopes of getting a reward. He
would not know whether we were killed or captured--they bolted too
fast for that; but if a fellow does take news of the fight he will
probably offer to show the spot. Martyn will take out a strong party,
and when he finds the bodies of the two Greeks and no signs of us, he
will arrive at the conclusion that we have been carried off. The
Greeks probably recognized the men who attacked them as being a band
of Albanians. The white petticoats alone would tell them that; and as
the Christian Albanians would certainly not be likely to be plundering
on this side at the present time, they will be sure they are
Mohammedans either raiding on their own account or acting with the
Turkish forces in Thessaly.

“No doubt they will offer a reward for news of us, and will probably
learn from some peasant or other that a party of Albanians crossed the
range into Thessaly about mid-day. Then when they hear that the
pasha’s force was lying in the plain, not far from the foot of the
hills, they will arrive at the truth that we were taken there. What
their next step will be I cannot say, but I should fancy they will
sail round the promontory and try and open communication with some
small village, and get someone to visit the camp and try and pick up
news of what has become of us. It must be days before they can do all
this, and by the time they find we have been put on board ship we
shall be at Constantinople.

“At any rate, Horace, I regard the idea of there being a chance of
their rescuing us as out of the question. What they will do is, of
course, beyond guessing. It is vexing to think that if they did but
know at the present moment we were being put on board ship, they might
cut us off at the mouth of the Dardanelles. It is little farther from
the Gulf of Zeitouni than it is from the mouth of this river, and the
schooner would probably sail twice as fast as any craft we are likely
to be put on board. It is annoying, but it is of no use being annoyed.
They don’t know we are going to be embarked, and they can’t learn it
for four or five days at the very earliest, so don’t let us worry
about that. We have reasonable cause for worry in knowing that we are
going to be taken to Constantinople, for not improbably we will be
executed when we get there.”

“You think that it is probable, doctor?”

“I do, indeed. The Sultan is not the man to stand on niceties. He has
decided not to give quarter to foreigners who fight against him, and
as a matter of policy he is perfectly right. We knew all along what
our fate would be if we fell into the hands of the Turks. We have done
them an immense amount of mischief: we have destroyed a frigate and
beaten off their boats; we have taken a lot of prizes, and delivered
some two or three thousand valuable slaves from their hands. The only
set-off to this is that we assisted to save some three hundred Turkish
women and children, as to whose fate the Sultan was probably perfectly
indifferent. The balance is very heavy against us.”

Horace could not but admit that this was so, but in this beautiful
valley, and with Constantinople still in the distance, the idea that
ere long a violent death might befall him there was not sufficiently
vivid to depress his spirits greatly.

After four hours’ riding they came down upon the little port at the
mouth of the river. Two or three craft were lying there under the guns
of the battery.

“That is our vessel, you will see, Horace. It is a man-of-war brig. I
expect she is placed here on purpose to enable the pasha to
communicate direct with Constantinople, instead of having to send up
through the passes to Salonika.”

Leaving the prisoners under charge of the guard, the officer took a
boat and rowed off to the brig. In a few minutes a large boat lying
beside her was manned by a dozen sailors and rowed ashore. The officer
was on board of her. Two of the men who had brought their valises
strapped behind their saddles had already removed them, and stepped
into the boat forward, while their comrades took charge of their
horses. The officer then signed to Horace and the doctor to step on
board, and they were rowed out to the brig. Half an hour later the
anchor was got up, the sail set, and the vessel left the port.

There was no attempt at restraint of the prisoners. A young lieutenant
who spoke Greek informed them, in the name of the captain, that the
orders of the pasha were that they were to be treated as ordinary
passengers, and he requested them to take their meals with him in the
cabin. They would be entirely at liberty, except that they would not
be allowed to land at Tenedos, or at any other port at which the
vessel might touch.

The brig proved a fairly fast sailer; the wind was favourable, and
late on the afternoon of the day after they had sailed they dropped
anchor off Tenedos, and the officer in charge of the captives at once
went ashore with the pasha’s letter to the governor. He returned late
at night, after the prisoners had turned in in one of the officers’
cabins that had been vacated for their use. There was not a breath of
wind in the morning, and the captain accordingly did not attempt to
weigh anchor.

“It would be a fine thing if this calm would last for a fortnight,”
the doctor said as they came on deck in the morning.

“Yes, but there is no chance of that, doctor. We have never had a dead
calm for more than three days since we came out.”

“Well, we might do equally well with a light breeze from the north.
That would help the schooner across the gulf, and at the same time
would not enable the brig to work up the Dardanelles; there is a
strongish current there. Still, I am not at all saying it is likely;
I only say that I wish it could be so.”

When the officer came on deck he informed them, through the
lieutenant, that the governor had given him a strong letter to the
Porte speaking in the highest terms of the humanity they had shown
towards the Turks they had rescued from Athens. An hour later two or
three boats came off. Among those on board them were several women.
When these saw the doctor and Horace leaning over the bulwark, they
broke into loud cries of greeting.

“I expect they are some of those poor creatures we brought over,”
Horace said. “I don’t remember their faces, we have had too many on
board for that, and I don’t understand what they are saying, but it is
evidently that.”

Some of the boatmen understood both Greek and Turkish, and these
translated the expressions of the women’s gratitude, and their regret
at seeing him a prisoner. They were not allowed to set foot on the
brig, but they handed up baskets of fruit and sweetmeats. One of the
women stood up in the boat and in Greek said in low tones to Horace,
as he leant over the rail:

“There are but few of us here, and we are poor. Our hearts melted this
morning when the news spread that you were prisoners on board a ship
on her way to Constantinople. We can do nothing but pray to Allah for
your safety. My husband was one of the soldiers you brought over, the
one who had lost his arm, and who was tended by the _hakim_. As he was
of no more use they have discharged him, and he has remained here, as
I am a native of the island and have many friends. He will start in an
hour with some fishermen, relations of mine. They will land him above
Gallipoli, and he will walk to Constantinople. Then he will see the
bimbashi and his former comrades, and find out Osman and Fazli Beys,
who were with us, and tell them of your being prisoners, so that they
may use their influence at the Porte, and tell how you risked your
lives for them, and all--May Allah protect you both, _effendis_!”

Her story terminated abruptly, for the captain at this moment came up
and ordered the boat away from the side.

“What is all that about, Horace?” Macfarlane asked as Horace returned
the woman’s last salutation with two or three words of earnest thanks.
“Why, what is the matter, lad? there are tears in your eyes.”

“I am touched at that poor woman’s gratitude, doctor. As you can see
by her dress she is poor. She is the wife of a discharged soldier,
that man who lost his arm. You dressed the stump, you may remember. I
know you said that it had been horribly neglected, and remarked what a
splendid constitution the Turk had; you thought that had he been an
Englishman the wound would probably have mortified long before.”

“Of course I remember, Horace. And has he got over it?”

“He has.” And Horace then told him what the woman had said.

“It does one good to hear that,” Macfarlane said when he had finished.
“Human nature is much the same whether it is in the wife of a Turkish
soldier or of a Scottish fisherman. The poor creature and her husband
are doing all they can. The bimbashi and the beys were great men in
their eyes, and they doubtless think that they are quite important
persons at Constantinople. Still, it is pleasant to think that the
poor fellow, whose arm must still be very far from healed, is
undertaking this journey to do what he can for us. It minds me of that
grand story of Effie Deans tramping all the way from Scotland to
London to ask for her sister’s pardon.

“I don’t say that anything is like to come of it, but there is no
saying. If these Turks are as grateful as this soldier and his wife
they might possibly do something for us, if it were not that the
Sultan himself will settle the matter. An ordinary Turkish official
will do almost anything for money or favour, but the Sultan is not to
be got round; and they say he is a strong man, and goes his own way
without asking the advice of anyone. Still it is, as I said, pleasant
to know that there are people who have an interest in us, and who are
doing all in their power to help us.”

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.”




CHAPTER XXI

THE “MISERICORDIA” AGAIN


Before starting, the disguises of Horace and the doctor were
perfected. They were so bronzed by the sun and air that their skin was
no fairer than that of many Turks of the better class; but it was
thought as well to apply a slight tinge of dye to them, and to darken
the doctor’s eyelashes and eyebrows with henna. The hair was cut
closely off the nape of the neck, below the line to which the turban,
properly adjusted, came down, and the skin was stained to match that
of their faces. The garments they wore formed part of Ahmed’s
wardrobe, and only needed somewhat more careful adjustment than they
had at first received. The ladies came up to bid them farewell; but,
as it had been arranged that in the course of a few days, when inquiry
should have ceased, the bey, with his wife and daughters, should also
proceed to their country residence, they would meet again ere long.
Mourad was to accompany them, and putting a large box on his
shoulders, filled with changes of clothes and other necessaries, he
followed them down the street.

In a short time they were in a busy thoroughfare, the number of people
becoming larger and larger as they went down towards the water.
Janissaries in their showy uniform swaggered along, soldiers of the
line, merchants, and peasants, while _hamals_ staggering along under
enormous burdens swung from bamboo poles, made their way, keeping up a
constant shout to the crowd to clear the road. State functionaries
moved gravely along on their way to the offices of the Porte. Veiled
women, with children in their arms or clinging to them, stopped to
talk to each other in the streets or bargained with the traders at the
little shops. Military officers and Turks of the upper class rode
along on showy horses, prancing and curvetting and scattering the foot
passengers right and left.

Ahmed and his companions kept straight on, paying apparently no
attention to what was going on around them, Ahmed occasionally making
a remark in Turkish, the others keeping silent.

When they reached the water-side a number of boatmen surrounded Ahmed,
who soon found two men whom he had frequently employed. The caique was
brought alongside. Ahmed had already told Horace to step in without
hesitation with his companion, and to take their seats at the bottom
of the boat in the stern, while he and Mourad would sit between them
and the boatmen. The latter took their places, and each seized a pair
of the sculls. These, which were much lighter than the sculls of an
English boat, were round with a long broad blade. They were not in
rollocks, but in a strap of leather fastened to a single thole-pin;
inside this they thickened to a bulk of three or four inches in
diameter, narrowing at the extremity for the grip of the hand. This
thick bulge gave an excellent balance to the sculls, and was rendered
necessary by the fact that the boats were high out of water, and the
length of the sculls outboard disproportionately large to that
inboard.

A few vigorous strokes by the rowers sent the boat out into the open
water. Then the forward oarsman let his sculls hang by their thongs
alongside, took out four long pipes from the bottom of the caique,
filled and lighted them, and passed them aft to the passengers, and
then again betook himself to his sculls. Bearing gradually across they
reached the other side below Scutari, and then kept along the shore at
a distance of a hundred yards from the land. Ahmed chatted to the
oarsman next to him, and to Mourad, occasionally making some remark to
the others in Turkish in reference to the pretty kiosks that fringed
the shore; enforcing what he said by pointing to the objects of which
he was speaking. They assumed an appearance of interest at what he was
saying, and occasionally Horace, who was next to him, talked to him in
low tones in Greek, so that the boatman should not catch the words,
Ahmed each time replying in Turkish in louder tones.

No class of boatmen in the world row with the vigour and strength with
which those of the Bosphorus--who are for the most part Albanians--ply
their sculls, and both Horace and the doctor were struck with surprise
and admiration at the steady and unflagging way in which the men
rowed, their breath seeming to come no quicker, though the
perspiration stood in beads on their brown faces and muscular arms,
and streamed down their swarthy chests, which were left bare by the
open shirts of almost filmy material of snowy whiteness. Once only in
the two hours’ journey did they cease rowing and indulge for five
minutes in a smoke; after which they renewed their labours with as
much vigour as when they first started.

“That is the kiosk,” Ahmed said at last, pointing to one standing by
itself near the water’s edge on a projecting point of land, and in a
few minutes the caique swept in to the stairs. Ahmed had quietly
passed a few small silver coins into Horace’s hand, whispering in
Greek:

“Give them these as you land; an extra tip is always welcome.”

Then he paid the men as he got out, saying to them:

“I expect the ladies in a few days. You had better go up each morning
to the house, and then you can secure the job.”

Horace dropped the coins into the boatman’s hand, with a nod, as he
stepped out, and then they walked up to the house. The boatmen again
lighted their pipes for a smoke before starting back on their long
row. The kiosk was shut up. Mourad opened the door with a key, and
threw the shutters open.

“I wonder you leave the place entirely shut up,” Horace said.

“There is nothing to steal,” Ahmed laughed. “A few mats for the floors
and cushions for the divans. The cooking pots and crockery are locked
up in a big chest; there is little else. There are a few vases for
flowers and other ornaments stowed away in a cupboard somewhere, but
altogether there is little to tempt robbers; and, indeed, there are
very few of them about. The houses are always left so, and it is an
almost unknown thing for them to be disturbed. You see everything is
left clean and dusted, so the place is always ready when we like to
run down for a day or two. The house has not been used much lately,
for my parents and sisters have been two years at Athens, and I have
been frequently away at our estates, which lie some fifteen miles west
of Constantinople. Now we will take a turn round, while Mourad is
getting dinner ready.”

The latter had brought with him, in addition to the box, a large
basket containing charcoal, provisions, and several black bottles.

“There is a village half a mile farther along the shore, where he will
do his marketing to-morrow,” Ahmed had explained as he pointed to the
basket.

The garden was a rough triangle, two sides being washed by the water,
while a high wall running across the little promontory formed the
third side. It was some sixty or seventy yards each way; the house
stood nearly in the middle; the ground sloped down on either side of
it to the water, and was here clear of shrubs, which covered the rest
of the garden, interspersed with a few shady trees. There were seats
placed under these, and a small summer-house, surrounded on three
sides by high shrubs but open to the water, stood at the end of the
point.

“It is a little bit of a place, as you see,” Ahmed said; “but my
mother and the girls are very fond of it, and generally stay here
during the hot season. It is quite secluded, and at the same time they
have a good view of everything going up and down the Sea of Marmora;
and if there is any breeze at all, it sweeps right through the house.”

“It is charming,” Horace said. “With a boat here, one could not want
anything better.”

“We always have a boat, with two men, while we are here,” Ahmed said.
“The two men who rowed us have been with us two or three seasons. My
father often wants to go into Constantinople, and I generally go when
he does. We usually sleep at our house there, and come back the next
evening. If the ladies want to go out while we are away, they can get
a caique at the village.”

After they had taken a turn round the garden they went into the house
again. The principal room on the ground-floor was at the end of the
house, and occupied its full width. The windows extended entirely
round three sides of it, a divan, four feet wide, running below them.

“You see, on a hot day,” Ahmed said, “and with all these windows open,
it is almost like being in the open air; and whichever way the wind
is, we can open or close those on one side, according to its
strength.”

The ceiling and the wall on the fourth side of the room were coloured
pink, with arabesques in white. The windows extended from the level of
the divan up to the ceiling, and were of unpainted wood varnished, as
was the wood-work of the divan. The floor was very carefully and
evenly laid, and the planks planed and varnished. Beyond two or three
little tables of green-painted wood, there was no furniture whatever
in the room. Outside the windows were jalousies or perforated
shutters, which could be closed during the heat of the day to keep the
room dark and cool.

Mourad had already got out the cushions and pillows and spread them on
the divan; had placed a small iron bowl full of lighted charcoal in a
low box full of sand in the centre of the room, and a brass casket
full of tobacco on one of the tables. Half a dozen chibouks, with
amber mouthpieces and cherry or jasmine-wood stems, leant in a corner.

Three of the pipes were soon filled, and a piece of glowing charcoal,
taken from the fire with a pair of small tongs lying beside it, was
placed on each bowl. A few puffs were taken to get the tobacco alight,
then the pieces of charcoal were dropped into the fire again, and
shaking off their slippers they took their seats on the cushions of
the divan.

“It is very unfortunate that your friend does not speak Greek,” Ahmed
began.

“Yes, it is unfortunate for him,” Horace said as he translated the
remark to Macfarlane.

“If I had known that my lot was going to be cast out here,” the doctor
said, “I would have insisted on learning modern Greek instead of
ancient at school--that is, if I could have got a dominie who could
have taught me. It is a very serious drawback, especially when you
know that people are talking of things that may or may not mean that
you are going to get your throat cut in an hour or so. For the last
two days I seem to have been just drifting in the dark.”

“But I always translate to you as much as I can, doctor.”

“You do all that, Horace, and I will say this that you do your best;
but it is unsatisfactory getting things at second hand. One likes to
know precisely how things are said. However, as matters have gone
there is nothing to grumble at, though where one’s life is concerned
it is a natural weakness that one should like to have some sort of
say in the matter, instead of feeling that one is the helpless sport
of fate.”

Horace laughed, and Ahmed smiled gravely, when he translated the
doctor’s complaint.

“It comes all the harder to me,” the doctor went on, “because I have
always liked to know the why and the wherefore of a matter before I
did it. I must confess that since I have been in the navy that wish
has been very seldom gratified. Captains are not in the habit of
giving their reasons to their surgeons, overlooking the fact
altogether that these are scientific men, and that their opinion on
most subjects is valuable. They have too much of the spirit of the
centurion of old. They say ‘Do this,’ and it has to be done, ‘You will
accompany the boats, Dr. Macfarlane,’ or ‘You will not accompany the
boats.’ I wonder sometimes that, after an action, they don’t come down
into the cockpit and say, ‘You will cut off this leg,’ or ‘This arm is
not to be amputated.’ The highness-and-mightiness of a captain in His
Majesty’s navy is something that borders on the omnipotent. There is a
maxim that the king can do no wrong; but a king is a poor fallible
body in comparison with a captain.”

“Well, I don’t think you have anything to complain of with Martyn,”
Horace laughed.

“Martyn is only an acting-captain, Horace, and it is not till they get
the two swabs on their shoulders that the dignity of their position
makes itself felt. A first lieutenant begins, as a rule, to take the
disease badly, but it is not till he gets his step that it takes
entire possession of him. I have even known a first lieutenant listen
to argument. It’s rare, lad, very rare, but I have known such a thing;
as for a captain, argument is as bad as downright open mutiny. Well,
this is a comfortable place that we have got into, at least in hot
weather, but I should say that an ice-house would be preferable in
winter. These windows don’t fit anyhow, and there would be a draft
through them that would be calculated to establish acute rheumatism
in the system in the course of half an hour.”

“The house is not used at all in winter,” Ahmed said, when he
understood the nature of the doctor’s criticisms. “Almost all the
kiosks along here belong to people in the town, and are closed
entirely for four months of the year. We are fond of warmth, and when
the snow is on the ground, and there is a cold wind blowing, there
would be no living here in any comfort.”

Six days passed. Ahmed went once to Constantinople to learn what was
going on. He brought back news that the escape of the two English
prisoners had caused a great sensation at the Porte, that all the
officers in the regiments there had been paraded in order that the
boatmen and the officers of the brig might pick out the one who had
brought off the order, but that naturally no one had been identified.
The soldiers had also been inspected, but as none of these had been
particularly noticed by the boatmen, the search for those engaged had
been equally unsuccessful. Fazli Bey had been severely interrogated,
his servants questioned, and his house searched, but nothing had been
found to connect him in any way with the escape. A vigilant watch had
been set upon every European ship in port, and directions had been
sent that every vessel passing down the straits was to bring-to off
the castles, and to undergo a strict search.

Ahmed said that his father had heard from Fazli Bey that while the
Sultan was furious at the manner in which the prisoners had been
released, it was against those who had taken part in it that his anger
was principally directed, and that it was thought he was at heart not
altogether sorry that the two men who had befriended the Turks at
Athens had got off, although he would not have wavered in his own
expressed determination to put to death without exception all
foreigners who had aided the Greeks. “My father has not at present
thought of any plan for getting you away,” Ahmed said. “The search is
too rigorous, and no master of a vessel would dare to carry you off;
but in a short time the matter will be forgotten, and the search in
the port and in the Dardanelles will be slackened. It causes a great
deal of trouble and inconvenience, and the officials will soon begin
to relax their efforts. It is one of our national characteristics, you
know, to hate trouble. My father will be here with the others in a
couple of days, and then we will hold a council over it.”

The next day a boat arrived with carpets and hangings for the rooms
upstairs, which were entirely devoted to the females of the household;
and on the following evening Osman Bey, with his wife and daughters,
arrived in the same caique that Ahmed had come in, two female servants
with a quantity of luggage coming in another boat. The next few days
passed very pleasantly. The ladies took their meals apart upstairs,
but at other times sat in the room below, treating Horace and the
doctor as if they were members of the family. There were many
discussions as to the best method of effecting their escape, and Ahmed
went twice to Constantinople to ascertain whether the search for them
was being relaxed.

At last he and his father agreed that it would be the best plan for
them to go to Izmid, and to take a passage from there if some small
craft could be found sailing for Chios, or one of the southern ports
or islands. Ahmed was to accompany them, and was first to go to Izmid
to make the necessary arrangements. He knew many merchants in the
port, and as some of these were intimate friends they would probably
be disposed to assist those who had rendered so great a service to
Osman Bey and his family, but at the same time Ahmed said: “You must
not be impatient. The news of your being carried off by sham soldiers,
as they say, after their having assaulted and robbed the officer who
was bearer of the order for your delivery, has made a great talk, and
I shall have to be very careful as to how I open the subject.”

“Pray run no risks,” Horace said. “You have all done so already, and
we should be unhappy, indeed, were any ill-fortune to befall you or
your family for what you have done for us. We are very comfortable
here. I would much rather wait for some really favourable opportunity
than hazard your safety, to say nothing of our own, by impatience. It
is but a fortnight since we made our escape.”

“I am going up the Bosphorus to-morrow,” Ahmed said. “I have to see
a bey whose property adjoins ours, and who has a kiosk some distance
above Scutari. It is only a question of business, and I shall not be
many minutes. I shall be glad if you will go with me; you can remain
in the boat. The rowers are so accustomed to see you that they can
have no curiosity about you; besides, now that they are regularly in
our service, and sleep and live here, there is no one for them to
gossip with, and, indeed, as we are good patrons of theirs I do not
think they would say anything about you, whatever they might suspect.”

“I suppose you can take us both, Ahmed?”

“Certainly I meant that, of course. Your friend would find it dull
indeed alone here.”

Accordingly the next morning they started. When they neared Scutari
they saw on the other side of the water a brig making her way in from
the Dardanelles.

“That is a slovenly-looking craft, doctor, with those dirty
ill-fitting sails; rather a contrast that to our schooner. I wonder
where she is and what she is doing. That brig is about her size too,
and the hull is not unlike hers, looking at it from here.”

The doctor gazed at the craft intently. “Eh, man,” he said in low
tones, grasping his companion’s arm tightly, “I believe that it is our
craft, Horace.”

“What, that dirty looking brig, doctor, with her sides looking as
rusty as if she had not had a coat of paint for the last year!”

“It’s the schooner disguised. It is easy enough, lad, to alter the
rig, and to get hold of dirty sails and to dirty the paint, but you
can’t alter the shape. No Greek, or Turk either, ever turned out the
hull of that brig.”

“It is marvellously like the schooner,” Horace said. “I should almost
have sworn that it was her.”

“It is the schooner, lad. How she got there, and what she is doing, I
don’t know, but it is her.”

“What is it?” Ahmed asked. “What is there curious in that brig that
you are so interested in her?”

“We both think it is our schooner, Ahmed; the one in which we took
your father and mother from Athens in.”

“That!” Ahmed exclaimed incredulously; “why, my sisters were always
saying what a beautiful vessel it was, with snow-white sails.”

“So she had, Ahmed; but if it is the schooner she is disguised
altogether. They have taken down her top-masts and put those stumpy
spars in instead; they have put up yards and turned her into a brig;
they have got sails from somewhere and slackened all her ropes, and
made her look dirty and untidy; still we both think that it is her.
Please tell the boatmen to cross to the vessel and row alongside.”

Ahmed gave the order, and as the caique shot away from the shore said:
“But how could it be your ship? Do you think that she has been
captured? If not, she could not have ventured up here.”

“She has not been captured,” Horace said confidently, “and if she had
been her captors would not have taken the trouble to spoil her
appearance. If that is the schooner they have come up to make
inquiries about us, and to try to rescue us if possible.”

It was fully two miles across, and as they approached the brig the
doctor and Horace became more and more convinced that they were not
mistaken.

“Please tell the men to pull in behind her,” Horace said, “so that we
can see her better. There can be no mistake about her if we can catch
a sight of her fore and aft.”

When they fell into the brig’s wake they were some three hundred yards
astern of her, and the last vestige of doubt disappeared as they saw
her great breadth and fine run.

“That is my father’s craft, Ahmed, I could swear to her now. Will you
tell the men to row up alongside.”

There were only four or five men visible on deck in the ordinary dress
of Turkish sailors. As the caique came alongside a man put his head
over the rail and asked in Turkish “what they wanted?”

“We want to come on board,” Ahmed said; “we have business with the
captain.”

“I am the captain,” the man said; “are you one of the port officers?”

“Drop astern to the chains,” Ahmed said to the boatmen, who were
hanging on by a boat-hook. They let the caique fall aft her own
length, and then, seizing the shrouds, the doctor and Horace sprang up
on to the chains and then leapt on board, Ahmed following them more
slowly. There was no doubt that it was the schooner, though her decks
were covered with dirt and litter, and the paint of her bulwarks
discoloured as if they had been daubed with mud which had been allowed
to dry. The sailors looked up as if in surprise at the sudden
appearance of the strangers on their deck. Horace glanced at them. He
knew none of their faces.

“Well, sir,” the captain said, coming up, “may I again ask what you
want with us?”

“You talk to him, Ahmed,” Horace said in Greek. “We will run below;”
and at a bound he was at the top of the companion and sprang down into
the cabin. “Father,” he shouted, “are you here?”

The door of the main cabin opened, and a Turk with a flowing white
beard made his appearance.

“My dear father, is it you?”

“Why, Horace, Horace, my dear boy, where do you come from, what
miracle is this?” And in a moment they were clasped in each other’s
arms. A moment later a tall Nubian rushed out and seized Horace’s
hand.

“Why, Martyn, you don’t mean to say it is you in this disguise?”

“It is indeed, Horace. I am delighted to see you, lad; and you too,
doctor. I had never thought to clap eyes on you again;” and he shook
hands heartily with Macfarlane, as also did Mr. Beveridge.

“I seem to be in a dream,” the latter said; “how do you come here,
what has happened?”

“I may say the same, father; but first, where are Miller, Tarleton,
and the crew?”

“They are all down in the hold,” Martyn said; “they are all in
hiding.”

“I have a friend on deck, father; he is the son of one of the Turks we
saved at Athens. He and his friends saved our lives, and have been
concealing us since they got us away. I expect he is having some
difficulty with the man who calls himself captain.”

“Come up with me then, Horace, and we will fetch him down; and I will
tell Iskos that it is all right.”

As soon as they reached the deck Mr. Beveridge explained to the
supposed captain that these were the friends he had come to find, and
that all was well.

Martyn had also come up. “What had we better do now, Martyn?”

Martyn looked up at the sails, and at the water, “Fortunately the wind
is dying out fast,” he said. “I don’t think we are making way against
the current now, and we shall certainly not do so long. Hold on a few
minutes longer, Iskos, and then anchor. It will seem as if we could
not get up against the stream to the other shipping. If you see a boat
coming off, let us know. They will probably be sending off to look at
our papers; but perhaps they may not trouble about it till we get up
to the regular anchorage. Now, Mr. Beveridge, we will go down below
and gladden their hearts there.”

The main-deck was filled with casks, bales, and merchandise of all
sorts, and the hatchways of the hold covered with sacks of flour.
Macfarlane joined them, and aided Martyn and Horace in removing the
sacks. Horace saw as he did so that what appeared a solid pile was
really hollow, and that the hatchway was only partially closed so as
to allow a certain amount of air to pass down below. The bags were but
partly removed when there was a rush from below, Miller and Tarleton
with their cutlasses in hand, followed by the sailors with
boarding-pikes dashed through the opening. They paused in astonishment
upon seeing only Martyn, Mr. Beveridge, and three Turkish gentlemen,
but as they recognized Horace and the doctor, the officers threw down
their swords and with a shout of joy seized them by the hand. The
sailors close behind them broke into a cheer which swelled into a roar
as the men below gathered the news that their two officers had
returned.

“The men can come up between decks, Miller,” Martyn said. “Let them
have a stiff ration of grog all round. Boatswain, see that the sacks
are piled again as before, leaving two or three out of their place to
allow the men to go down again if necessary. If the word is passed
that a boat is coming off, let them hurry back again and replace the
sacks carefully after them as they go down.”

The sailors continued pouring up through the hatchway, and behind them
came the two Greeks, whose joy at seeing Horace was excessive.

“Now,” Mr. Beveridge said, “let us adjourn to the cabin and hear all
about this wonderful story.”

On entering the main cabin Horace found that its appearance, like that
of the rest of the ship, had been completely altered, all the handsome
fittings had been removed, and the whole of the woodwork painted with
what he thought must have been a mixture of white paint and mud, so
dirty and dingy did it appear.

“Now, father, in the first place I must properly introduce my friend
Ahmed to you all. He is the son of Osman Bey, who was one of the
principal Turks of the party we took to Tenedos, as no doubt you
remember; it is to him and his father, aided by Fazli Bey, and the
bimbashi who was in command of the troops, and some of the
soldiers, that we owe our lives.”

[Illustration: THE DOCTOR TELLS THE STORY]

This was said in Greek, and while Mr. Beveridge was expressing his
gratitude to Ahmed, Horace repeated the same in English to the three
officers, who warmly shook hands with the young Turk. Marco and his
brother placed refreshments of all kinds on the table.

Ahmed partook of them sparingly, and then said to Horace: “Of course
you will not be returning with me now. I think I had better be going
on, it will be dark before I have done my business and get back again;
and besides, the boatmen will be wondering at my long stay here.”

“I am afraid your father will think us horribly ungrateful if we go
off without thanking him and your mother for all their kindness to
us,” Horace said; “but of course we must be getting out of this as
soon as we can.”

“My father and mother will be delighted to hear that you have so
suddenly and unexpectedly got out of your difficulties,” Ahmed said,
“and that in a manner from which no suspicion can possibly arise to
us. What we have done has been but a small return for the service you
rendered us.”

Mr. Beveridge added his warmest thanks to those of Horace, and Ahmed
then went up with the others on to the deck and took his place in the
caique; Horace making a present of a small gold piece to each of the
boatmen. Ahmed said good-bye to him and the doctor in Turkish,
expressing the hope that when they got back to Cyprus they would write
to him, a message that Iskos afterwards translated to Horace. As soon
as he had rowed away the rest of them returned to the cabin.

“And now for the story,” Mr. Beveridge said as they took their places
round the table.

“The doctor shall tell it,” Horace said. “He has had no chance of
talking for the last fortnight, and it is only fair he should have his
turn now.”

The doctor accordingly, in his slow and deliberate way, related the
whole story of their adventures from the time they landed from the
schooner until their return on board, a narration which lasted nearly
two hours.

Then Martyn related what had happened on board since. “You know,” he
said, “that directly we heard the firing on shore and saw the boat
rowing off we began to get ready to send a strong party off. You can
imagine how horrified we were when, on the boat coming alongside, we
found you were both missing. The beggars fired away at us as we rowed
ashore, but they bolted before we reached it, and when we made a rush
into the village, it was empty. We could find no one to ask questions
of, for, as we found afterwards, they had all made off while the
brigands were firing at us. However, as there were no signs of you it
was evident the only thing to do was to follow the ruffians, and off
we set. We chased them four miles, but they scattered directly they
left the village and we only came up with two of them. Unfortunately
they showed fight, and the sailors cut them down before we could come
up.

“After searching about for some time we thought the best plan was to
go back to the village. There we quartered ourselves among the houses,
and, as you have been telling us, the man came with a letter. We
noticed how you had worded it and had underscored the names, and we
saw the fellows did not know that you were the son of the owner, so
your father pretended to hang back for a bit. As soon as the man had
gone off with the message we thought that it was all right, and
everyone was in the highest spirits. Of course there was nothing to do
next day, but the following morning Mr. Beveridge and Miller went off
with thirty men, as the time named for giving you up was one o’clock.

“We began to expect them back at four, and as the hours went on I was
in a regular stew. I did not like to land, and as I had only twenty
men I was afraid of weakening her further, as we should have been in
an awkward fix if a Turkish man-of-war had come along; however, at
nine o’clock I sent Tarleton ashore with five men to see if he could
gather some news from the villagers, who had all come back again soon
after the brigands had left. It was not till after eleven o’clock that
he came off, with the news that the party had returned and had heard
nothing of you.

“Next morning one of the boats came off with Mr. Beveridge. Half an
hour before a Greek had come in and stated that he was one of the
party bringing you down to the place agreed upon when they were
suddenly fired upon from a wood. Two of the party fell dead and the
rest ran and were hotly pursued for some distance. He was unable to
say what had become of you, nor did he know who the men were who had
attacked them, except that they were certainly Albanians. We held a
council, and then I started off with Tarleton and ten men and Marco.
Mr. Beveridge wanted to go, but I persuaded him not to, for it was
morally certain that we should not find you, and all we could hope for
was to get some sort of clue, and if the Albanians were still in the
neighbourhood Marco would have opened negotiations with them for a
ransom. The man who had brought the news acted as guide. We found the
bodies of his comrades who had been killed, but no signs of you, which
was a comfort in one way. It was pretty evident that you had both been
carried off.

“We had taken with us a dozen men from the village to which you were
to have been sent, and we offered what to them must have been a big
reward for news as to these Albanians. So after finding the bodies we
sent them off in different directions, and went back to their village.
Late in the evening they straggled in. They had done their work well,
spreading all over the country and getting hold of shepherds and
charcoal-burners and wood-cutters; and they were able to tell us for
certain that the Albanians had come over the range of hills between us
and Thessaly. They had been doing a good deal of plundering and some
murdering, had destroyed two small villages at the foot of the
mountains, and had been seen soon after the hour at which you must
have been captured making their way back. They assured us that the
troops of Ali Pasha lay in the plain beyond the hills, and that,
doubtless, the Albanians had taken you to him. We had a good long rest
in the afternoon, and as I knew what a state of anxiety your father
was in we started at once and got on board at four o’clock in the
morning. We had a long talk over what was the best thing to be done,
and resolved at any rate to sail out of the bay and round the Cape,
and then keep along the coast until we were off Thessaly.

“As soon as it was daylight we weighed anchor. The wind was so light
that it took us two days to get there, and half that time at least, I
should say, the men were in the boats towing. Marco had volunteered to
land and make his way to the Turkish camp to try to find out what had
become of you. We landed him at night; he bought from some of the
villagers a suit of their clothes, and in twenty-four hours came down
again to the boat we had sent ashore for him with the news that you
had been sent to Constantinople; that you had been taken by an escort
of cavalry down to the little port at the mouth of the river that
flows in between Ossa and Olympus; that he had seen some of the
soldiers who formed your escort, who told him that they had seen you
go on board a Turkish brig-of-war with their officer and two of their
comrades who had accompanied you.

“This was horrible news, and as the brig had got four days’ start
there was little chance of our catching her. For another three days we
were almost becalmed. We had every stitch of canvas set and yet most
of the time we had not even steerage-way. The men behaved splendidly,
and all the time, day and night, we had two boats out ahead towing;
and on the fourth day we arrived off Tenedos. Then we got a breeze
again, and soon afterwards picked up a fishing-boat. From them we
learned that the brig had lain becalmed two days off the town, that
some of the people that we brought from Athens had gone out with
little presents of fruit to you and had seen you.

“We anchored that night a short distance from the town, for there
were no Turkish ships of war there. At night a boat came off with a
woman whom we had brought from Athens, and she told us that her
husband, a discharged soldier, had gone to Constantinople to tell some
of the people whom we brought from Athens that two of our officers had
been captured, and to ask them to do what they could to save your
lives. We did not think anything of it, though of course it was
pleasant to see that some of the people were grateful, and Mr.
Beveridge made her a handsome present, which I will do her the justice
to say she refused until he almost had to force it upon her. Knowing
how bitter the Sultan is against foreigners in the Greek service, and
that after the harm we had done he was not likely to be specially well
disposed towards us, the thing seemed almost hopeless. The two Greeks
volunteered if we would put them ashore to the west of the straits to
make their way to Constantinople, but as it did not seem to us that
they could do any good that idea was given up.

“At last Tarleton proposed that we should disguise the schooner and go
up ourselves. He admitted that the betting was a hundred to one
against our being able to help you in any way, especially as it was
almost certain you would have been hung a few hours after you got
there. Still, if that had been put off, and you should be in a prison,
there was just the possibility we might land at night, make our way to
the prison, blow in the gate, get you out, and make our way across the
country to some place where the boats would be waiting for us, and be
on board before daylight. It was certainly a desperate undertaking,
but as none of us could think of any other plan, we agreed it would be
well to try it, so we sailed at once to Athens.

“We had a great debate whether it would not be better to buy some
Turkish brig that had been brought in as a prize; but we finally
agreed to stick to the schooner, for if we were discovered on the way,
or if we did get you on board, we should have to sail, and we knew
that nothing the Turks have got could outsail the schooner. We worked
hard at Athens. We sent down the tall spars, got those clumsy poles
up in their place, got up yards, and turned her into a brig. Then we
bought a lot of old sails, and, as you see, turned her into as
lubberly-looking a craft as you will meet even in these seas. Then we
filled her up between decks with goods we bought out of some prizes
brought in by the Hydriots, dirtied her decks, threw acid down her
sides to take off the paint, took down the cabin fittings, as you see,
and daubed over the woodwork with dirty paint. It was enough to make
one cry to see the _Misericordia_ spoilt. It was like disguising a
girl of fashion as a dirty gipsy.

“While we had been at this work the two Greeks had been on shore, and
had gathered up eight men who spoke Turkish as well as Greek. The most
intelligent we made captain, with two officers under him. We got the
papers from a Turkish prize, a brig about the same size which had been
captured by the Hydriots on her way from Rhodes to Constantinople.
Then it was agreed that your father should disguise himself as a Turk,
a respectable land-owner of Rhodes, going as a passenger to
Constantinople, with myself as his Nubian servant. That way we could
stay on deck. When all was ready we started. The crew kept on deck
till we got near the Dardanelles, and then stowed themselves away in
the hold as you saw. We were stopped at the castle, but as the papers
were all right there was no suspicion excited, and nothing happened
till Iskos came down and told us a caique was coming alongside, and
then a minute or two later we heard your voice.”




CHAPTER XXII

ALL ENDS WELL


The hours passed on. It was still a dead calm, and, as Martyn had
thought likely, no visit was paid by the Turkish port officials, as
the brig was lying a good mile below the usual anchorage, and would no
doubt move up to the wharves as soon as she got the wind. Horace went
to the main deck and gave a sketch of his adventures to Tom Burdett,
who he knew would retail them to the crew.

“Well, Mr. Horace,” the boatswain said, “you are certainly a good one
at getting out of scrapes.”

“I had nothing to do with getting out of it, Tom; it was all done
without any effort on my part.”

“It was mighty well done, sir, and I would not have given them Turks
credit for putting such a plan together. I always liked the chaps
myself when I served with them as a young fellow in that Egyptian
business under Abercrombie. Good-natured sort of coves they was, and
wonderful good-tempered considering what shocking bad grub they had;
but I never looked upon them as sharp. Still, there you are; you see,
one never knows what a chap can do till he is pushed. Well, there is
one thing, Mr. Horace, I don’t care how many Turkish fugitives we may
take on board this ship in future, they will be heartily welcome by
every man Jack on board for the sake of what these fellows did for
you. I wish I had known it when you first came on board. I should have
liked to have given that young Turk a hearty shake of the hand, and
the men would have given him as good a cheer as ever you heard come
from fifty British sailors.”

“It is just as well you didn’t know, Tom, for if they had given a
cheer together on deck it would have been heard from shore to shore,
and everyone who heard it would have known that it never came from
Turkish throats.”

As soon as it was dark the anchor was weighed, and the vessel drifted
down with the current, a boat towing ahead so as to give her
steerage-way, while the rest of the crew set to work to unbend her
sails.

“You are not going to put up her own sails, are you, Captain Martyn?”
Horace asked, for as soon as it got dusk Martyn had removed the stain
from his skin, and exchanged the Nubian attire for his uniform.

“No, Horace, the white sails would tell their tale at once. We got two
suits at Athens, one that miserable lot you saw on us to-day, the
other we had cut up to fit us as we are sparred now. They are not very
clean, but that won’t affect her sailing, and though I don’t mean to
say she will walk along as she would under her proper canvas, I fancy
she is likely to sail as fast as anything we shall meet. I shall only
get her foresail, a jib, and that square top-sail on her, as we want
to go along as slowly as possible. I want to manage to anchor below
Gallipoli after sunset; or if I can’t manage that I shall anchor a
mile or two this side of the town, so as not to be visited by any of
the port officers. Then when it gets quite dark we will get up all
sail and run down the straits. It is against the rules to pass through
at night, and if the forts catch sight of us no doubt they will send a
few shots after us, but we must risk that. It is not easy to hit a
moving mark when it is so dark that you can scarcely see her outline.
There are half a dozen of their ships-of-war lying abreast of the
forts. We must keep as far as we dare over on the other shore. I am
not afraid of the ships. We shall be a mile away before the crews wake
up and load, but I expect they keep a pretty sharp look-out in the
forts, though most likely their attention is chiefly directed below
them.”

It took a couple of hours’ work to unbend all the sails and bend on
fresh ones. Horace spent the evening in the cabin chatting with his
father, and when the others came down at ten o’clock for a glass of
grog he heard that the boat had been run up and housed, and that the
brig was now under easy sail.

“There is very little wind,” Martyn said, “but there is enough to give
steerage-way. I shall not count you in for duty until to-morrow.”

“Oh, I am ready to take my watch as usual. I have been living a very
lazy life for the last three weeks, and shall be very glad to be on
duty again.”

“I shall get the guns up the first thing in the morning, Miller. We
will throw a tarpaulin over them when we get into the narrow part of
the straits.”

“Will you have the pivot-gun up too?”

“Yes, I think so; if we have to fight, we may as well fight as hard as
we can. When we get it mounted we can put a few barrels along each
side of it, cover the whole over with a sailcloth, and stow one of the
gigs at the top of all. No one would have a suspicion that there was a
gun there then, and if we wanted to use it we could clear it in a
minute.”

“The Turkish custom-house officers will stare in the morning when they
see the brig gone,” Miller said, “and will wonder what has become of
her.”

“If they think of her at all, Miller, they will think she has got up
sail at daylight and gone up the Bosphorus on her way to Varna or one
of the Black Sea ports.”

“It would require a good deal more breeze than there is now.”

“Yes, I did not think of that. Well, then, perhaps they will suppose
that we made a try to go up to the anchorage as soon as the day began
to break, but simply drifted back. You see another half a mile astern
would take us round that point there and out of sight of them.
However, we don’t care much what they think. They are not likely to be
interested enough in the matter to bother themselves about it one way
or the other, and certainly not likely to do the only thing that would
be of any consequence to us, I mean send down a messenger to Gallipoli
telling them to overhaul us if we came down the straits. Now, then,
the watch on deck; the others turn in. I am sure, Mr. Beveridge, you
will be all the better for a quiet night’s rest. You have certainly
not slept much for the last month, and you have been getting thinner
and thinner daily, while you have also long arrears in the way of food
to make up. It has been quite pitiful to see the faces of the Greeks
as you sent away plate after plate untouched.”

“I shall soon be myself again, Martyn, and even one good night’s rest
will, I am sure, do wonders for me.”

“We have been getting quite uneasy about your father,” Miller said as
he and Horace went up on deck for the middle watch.

“Yes, he looks sadly broken down, Miller. Directly he had taken off
that beard I was quite shocked; he looks years older.”

“We have been really anxious about him. He would turn up three or four
times during the night watches and walk the deck for an hour or two
talking to one or other of us as if he could not stop alone in his
cabin. Neither Martyn nor I ever had the slightest idea of finding you
were alive when we got here, and still less of getting you out. But
when Tarleton proposed disguising the schooner and coming up, he
caught at the idea so eagerly that we fell in with it at once. It
seemed to us both rather a mad sort of business, but we should not
have cared what it was so that it would but rouse him up; for from the
time when we first got word that you had been taken to the Turks, till
Tarleton made that proposal at Tenedos, he had scarcely spoken a word.
He cheered up for an hour or two when Marco brought news that at any
rate you had not been killed at Ali Pasha’s camp, but had been sent on
to Constantinople; but that lasted for a very short time, for he soon
saw that so far from improving your chances, it had lessened them. Ali
might have taken a handsome sum for your ransom, or your guards might
have been bribed; anyhow, there would have been a much better chance
of getting you away from his camp than from a prison in
Constantinople.

“Of course we did all we could to cheer him, and, I am afraid, told
some awful crammers as to the easy job it would be to get you out.
Still, the plan did do him good. It gave him something to think about,
as at Athens we were constantly thinking of something or other that he
could go ashore and see about. Since we sailed from there he has been
in a sort of fever, walking restlessly about the deck, going down to
the cabin and coming up again twenty times every hour, worrying about
the wind, and complaining at the boat’s loss of speed. He took to
Tarleton most, because he was nearest your age, I think. He talked to
him several times about you as a child, and seemed specially unhappy
because he had seen so little of you up to the time when he bought you
that first craft you had. The two Greeks were terribly concerned about
him. They are two fine fellows those. They were as gentle as women.
Well, it has been an anxious time for us all. Even the men have felt
for him, and it was quite curious to see how silent the ship became
when he was on deck. They seemed to speak almost in whispers, and I
have not heard a laugh forward from the hour that you and the doctor
were missed. I was glad he was taken with you, for he is a good
fellow, and it was a comfort to know that you were together.”

“It was a great pull,” Horace agreed. “He was just the same all the
time as he is on board, quiet and slow in his talk, but with an
occasional gleam of humour. It has been rather hard on him, too,
because, from the day we first landed, there has always been someone
with us who could speak Greek, and it is very slow for a man sitting
listening to talk that he can’t understand, waiting for bits to be
translated to him. Still, he never showed that he minded.”

“Yes, that must have been very annoying,” Miller agreed, “especially
when the talk was about matters that concerned his life. It makes you
feel so helpless and baby-like to have everything managed for you and
to be able to do nothing yourself. I don’t think he took kindly to
that Turkish dress. He slipped away and changed it before he had been
on board five minutes, while you kept yours on till you turned in for
a nap two hours ago.”

“I was comfortable enough, and never gave the clothes a thought after
I had worn them an hour or two,” Horace laughed. “Of course one felt
very baggy about the legs, and I certainly should not like to go aloft
in the things. No wonder the Turks are such clumsy sailors with their
legs in bags like that; but I did notice that the doctor never seemed
to move about naturally. I expect if he could have talked away as I
did he would not have thought of them so much. The wind is heading us
a bit.”

“Yes, it is;” and Miller gave the orders for the sheets and braces to
be hauled aft.

“I should not be surprised if it is in the south by morning.”

“That would be all the better, for then we could choose our own time
for getting off Gallipoli. We must get up all our sail when it is
daylight and make a show of doing our best; but when one is tacking
backwards and forwards one can always manage either to keep a little
off the wind or so close into it as pretty well to deaden one’s way
through the water.”

Horace turned in at four o’clock, and an hour and a half later heard a
trampling of feet on deck, and knew that the watch was making sail.
When he went up at eight o’clock the wind was blowing briskly from the
south-east, and the schooner was making a long leg out from the land.
He was now able to see the set of the sails that had been bent on the
evening before. The lower sails were of the same size as the
schooner’s original suit, and fitted her well. The upper sails
contained less than half the canvas of her old ones, but her spread
was sufficient to lay her over well and to send her through the water
at an encouraging rate of speed.

“She is not going along so badly, is she, Horace?” Martyn asked.

“No, indeed. Of course in a light wind the loss of all that upper
canvas will tell, but at present she is doing well enough for
anything, quite well enough for anything we are likely to meet.”

“We have been holding our own for the last two hours with that
felucca on the other tack, and we have been purposely sailing her a
good bit off the wind. We could overhaul her soon enough if we liked,
and most of those boats are fast; but we don’t want to get along too
quickly. If the wind freshens any more I shall tow a sail alongside to
deaden her way a bit. I want to arrive off Gallipoli about half an
hour after sunset.”

Two of the broadside guns had just been brought up and put in
position, and by midday the other six and the pivot-gun were in place,
and the latter hidden by a screen of barrels and one of the gigs,
bottom upwards, laid over it. The decks had been scrubbed, but, as
Martyn said mournfully, it would take weeks to get them back to their
former colour. The ropes still hung slackly, and although the schooner
looked a good deal more ship-shape than when Horace had first seen her
on the previous day, she was still as untidy as the average of vessels
in Eastern waters. Her course was timed well, and the sun had already
sunk some time, when she dropped anchor a short distance outside the
craft lying off Gallipoli.

“I see some of their ships of war have come up from below since we
passed three days ago. However, there is no fear of their sending a
boat off to-night,” Martyn said as they gathered in the cabin for
dinner, “and they will naturally suppose that we anchored so far out
because we were going on down the straits the first thing in the
morning.”

Mr. Beveridge had remained in his berth all day. The reaction after
the long excitement and anxiety told severely upon him. Although he
had got up the first thing, he had been obliged to lie down again,
being too weak to stand. The doctor, however, told Horace that this
was only to be expected.

“He will want a week’s quiet and plenty of nourishment to set him on
his legs again. He has been fairly worn out. But there is no fever
about him, and we can trust the Greeks to feed him up. It is just as
well that he should keep perfectly quiet to-day and sleep as much as
he can. To-morrow I hope I shall be able to get him up on deck. Then
chatting with you and taking an interest in things will rouse him.”

At nine o’clock sail was again made and the anchor weighed. The wind
had gone down very much, and had veered round to the south, which
enabled them to lay their course through the greater part of the
straits. Two men were placed in the chains with lead-lines. The lights
were all extinguished, with the exception of the binnacle. The
tarpaulins were removed from the guns and the barrels and gig from
around the pivot-gun. The watch off duty was sent below, and two of
the keenest-eyed men on board placed as look-outs at the bow. The
European shore, which was comparatively high, could be made out as a
dark bank, but the Asiatic shore, which was low, could scarcely be
seen. The chart was laid on the cabin table, the port-holes having all
been carefully covered with curtains, and a tarpaulin laid over the
skylight.

The men in the chains kept on taking soundings, Horace going backwards
and forwards between them and the quarterdeck with the news as to the
depth of water. Miller was in charge of the deck, while Martyn paid
frequent visits to the cabin to determine their position on the chart
according to the depth of the soundings. There was no fear of their
meeting with any craft until they approached the forts; but in the
darkness it was necessary to be very careful, as the water was shallow
on the eastern side, and were they to run on to a shoal, going as they
were with the force of the current, there would be little chance of
getting off again, unless by lightening the ship. There was just wind
enough to give her steerage-way. Men were stationed in readiness to
let go the anchor instantly, should it be necessary; while ten men, in
the longboat, paddled gently ahead of her, just keeping a tow-rope
taut in readiness to tow her instantly in any direction that might be
required. None of them were acquainted with the set of the current,
and Martyn had only the depth of water and the dim outline of the
banks to direct his course by. Several times, when the water shoaled,
the crew of the boat were directed to row vigorously in the direction
of the right bank; and once or twice there were but a few feet under
the keel, and a keen feeling of anxiety was experienced on board
until the leads-man announced that the water was deepening. At last,
according to Martyn’s calculations they could not be far away from the
formidable forts.

The boat was directed to fall astern and hang on to the rope, in
readiness either to come on board or to carry out any orders that
might be given. The crew on deck were told to take axes and
capstan-bars, so that should they drive down against one of the
Turkish ships they could fend the schooner off as much as possible, or
cut away any rope that might catch. They were directed to stand
perfectly still, and not a word was to be spoken whatever happened.
The greatest danger lay in the fact that most of the ships of war were
lying above the forts, and that, consequently, should an alarm be
given by them, the gunners at the batteries would be in readiness to
pour in their fire upon her as she passed.

“The ground to our right looks much higher than it did, Miller. I
think we must have been drifting a good deal over towards that side.”

“I think so too,” Miller agreed. “I have been fancying that we were
getting over that way ever since we stopped sounding.”

“At any rate we must take our chance,” Martyn said. “I daren’t sound
again; the splash would attract attention half a mile away on a quiet
night like this. Besides, we could not tow her the other way now; we
must take our chance. It is not likely they are keeping much of a
look-out on board. We might pass within twenty yards of a vessel
without being noticed on such a night as this. I will stay at the
helm, Miller. Her sails are still full, and we have got steerage-way.
Do you go up into the bow. Let two of the men take their boots off,
and if they make out anything ahead, let one of them run to me like
lightning with orders whether to port or starboard the helm.”

The conversation was carried on in the lowest tone. Miller stole
lightly forward; Tarleton and Horace were already there, one on each
bow, straining their eyes into the darkness.

“We are a long way over on this side, Miller, I don’t believe that
high ground over there is more than two or three hundred yards away.”

“That is just what I have been saying, Tarleton. The current must have
set us across tremendously. Martyn is at the helm, and you see we are
heading off that shore, but I don’t think we are going more than a
couple of knots through the water.”

In five minutes Tarleton whispered:

“I think there is something dark just over the cathead.”

At the same moment Horace stepped from the other side.

“There is a ship a short way ahead, Miller, unless I am mistaken.”

“By Jove, so there is!” Miller said, looking out. “We shall never be
able to clear her with the current taking us down.”

He had kicked off his own shoes when he reached the bow, thinking it
better himself to carry any message.

“Port your helm, Martyn,” he said as he ran up. “There are two craft
ahead, and we can never clear the outside one in this current. Our
only chance is to run between them.”

Martyn had jammed the helm down as Miller spoke.

“Keep it there,” Martyn said to the helmsman, and sprang to the
bulwark to look out himself. “That is enough,” he said; “straighten
her now, just as she is. You con her from the other side, Miller.”

All on board saw the two vessels now. By their height and bulk they
were evidently large frigates or men-of-war. They were not fifty yards
away, and were about the same distance apart. Martyn pulled off his
jacket and threw it over the binnacle, as its light would have been at
once noticed by anyone looking down from the lofty hulls. Noiselessly
the schooner passed into the gap between the ships; not the slightest
sound was heard from her decks. The two officers looked anxiously up
at the sails, for had one of these flapped, or a block rattled, the
sleepiest look-out must have noticed it. The silence on the decks of
the Turkish ships was as profound as that on the schooner. Rapidly
the latter slid between them, the current taking her along faster than
the wind. A minute more and she was beyond them; still no hail was
heard. Another minute and they loomed dark and indistinct behind her.

“Thank God for that!” Miller said in a whisper as he crossed the deck
to Martyn.

“Yes, indeed; it was touch and go. I expect they have only an anchor
watch. Most likely they are asleep; they would know that nothing could
come up the straits with this light breeze. I think, Miller, those are
the two eighty-gun ships we noticed as we came up. They were moored a
good bit outside the others; in which case we have a clear course
before us.”

“Yes; I have no doubt those are the two,” Miller agreed.

“Now we have only the forts; they are about a quarter of a mile
further down. Go forward, please, and tell the men not to move till
they get orders.”

Another quarter of an hour passed, and Martyn felt sure that they were
now well beyond the forts. For a few minutes longer he held on, and
then passed the word along the deck that the danger was over. Now that
they knew their exact position there was no longer any occasion for
sounding. The men in the boat were called up, and the watch off duty
ordered below, and when morning broke the land was far behind them. A
brisk wind had sprung up from the south-east, and the vessel was just
able to lay her course for Athens.

The doctor had remained below during their passage through the
straits.

“I should only have been in the way if I had been on deck,” he said
when Horace chaffed him for taking matters so easily. “When a man can
do no good, it is always better for him to get out of the way; and
after all there is no great pleasure in standing for hours afraid to
move, and without any duty to perform; so I just chatted for a bit
with your father, and directly I saw the sleeping draught I had given
him was beginning to take effect I turned in myself, and had as
comfortable a sleep as ever I had in my life. After sleeping on sofas
for three weeks, in that heathen sort of way, it was a comfort to get
between sheets again.”

“Well, but you went to bed the night before, doctor?”

“That was so,” the doctor agreed. “But a good thing is just as good
the second time as it is the first--better, perhaps. The first time
the novelty of a thing prevents you altogether enjoying it. I knew
very well that if we ran into any of the Turkish ships, or the forts
opened fire at us, I was like to hear it plainly enough.”

“And would you have lain there then, doctor?”

“No, lad. I would have had my duties to perform; and I would have
dressed and gone into the main deck at once, with my instruments ready
to do anything I could for those that required it.”

“Have you seen my father this morning, doctor?”

“Yes; and I am glad to say that he is all the better for his two
nights’ sleep. His pulse is stronger, and I shall get him up here
after breakfast. The news that we were fairly out to sea, and that all
danger was over, was better for him than any medicine. Well, lad, we
did not think eight-and-forty hours ago that we would be racing down
the Ægean again, on board the _Misericordia_, by this time. We have
had a wonderful escape of it altogether, and I would not like to go
through it again for enough money to set me up for life in Scotland.
When we were on board that Turkish brig, on our way to Constantinople,
I would not have given a bawbee for our chances.”

When they arrived at Athens the Greek sailors who had personated Turks
were landed. Mr. Beveridge was unequal to the exertion of going
ashore; but day after day he was visited by politicians, military
leaders, and others. After a fortnight spent there, Dr. Macfarlane
said to him:

“It is no use, sir, my giving you medicines and trying to build you
up, if you are going on as you are now doing. You are losing
strength, man, instead of gaining it. Each morning you seem a little
better; each evening you are fagged and worn out by these importunate
beggars. I can see that it worries and dispirits you. It is all very
good to wish well to Greece, Mr. Beveridge; but unless you have a
desire to be buried in Greek soil, the sooner you are out of this the
better. It is not so much change of air as change of thought that you
require. Go anywhere, so that it is to some place where you will never
hear the name of Greece.”

“I think you are right, doctor. The worry and disappointment has, I
know, been telling on me for months. Yes, I will definitely decide to
go away, at any rate for a time. Will you ask Captain Martyn to come
down?”

“Captain Martyn,” he went on when the latter entered the cabin, “the
doctor tells me I must absolutely get away from here.”

“I am quite sure that he is right, sir. You have been gradually
wearing yourself out ever since you came here.”

“I think we will go back to England in the first place, Martyn. I have
no doubt more bracing air will do me good. Then we can see how events
go on here.”

“Very well, sir. I think we shall be all heartily glad to be on our
way back.”

“You had better go ashore at once, Martyn. Take Horace with you, and
go to my agents. You know they have always kept the papers in
readiness for a re-sale of the vessel back to me. Go with them to the
consulate and have the sale formally registered. I will write a note
for you to take to my agent.”

Ten minutes later the gig took Martyn and Horace ashore. They returned
four hours later. There was a little move of excitement among the crew
as they stepped on deck again, for through the Greeks, who had heard
the news from Mr. Beveridge, it had spread forward. On reaching the
deck Martyn went to the signal locker. “Now, Miller,” he said, “down
with that flag.”

The Greek flag fluttered down from the peak, and as the British ensign
was run up in its place Martyn took off his cap and shouted: “Three
cheers for the old flag, lads!” and the shout, given with all the
strength of the lungs of officers and crew, showed how hearty was the
pleasure that was felt at the change. As soon as the cheers had
subsided orders were given to get down the awnings and prepare to make
sail. In a few minutes the clank of the anchor chain was heard, and by
the evening the schooner was running down past the shores of the
Morea.

A month later they anchored in Portsmouth. Here half the crew were
paid off, and as during their absence from England they had had but
small opportunities of spending money, they had nearly two years’ pay
coming to them, together with £30 a head, being their share of the
prize-money. The remainder of the crew also received their pay and
prize-money and two months’ leave of absence. Mr. Beveridge and Horace
had had many discussions on the subject, and it had been agreed that
the _Misericordia_ (now again, since she re-hoisted the English flag,
the _Creole_) should for a time be kept up as a yacht, with a
complement of two officers and twenty men. Martyn, having been
consulted, had chatted the matter over with Miller and Tarleton.
Although both these had enjoyed their trip greatly, and had made a
comfortable sum in pay and prize-money, both preferred to return to
the Royal Navy, if they could do so, rather than remain in a yacht;
and Mr. Beveridge promised to use his influence as soon as he returned
to get them appointed to ships. This promise he was able to fulfil a
few weeks after his arrival at home.

For home cruising as a yacht, Martyn considered that Tom Burdett would
be sufficient for him. If she again went out to Greece there would be
no difficulty in obtaining other officers and making up the crew to
its full strength. Portsmouth had been chosen instead of Plymouth as
their point of arrival, because from there Mr. Beveridge could much
more easily get up to town, Dr. Macfarlane insisting that he should go
up to obtain the best medical advice.

“But there is nothing the matter with me,” Mr. Beveridge had urged.

“That is just it, sir. If you had anything the matter with you I might
have a chance of curing it. It is because I can’t see any reason why
you do not gain strength that I want other opinion about you.”

The doctor had frequently talked it over with Horace during the
voyage.

“I can see nothing bodily the matter with your father, Horace. I wish
I could. There is nothing to account for his being in this feeble
state. All that he says is that he feels tired. My opinion is that
really this is a sort of reaction after mental excitement, just as
there is reaction after great bodily fatigue. Your father has lived a
smooth, easy, tranquil life, and the change, the excitement, the
worry, and his utter disappointment with the Greeks themselves, have
had the same sort of effect upon him as a climb up to the top of Ben
Nevis might have on a man who did not stir out of his house for months
together. As for that being the cause I have no doubt whatever. It is
as to the cure that I want to consult with some big-wig. I don’t know
whether quiet or movement would be the best for him. He could have had
no quiet more complete than that he has had on the way home, and yet
it has done him no good. If he were to go down home the inducement to
arouse himself would be still less. But what sort of change would
really suit him is more than I can say.”

Horace thoroughly agreed with the doctor. If even the cheerful society
on board the yacht did not rouse his father, he dreaded what it would
be when he was at home, with no one to stir him up in any way. There
were two or three consultations in town with some of the leaders of
the profession. After hearing the whole circumstances they were
unanimous in agreeing that there seemed no serious disease of any
kind, but at the same time his condition gave cause of anxiety.

“Your patient is evidently a man of highly nervous organization, and
at present his nerves are a wreck. We quite agree with you that were
he to go down to a lonely house in the country he would probably sink
into the grave in a few months at the outside. If you could get him to
go in that yacht of his on some expedition in which he feels what I
may call a healthy interest, it might do him good. I should say a cold
climate would be better for him than a warm one. He has had more than
enough of that enervating work in Greek waters. Try and interest him
in Polar expeditions. There have been a great many of them just
lately. Ross and Parry and Franklin have all been trying their best to
find the North-west Passage, which is not likely to be of any good if
they do find it; but that is nothing to the point. Get him interested
in the matter, and let him go and poke about for a bit among the
icebergs. If you can get him to do that we see no reason why in time
his mind should not recover its tone.”

The matter had to be done cautiously. Horace professed a vast interest
in the recent expeditions; the doctor was full of interesting facts,
and little by little they kindled an interest on the subject in Mr.
Beveridge’s mind; and when Horace broke out one day, as if the idea
had only just struck him, “My dear father, why shouldn’t we go up
north in the yacht for a few months and become explorers? It would be
glorious to see the icebergs and to shoot bears and seals, and would
be a splendid change for us all. I am sure you would find it
frightfully dull going back to Seaport,”--he did not entirely
repudiate the idea, but said that he should not like to go away when
things were looking so dark for Greece. Fortunately, a week later the
news came that all the immense preparations the Sultan had been making
for an invasion of Greece with a great army had been arrested by a
tremendous fire, supposed to be the work of the janissaries, who did
not like the prospect of leaving Constantinople. The fire had
destroyed all the vast stores collected, the artillery,
baggage-trains, and munitions of war of all kinds, and it was probable
that at least a year would pass before a fresh effort could be made.

This news evidently relieved Mr. Beveridge’s mind, and when Horace,
backed by Macfarlane, returned to the charge, he at once consented.
Martyn was written to by Horace the same day. He at once came up to
town, and saw some of the officers who had been out with Franklin and
Parry. Returning to Plymouth, where the _Creole_ was lying, a body of
shipwrights were at once set to work to strengthen her by a network of
timber below, and to sheath her with thick planking outside. The
captain of a whaler was engaged as first officer. He was to come on
board at Dundee, and to bring with him twelve picked hands accustomed
to the Polar Seas. With great exertion the schooner was got ready in a
month.

By this time the enthusiasm expressed by Horace and the doctor in the
matter had infected Mr. Beveridge, who read up everything that had
been written on the subject, and was visibly very much better by the
time they went down with him to Portsmouth to join the _Creole_ there.
They were away from England eighteen months. They made no discoveries
of the slightest importance, but they had numerous exciting
adventures, had many narrow escapes of being nipped by icebergs, and
passed a winter frozen up in Baffin’s Bay. The voyage achieved the
object for which it was undertaken. The subject of Greece was a
forbidden one, and Mr. Beveridge came to take a lively interest in the
new scenes with which he was surrounded, joined in the hunting
parties, took a prominent part in all the amusements got up for
keeping the crew in good spirits and health through the winter, and
returned to England a more healthy and vigorous man than Horace had
ever before seen him. The _Creole_ had taken out with her barrels and
all other appurtenances for whaling, and having been fairly successful
in that way, returned with sufficient oil and seal-skins to pay the
greater part of her expenses.

“I feel another man, Horace, to what I was when I started,” Mr.
Beveridge said as he stepped ashore at Plymouth.

“You look a different man, father--a different man altogether to what
you have been since I first remember you. I don’t suppose you have
grown, but you are so much more upright that you look as if you had,
and you walk differently, and even your voice seems changed. Now, you
know, you must not go back again.”

“I don’t mean to, my boy. It seems to me that I have thrown away
twenty years of my life, and what there is remaining to me shall be
spent differently. Now we have got a long arrear of news to get up.”

Horace felt at first uneasy when his father obtained a complete file
of the newspapers from the time they had left England, and read up the
history of affairs in Greece. There was, however, little to learn. Two
civil wars had taken place, some large loans had been raised in
England, but had been entirely frittered away and wasted; and when in
June, 1824, the Turkish fleet had at last sailed, the Greeks had been
as unprepared for resistance as they were when they first took up
arms. Kasos and Psara had both been captured and their inhabitants
either massacred or carried away into slavery, while the sailors of
Hydra and Spetzas had not moved a hand to succour their countrymen.

Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt had sent an army to Greece, and had besieged
Navarino and Pylos. The Greek army had advanced to relieve them, but
being attacked by half their number of Egyptian troops were routed
without the least difficulty at Krommydi. They were beaten again at
Sphakteria, and Pylos and Navarino were forced to surrender; the
Egyptians observing faithfully the terms they granted, and allowing
the garrisons to depart in neutral ships. Dikaios was defeated and
killed at Maniaki, having been deserted by all his troops but fifteen
hundred. These fought splendidly although attacked by six thousand
men. A thousand of them died on the field after having killed four
hundred of their assailants. This was by far the most gallant affair
throughout the war. Kolokotronis assembled ten thousand men, but was
defeated with the greatest ease with the loss of over two hundred men,
most of whom were killed in their flight.

When the _Creole_ returned to England the siege of Missolonghi had
begun. Reshid Pasha’s army, ten thousand strong, sat down before it.
It was defended with extreme gallantry and resisted for many months,
while the rest of Greece did little to assist it. After six months’
siege Reshid retired, being straitened for provisions and suffering
from the vigorous sorties of the besieged; but in a short time Ibrahim
arrived with his army and again besieged the place; throwing up
formidable batteries and works against it. Several times terms were
offered to the garrison, but were contemptuously refused, and several
attacks were beaten off with great loss. At last the provisions were
absolutely exhausted.

The brave defenders of the town resolved upon a step almost unexampled
in history, namely, that the whole of the men should sally out,
placing the women and children in their centre, and cut their way
through the enemy. There were still nine thousand persons in the town,
of whom only three thousand were men capable of bearing arms, two
thousand men, women, and children were too weak from starvation and
disease to join the movement; the rest were divided into three
divisions. Most of the women dressed themselves in men’s clothing and
carried arms, and even the children had loaded pistols. Unfortunately
the Turks had been informed by a deserter that the attempt was about
to be made.

The three divisions, in spite of the opposition of the Turks, attacked
with such fury that they made their way through the lines of the
enemy; but the people of Missolonghi itself, who were to form the
fourth division and follow the others, were seized with a panic and
fell back into the town. Had the Greeks outside fulfilled their
promise, and moved forward a body of troops stationed a short distance
away to receive the defenders of the place when they reached the open
country, all the rest would have been saved; but instead of the
fifteen hundred who were to have met them, but fifty were there. The
Turkish cavalry and the Albanians harassed and cut them up, and even
those who gained the shelter of the hills received no assistance from
the irregulars, and many perished from hunger and disease, and
finally only fifteen hundred escaped. The soldiers left behind in
Missolonghi either by wounds or sickness intrenched themselves in
stone buildings, and there defended themselves till the last, blowing
up the magazines and dying in the ruins when they could no longer hold
out. Four thousand Greeks were killed, three thousand were taken
prisoners, chiefly women and children, and two thousand altogether
escaped. The Acropolis of Athens resisted stoutly for a long time, but
at last fell. The Greeks were defeated in almost every action upon
which they entered, and affairs went from bad to worse, until the
European governments at last determined to interfere; and their united
fleets destroyed that of the Turks at the battle of Navarino, and
forced Turkey to grant the independence of Greece.

As these events happened Mr. Beveridge followed their course with
interest, but it was only with the interest shown by Englishmen in
general. His personal feeling in the matter had entirely left him.
During the last four years of the struggle there was no sign whatever
that misfortune and disaster had had any effect in inducing the Greeks
to lay aside their personal jealousies and ambitions, or to make any
common effort against the enemy. The large sums they had received from
the loans raised for the most part in England were spent in the most
unworthy uses. They covered their uniforms with gold lace, and the
dress of the men on foot often cost fifty pounds; those of horsemen
ten times that amount. They affected all through to despise the Turks,
and yet, except the fifteen hundred men under Dikaios and the
defenders of Missolonghi, they never once opposed anything like an
obstinate resistance to them, and the last show of resistance was
almost crushed out when the intervention of Europe saved them.

The _Creole_ had been laid up after her return from the Arctic Seas.
Mr. Beveridge had purchased a large share in a fine East Indiaman,
making the proviso that Martyn should be appointed to the command, he
himself buying a share in her with the money he had earned during the
four years’ service on board the schooner. Mr. Beveridge had, to the
immense satisfaction of his aunt, Mrs. Fordyce, entirely abandoned the
study of Greek, devoted himself to the affairs of his estate, became
an active magistrate, and had, three years after his return, stood for
Parliament as member for the county, and had won the seat. Horace was
twenty when they returned from the north. He had a long talk with his
father as to his future prospects and career. He was too old now to
take up the thread of his studies again or to go to the university,
and he finally determined, at the advice of his father, to study for
the bar.

“You will never have any occasion to practise, Horace, but a few
months every year in London will make a pleasant change for you; and
as you may look to be a county magistrate some day you will find a
knowledge of the law very useful to you. You will be in London five or
six months every year, then you will have your shooting and hunting in
the winter, and we will have two or three months’ cruise together in
the _Creole_. I find that our expedition in Greece cost me, one way
and another, just fifteen thousand pounds, which is a good deal less
than I should have thrown away if it had not been for your advice. I
hear that it is likely that Sir James Hobhouse’s estate will be in the
market before long, and I think, as it almost adjoins ours, I shall
buy it. I fancy that I shall get it for about thirty thousand pounds.
That I should settle on you at once. I am not fifty yet, and feel that
I have more life in me than I ever had, and I don’t want you to be
waiting another twenty or thirty years to step into my shoes. Its
management will be an occupation for you, and then you can marry
whenever you feel inclined.”

This happened four years later; it arose out of a meeting at a dinner
party in London. Horace had taken down a very pretty girl to whom he
had just been introduced. He thought that she looked at him rather
curiously when his name was mentioned. They chatted on all sorts of
subjects during dinner, and when the ladies arose to go she said:
“Please find me out when you come upstairs. I have a question I
particularly want to ask you, but I could not very well do it here.
Please do not forget, for it is important.” A good deal puzzled Horace
made his way upstairs as soon as he could and saw that the girl was
with another lady sitting in a quiet corner of the drawing-room. He
crossed to them at once. “Mother,” the young lady said, “this is Mr.
Beveridge.”

“You are right, Ada,” the lady said, rising and holding out her hand,
“I recognize him at once now I see him. Oh, Mr. Beveridge, you do not
know how we have longed to see you again, and you don’t know us, do
you?”

“No, I can’t say that I do, madam,” Horace replied, more and more
astonished.

“I am the lady you saved from being sold as a slave at Algiers when
you captured the ship we were in off the coast of Asia Minor. This is
my daughter. No wonder you don’t remember us for I was a
strange-looking creature in that Greek dress, and Ada was but a
child.”

“I remember you now, Mrs. Herbert,” Horace exclaimed. “I ought to have
done so before, as we were four or five days on board together.”

“You must have thought us so ungrateful,” Mrs. Herbert said; “but we
were not so; we never knew where to write to when you were out in
Greece. Then two or three years afterwards we heard from someone who
had been out there that you had returned, and my husband, who left
Smyrna and came back to England after we got back, made all sorts of
inquiries, and found out at last that you had gone away again on an
Arctic expedition. Then he went out to Malta, where we have been
living for the last three years, and only returned a month ago to
England. My husband had to return to Smyrna; he had large business
connections there that could not be broken off suddenly. Nothing could
induce me ever to return there, but it was an easy run for him to
Malta, and he was able to come and stay with us for a week or so every
two or three months. For the last year he was training the son of the
senior partner of the house to take his place at Smyrna, and he
himself has now come back altogether, as Mr. Hamblyn has now retired,
and he is the head of the firm. He is not here to-night, but will be
delighted to hear that we have found you.”

“We have been back three years,” Horace said.

“Of course we did not know that you were in England. It has been a
great grief to us. It seemed so extraordinary that after being saved
by you from the most awful of all fates you should have disappeared
out of our life as suddenly as you came into it. Of course it was not
much to you--you who saved so many hundreds, we heard afterwards
thousands of women and girls from slavery; but to us it was
everything. And your father, Mr. Beveridge, is he quite well?”

“Yes, he is far better than I have ever known him to be. I am going
down next week to help him; he is going to stand for our part of the
county for Parliament. There is a vacancy there, and I fancy that he
has a very good chance.”

“Is he, indeed? He did not give me the idea of being a man who would
have cared for that sort of thing. Of course we only saw him just for
those four days.”

“I am happy to say that he has changed very much since then. He came
home very ill from Greece, but our eighteen months among the ice
entirely set him up and made a new man of him. I am sure he will be
very pleased when he hears that I have met you. And did you recognize
me at once, Miss Herbert?”

“The name helped me,” the girl said. “When I heard it I felt sure it
was you at once. It was very hard work sitting there talking to you as
if you were a stranger.”

“Why did you not tell me at once?” Horace asked smiling.

She did not answer, but her mother said for her: “You can’t tell how
we felt about you and your father, Mr. Beveridge, or you would not ask
the question. The chances are that if Ada had told you who she was she
would have burst out crying. She told me it was as much as she could
do to restrain herself; and I think we have both had a quiet cry in
this corner since we came upstairs. Now, please give me your address
in town?”

“I have chambers in Mitre Court Temple, No. 3.”

“My husband will call to see you the first thing in the morning, I am
sure. Mr. Beveridge and you must dine with us quietly to-morrow, so
that we can talk it all over. You are not, I hope, engaged.”

Horace was not engaged, but if he had been he would probably have
thrown it over.

Under these circumstances it was not very much to wonder at that a few
months later the _Morning Post_ contained this announcement:--“We
understand that a marriage has been arranged between Mr. Horace
Beveridge, the son of Mr. H. Beveridge, M. P., and Ada, only child of
Mr. Herbert, of Bedford Square, the head of the firm of Herbert &
Sandeson, the well-known firm of Levant merchants. We understand the
acquaintance of Mr. Beveridge with the young lady he is now about to
lead to the altar commenced under singularly romantic circumstances in
the Levant six years ago.”

On the day after their marriage Horace and his wife sailed to spend
their honeymoon among the fiords of Norway and in the Baltic on board
the _Creole_. She was commanded by Miller, whose ship had been paid
off a month previously, and Tarleton, whose frigate belonged to the
Channel squadron, obtained three months’ leave to sail in her as first
officer. Macfarlane was with them for a fortnight, not being able to
get away for a longer time from the practice in which he had purchased
a partnership at Plymouth. Tom Burdett went, of course, in his old
capacity; but this was his last trip in her though he long remained
the commander of the _Surf_, which was always kept in commission at
Seaport, and in which Horace’s boys and girls learned to love the sea
as much as did their father.


THE END





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