'To be Ensigns in the 2nd battalion of the — Highlanders, Allan Mac Innon, Gent., and John Belton, Gent., vice Dowb, promoted to the Turkish Contingent.'
Such was the announcement which I read in a Gazette sent to my lodgings one morning, about a fortnight after my first interview with Colonel Crawford. I now ceased to be 'gent.' in any sense of the word, and found myself in one day a full-blown ensign, with a fortune of 5s.3d.per diem, and a passport to go where glory invited me, in the shape of whistling-dicks and Minie-rifles.
Thus, thanks to the faith and love borne me by twenty-five peasant lads of Glen Ora, now all duly attested and accepted soldiers, I had surmounted the barriers of interest at the Horse Guards; the necessity of pounding 5001.with Cox and Co., the puzzling, cramming, and quizzing at Sandhurst, with a hundred minor annoyances.
Let the reader suppose my subscription to band-fund, mess-plate, and commission fees all paid—three trifles amounting to twenty-one guineas, by which one's first three months' pay is legally borrowed under the Royal authority; let the reader imagine my outfit procured—my uniform, camp-equipage, canteen, iron-bedstead, et cetera, provided—and all to be paid for by Providence, or the plunder of Sebastopol, if the aforesaid 5s.3d.failed to do so—and behold me, then, an ensign in a 'crack regiment,' and like Don Juan—
'Made up by youth, by love, and by an army tailor.'
In less than a month I was reported fit for duty, and joined my company, into which the colonel had kindly enrolled my twenty-five Mac Innons. I had applied myself with such assiduity to the mysteries of the goose-step, the right half-face, the left half-face, and the right-about three-quarters-face, &c., that I gained the respect of that dread man the adjutant, and the profound esteem of the various sergeants to whom I was handed over in succession to acquire the manual and platoon exercises, the use of the club and broadsword, and to each of whom, at parting, the 'tip' of two days' pay was necessary. I soon won, too, the entire confidence of our brave old colonel, who, in kindness and advice, acted to me more as a father than a friend.
Great was the change this month had achieved in my fortunes! In that brief time I had seen our dwellings levelled to the earth! the glen, which had been peopled for ages, laid desolate and bare; the muirs consumed by fire, and all the land reduced to a voiceless solitude. My mother was lying far away in her quiet grave—her old familiar face was gone for ever: I was separated from Laura, and was now a soldier, like my forefathers, with the wide world all before me.
Of John Belton, who was gazetted at the same time with myself, and who became one of my chief friends, I shall speak frequently anon. He was a handsome, lively, and light-hearted fellow, and we were a pair of inseparables; but with all the charms of the new life that had so suddenly opened before me, I was far from happy still.
After long thought, anxiety, and careful consideration, with a heart inspired by love and hope, I ventured to write a timid letter to Laura, expressing my admiration, my esteem, and undying regard for her, all of which were strengthened by the knowledge that an early and greater separation was at hand, as the regiment to which I had been appointed was warring in the East, and I added, that in leaving her, more than probably for ever, all my hopes and prayers were for her happiness.
Cæsar, on the night before the great battle of Pharsalia, was not more full of thought than I, while penning this letter to little Laura Everingham.
I dared not ask her to write to me, yet I hoped she might do so; indeed, for some days, I was certain she would reply. I knew that she would write politely, kindly, timidly, and perhaps with some formality; but I longed to gaze upon the lines her pretty hand had traced. It would be a relic of her—a souvenir of buried hopes and futile aspirations, when other days would come.
But day after day passed—a week elapsed—then, a fortnight, and yet no letter came; and daily, while every pulse quickened with anxiety, I watched the pipe-major (who acted as our regimental postman) distributing his letters on parade; but, alas! none ever came for me.
My courage fell—day succeeded day, and still no letter. Then hope began to die; my nights were dreamy or sleepless, and my days full of gnawing suspense. Could Laura be ill?—then Fanny would write. Had she dismissed me from her mind? or had Sir Horace intercepted the letter? Thus I wearied myself with conjectures. Should I write to her again? Pride said 'no;' yet that very pride which sprang from wounded self-esteem was rendered the more bitter by its struggle with much of honest tenderness, pure regard, and sincere regret that one I loved so well should treat me with such cutting coldness and neglect.
I endured six weeks of much chagrin and suspense after writing that unlucky letter from Dumbarton; but at last a crisis was put to my artificial affliction.
One day Captain Clavering made his appearance at mess, in mufti; he was the guest of Colonel Crawford, and expressed so much real pleasure and satisfaction at meeting me again, that he quite won me by his frankness. He even went the length of offering me the use of his purse, saying that I might repay him at any time—whenever it suited me to do so.
'I know deuced well, my dear fellow, what it is to be under orders for foreign service, having once had the misfortune to be in the Line,' said he, 'and to have only five shillings and threepence per diem, to find myself in messing, clothing, servant and servant's livery, camp-equipage, and everything. Snobleigh of ours—languid as ever—has lost a devil of a bet on the Oaks, and has rejoined the Guards at Windsor. Fanny, my sister, is as Lola Montes—looking as ever. Sir Horace—you asked for Sir Horace—he is quite well and hearty; busy about his new shooting-box in Glen Ora; and Laura—oh Laura is more charming than ever, and full of anticipated happiness.'
As he said this, he stroked his black moustache, and gave me one of the most knowing little winks; and it scorned to convey so much, though I knew not what, that pique fettered my tongue, and a vague sentiment of jealousy filled my heart.
'He is a fine fellow Clavering,' said the colonel, in a low voice, to me;—'glad to see you know him.'
'Ah—yes—he is quite an old friend,' I replied, while fixing my gaze on a diamond-and-pearl ring he wore on the engaged finger, and which I recognized to have been worn by Laura.
'I knew his brother well—poor Bob Clavering, of the 5th—the Northumberland Fusileers,' said Brevet-Major Duncan Catanagh, the captain of our Grenadiers, a dark-visaged, rough, and black-bearded soldier; 'and I had the narrowest escape in the world on the day he was killed.'
'How?' asked several.
'We were both wounded in the action of Maheidpoor, in the Mahratta war, and, with six others, were being conveyed from the field next day in a waggon: the sun was blazing hot—ay, hot as fire! Our wounds were undressed; we were half dead of thirst, and the jolting of the vehicle increased our sufferings to such a degree that I left it, resolving to die quietly by the road side rather than endure such misery longer. The waggon was then being drawn along a road which wound close to the abrupt brow of a tremendous precipice, and in one minute after I stepped out, the horses became restive, plunged and reared—the waggon went backward, and toppled over the rocks into the valley, three hundred feet below, where the horses, wheels, and framework, with my five miserable companions, were dashed to pieces! I thought little of my escape then—but it has often come painfully before me since. Tom Clavering came into a handsome fortune by that littlemalheur, and at once exchanged from the 5th to the Grenadier Guards.'
'And the Mahrattas?' said Belton.
'Oh, they would soon have finished me,' said Catanagh, 'but for the exertions of a cunning old Brahmin, who saved my life, and smuggled me to Murray Mac Gregor's head-quarters, when he held Poonah with only the Scots Royals against all the thousands of Ras Holkar.'
'Poonah,' said the old colonel, laughing, 'that was where you had such a long flirtation with a pretty widow, whose husband, a lieutenant of the 5th, had been blown from the mouth of a mortar by the Mahrattas—eh?'
'Not at all—but pass the wine,' replied Catanagh, laughing and reddening a little; 'besides, we speak of flirtation with an unmarried female—one's cousin, for instance—but with a widow, it assumes a—a—'
'A deeper character,' suggested the colonel.
'Yes—we then call it aliaison,' said Clavering, who had retired to an open window and lighted a cigar.
'Clavering is in high spirits—'gad, the fellow's like champagne!' said Catanagh.
'For the best of reasons,' whispered the colonel, whose voice went through me like a galvanic shock; 'he is about to bemarried.'
'Indeed,' I rejoined, a desperate air of coolness struggling with the painful interest this communication excited within me; 'to whom may I ask?'
'A charming young girl—Miss Everingham—daughter and heiress of Sir Horace Everingham, the Conservative M.P., who bought an estate in the Highlands lately.'
The poor colonel smiled pleasantly and confidentially as he said this, all unconscious that he was planting a dagger in his listener's heart.
'By Jove, he will have something handsome with her,' said Ewan Mac Pherson, the captain of our Light Company; 'Elton Hall is a magnificent place, and then the Highland property—but when does the little affair come off?'
'When he returns from the Crimea,' said Belton.
'The deuce—from the Crimea!'
'Nay, pardon me,' said the colonel; 'he is to be married almost immediately, and is nowen routeto Edinburgh after some of the little necessary arrangements.'
'Of course—there will be the bride'strousseauto order at a fashionablemagazin des modes—the usual case of jewels—the twelve morning and evening dresses—the four dozen of everything necessary for ladies fair. Thank heaven, my marching luggage never consisted of more than a portmanteau, an epaulette-box, and a boot-jack.'
'Perhaps so, Catanagh,' replied the bantering colonel; 'but little Laura Everingham, with her English acres and funded property, is a better prize than our Poonah widow, with all her rupees and indigo; and drinking iced champagne at Elton Hall will be better than eating chutney and pickled monkey, with the thermometer at 104° in the shade—the punkah out of order, and not a breath of air to be had for love or for money. Pass the claret: gentlemen, fill your glasses—we will drink to my friend Captain Clavering, of the Grenadier Guards—happiness to him!'
The wine almost choked me; but mastering my emotion, I left the mess-room, and sought my quarters. There I tore off my red coat, for it seemed to stifle me. I threw myself upon my bed in an agony of mind difficult to portray—an agony such as we feel but once in a life-time; and I strove to be calm—to think—to reflect, and to realize all that the colonel had said so heedlessly, but yet so innocently, to torture me.
One fact stood palpably and painfully before me: Laura Everingham was lost to me for ever! It was, perhaps, a just punishment for the vanity and presumption—or the folly—with which I had permitted a fervent and enthusiastic heart to give full scope to a love which it fostered in defiance of reason and of hope. The tenor of the conversation I had overheard in the arbour occurred to me again and again. I endeavoured to analyze it. To me, there now seemed too much lightness of heart and of expression in Laura, when on the eve of a hopeless separation from one whom she knew to love her so well—one then so humbled, so crushed and ruined as I—but perhaps she could not have acted otherwise without exciting still more the suspicion and the ridicule of Fanny Clavering. Were her words to be considered as really indicative of her secret thoughts? Moreover, what claim had I, so poor in all this world's gifts and gear, on one so rich in all the gifts of heaven and earth? None. Nor was she to blame for the secret love I had nourished and fostered in my heart since the first moment of our acquaintance. Yet her silence, her pallor, her deep unspoken emotion when I left her, would seem to say that I was not without an interest in her heart. May she not, thought I, have wept for me, and prayed for me, on the midnight pillow, even as I, all lonely and unseen, had sighed and prayed for her?
No—no; the light had vanished at last, and Laura was for ever lost to me—a just punishment to one of the wildest fancies that ever warmed a romantic heart. The pearl ring, with a thousand 'trifles light as air,' came in all their bitter, blighting strength, to confirm the news of Clavering's marriage, and, covering my face with my hands, I wept like a child. Until that burning hour I knew not the depth of my hopeless passion, or how much I had really loved Miss Everingham.
The night was a miserable one to me, but it passed away like others; and the sharp brass drum, and then the yelling war-pipe, as they rang in the early morning air, waking the deep echoes of 'Balclutha's walls of rock,' announced that 'to march' was now the order; and first Jack Belton, and then Callum Dhu, burst breathlessly into my room.
'What the deuce—why the champagne must have been strong last night,' exclaimed Jack, on seeing me lying on my bed, and not in it; 'come, my boy—bustle up—turn out—the route has come!'
'The route—for where?'
'The East,' cried he, flinging his cap up to the ceiling.
'Theroute—theroutehas come!' What a commotion that momentous announcement makes in the little world of a barrack, as it passes from mouth to mouth—from the commanding officer to the adjutant, and from that indefatigable vizier to the sergeant-major—from mouth to mouth, and room to room!
This important document, fresh under the seal of the Adjutant-General's office at Edinburgh, stated in usual form, that 'it was Her Majesty's pleasure that one field officer, two captains, four subalterns, six sergeants, three pipers, and two hundred rank and file of the —th regiment of Highlanders be held in readiness to march at such a time, as may be judged expedient, from the castle of Dumbarton, and to embark on board such tonnage as may be provided for their reception, and conveyanceto Constantinople.'
The field-officer was our rough and bearded Major Duncan Catanagh, K.H.; the captains were Mac Pherson and Logan; the subalterns, Lieutenants Rigg and Johnstone, with two ensigns—viz., Jack Belton and myself.
TheVestal, formerly a donkey-frigate of twenty-six guns, but now, cut, lengthened, and fitted with a screw-propeller, and transmogrified into a troop-ship, lay off Dumbarton, with her top-sails loose and blue-peter at the fore-mast head.
We embarked next day. I remember how much I was impressed by the service-like aspect of our chosen two hundred, who were to join our first battalion—all with their bonnets cased in oil-skins; their white gaiters on; their great-coats rolled on the top of their packs; their haversacks and wooden canteens slung above their accoutrements, as they paraded in the grey light of the early morning, when the sun was yet below the hills, and when the shrill 'gathering,' woke the echoes of dark and shadowy Dumbarton.
On the roll being called, one of our men, Lance-corporal Donald Roy, was reported to be absent.
'Absent,' reiterated the adjutant; 'devilish odd—were not all the men of this detachment confined to barracks immediately on the route arriving?
'Yes, sir—but Donald is not here.'
Under his moustache, the adjutant muttered something that sounded very much like an oath.
'This looks ill,' said he, reddening with anger; 'a fellow bolts on the eve of embarking for foreign service! The sergeant of the main guard and the sentries at the gate must be accountable for this.'
'Nay, I alone am answerable,' said Major Catanagh; 'Donald comes from my native glen on the west bank of Loch Lomond; and late on the night the route arrived, he came to me and said, "Major,youknow me well—you have known me since we were boys, and can trust me. My mother died when we were fighting on the banks of the Indus, and she is buried in the auld kirkyard of Luss; get me leave for a night, that I may cross the hills to say one prayer at her grave before we go, and I swear by the God that hears me to be at Dumbarton gate before you march—ay before the pipes play reveille."'
'And you obtained leave for him from the colonel?'
'Yes.'
'Reveille was blown long since,' said the adjutant, with an incredulous smile, 'and Donald has not yet appeared. Sergeant Mac Ildhui, mark himabsentin the Report.'
The kind major reddened in turn, for our adjutant was a Lowlander, and did not believe in Highlanders; but Catanagh was a Celt, and better knew the missing man.
'I will answer for him,' said he; 'Donald will be back in time, I warrant him—where are his musket, pack, and accoutrements.'
'They are carried by his comrades.'
The hour for marching drew near; already the boats of theVestalawaited us; but there was no appearance of Donald Roy, so the 'next man for duty,' was ordered to prepare to take his place.
The women had been balloted for at the drum-head; the two fortunate wives who were to accompany us were clinging in joy to their husbands' necks. The unfortunates who had drawnblankswere filling the barrack square with noisy lamentations. Adieux had been said, and hands shaken. Then the little column broke into sections of threes, and with the whole band of the battalion in our front, playing 'Lochaber no more,' and accompanied by our comrades' cheering, we left the ancient castle of Dumbarton just as the sun rose, and marched towards the landing-place.
As we proceeded to the bank of the river, a soldier, pale and breathless, dashed into our ranks, raised his hand to his bonnet, and cried aloud,—
'Major Catanagh—I am here!'
'Donald Roy!' exclaimed the soldiers with satisfaction, for this man was a favourite with all, and moreover was a famous sword-player and tosser of the caber.
'I knew that you would return, Donald,' said the major, with an approving smile.
'I have travelled day and night, running like a deer, Major Catanagh,' replied the soldier in a rapid whisper; 'I have had twelve miles to go, and as many to return; but I am young and active, and the ardour of grief bore me up, for I was determined to see the grave of my mother before I left my native place, perhaps for ever; and may heaven bless you, major, for the trust you have put in me. I am poor—but I never deceived any one. Oh, major, I have seen the woods of Cameron, the rocks of Ross-dhu, and the wilds of Rowardennan, places that you and I know well—but may never look upon again.'
'We shall, Donald—please God, we shall both see them again,' said Catanagh, with kindling eyes.
With kindly interest I looked on this pale and weary soldier, who spoke in my native Gaelic; but I had soon other thoughts in my heart, and in the ardour and excitement of embarking for foreign service and the seat of war, with the brattle of the drum and the blare of the brass band playing a stirring Scottish quick-step; the tread of marching feet, and the gleam of fixed bayonets round me, I was soon beyond the reach of tender or soft impressions.
The steam continued to roar at times through the safety-valve; the band continued to play, and our comrades to cheer, as our detachment went off in boat-loads to theVestal, which was rapidly getting up all her horse-power. Her white canvas hung loose aloft, and her decks were crowded by groups of the sombre rifles below; but until I stood upon her poop and looked round me, I could scarcely realise the truth of my position, or that all this new phase of life, so strange to me, was not a dream.
The sun came up in his glory from the morning sea; the blue waters rolled around us in light, and curled their crested waves before the soft west wind. The huge dark shadows of Balclutha's double Dun fell far along the azure bosom of the Clyde, when the steamer's anchor was apeak, and the propeller began to dash the water into foam astern, making a sweep of nearly twenty feet at each impetuous turn, and objects on the beach began to lessen, change or pass each other, and we stood in groups looking at the fading mountains few of us might ever see again.
Summer had passed away with all its bloom and verdure; no longer laden with rosy blossoms,
'Fruitful Clydesdale's apple bowersWere mellowing in the moon;'
the peach and the nectarine had glowed there in clusters and been gathered, and now the woods of leafy green were being tinged by russet brown and golden yellow.
On leaving the mouth of the Clyde, we found the water rough; the wind blew keenly and chopped about; thus theVestalpitched and lurched heavily off Ailsa Craig, amid the mist and spray. This somewhat damped the military pride of the youngsters, and as the motion increased when we entered the North Channel, the very idea of breakfast or dinner excited a qualmy horror within me; and the jokes of Catanagh, Mac Pherson, and other older soldiers, failed to rouse my spirit either to fun or anger—in short I was sick, miserably sick, and would gladly have exchanged my hopes of a marshal's baton and a tomb in Westminster for a safe footing on the nearest point of land.
On, on we sped, and ere long a faint white line at the horizon marked where the chalky brows of the Land's-end faded into the evening sea, and we bade 'a long good night to old England.'
We had on board six companies of the Rifle Brigade—all jolly fellows; and on recovering our 'sea legs,' we found the hours pass delightfully.
TheVestalwas commanded by John Crank, an old, fiery, passionate and red-faced naval lieutenant, who had served under Nelson as a middy, and lost his 'starboard toplight, when boarding theHoly Joe,' as he irreverently named theSan Josef.
The proportion of tonnage for troops in a transport is two tons per soldier; but on board our old donkeyVestal, the Highlanders were stowed away with only eighteen inches per man for sleeping-room; and as the weather grew warm on our approaching the Mediterranean, they suffered great discomfort—and the poor women were crammed away among the rank and file, unheeded and uncared for by all but their husbands.
I was subaltern of the watch, on the morning we anchored off Gibraltar, where we remained for four and twenty hours, waiting for despatches direct from London. As soon as they arrived, the mail was transferred on board theVestal; the steam was again got up, and long before evening, the giant peak, the tremendous rock-built batteries of Gibel-al-taric—the rock of the old Moorish wars—faded into the blue waters as we bore on towards that land of death and battle, suffering and disaster, where Britannia was exchanging her ancient oak leaves and laurels for the funeral cypress and the baleful yew.
Among the letters and papers which reached our detachment at Gibraltar, was a copy of the 'Morning Post,' which went 'the round' of the officers—i.e.—was perused by all in turn.
We were all seated jovially at the table, in the harbour of Gibraltar; the bright sun was glistening on the waves which ran in long and glassy ripples through the straits; the cabin-windows were open; the cloth had been removed, and the decanters of sherry and full-bodied old port were travelling round the well-polished mahogany on their patent silver waggons. We were idling over nuts and peaches, talking, laughing and making merry on the prospects of the war, when, judge of my emotions, on Major Catanagh, who had entrenched himself behind the open pages of the 'Morning Post,' suddenly raising his head and his voice together—
'Poor Tom Clavering!' he exclaimed; 'he has come to an untimely end at last.'
'How?' asked several, pausing in their conversation; 'Clavering of the Guards—who dined with us at Dumbarton?'
'Brother of Bob Clavering of the 5th? Well?'
'He has come to an untimely end,' continued the major, and my heart felt a pang as the captain's frank and handsome face came before me; but I could neither analyse the major's expression of eye, or my own emotions, as he added,—
'He has gone the way we must all go.'
'Dead!' I exclaimed, as hope mingled with my regret.
'No—married.'
'Married!' echoed several voices.
'As you will hear by this most magniloquent paragraph.'
'Read it, major—all news from home are welcome,' said Jack Belton.
'Married yesterday by the Lord Bishop of Edinburgh.—'
'Who the deuce is he?' asked some one; 'we don't know such dignitaries in Scotland.'
'Never mind, my boy—the "Morning Post" does—Married yesterday, by the Lord Bishop of Edinburgh, Captain Thomas Clavering, second son of the late Sir Anthony Clavering, of Clavering-corbet and Belgrave-square, to Laura, the only and accomplished daughter of Sir Horace Everingham, Bart, and M.P., of Elton Hall, Yorkshire and Glen Ora. The bride was most elegantly attired in white glacé silk, covered with Brussels lace flounces, flowers and a magnificent Brussels lace veil entwined with white roses and orange blossom. She was attended by twelve charming bridesmaids richly arrayed—six in pink and six in white, who unbound their bouquets and strewed the way with flowers before the wedded pair, from the porch of St. John's church to the steps of the carriage.'
'By Jove! there's a peal of bells for you!' said Belton.'
'Think of Tom Clavering having the way before him strewed with flowers.'
'After the ceremony, Sir Horace gave a splendiddéjeunerat his residence in Edinburgh, and at four o'clock the beautiful bride and gallant bridegroom left town,en routefor London, from whence it is said they will follow the Guards to the Crimea in the elegant yacht of Augustus Frederick Snobleigh, Esq., or in theFairy Bell, the well-known yacht of Sir Horace.'
This pompous and inflated notice, which excited much merriment at the mess-table, fell heavily and sorely on me. Every word of it was like a death-knell—yet I loitered calmly and placidly, as old Duncan Catanagh read it with a comical smile in his grey Highland eye, and with a quizzical emphasis on certain portions of it. No one who saw me sitting there, so quietly and so pale (I could perceive my face in an opposite mirror), would have dreamed there was such a hell raging in my heart.
But alas! this world is full of strange fancies and misplaced affections.
Though I was fully prepared or this marriage, the notice of it, so plainly and palpablyin print, was a source of great agony to me; but amid the noise and bustle of the transport, the constant change of scene in the Mediterranean, and the reckless gaiety of those around me—those brave and light hearts, who amid the mud and gore of the rifle-pits were to find 'glory or the grave,' I had fortunately little time left for reflection. Knowing my secret, and sympathising with me, honest Jack Belton, left nothing unsaid or undone to draw me from myself; to wean me as it were from my own thoughts, and to fix my attention more on the events that lay before us than those which were past and irremediable for Jack's maxim, like his favourite song, was ever,—
'To be sad about trifles is trifling and folly,For the true end of life is to live and be jolly.'
All day long, with our revolver pistols, we practised at bottles or old hats slung from the mainyard arm; and in this feat none but Callum Dhu could beat Jack Belton, who had been one of the most successful pupils in our new school of musketry at Hythe. In the evening we had the fine brass band of the Rifles, who gave us the best airs fromIl TravatoreandLa Traviata; then we sang glees on the poop, or danced to the bagpipes on the main-deck, leaving nothing undone to beguile the tedium of a sea-voyage; for thereisa tedium even in the beautiful Mediterranean; and daily we exchanged salutes and cheers with troop-ships and war-steamers, French, British, and Sardinian, returning with sick and wounded men from the land towards which we were hastening.
Many of these vessels were imperial transports, on their way to Marseilles; and they had generally in tow a sailing-vessel, also crowded by the miserable convalescents of Scutari and Sebastopol; and hourly, while they were within sight, we saw the ensign half hoisted, and the dead launched off to leeward—sans shroud or coffin or other covering than their blood-stained uniform, their Zouave cloak, or grey greatcoat, all tattered and torn by the mud of the rifle-pits and toil of the trenches.
After bidding adieu to the Cape de Gata, that long ridge of rocks which lie on the eastern limits of Almeria, and form the last point of Spain, we sighted Tavolaro, a promontory at the southern extremity of Sardinia. On that evening I had some trouble in saving my irritable follower Callum Dhu from being put in irons, for beating a rifleman who had been making fun of his Celtic peculiarities. On, on, we sped, with the smoke from our funnel pouring a long and vapory pennant astern.
We landed the Rifles at Malta, and took on board ten pieces of battering-guns—forty-eight pounders—for the Crimea, and ere long saw a gorgeous sunset deepening on the green Sicilian hills. In due time we were among the countless isles of the Greek archipelago—the Andælat Denhisa (or sea of islands, as it is named by the Turks), with the stern and rocky shore of the Morca frowning on our lee from the deep azure sky of the Levant.
The Ægean was covered with foam, and as we ran through the narrow strait that divides the charming isle of Scio from the vast continent of Asia, the sides of our steamer, the shrouds, our rough coats—even our hair and moustaches, were encrusted with salt from the flying spray, as we sped on past Milo, Hydra, and other isles of a thousand old classic memories; and after passing and saluting the castles of the Dardanelles, bore up for Gallipoli, at thirteen knots an hour, with full steam, and every sail set that would draw fore and aft.
Let not my readers fear that I am about to afflict them with a history either of the war or the siege of Sebastopol, or even with the now-hackneyed description of Constantinople. Fortunately for myself, I never saw either the Malakoff or the Redan, though my regiment did, to its cost; and though quartered in its vicinity, duty or destiny prevented me from seeing much of the far-famed city of Stamboul. We have had enough and to spare of the East and Eastern War of late; thus I mean to confine myself entirely to my own adventures, which will prove more than enough to fill my volume, without the introduction of any extraneous matter.
No French girl, waiting for her lover, was ever more impatient than I to see the enemy, yet it was my fate never to plough the waters of the Euxine.
In company with theMahmoudieh, a small Osmanli steam-brig of ten guns, we had left astern the narrow channel of the Hellespont, and the lights of Gallipoli had sunk into haze and darkness on our larboard quarter, as we steamed, but slowly, into the sea of Marmora.
The night, at first, was calm, but intensely dark, yet on we glided—on, on—over the waste of waters, our almost noiseless speed forming a strange contrast to the silence and sleep of the hundreds on board, who were borne forward through the seething foam and whirling water, as the revolving screw urged on the sharp-prowed frigate—an even course before us, a long white wake of froth astern; no light visible, save a faint ray near the binnacle, or that red and dusky gleam which shoots at times upward from the engine-room, when the iron jaws of the hot furnace are unclosed for a moment, and a flash of fiery radiance falls on the mysterious intricacies of the clanking machinery, and on the dark and swarthy visages of the engineer and his mates.
So thought Belton and I, as we trod the deck together, cigar in mouth, while gliding over the darkened waters of the Propontis.
Our coal was becoming scarce, for after an hour the engines almost ceased, and every stitch of canvas she could carry was set upon the vessel; but this was continued only for a time, as before midnight a gale came on, and the sails were rapidly reduced, and we lost sight of theMahmoudieh, with her crescent and lantern glittering at her foremast-head.
Jack Belton was officer of the watch, and about fifty of our men were on deck in their forage-caps and greatcoats, ready to bear a hand whenever they were required, in working the ship and general deck duty. As he scanned the horizon of the dark sea of Marmora, and saw a peculiar white streak at its utmost verge, Captain Crank swore a few nautical oaths, and bent his piercing solitary eye aloft on every yard and rope and sail, to see, as he said, 'if she drawed properly.'
'What headland is that, now rising like a dark cloud upon our larboard bow?' I inquired, with great suavity, as our skipper was not in a mood to be trifled with.
'Cape St. George—and a d—ned unpleasant place it may prove tous, if the wind shifts, and we find it on our lee,' he answered, in a voice not unlike a growl, as he turned his red and weather-beaten visage to windward. 'How's her head?' he snappishly asked the midshipman of the watch.
'East and by north, sir.'
'Keep her so, and if the wind veers round, call me;' and, with a general scowl round about him, he entered the poop.
As the night waxed older, the seamen, who generally have peculiar and intuitive instincts about the weather—mysterious forebodings which they cannot account for or explain, looked anxiously ahead, as the dark clouds deepened on our ocean path, and the hurrying scud tore the foam from the tops of the lifted billows. The crew seemed restless, and gathered together in whispering groups about the forecastle and lee side of the main deck.
'I think we will have a rough night, sir,' said the middy of the watch, in a low voice, to old Crank, who had come again upon deck.
'And a dangerous one, too,' he answered, adding, to the chief mate, 'let both watches be kept on deck, for I don't think it worth their while to turn in now; double reef the foresail and main-top-sail—quick, Mr. Gasket! Send all the topgallant-yards on deck—handsomely a bit—bravo! Now make all fast, and keep a sharp look out there forward.'
With these words, and a last glance at the compass, in the light of which his red face glowed like a stormy moon, our gallant skipper again descended from the poop and entered his cabin, to consult the chart through the mellowing influence of a glass of stiff brandy grog.
At nine o'clock an order had been given to batten all the port-lids, and ship the dead-lights.
These warnings and precautions detained me long, and somewhat anxiously, on deck, till the bellowing wind and the bitter spray, which showered over the ship like rain, fairly drove me below; but knowing less, or caring less, about the actual risk we ran, after playing chess for an hour or two with Major Catanagh, and hearing some prosy old stories about the Mahrattah war and Bob Clavering of the 5th, I 'turned in,' and wearied by a long day spent in the keen sea-breeze, after a prayer that Laura might be happy though she had deserted me for ever, I was soon fast asleep and dreaming of Sebastopol.
From this comfortable state I was suddenly awakened by a frightful uproar on deck, the bellowing of the wind through the rigging; the creaking of the timbers; the grating and straining of the guns in their lashings; the jarring, swaying, and pitching of the ship, as she rose on one billow, and plunged surging deeply into the dark watery trough of another. The lamp in my cabin swung madly about in its brass slings; at last the crystal globe was clashed to pieces; the light went out, and I was in darkness.
I thought of that dreadful storm in the Euxine, which in the preceding November had nearly destroyed an entire fleet of transports and store-ships, strewing the shores of the Crimea with shattered wrecks and unburied bodies; and with a new sensation of alarm in my heart, I sprang from bed and proceeded to dress; at that moment I heard the excited voice of Jack Belton in the great cabin.
'Gentlemen! gentlemen!' cried he, 'turn out—breakers are ahead! Mac Innon—-Mac Pherson—Major, on deck—on deck, for heaven's sake; the ship will strike in ten minutes!'
The appalling announcement brought every officer from his cabin in such garments as he could grasp and don on the instant; and we hurried to the poop. It was only by clinging to the rail and stanchions that we could retain our footing on the lofty poop, over which the white foam was sweeping. The waist seemed full of water; the strong cordage bent or snapped, and streamed about like whipcord; the foresail, main-topsail, and gib strained and flapped like thunder, for the ship would not obey her helm; four men stood by the wheel, and a chaos of darkness, water, foam, noise, and uproar, were around me; and I had no distinct impression of anything, but that our large ship, borne by the stormy wind and furious current, with all her deck crowded by human beings, was drifting, at the rate of nine knots an hour, towards a line of foam ahead, that marked where the breakers curled on the beach. But what beach—whether it was the classic shore of Roumelia, of Asia Minor, the Isle of Marmora, or the rocks of Coudouri, we knew not, for the binnacle, with its compasses, had been swept away by a wave which made a clean breach over the ship about midnight, sweeping three men away, with the poor middy of the watch.
The black sky was moonless and starless.
I looked upon Major Catanagh, who stood near me shivering, half clad and clinging to a timber-head, his grey hair matted to his face by the drifting spray. Old Duncan was brave as a lion; but he was a husband—he was a father, and from the wild black tumult of the waves that boiled around us—
'His eyesWere with his heart, and that was far away,'
in a little cottage half buried among roses and woodbine, on the western bank of Loch Lomond, where, at that hour so terrible to him, his poor wife lay perhaps sleepless on her pillow, listening to the wind that soughed round the craigs of Ross Dhu, and thinking of him, with their little ones hushed in dreamless slumber around her. Poor Duncan's softer soul was stirred within him. His face was pale; his eyes were stern and sad; and if his spirit quailed in that awful hour, it was not with fear, for he had faced death on many a field.
Those and those only who have been in such a place, where every wave swept some brave soul into eternity, and where every gust of wind bore the cry of despair and the knell of death, can tell what Catanagh felt; and I read his thoughts rightly, for he turned to me abruptly, and warmly pressing my hand, said,—
'Thank heaven, Allan, that you have none left behind you to love or to regret—none to weep for you! no wife to leave to the starvation of a widow's pension—no puir wee ones to cast upon a cold and faithless world!'
I thought more of Laura than of this thankfulness; and as my heart swelled with the bitter knowledge that my fate might never be regretted, all fear and anxiety died away within it. I became totally indifferent, and felt myself really the only unconcerned spectator present.
Callum Dhu having sprung to my side, threw his strong arm round me, as if to break the force of the waves which every instant flooded the deck; several soldiers followed him, and came crowding on the poop, for as death seemed before us, discipline and etiquette seemed alike to be forgotten.
The rudder chains had given way, and the ship was driving alternately broadside and stern on, towards the line of breakers, above which we could discern the outline of a dark and rocky shore.
'She will strike in ten minutes!' cried one of the mates.
The men became excited, and tumultuous cries ascended from the waist.
'Clew up—cut away the masts—lower the boats!'
Then followed shouts, disputes and struggles for spars, booms, and hen-coops.
'Silence fore and aft—silence!' cried old Crank, through his trumpet; 'boatswain, pipe away the barge and cutter—be ready to lower away the boats, man the pumps, and stand by to cut away the masts the moment she strikes!'
'Be cool, Highlanders—be cool, and fall into your ranks, my lads!' cried Major Catanagh, perceiving that the crowding of the soldiers upon the deck impeded the movements of the seamen; 'fall in here across the main-deck: bugler sound the assembly—sound, my boy.'
Long and loudly blew the little bugle-boy the familiar barrack-yard call, and strangely and wildly, at that terrible moment, it rang upon the roaring wind, which seemed to tear the very notes off at the bugle mouth, and sweep them to leeward with the hissing foam.
'Fall in, my lads—fall in, and keep in order. If the boats can save us, we shall be saved the more readily by being in order to leave the ship. If she splits below us, then we shall die in our ranks like British soldiers, and like our father's sons—hoping everything from a gracious God and fearing nothing. Remember your discipline, my lads, and keep up your hearts—mine has not sunk yet, though like many among you, I have a dear wife and bairns at home in Scotland. Close in, shoulder to shoulder, and remember the glorious example of Seton and his Highlanders in theBirkenhead.'
A faint hurrah responded to this brief speech, and like a dark mass in their soaked great coats, the poor fellows immediately formed in their ranks, four deep across the deck in front of the poop, where they stood in silence and in order awaiting either death or deliverance with that calmness and fortitude for which no soldiers in Europe can surpass our own braves.
I took my place on the left flank, and Callum Dhu was close beside me, with a coil of rope in his hand, and a small hen-coop which he had torn from a part of the ship, and which he defended from all by his drawn bayonet; but not for his own use or safety. Amid all the terrors of that awful night, Callum's whole anxiety was for me. The crews of the boats stood by the davits and hoisting-tackles, ready to lower away on the order being given, though there was little hope of either cutter, dingy, or whale-boat living in such a sea. The well was sounded; and now we began to hear the clank of the pumps, while a group of men stood by the masts ready to cut away everything fore and aft; but the carpenter and his mates were saved that trouble, for just as the huge ship surged broadside on among the white breakers, she gave two fearful lurches—there was a shock that made her vibrate from her trucks to her keel, and snapping like a hazel twig, the strong mainmast, though built of Meniel fir, and cramped with forty iron rings, went by the board with a crash like thunder.
The main-topmast of course, and the fore and mizen-topmasts, with all their debris of yards, ropes, blocks and chain-sheets, came clattering down in ruin and confusion among us, killing two men and wounding others. The shrouds snapped like threads, and then all this wilderness of top-hamper was swept away to leeward, and dashed to shreds upon the rocky shore.
Father Neptune and old Æolus had proved alike inimical to us, and thus in a moment did our once-gallant old frigate become a hideous and hopeless wreck, dismasted, defaced, and bulged upon a coast unknown.
The night was as dark as if we were in the bowels of the earth; yet from the whiteness of the foam that covered all the waves which boiled over the ghastly reef, there came a species of reflected light that revealed the horrors of our situation. The wind still blew furiously in fierce and heavy gusts; drenching us with spray; yet there stood our little band in their ranks, orderly and calm, as if upon parade—brave, firm, and God-fearing men—expecting every instant that the ship would go to pieces!
The fall of the masts and top-hamper greatly eased theVestal, and she gave no immediate indications of that general breaking up which we had all so much reason to dread.
'Where are we—on what coast?' was the question we asked of each other a hundred times.
'Daylight will show,' was the invariable answer, and watches were impatiently consulted, and the horizon scanned for the first indication of dawn. Some brandy was hoisted up from below; an allowance per man was served round, and, as old Crank said, 'Never was a raw nip more welcome.'
As the wind lulled on the approach of morning, the sea went down; the spray ceased to deluge the deck, and we all sought our cabins to procure such warm and dry clothing as might have escaped the invasions made by the waves into our premises.
A faint streak that glittered along the far verge of the horizon, marked the quarter of the sky where the sun would appear, and never was its gleam more welcome, for now the storm had completely lulled, and as the ship remained firmly bulged upon the rock, with her lower hold half filled with water, we felt ourselves comparatively safe. An order was given to lower away the boats; and having now fairly escaped the horrors of the shipwreck, we began to look calmly about us.
A flood of saffron light spread over the eastern quarter of the sky; then, radiating like the points of a mighty star, the sun's rays shot upward and played upon the dispersing clouds which turned to deep crimson, and then the sea beneath them seemed to roll in alternate waves of sapphires and rubies, till he rose in all his splendour, and then one long and mighty blaze of dazzling light flashed steadily from the horizon to the shore, filling with a sunny glory all the sea of Marmora.
Now we could perceive the land distant about a mile; the shore was green and fertile; to the eastward rose the towers of an old fortified town, the domes and tall slender minarets of which were glittering in the sun. A little lower down lay a promontory covered with ruins. To the westward was a cape, under the lee of which were a number of Levantine craft with long lateen-yards that tapered away aloft, and their striped or brown shoulder-of-mutton sails, creeping out from the creeks and inlets where they had found shelter during the squall of the past night.
The carpenter reported, that without powerful assistance, there was no possibility of getting the ship off, and as no British, French, or Sardinian steamer was in sight, Crank stamped about the deck in a high state of mental excitement and irritation, while fear of Greek pirates and Natolian robbers, whose armed boats are ever on the prowl in these seas, made Catanagh, at his suggestion, order our men to accoutre and parade with their arms and ammunition on deck, where an inspection was made, and our two hundred Highlanders were found to be in complete fighting order.
'What say you now, Captain?' asked Catanagh; 'do you know the coast?'
'Only too well, Major—it is Roumelia, and we are in the gulf of Salonica.'
'That town on the promontory—'
'Is Heraclea, with the ruins of some old devilish Greek place close by.'
'Then we are on classic ground?'
'Damned deal too classic for my taste!' grumbled Crank; 'we are ashore, sir, on the Palegrossa rocks.'
'Is there a Turkish garrison in Heraclea?'
'Undoubtedly, for there is a population of about seven thousand—principally fishermen—and the town is fortified.'
'All right—let me get my men ashore, and we shall march in. The officer commanding must find us quarters. I long to stretch my legs on dry land again.'
Old Crank proved right; we were really wrecked upon those dangerous rocks which lie about the two little isles of Venetica, in the Bay of Salonica, about ninety miles from the mouth of the Dardanelles, and fifty from Constantinople, by the coast road.
A careful inspection of theVestalproved that our carpenter's idea of getting her safely off, under any circumstances, was quite impracticable. She was firmly wedged and bulged between two masses of rock, and was so seriously injured that even were steam power procured sufficient to drag her into deep water, she would instantly sink. Thus all hope of preserving the shattered hull of our old donkey-frigate was abandoned; and as the sea was now calm, and she might be some weeks of going to pieces, we prepared to hoist up the battery guns, the ship's carronades, the stores, &c., and make other arrangements for disembarking by the boats with all due order and regularity.
Our men were paraded on deck, accoutred in heavy marching order, with their knapsacks, wooden canteens, greatcoats, and haversacks. The luggage, spare arm-chests, and squad-bags, were all brought up from below, and everything in the form of stores, clothing, and articles of value, were prepared for landing. Captain Crank, with Major Catanagh and an interpreter, were pulled ashore in the pinnace, with a well-armed crew, to make arrangements with the Turkish authorities for our reception and transmission to Constantinople.
With considerable interest—if not with some anxiety—we watched them and the pinnace disappear round a wooded promontory; and evening had almost deepened on the land and sea before they returned with intelligence that they had despatched tidings of our situation to the officer commanding at Scutari, and had made arrangements with Mir Alai Said, a Turkish colonel, who commanded in Heraclea, to afford us quarters in the barrack of that town.
We passed that night in the wreck. She was firm and motionless as the rocks on which she lay; but the occasional surging of the sea against her shattered sides, and the gurgling of the water, as it ebbed and flowed in the lower hold, together with the natural fear that some portion of her might give way in the night, kept us all anxious and wakeful; though Jack Belton was the life of our little party, and favoured us with his usual ditty—
'To be sad about trifles is trifling and folly,Since the chief end of life is to live and be jolly.'
Though, like myself, he had only his pay, Jack was the most heedless of all heedless fellows. His father had been ruined, or nearly so, by a plea which had been before the Scottish Lords of Council and Session for the last fifty years; and which, in the hands of an able advocate and sharp-practising agent, like our friend the late-lamented Snaggs, bade fair to go on for another half century.
We idled away the chilly hours, muffled in our cloaks, regimental plaids, and paletots or bernous, à la Bedouin, over cigars, wine, and brandy-and-water, singing songs, telling stories, and practising the Highland feat of sheathing and unsheathing the claymore with both hands turned outwards, and playing other pranks, till again the bright sun of Asia shone upon the sea of Marmora, and after tiffin of biscuit, brandy, and junk, we paraded, to disembark upon the old historic shore of Roumelia.
I went off in the first boat with Mac Pherson (the captain of our Light Company), Jack Belton, Callum Dhu, and about thirty privates. We pulled away clear of the wreck into blue water, and then steered towards the shore, where three Turkish officers, on horseback, were waiting to receive us. After pulling for more than a mile through a sea which shone like burnished gold, and the transparent waves of which enabled us to perceive, at a vast depth below, the rank luxuriance of its dark green weeds, spreading their broad and tremulous leaves over a bed of snow-white sand, we reached the point indicated by Captain Crank as our landing-place. It was a rough and barren part of the coast, where the rocks were piled over each other in confusion, with a coarse bulbous plant, like a crocus, which spread its crooked leaves between the gaping interstices of the stones. No bushes or trees were there; but there were vultures, storks, and cranes, that hovered over the ruins of an old Roman wall, and flapped their wings upon the prostrate columns of a Corinthian temple, that lay half-merged among the waters of the encroaching sea.
As our boat grounded, the three Turkish officers—each of whom wore the scarletfez(which is named from the city of Fez), with its gold military button, the tight blue surtout, and crooked sabre, which make up the invariable costume of all in the service of the Sultan—brought their horses near, and as we sprang ashore, accorded to us the usual military salute; and one—a lieutenant—in very tolerable French, bade us welcome to the land of the Osmanli.
Mir Alai Said and the Mulazim (i.e., lieutenant) Ahmed were both handsome men, with keen Asiatic features, and dark eyes that glittered with somewhat of the cunning expression peculiar to all of Oriental blood; but the third, of whom the reader will hear more in future chapters, the Hadjee Hussein Ebn al Ajuz, was a Yuze Bashi, or captain of artillery, and wore the blue uniform, gold epaulettes, and laced belt and trousers of the corps of Bombardiers. He was a punchy, shaggy-browed, solemn, stately, and sulky-looking old Turk, with a heavy grizzled moustache; a skin of the hue of mahogany, and an eye that seemed to be for ever watching you, and you only. Besides, he spoke a little absurd broken English, which he picked up at Acre, during the war against Mehemet Ali.
While our men were scrambling ashore from the boats, as each in succession came in and grounded, we asked the Mir Alai what were the news from the seat of war?
'We have fought a brave battle on the Ingour,' replied the colonel, rather haughtily, as it is not the etiquette of the Turkish service for juniors to question a senior. 'Omar Pasha, with 20,000 Osmanlis, crossed the river in Mingrelia, in the face of a desperate fire of cannon and musketry; and fighting, with the water up to their armpits, stormed the position from 16,000 Russians, whom they forced to retreat.'
'And the Czar, whom God confound, has left the Crimea,' added the fat Captain Hussein Ebn al Ajuz; 'may the Prophet burn the Russian liars, who eat blood and swine's-flesh, and take usury! May he transform their young men into apes, and their old ones into swine, as he did those who, of old, offered incense to idols!'
'Amaum! Amaum!' muttered the other two, under their thick moustaches.
Mac Pherson, who had served long in India, retained his gravity; but Belton, on catching a twinkle of my eye, laughed aloud at these quaint expressions of hatred, which were uttered in a strong jargon of Turkish and queer French.
'And Kars—does it still hold out?'
'Mashallah! have you not heard?' they exclaimed.
'No—we have been at sea.'
'Kars is valueless as the cleft of a date-stone!' said the Mir Alai.
'Then it has fallen!' we exclaimed together.
'It capitulated through famine to that dog and son of a dog, Mouravieff. The garrison of the brave Ingleez Pasha marched out with the honours of war, and delivered themselves up to the Russians as prisoners; thus 8,000 true Believers are detained; but a number of militia-men have been liberated by Mouravieff, who found in the city one hundred and thirty pieces of cannon.'
'And Sebastopol?'
'Still holds out manfully and desperately,' said the Mir Alai; 'but what do I see?—women coming ashore—and, oh, Mohammed! without the vestige of a yashmack to cover their faces.'
'Your soldiers,' said the Yuze Bashi, 'are kilted like Arnaouts, and all giant in stature as Og the son of Anak. Your Mir Alai says he has two hundred of them—how many wives have they?'
'Four,' said I.
'Four!' reiterated the Mir Alai; 'O, Mohammed! what do we hear?'
'Our government permitted only two women per company in the transport.'
'Four wives for two hundred men!' exclaimed the punchy old Yuze Bashi of the Bombardiers, turning up his round black eyes in wonderment, and gathering the most peculiar ideas from my words; 'one wife for fifty men! It is enough to make every hair in the beards of the seventy imaums stand on end with astonishment!'
'Hush,' whispered the Mir Alai, in a tone of rebuke; 'beware what you say, Hussein; they have come to fight with us against the Muscovites, and may the Prophet—he who knoweth all things—shed a ray of light upon the darkness of their souls!'
'Amaum!' mumbled the lieutenant, who, as in duty bound, applauded all that the Mir Alai said; 'but oh, Allah! onlytwowives per company!'
Leaving a small party under Lieutenant Logan, of ours, to protect the landing of the baggage and stores, accompanied by our three Turkish acquaintances, we forded a stream, with pipes playing and bayonets fixed, and crossing the promontory, marched towards Heraclea, which lies at the bottom of a little bay, and on the land side is defended by walls, though somewhat old and rent; and in a short time we marched in, making its streets of old dilapidated and worm-eaten timber houses; its domed mosques, and tall white-painted minars; its ruined palace of Vespasian; its Greek café; its Jewish bazaar; its whirling windmills; its stony and slippery thoroughfares and old ruins of the Grecian days, ring to the sharp rat-tat of the British brass drum and to the skirl of three great Scottish war-pipes, from the chanters and nine deep drones of which our pipers poured the stirring 'Haughs of Cromdale,' with such effect, that the big-breeched, long-bearded, stupid-looking old Turks, who sat smoking on carpets and platforms at the doors and in the street, with yataghans and pistols in their red-shawl girdles; the lively Greeks, in tarboosh, short jacket, and blue inexpressibles; the sharp-visaged Jews and solemn Armenians, all opened their round black eyes, and threw up their hands in wonder, as we wheeled up towards the fortress in sections of threes, with arms sloped, our tartans waving, and black feathers flaunting in the wind.
A fry of little Osmanli gamins, barelegged, though wearing short wide breeches and the red fez with its long tassel, scampered about us, gamboling, uttering shrill cries of wonder, and styling us Janissaries, Arnaouts, Albanians, Giaours, and anything but Britons; and thus escorted, we reached the spacious Coumbazadjilar-Kislaci, or barrack of the Bombardiers, where a battalion of Turkish infantry was under arms to receive us; and with ranks open, presented arms in a manner which would have done no discredit to any other European troops, their drums beating, and the officers saluting with the edge of their Damascus sabres outwards—as it is turned inward to none but the Sultan himself.
The officers of this battalion had done their best to provide us with a handsome collation—so handsome and luxurious indeed that, after our recent hardship, the very memory of it is enough to make one whistle; and apart from certain peculiarities, we found them very pleasant, quaint, and conversible fellows, though very few of them could boast of education sufficient to entitle them to add the envied appendage ofeffendito their names. Their language, like that of the better class of Osmanli, was a mixture of Persian and Turkish, while that of their soldiers, like the jargon of the peasantry and boatmen of the Bosphorus, was Turkish alone: but in this these Orientals resemble ourselves; for in Britain the language of the educated people is alike distinct from the Scottish tongue and the dialects of the old Saxon.
'Mac Innon, here is to our noble selves!' said Catanagh, in Gaelic. 'How do you like the Roumelian wine?'
'It seems thin and poor.'
'Dioul! but it is more pleasant for you to be drinking it here, than be imbibing sherry-cobblers and cocktail among the Yankees.'
'True,' said I with a sigh, as I thought of the evicted men of Glen Ora.
At this entertainment, the sulky old Yuze Bashi, warmed by the forbidden juice of the grape (of which being animated by our example he partook rather freely, notwithstanding the anathemas of him whose sabre cleft the moon in twain—Mohammed 'the Holy Camel Driver'), seemed to conceive a sudden favour for me, and in his strange jargon of French and Arabic, with a few hiccups between, gave me an account of himself and of the Sultan's service.
He was named, it would appear, Hadjee Hussein Ebn al Ajuz (or the son of the old woman), as his mother had been a cast-off slave of Mehemet Ali, the Viceroy of Egypt; and his paternal parent was supposed to be a certain enterprising corporal of Mamelukes, who died with a bowstring about his neck for borrowing the silver lamps of a mosque at Suez. Little Hussein became a soldier, and fought at the battles of Koniah and Homs, in the war against Mehemet Ali; and in these affairs had cut off various heads, and stowed away innumerable Egyptian ears in the mysterious depths of his red Oriental breeches, all to his own great satisfaction and contentment—as a head was worth a piastre, and a pair of ears sold before Reschid Pasha's tent for ten paras.
At the rout of Koniah he had saved theonlypair of Turkish colours which escaped the furious advance of the Egyptian infantry—viz., those of Scherif Bey's regiment—by stuffing them into his voluminous regimental breeches, wherein various bullets lodged harmlessly thereafter during the retreat; for this and other acts of devotion, he was rewarded by the government of Rodosdchig, a little fortress a few miles from Heraclea; and after making the pilgrimage, partly by steamer, to Mecca; after drinking of the Zemzem well, and of that which flows at Midian where Moussa watered the flocks at Jethro, and rolled from its mouth a stone which the united strength of Jethro's seven shepherds failed to move; after kissing the holy Kaaba, and flinging a few stones at an imaginary devil, he returned in a mingled state of beer and beatitude to his fortress. There, since 1842, he had spread his carpet, reposed in the lap of a charming odalisque, and smoked his chibouque in contentment and peace; and there—nathless his being a Hadjeè, and the builder of a little gilt mosque—he drank and swore like any enlightened Christian of the western world.
Fat, cunning as Lucifer, sensual as a sybarite, and intensely illiberal, he was a fair specimen of the old Turk of the worst kind; and if the curve be the line of beauty, then the shins of Hussein, like those of most Osmanlies, were perfection. His ears were set high on his head; his forehead was low and narrow; his eyebrows nearly met, and thus betokened a cruel and revengeful nature. He gave me, however, a little insight into the economy of military life in the sultan's service.
'Our regiments,' said he, 'all consist of four battalions, and each battalion is commanded by a cole agassi (major), and has one standard. A colonel or lieutenant-colonel commands the whole, with one great standard—the banner of the prophet—upon whose name be glory! Each battalion has its squad of slaves, who carry water on the march and bear the wounded from the field of battle. So strict is the etiquette maintained in our service by officers, that they never dine with subordinates in rank; hence the jovial messes of Frangistan excite only our wonder; and to see a great Mir Alai, who commands four thousand bayonets, drinking wine with a poor little devil of an ensign, would astound the whole Turkish army. Even in the street a superior officer always walks half a pace before an inferior; thus I have seen five officers all walking along a street at once inechelon, and maintaining a conversation at the same time. None among us wear beards under the rank of general—with a few exceptions. A junior officer always rises and salutes a senior on the latter entering a room, and cannot seat himself again without his permission, or appear before him without his fez, belt, and sabre. Our Turkish privates receive about four shillingsIngleezper month; but our lord the Sultan provides for their food and clothing over and above their pay.'
I thanked the old fellow for this information, which did not impress me highly with the position of an officer under his Majesty Abdul-Medjid; and after a time Jack Belton and I, tired of the entertainment, and of hearing lamentations for the fall of Kars, and description of a palace of silver—solid silver—which the Sultan was to build in London when he visited the Queen of the Ingleez; so, carefully loading our revolvers, and placing them in our belts, we took our regimental swords and dirks, and set forth for a ramble in the dusk, regardless of the warnings of Catanagh and the Mir Alai Saïd, who told us that strangers were never safe from assassination and robbery after sunset. However, we took with us Callum Dhu, who, in addition to his bayonet, carried a heavy cudgel cut in the wood ofCoilchro; and a regular adventure of some kind—no matter what—was the very thing we required to enliven us a little, after our long sea-voyage, and our recent bibulousdéjeûnéwith the Turkish officers.
When off duty, honest Callum was seldom a moment from my side. The Gael have a proverb, which says, 'affectionate to a man is his friend, but a foster-brother is the life-blood of his heart;' and faithful as one of my own blood could have been, was the gallant Mac Ian to me!
As we stumbled along the narrow and muddy streets, we soon remarked the total absence of everything that resembled a petticoat, for the Turkish females in their hideous wide pantaloons and ghostly yashmacks were unlike aught that was human, as they flitted among the few shops which the town contained. The sun had long since set, and the night was dark. There is no twilight in Turkey, where the sunshine and darkness succeed each other suddenly at certain seasons.
'I miss nothing so much here as the petticoat, God bless it!' said Belton, 'for you must allow, Allan, that it is a very interesting and somewhat mysterious garment.'
'Charmingly so! and the more its amplitude, the more its mystery,' said I.
'I don't half like those abominable Turkish trousers on the women; but it is the very devil never to see their faces! We will get over that difficulty somehow—for to be sad about trifles——'
'Hush, for heaven's sake, don't sing here like a wandering Arab,' said I, interrupting the invariable song (that Jack gave us nightly with the third allowance of wine) as we found ourselves before an illuminated Khan.