[*] "There is but one God, and Mahomet is his Prophet."The poor miller and his daughter were torn asunder, and the former was driven by blows from the house of the vaivode; while Magdhalini, whom he was never more permitted to see, was taken again to the house of the cole-agassi. By Turkish law, such as it is, any commissioned officer who kills a man is liable to five years' slavery in chains, and service as a private hereafter; but the abduction of a Greek girl, though a rajah, or Christian subject of the Porte, was a very trivial affair—much less than stealing a terrier in the streets of London. The foreign Consuls took up the matter, and redress was sought of the Stamboul effendi, or chief of the police at Constantinople, but sought in vain. The Bishop of Gallipoli applied to the Skeik Islam, also without avail.The Sheik is a very awful personage, who combines in his own person the greatest offices of religion, together with the supreme power of the civil law. Every new measure, even to naming the streets and numbering the houses of filthy Stamboul, requires his sanction. The Sultan alone has the power of life and death over the Sheik Islam, who can neither be nobly bowstrung, nor ignobly beheaded, and he enjoys the peculiar prerogative of being pounded to death in a mortar. A word from the Sheik would have restored Magdhalini to her father; but Hadjee Mehmet, the ex-tiruaktzy, had once operated on his holy nails, so a deaf ear was turned to the prayer of the infidel Bishop, who was seeking the dove in the net of the fowler long after we had taken our departure for Varna; and, until the memorable day of Balaclava, I saw no more of the infamous Hadjee Mehmet.CHAPTER XXX.Let me see her once again!Let her bring her proud dark eyes,And her petulant quick replies;Let her wave her slender hand,With its gesture of command,And throw back her raven hairWith the old imperial air;Let her be as she was then—The loveliest lady in all the land—Iseult of Ireland.Ere the course of events added to the distance which already lay between me and Great Britain, I resolved to write to Lady Louisa. I could no longer endure the torture of suspense, combined with absence and gathering doubt. In common parlance, ages seemed to have elapsed instead of weeks since the day we marched for embarkation, and when I beheld her for the last time; and thus, notwithstanding our strange compact that there should be no correspondence between us, I wrote to her, even at the hazard of the letter falling into the hands of her I dreaded most—proud, stately, cold, and unsympathetic "Mamma Chillingham."It was about the middle of May, the day before we were to embark again, for now the Allies were to advance to Varna; and while I wrote, and in thought addressed Louisa, her presence seemed to come before me in fancy, and the inner depths of heart and soul were stirred with a jealous love and sorrowful tenderness that were almost unendurable; but a summons from Colonel Beverley, regarding the baggage and squad-bags of my troop, cut short my epistle in a very matter-of-fact way, and I despatched Pitblado with it to the military post-office. In that letter I sent brief remembrances to Fred Wilford's sister, and to many of our friends; but of the newly-made marquis I could not trust myself to write, though I had no doubt as yet of Louisa's faith and truth. That night a letter came to me from Cora, the first I had received since we landed at Gallipoli. She and Sir Nigel had returned to Calderwood, and had just come back from the Lanarkshire steeplechases."Oh, Newton," she continued, "how anxious and frightened we have been, for we heard that cholera had broken out in the British camp, and we trembled for you—dear papa and I. (There was no doubt the "we" did not include Louisa, at all events.) Do you think of us and quiet Calderwood Glen—of the old house, of papa, and of me? Are the Oriental ladies so beautiful as we have been told? One reads so much about their veiled forms, their brilliant eyes, and so forth. Tell us what you have seen of all this—the mosques, the harems, and the Golden Horn. You have seen everything, of course."There was nothing in Cora's letter that either flattered my passion or soothed my apprehension. Chillingham Park was never once mentioned, and I could only gather from its abrupt passages and assumed playfulness that she still loved me, tenderly, truly, and hopelessly. There were times when, in her dreams—I learned all this long after, when the present had become the past, and could be recalled no more—there were times when, in imagination, she saw Newton Norcliff, safe from wounds and war, at Calderwood—hers, and hers only—a prize of which none could rob her, not even the brilliant Louisa Loftus; and in her sleep, tears of happiness stole down her poor, pale cheeks.Newton was her cousin, her kinsman, her early playmate and boy lover, her idol, and her hero! What right, then, had this stranger, this Englishwoman, this mere Acquaintance, to seek to rob her of him? But she could not do so now. Newton was Cora's, and in her dreams he was her lover and her husband, of whom she prayed only to be worthy and more deserving still; and so the poor girl would dream on till morning came—the chill, gusty morning of autumn, when the brown leaves were swept by the cold eastern blast against the windows of the old manor-house, and down the wooded glen; and with that chill morning would come the bitter consciousness that it was all a dream—a dream only, and that he whom she prayed for, and loved so hopelessly, was far, far away in the land of the savage Tartars, exposed to all the perils of the Crimean winter and of the Russian war, and that amid them he was thinking, not of her but of another! But to resume my own story. Berkeley, who had been on the sick list since our arrival at Gallipoli, was reported fit for duty on the morning we embarked for Varna. Most of the British troops were ordered there, or to Scutari, while the mass of our allies were to remain about the coast of the Dardanelles. On this morning, however, I saw the 2nd Zouaves march, as Studhome said, "with all their ladies of light virtue and boxes of heavy baggage," for embarkation; and they presented a stirring spectacle, those swarthy, lithe, and black-bearded fellows, their breasts covered with medals won in battles against Bou Maza, and other sheiks of the Arab tribes, and their faces bronzed almost to negro darkness by the hot sun of Africa.Their turbans and baggy breeches of scarlet gave them a very Oriental aspect; but their swinging gait and rollicking air, together with the remarkably free-and-easy manner in which they "marched at ease," and the songs they sang, announced them all sons ofla belle France; and, singularly enough, every second or third file had a pet cat perched on the top of his knapsack. The tricolor was decorated with laurel; their long brass trumpets played a strange and monotonous, but not unwarlike measure, to which they all stepped in rapid time; and in the intervals of the music many of them joined in a song, which was led by Mademoiselle Sophie, who was ridingà la cavalierat their head, in rear of the staff, with her little brandy-keg slung over her left shoulder.I caught just a verse as she passed; but I frequently heard her sing the same song at a future time—Vivandière du régiment,C'est Catin qu'on me nomme,Je vends, je donne, et bois gaiment,Mon vin et mon rogomme.J'ai le pied leste et l'oeil mutin.Tin-tin, tin, tin, tin, tin, r'lin tin-tin.J'ai le pied leste et l'oeil mutin.Soldats, voilà Catin!Above all other voices, I could hear that of her friend, or lover, Jules Jolicoeur, most lustily—Soldats, voilà Catin!as he marched along with his hands in his pockets, and his musket slung butt uppermost. Our transport was taken in tow by a war steamer. Thus our progress through the Sea of Marmora was rapid. We passed Constantinople in the night, to our great regret; and as no part of it, save the palace of the Sultan, was then lighted with gas, it was involved in darkness and silence. At least, we heard only the voices of the patrols, and the barking and howling of the thousands of homeless dogs which prowl through the streets. Being unclean, they are never domesticated; yet their litters are never destroyed, and they feed on the offal of the houses, or on the headless trunks that are at times washed up from the Golden Horn. Next day, as we proceeded up the Bosphorus, a swift (Clyde-built) Turkish steamer was running ahead of us; and we remarked that, whenever she passed a fort or battery, the standard with the star and crescent was immediately hoisted, and a trumpet was heard to sound.At the Castle of Roumelia, and such places, we saw the slovenly Turkish guards getting under arms, and also that on each occasion the standards were dipped or lowered to half-mast three times. This indicated that the ship had on board a pasha of three tails, or one of equal rank, whose standard was flying at the foremast-head; and soon after we learned that he was the munadjim bashee, or chief astrologer, one of the first officers of the seraglio, and always consulted by the Sultan Abd-ul-Medjid. No public work was ever undertaken until he declared the stars to be propitious; and now he was steaming ahead to see how they looked at Varna! By the letter I had despatched from Gallipoli, I had, to a certain extent, relieved my mind, as I concluded that at Varna I should receive the answer, and that then all my suspense and anxieties would end, in the course of a few weeks at latest.Against the strong current which sets in from the Black Sea, and which runs at the rate of four miles an hour down the Bosphorus, we steamed steadily on; and as the wind was fair, our transport carried a tolerable spread of canvas. Our sail was a delightful one! The weather was calm, and the scenery and objects on the European and Asian shores were ever changing and attractive. The abrupt angles and bends of the coast seemed to convert the channel into a series of seven charming inland lakes of the deepest blue—there being seven promontories on one side, and seven bays on the other, each bay running into a fertile valley, clothed with the richest foliage of the Oriental clime; and amid that waving foliage rose the quaint and fantastic country dwellings of the wealthy Frankish, Greek, or Armenian merchants of Stamboul, with their painted kiosks, gilded domes, and towering minarets, tall, white, and slender.On the left or European shore, the whole panorama was a succession of beautiful villages, terraced gardens, and groves of chestnut, plane, and lime trees, with here and there long, sombre, and solemn rows of gigantic cypresses and poplars. On the right or Asian shore, the objects of Nature were of greater magnitude. The groves became forests, and the hills swelled into mountains; and, towering over Brussa, rose Olympus, "high and hoar," covered with laurels and other evergreens to its summit.Under a salute of cannon from the Castle of Europe, and still preceded by our Turkish friend, the astrologer with three tails, we hauled up for Varna, giving a wide berth to the dangerous Cyanean rocks, between which Jason steered the Argonauts in equally troublesome, but more classic, times.From thence a run of about one hundred and fifty miles brought us to the low flat shore of Varna, where, on the 28th of May, we were all landed without accident or adventure, and placed under canvas among the rest of the troops. The aspect of Varna from the bay was somewhat depressing. Rising from a bank of yellow sand, a time-worn rampart of stone, ten feet high, loop-holed and painted white, encloses the town on its four sides, each of which measures somewhat more than a mile. This old wall had witnessed the defeat and death of Uladislaus of Hungary, by the troops of the Padishah Amurath II., and it yet bore traces of the cannon-shot of the Scoto-Russian Admiral Greig, who bombarded Varna in 1828.Before the walls lies a ditch, twelve feet deep, and over both frown a number of heavy guns, which I found to be chiefly sixty-eight pounders; and over all rose the countless red-tiled roofs of the houses, with the slender white minarets and round leaden domes of the mosques, looking like wax-candles by the side of inverted sugar basins. Beyond, in the distance, stretched far away to the base of wooded hills the flat Bulgarian shore.Painted with various colours, the tumble-down and rickety houses were all of wood, and exhibited a rapid state of dilapidation and decay. Prior to our arrival, the silence must have been oppressive. Save when a swallow twittered under the broad eaves, when a saka (or water-carrier), with his buckets suspended from a leather belt, shambled along, slipshod or barefoot, with water for sale, a hamal (or porter), laden with his burden, or when the wild dog that lay panting on a heap of festering offal uttered a hoarse growl, no sight or sound of life was there, when the fierce sun of unclouded noon blazed down into the narrow and tortuous streets. The place exhibited only Turkish filth, inactivity, and stupidity, till the arrival of the Allies, when its wooden jetties opposite the principal gate became piled up with munitions of war—bales, tents, tumbrils, and cannon; its roadstead crowded with war-ships, transports, and gunboats, under sail or steam; its bazaar filled by regimental quartermasters, cooks, and caterers, or soldiers' wives in search of food, &c.; its five gates held by military guards—the merry Zouave, the grave and stern Scottish Highlander, the showy Coldstream, or the sombre rifleman.Then its streets became literally alive, and crowded with the British, who came by sea, and the French, who came pouring over the Balkan. Their silence was broken by the sharp beat of the brass drum, and the sound of the ringing bugle every hour or more, and by the measured tramp of feet, as detachments on every imaginable duty marched to and fro between the camps, the town, and harbour, scaring the wild dogs from the streets, and the kites from the roofs and mosque domes, who were alike unused to such unwonted bustle and activity.Crowds of Turks and Bulgarians, wearing caps of brown sheepskin, short jackets of undyed wool, and wide white trousers, with vacant wonder surveyed us, as brigade after brigade came on shore, our horse, foot, and artillery; while the little dark Arabs of the Egyptian contingent viewed with something akin to awe our brigade of Foot Guards, whose personal bulk and stature, with their white epaulettes and black bearskin caps, made them seem the veritable sons of Anak to those shrivelled children of the desert.Amid the crash of military music, the glitter of arms, and the waving of silken colours, as regiment after regiment marched to its camping-ground, were to be seen the woebegone, helpless, miserable, and, in some instances, still seasick wives of our soldiers, hurrying wearily after their husbands' battalions, carrying bundles or children, sometimes both, while other scared little ones were trotting by their side, and holding by their ragged and tattered skirts; but there was one soldier's wife who appeared to European and Oriental eyes under very different auspices."All these marvels reached a climax," says a writer,[*] "when a boat from theHenri IV., rowed by six dashing French sailors, in snow-white shirts and coquettish little glazed hats, stuck with a knowing air on the side of their heads, shot up alongside the landing-place, and in the stern appeared the Earl and Countess of Errol—the former an officer in the rifles, and the latter intent upon sharing the campaign with her husband. I think the old civil pasha (mussellemof the city?), who was seated on a chair at a little distance, scarcely knew whether he was on his head or his heels when the lady was handed up out of the boat, and made her appearance at the town gate, with a brace of pistols in a holster at her waist, and followed by a Bulgarian porter, with a shoal of reticules, carpet-bags, and books, and taking everything as coolly as if she were an old soldier. The whole party followed the rifles to the field, and the countess is at the present moment living under canvas."[*] In theDaily News.This lady, who excited so much attention was Eliza, Countess of Errol, and her husband—as my uncle would have reminded me—was hereditary high constable of Scotland; as such, first subject in the kingdom, and of old leader of the feudal cavalry. Now he was a simply major in the Rifle Brigade, and was after severely wounded at the Alma. Undeterred by the miseries which he saw the soldiers' wives enduring, Sergeant Stapylton, of my troop, had the courage to take unto himself a wife in this land of the Prophet; but the fate which threw her in his way was somewhat remarkable, and made some noise at the time. It came about thus:—The wife of a soldier of the 28th Regiment, when proceeding through the corn-fields from our camp to market in Varna, and perhaps considering how far her little stock of money might go in the purchase of dainty soochook sausages and cabaubs of herbs, for the delectation of herself and Private John Smith, was surprised to find herself addressed in tolerable English by a Greek female slave, who was at work among the corn, weeding it of the brilliant poppies.Though fairer skinned than the women of that country, she had the appearance of a woman of Bulgaria. On her head a cylindrical bonnet, of harlequin pattern, was tied by a white handkerchief under her chin. She wore a short black gown, with a deep scarlet flounce, on which were sewn ornamental pieces of variously-coloured stuffs: a broad scarlet sash, elaborately needleworked, girt her waist; a few coins, of small value, were woven into her hair, which was of a rich brown hue, and hung in profusion over her shoulders, and on her wrists were bracelets of crystal. She wore the costume of a peasant girl, and her features were soft and pleasing—even pretty, though very much sunburnt.In English she begged the soldier's wife to give her a mouthful of water from a vessel she carried, saying that she "was sorely athirst, and weary with her work in the field."Now, Mrs. John Smith, of the 28th Foot, was greatly surprised on hearing this humble and gentle request made in the language of her native England, by one who seemed to all intents and purposes a Bulgarian. She entered into conversation with the stranger, and discovered that she was actually English by birth and blood, and a native of Essex!She related that her father had been a merchant captain of London, who, after her mother's death, had taken her with him in a vessel on a voyage to the Levant, where they were captured by a Greek pirate. She was then a mere child. Her father and his crew were put to death, their vessel plundered, and then set on fire, in the Gulf of Sidra, and destroyed. Her captor, a thoroughpaced old rascal, had now settled, with all his ill-gotten gains, as a small landowner, on the shore of the Bay of Varna, where she was still his bondswoman—his slave.The soldier's wife begged the girl to follow her, and take refuge in the British camp, and she was about to comply, when the appearance of her master or owner, a fierce-looking old fellow, clad in a jacket and cap, both of brown sheepskin, his sash bristling with knives, yataghans, and pistols, altered her feeble resolution; and though the wife of Private Smith shook her gingham umbrella with vigour, and threatened him with the "p'leece," and the main-guard to boot, he, nothing daunted, replied only by a contemptuous scowl, and dragging the slave girl into his house, secured the door.It chanced luckily, however, that Sergeant Stapylton, of ours, with a mounted party of ten lancers, was returning along the Silistria road—where he had been sent in search of forage—and to him the soldier's wife appealed, and detailed what had taken place. He at once surrounded the house, and demanded the girl, in what fashion or language I know not; but he made the proprietor aware that fire or sword hung over him if she was not surrendered instantly.Armed to the teeth, the Greek appeared at the door, and threatened him with thevaivodeof the district, and thekaimakan, or deputy of the Pasha of Roumelia, and of various other dignitaries; but Stapylton put the point of his lance to the throat of the old pirate, who found in it an argument so irresistible, that he at once gave up the girl, whom our fellows brought with them in triumph to the camp, where a subscription was made for her, and she was a nine days' wonder; and that this little bit of romance might not be without itsfinale, she ultimately became the wife of Sergeant Stapylton.Our regiment was encamped eighteen miles distant from Varna, in the lovely vale of Aladyn, surrounded by forests of the finest timber, where the springs of water were numerous and pure, and where the grass and verdure were of the richest description; yet there it was that disease—the fell cholera and dysentery—broke out among us, and decimated our ranks more surely and more severely than the Russian bullets could have done. But amid their horrors folly ever found its way; and several of our people, French and British, got into scrapes with the Bulgarian and Turkish damsels, especially the latter, who are rather prone to intrigue, notwithstanding the dangers attendant on it, in such a land of jealousy and the prompt use of arms. Perhaps theyashmac, and the mystery it gave to their faces, of which the ever brilliant eyes alone were visible, and the mouth—usually its worst feature—was hidden, had much to do with this.By the Koran, aged women alone are permitted to "lay aside their outer garments, and go unveiled." A very old history of Constantinople—Delamay's, I think—relates that a pasha, remarkable for the size and ugliness of his nose, married, before the kadi, a lady who, on being unveiled, proved to his great disgust to be exceedingly plain."To whom, of all your friends," she asked, with her most winning smile, "am I to show my face?""To all the world," said he; "but hide it from me!""My lord, patience," she whispered, humbly."Patience have I none!" he exclaimed, wrathfully."Allah kerim!you must have a great deal of it to have borne that great nose so long about you," she retorted, as she hurled her slipper at his head.A pair of dark and brilliant eyes, sparkling through the folds of a fine white muslinyashmac, were very nearly the means of ridding me of Berkeley, and the impending duel, while we lay at Varna.He and Frank Jocelyn, of my troop, a smart and handsome young fellow, whilom the prime bowler and stroke oar at Oxford, as good-hearted and open-handed a lad as any in the service, began an intrigue with two Turkish damsels, whom they found at prayer before anaekie, or Mahommedan wayside chapel, and whom they followed home to a kiosk in the vale of Aladyn.Their love affair did not make much progress, being simply maintained by tossing oranges in the dusk over a high wall, which was furnished with a row of vicious-looking iron spikes. The oranges of Jocelyn and Berkeley contained notes written in French and Italian, of which the girls could make nothing, of course, the language of the educated Turks being a mixture of Turkish, Persian, and Arabic, the former being spoken by the peasantry alone; so the ladies responded by oranges, in which flowers were stuck, till on the fourth or fifth night, in reply to a very amatory epistle, souse came over the garden wall an iron six-inch shell, with its fuse burning!Our Lotharios had only time to throw themselves flat on the ground, when it exploded in the dark with a dreadful crash; but without hurting either of them, and they retired, somewhat crestfallen, while hearing much loud laughter and clapping of hands within the garden wall. After this rough hint, they went no more near the ladies, who proved to be the wife of ayuse bashi, or captain of Turkish artillery, and her female slave.While the months we wasted so fruitlessly at Varna crept slowly away, there occurred to me a singular adventure—in fact, one so remarkable in its import, and in reference to the future, that it still makes a deep impression upon me; and this episode I shall detail in the following chapter.CHAPTER XXXI.So gaze met gaze,And heart saw heart, translucid through the rays,One same harmonious universal law,Atom to atom, star to star can draw,And heart to heart. Swift darts, as from the sun,The strong attraction, and the charm is done.THE NEW TIMON.To the letter I wrote Louisa from Gallipoli no answer was ever returned.Had it reached her, or been intercepted, and by whom?I began to associate Berkeley—groundlessly, certainly—with her singular silence. All my former animosity to him returned; but, for the personal safety of the survivor, our strangely deferred meeting could not take place till we found ourselves in the vicinity of the enemy. I feared, too, that he might discover how completely she had ignored—or, to all appearance, forgotten—my existence. To me there was pure gall in the idea that he should have cause for triumph in suspecting it.I constantly wore her engagement ring—the pearl with the blue enamel. Did she gaze on my Rangoon diamond as frequently as I did on the tiny gold hoop which once encircled her finger, and had hence become a holy thing to me? I was now beginning to fear that she did not.The past had but one feature, one which every thought and memory seemed metaphorically to hinge; and the future but one object—the same—around which every hope was centred—Louisa. Viâ the Bosphorus, the mail steamers came puffing regularly into Varna Bay. They seemed to bring letters to all but me, and gradually my heart became filled by anxiety and fear.Louisa might be ill—dead! I thrust aside that thought as impossible; I must have heard of so terrible a calamity from Cora, or from Wilford, who was in constant correspondence with his sister.Her answer to my Gallipoli letter might have miscarried. Why her letter alone? Those of my uncle and of cousin Cora came at the requisite time, and in course of post. Could it actually be that Louisa was forgetting me? Her last look—her eyes so full of grief—her last kiss, so full of tremulous tenderness, forbade this fear, and yet it was passing strange that neither Cora nor Sir Nigel ever mentioned her in their correspondence with me.I frequently prayed that her love might be as lasting in her as it proved agonizing to me.Studhome knew my secret. To conceal from him that I was miserable was impossible, but honest Jack's advice "to take heart of grace—to remember that there were as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it, that—"'There were maidens in Scotland more lovely by far,Who would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar,'"and a great deal more to the same effect and purpose, proved but sorry comfort and counsel.On a Saturday evening I had tiffed with him in his tent. We had no second parade or anything to do. He vowed that he was tired of his studies, which generally consisted of theRacing Calendar, Hart's "Annual Army List," "White's Farriery," and the "Field Exercise and Evolutions for the Cavalry," varied byPunchandBell's Life, so we ordered our horses, and rode to Varna, the variety and unwonted bustle of which afforded the means of amusement and relief, after the quiet and monotony of our camp in the green wooded vale of Aladyn.We put up our horses at an old rickety Turkish khan, which an enterprising French sutler had turned into a species of hotel, for over the door a gay signboard, painted in tricolour, informed us that it was "Le restaurant de l'Armée d'Orient, pour messieurs les officiers et sous-officiers."There we had a bottle of excellent Greek wine, in a large whitewashed room, full of French officers, of every branch of the service and of all ranks, who received us with great politeness. They were all smoking cigarettes, chatting, laughing, playing chess or dominoes, and reading theMoniteurorCharivari, which last caricatured the Russians as unmercifully as our good friendPunchever did.Their gaiety andétourdifashion of quizzing the women who passed drew many a scowl of wonder and reprehension from the turbaned, shawled, and solemn Turks, for few of the believers took kindly to "the sons of perdition who had come to aid them and the Vicar of God—the refuge of the world—from the Muscovite dog," as one was heard to say; "and at the behest of a queen—a woman—Allah razolsum!" he added, with special reference to us."What a change all this is from our recent barrack life at Maidstone," said Studhome. "We see such strange scenes—a new world here.""For our used-up guardsmen and hussars, who have been hitherto bored by the mere aimlessness and emptiness of their lives, our friend, the Emperor Nicholas, has certainly provided that which Sir Charles, inUsed Up, would call a 'new sensation,' and a little healthy excitement."A young sous-lieutenant of Zouaves was particularly vehement and droll in describing a certain Egyptian magician, who had shown some wonderful things to him and his friends. His words seemed to excite much laughter, and, on drawing nearer, I discovered him to be Jules Jolicoeur, the Zouave, who had now been promoted to the rank of second-lieutenant in his regiment, in the ranks of which the cholera had already made sad ravages."Monsieur Jolicoeur," said I; "a magician, do you say?""Peste!you know my name," said he, smiling, while he pirouetted about and twirled his moustache."I have to congratulate you on your promotion. Better this than poring over Lemartinière, Ambrose Paré, and so forth, at the Ecole de Médecin, eh?""Parbleu, monsieur!how do you come to know all this?" he asked, with pardonable surprise."Perhaps I am a magician too," said I, laughing. "But this Egyptian of whom you tell us—he is a juggler, I presume?""Jouer—joueuse de gobelets, you mean? Oh, no. In a little water or ink, poured into the hollow of your hand, he will show you the face of any friend you most desire to see. It is miraculous.""Diable!" exclaimed Victor Baudeuf, a well-decorated captain of a French line regiment; "then he shall show me Mogador."The name of this well-known French dancer elicited a burst of laughter; but Jolicoeur said—"Monsieur, you should call her Madame la Comtesse de Chabrillan!""And where the devil ismonsieur le Comte?" asked Baudeuf, with a grimace."At the gold-fields, having spent his fortune twice on the girl.""Well, to a wife in Paris a husband at the gold-fields is just as valuable as no husband at all.Très bon! I shall see pretty Mogador, if your magician has any skill.""And where does your magician hang out?" asked Studhome."Hang—hang—il mérite la corde, you mean, monsieur?" asked the puzzled Frenchman."No, no; where is he to be found?""Monsieur le magicienholds a spiritual séance to-night," observed a French hussar, whose gorgeous dolman was almost sword-proof with silver lace."Très bon!" exclaimed another; "there are twenty girls in Paris I want to see.""What is his time, Jules?""Eight o'clock.""'Tis but twenty minutes from that now.""We shall go too," said Studhome, "and have our fortunes told; it will be as good a lark, monsieur, as any other.""Lark—aloutte—oh, yes,très bon!" replied Jolicoeur, with a good-natured smile, though quite at a loss to understand why the bird was referred to."My fortune has often been told me, Newton, by gipsies, at Maidstone and Canterbury. By no two alike; but it was magnificent, according to the fee I gave, and always droll. We shall see what this astrologer—a real magician—has to show us.""If he shows us Louisa Loftus, Jack, I'll forfeit a year's pay!""Come, messieurs, to the séance," shouted Jolicoeur, as he buckled on his sabre. "I wish to see Mademoiselle Sophie of ours, who has gone to Constantinople.""And I Mogador," said Captain Baudeuf, "the delicious little dancer at the Mabille.""And I Rose Pompon!" exclaimed the hussar, tying the cords of his silver dolman. "Rose, the heroine of a thousand flirtations.""Mogador, the empress of ten thousand hearts," added the captain."Hearts such as thine,mon camarade," said the hussar, laughing."And Fleur d'Amour," added another heedless fellow, "the Queen of the Tourlurous!"[*][*] Camp phrase for the French linesmen."Ah, mon capitaine," said Jules. "Peste!what arouéit is. He has made as many conquests as our good friend Don Juan, in the delightful opera which bears his name.""Beware!" said the other, with a mock frown; "I'm an ace of diamonds man with the pistol, Jules.""Bah! Your pistol will never be levelled at me. Have a cigarette?""Thanks. As for Mogador, her silk tights were a study at the Mabille, and the grace with which she showed her feet and ankles——""Cordieu, mon ami!we haven't a man in the 2nd Zouaves who has not appreciated that generous exhibition to the utmost. I hope she'll appear in Baudeuf's hand as Diana, or the chaste Lucretia!" said Jolicoeur.These remarks elicited roars of laughter from the gay Frenchmen."By Jove, Newton," whispered Studhome, "our fair friends will be conjured up in odd company. These fellows are naming the most notoriouslorettesin Paris!"With a prodigious clatter of swords and spurs, we all quitted the restaurant together for the residence of the magician; and Lieutenant Jolicoeur, who seemed disposed to fraternize with us, informed me that this personage, who was making so much noise in Varna, was a native of Al Kosair, on the Egyptian coast of the Red Sea, and that he was now chief hakim, or senior surgeon, of the 10th Battalion of Egyptian Infantry, which formed a portion of the Viceroy's contingent with the Turkish army. So we looked forward with some interest to the interview, as he had a high reputation among the Osmanlees for the marvels he produced, and was faithfully believed.After an interview, this magician strongly reminded me of the Sooltan described by Lane, in his "Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians."If in England, at this hour, so many persons believe implicitly in table-turning, spirit-rapping, mesmeric slumber, and mesmeric mediums, and many other outrageous whim-whams, it can surely be no wonder that the poor, ignorant soldiers of the Turkish and Egyptian armies should believe in the magic powers of the hakim Abd-el-Rasig, who, by the medium of another human soul, could show them whether their friends, their fathers, and mothers, at Gaza, at Cairo, or on the banks of the Nile, were still in the land of the living, as clearly as if they peeped through the magical telescope of the favoured prince in the fairy tale.It was just about the period of which I write that the public of the modern Athens—that happy city of bibacious saints and briefless Solons—was electrified by a series of letters which appeared in one of her journals, signed by a tolerably well-known historian, occupying, however a lucrative legal position, to the effect that "he possessed a peculiar medium," of whose person and spirit he had such entire mesmeric control that he had sent the latter to the Arctic regions, in search of Sir John Franklin, whom she saw, accoutred with cocked hat and quadrant, seated sorrowfully on a heap of snow; next, that he had sent her on a visit to one of Her Majesty's ships in the West Indies, where she pryed into the savoury secrets of the midshipmen's berth; and, not content with these wonderful voyages, he actually announced that he sent her spirit to heaven to visit his friends, and a much warmer climate to visit his enemies; and this blasphemous rubbish and mid-summer madness found believers in the Scottish capital, though it excited the laughter of the masses; but one night the fair medium, "being hot with the Tuscan grape, and high in blood," or having imbibed over much alcohol, fairly unmasked the would-be Northern Balsamo as a dupe and fool, by forgetting to play her assumed character."Allons, mes camarades!" said Jules, placing his arm through mine and Studhome's; "we shall all face this Cagliostro together—one for all, and all for one, like Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, in 'Les Trois Mousquetaires.'"It was impossible not to be pleased with the gaity and winning manner of this young Frenchman. His bearing and uniform, half Parisian and half Oriental, gave him somewhat of the aspect of a dandy brigand; but that bearing is peculiar to all the officers and men of the regiments of Zouaves.Evening was approaching, and the shadows were falling eastward. Those of the tall minarets, and the rows of cypress-trees that guard "the City of the Dead," were cast to a great distance, over the flat ground on which Varna stands. Many "true believers" were awaiting the shrill, boyish voice of the muezzin to call them to prayer; and the tambours of the French troops were gathering at their places of arms, and bracing up their drums, preparatory to beating the evening retreat, as we passed along the strangely-crowded streets, towards the Armenian church.At a coffee-house, the whole front of which was open, we passed several of the Colonel Hadjee Mehmet's soldiers, all drowsy with tobacco or bang, and seated like so many tailors, each on a scrap of tattered carpet. Some were idling over the chequers of a chess-board, and others were listening to the wild fairy tale of an itinerant dervish, to whom, from time to time, they tossed a quarter piastre (about a halfpenny) as it waxed more and more exciting.Passing through a street which had just been named the Rue des Portes Franchises—a corporal of sappers being in the act of nailing up that title on the rickety mansion of a wondering and indignant emir—we reached the temporary residence of the hakim Abd-el-Rasig, near which several Turkish women in long caftans, a few hawk-nosed Greeks, and squalid Jews were loitering, as if pondering whether they dared tempt his skill by unwisely seeking to probe the future.To the street the house presented nothing but a small door, having a curved arch, like a horseshoe, and a low, whitewashed wall.Passing through, we found ourselves in a cool, shady courtyard, surrounded, as usual, by those inexplicable Turkish sheds, a well in the centre, a few rose-trees in tubs, and a few flowers and tiny shrubs forcing their way up between the slabs of pavement.The mansion was almost entirely built of wood, and painted saffron and blue. We were ushered in by a little tawny Egyptian servant-boy, clad in baggy blue breeches and a scarlet tarboosh, and whom, to our disgust, we discovered to be tongueless—a mute!—and found ourselves in thedivan hanée, or principal apartment; and now the hitherto ceaseless gabble and merriment of our French friends became hushed into comparative silence, as the hakim, who had been smoking his chibouque, with its long cherry-stick, rose from a luxurious pile of silken cushions to welcome us.He was a little man, with Arab features, and a complexion of mahogany. His bushy beard was of a great amplitude. Time had long since dyed that appendage white, but the proprietor had turned it to a rich brown. He wore a green turban, a long, flowing coat, fashioned like a dressing-gown, of bright blue cloth, elaborately braided on the breast and seams with scarlet cord; his vest and trousers were of white linen, girt by a sash of green silk. Round his neck hung a comboloio, or Mahommedan rosary, of ninety-nine sandalwood beads.Save that his intensely black eyes had under their impending brows a keen and hawk-like expression, his appearance was neither unpleasing nor undignified. His cheekbones were somewhat prominent; he had the organs of locality largely defined, and his forehead was high, but receding.A Turkish soldier, an onbashi, or corporal of the Hadjee Mehmet's corps, had just preferred some request as we entered; and on learning that we had come to see a trial of his power at the séance, or whatever else he was pleased to call it, he invited us all into an inner apartment which opened off thedivan hanée.It was lighted by four lamps, suspended from the ceiling, each with a large tassel below it. From these lamps flickered four flames, which emitted a strange mephitic odour. The chamber had been recently whitewashed; the doors and windows were all bordered by arabesques in black and red, and with elaborate sentences from the Koran, which I afterwards learned to be the following:—"If they accuse thee of imposture, the apostles before thee have also been accounted impostors, who brought evident demonstrations, and the book which enlighteneth the understanding.""They will ask thee concerning the spirit; answer, the spirit was created at the command of my Lord; but ye have no knowledge given unto you, except a little.""This is light added unto light. God will direct His light unto whom He pleaseth."[*]
[*] "There is but one God, and Mahomet is his Prophet."
The poor miller and his daughter were torn asunder, and the former was driven by blows from the house of the vaivode; while Magdhalini, whom he was never more permitted to see, was taken again to the house of the cole-agassi. By Turkish law, such as it is, any commissioned officer who kills a man is liable to five years' slavery in chains, and service as a private hereafter; but the abduction of a Greek girl, though a rajah, or Christian subject of the Porte, was a very trivial affair—much less than stealing a terrier in the streets of London. The foreign Consuls took up the matter, and redress was sought of the Stamboul effendi, or chief of the police at Constantinople, but sought in vain. The Bishop of Gallipoli applied to the Skeik Islam, also without avail.
The Sheik is a very awful personage, who combines in his own person the greatest offices of religion, together with the supreme power of the civil law. Every new measure, even to naming the streets and numbering the houses of filthy Stamboul, requires his sanction. The Sultan alone has the power of life and death over the Sheik Islam, who can neither be nobly bowstrung, nor ignobly beheaded, and he enjoys the peculiar prerogative of being pounded to death in a mortar. A word from the Sheik would have restored Magdhalini to her father; but Hadjee Mehmet, the ex-tiruaktzy, had once operated on his holy nails, so a deaf ear was turned to the prayer of the infidel Bishop, who was seeking the dove in the net of the fowler long after we had taken our departure for Varna; and, until the memorable day of Balaclava, I saw no more of the infamous Hadjee Mehmet.
CHAPTER XXX.
Let me see her once again!Let her bring her proud dark eyes,And her petulant quick replies;Let her wave her slender hand,With its gesture of command,And throw back her raven hairWith the old imperial air;Let her be as she was then—The loveliest lady in all the land—Iseult of Ireland.
Let me see her once again!Let her bring her proud dark eyes,And her petulant quick replies;Let her wave her slender hand,With its gesture of command,And throw back her raven hairWith the old imperial air;Let her be as she was then—The loveliest lady in all the land—Iseult of Ireland.
Let me see her once again!
Let her bring her proud dark eyes,
And her petulant quick replies;
Let her wave her slender hand,
With its gesture of command,
And throw back her raven hair
With the old imperial air;
Let her be as she was then—
Let her be as she was then—
The loveliest lady in all the land—
Iseult of Ireland.
Iseult of Ireland.
Ere the course of events added to the distance which already lay between me and Great Britain, I resolved to write to Lady Louisa. I could no longer endure the torture of suspense, combined with absence and gathering doubt. In common parlance, ages seemed to have elapsed instead of weeks since the day we marched for embarkation, and when I beheld her for the last time; and thus, notwithstanding our strange compact that there should be no correspondence between us, I wrote to her, even at the hazard of the letter falling into the hands of her I dreaded most—proud, stately, cold, and unsympathetic "Mamma Chillingham."
It was about the middle of May, the day before we were to embark again, for now the Allies were to advance to Varna; and while I wrote, and in thought addressed Louisa, her presence seemed to come before me in fancy, and the inner depths of heart and soul were stirred with a jealous love and sorrowful tenderness that were almost unendurable; but a summons from Colonel Beverley, regarding the baggage and squad-bags of my troop, cut short my epistle in a very matter-of-fact way, and I despatched Pitblado with it to the military post-office. In that letter I sent brief remembrances to Fred Wilford's sister, and to many of our friends; but of the newly-made marquis I could not trust myself to write, though I had no doubt as yet of Louisa's faith and truth. That night a letter came to me from Cora, the first I had received since we landed at Gallipoli. She and Sir Nigel had returned to Calderwood, and had just come back from the Lanarkshire steeplechases.
"Oh, Newton," she continued, "how anxious and frightened we have been, for we heard that cholera had broken out in the British camp, and we trembled for you—dear papa and I. (There was no doubt the "we" did not include Louisa, at all events.) Do you think of us and quiet Calderwood Glen—of the old house, of papa, and of me? Are the Oriental ladies so beautiful as we have been told? One reads so much about their veiled forms, their brilliant eyes, and so forth. Tell us what you have seen of all this—the mosques, the harems, and the Golden Horn. You have seen everything, of course."
There was nothing in Cora's letter that either flattered my passion or soothed my apprehension. Chillingham Park was never once mentioned, and I could only gather from its abrupt passages and assumed playfulness that she still loved me, tenderly, truly, and hopelessly. There were times when, in her dreams—I learned all this long after, when the present had become the past, and could be recalled no more—there were times when, in imagination, she saw Newton Norcliff, safe from wounds and war, at Calderwood—hers, and hers only—a prize of which none could rob her, not even the brilliant Louisa Loftus; and in her sleep, tears of happiness stole down her poor, pale cheeks.
Newton was her cousin, her kinsman, her early playmate and boy lover, her idol, and her hero! What right, then, had this stranger, this Englishwoman, this mere Acquaintance, to seek to rob her of him? But she could not do so now. Newton was Cora's, and in her dreams he was her lover and her husband, of whom she prayed only to be worthy and more deserving still; and so the poor girl would dream on till morning came—the chill, gusty morning of autumn, when the brown leaves were swept by the cold eastern blast against the windows of the old manor-house, and down the wooded glen; and with that chill morning would come the bitter consciousness that it was all a dream—a dream only, and that he whom she prayed for, and loved so hopelessly, was far, far away in the land of the savage Tartars, exposed to all the perils of the Crimean winter and of the Russian war, and that amid them he was thinking, not of her but of another! But to resume my own story. Berkeley, who had been on the sick list since our arrival at Gallipoli, was reported fit for duty on the morning we embarked for Varna. Most of the British troops were ordered there, or to Scutari, while the mass of our allies were to remain about the coast of the Dardanelles. On this morning, however, I saw the 2nd Zouaves march, as Studhome said, "with all their ladies of light virtue and boxes of heavy baggage," for embarkation; and they presented a stirring spectacle, those swarthy, lithe, and black-bearded fellows, their breasts covered with medals won in battles against Bou Maza, and other sheiks of the Arab tribes, and their faces bronzed almost to negro darkness by the hot sun of Africa.
Their turbans and baggy breeches of scarlet gave them a very Oriental aspect; but their swinging gait and rollicking air, together with the remarkably free-and-easy manner in which they "marched at ease," and the songs they sang, announced them all sons ofla belle France; and, singularly enough, every second or third file had a pet cat perched on the top of his knapsack. The tricolor was decorated with laurel; their long brass trumpets played a strange and monotonous, but not unwarlike measure, to which they all stepped in rapid time; and in the intervals of the music many of them joined in a song, which was led by Mademoiselle Sophie, who was ridingà la cavalierat their head, in rear of the staff, with her little brandy-keg slung over her left shoulder.
I caught just a verse as she passed; but I frequently heard her sing the same song at a future time—
Vivandière du régiment,C'est Catin qu'on me nomme,Je vends, je donne, et bois gaiment,Mon vin et mon rogomme.J'ai le pied leste et l'oeil mutin.Tin-tin, tin, tin, tin, tin, r'lin tin-tin.J'ai le pied leste et l'oeil mutin.Soldats, voilà Catin!
Vivandière du régiment,C'est Catin qu'on me nomme,Je vends, je donne, et bois gaiment,Mon vin et mon rogomme.J'ai le pied leste et l'oeil mutin.Tin-tin, tin, tin, tin, tin, r'lin tin-tin.J'ai le pied leste et l'oeil mutin.Soldats, voilà Catin!
Vivandière du régiment,
C'est Catin qu'on me nomme,
C'est Catin qu'on me nomme,
Je vends, je donne, et bois gaiment,
Mon vin et mon rogomme.
Mon vin et mon rogomme.
J'ai le pied leste et l'oeil mutin.
Tin-tin, tin, tin, tin, tin, r'lin tin-tin.
Tin-tin, tin, tin, tin, tin, r'lin tin-tin.
J'ai le pied leste et l'oeil mutin.
Soldats, voilà Catin!
Above all other voices, I could hear that of her friend, or lover, Jules Jolicoeur, most lustily—
Soldats, voilà Catin!
Soldats, voilà Catin!
Soldats, voilà Catin!
as he marched along with his hands in his pockets, and his musket slung butt uppermost. Our transport was taken in tow by a war steamer. Thus our progress through the Sea of Marmora was rapid. We passed Constantinople in the night, to our great regret; and as no part of it, save the palace of the Sultan, was then lighted with gas, it was involved in darkness and silence. At least, we heard only the voices of the patrols, and the barking and howling of the thousands of homeless dogs which prowl through the streets. Being unclean, they are never domesticated; yet their litters are never destroyed, and they feed on the offal of the houses, or on the headless trunks that are at times washed up from the Golden Horn. Next day, as we proceeded up the Bosphorus, a swift (Clyde-built) Turkish steamer was running ahead of us; and we remarked that, whenever she passed a fort or battery, the standard with the star and crescent was immediately hoisted, and a trumpet was heard to sound.
At the Castle of Roumelia, and such places, we saw the slovenly Turkish guards getting under arms, and also that on each occasion the standards were dipped or lowered to half-mast three times. This indicated that the ship had on board a pasha of three tails, or one of equal rank, whose standard was flying at the foremast-head; and soon after we learned that he was the munadjim bashee, or chief astrologer, one of the first officers of the seraglio, and always consulted by the Sultan Abd-ul-Medjid. No public work was ever undertaken until he declared the stars to be propitious; and now he was steaming ahead to see how they looked at Varna! By the letter I had despatched from Gallipoli, I had, to a certain extent, relieved my mind, as I concluded that at Varna I should receive the answer, and that then all my suspense and anxieties would end, in the course of a few weeks at latest.
Against the strong current which sets in from the Black Sea, and which runs at the rate of four miles an hour down the Bosphorus, we steamed steadily on; and as the wind was fair, our transport carried a tolerable spread of canvas. Our sail was a delightful one! The weather was calm, and the scenery and objects on the European and Asian shores were ever changing and attractive. The abrupt angles and bends of the coast seemed to convert the channel into a series of seven charming inland lakes of the deepest blue—there being seven promontories on one side, and seven bays on the other, each bay running into a fertile valley, clothed with the richest foliage of the Oriental clime; and amid that waving foliage rose the quaint and fantastic country dwellings of the wealthy Frankish, Greek, or Armenian merchants of Stamboul, with their painted kiosks, gilded domes, and towering minarets, tall, white, and slender.
On the left or European shore, the whole panorama was a succession of beautiful villages, terraced gardens, and groves of chestnut, plane, and lime trees, with here and there long, sombre, and solemn rows of gigantic cypresses and poplars. On the right or Asian shore, the objects of Nature were of greater magnitude. The groves became forests, and the hills swelled into mountains; and, towering over Brussa, rose Olympus, "high and hoar," covered with laurels and other evergreens to its summit.
Under a salute of cannon from the Castle of Europe, and still preceded by our Turkish friend, the astrologer with three tails, we hauled up for Varna, giving a wide berth to the dangerous Cyanean rocks, between which Jason steered the Argonauts in equally troublesome, but more classic, times.
From thence a run of about one hundred and fifty miles brought us to the low flat shore of Varna, where, on the 28th of May, we were all landed without accident or adventure, and placed under canvas among the rest of the troops. The aspect of Varna from the bay was somewhat depressing. Rising from a bank of yellow sand, a time-worn rampart of stone, ten feet high, loop-holed and painted white, encloses the town on its four sides, each of which measures somewhat more than a mile. This old wall had witnessed the defeat and death of Uladislaus of Hungary, by the troops of the Padishah Amurath II., and it yet bore traces of the cannon-shot of the Scoto-Russian Admiral Greig, who bombarded Varna in 1828.
Before the walls lies a ditch, twelve feet deep, and over both frown a number of heavy guns, which I found to be chiefly sixty-eight pounders; and over all rose the countless red-tiled roofs of the houses, with the slender white minarets and round leaden domes of the mosques, looking like wax-candles by the side of inverted sugar basins. Beyond, in the distance, stretched far away to the base of wooded hills the flat Bulgarian shore.
Painted with various colours, the tumble-down and rickety houses were all of wood, and exhibited a rapid state of dilapidation and decay. Prior to our arrival, the silence must have been oppressive. Save when a swallow twittered under the broad eaves, when a saka (or water-carrier), with his buckets suspended from a leather belt, shambled along, slipshod or barefoot, with water for sale, a hamal (or porter), laden with his burden, or when the wild dog that lay panting on a heap of festering offal uttered a hoarse growl, no sight or sound of life was there, when the fierce sun of unclouded noon blazed down into the narrow and tortuous streets. The place exhibited only Turkish filth, inactivity, and stupidity, till the arrival of the Allies, when its wooden jetties opposite the principal gate became piled up with munitions of war—bales, tents, tumbrils, and cannon; its roadstead crowded with war-ships, transports, and gunboats, under sail or steam; its bazaar filled by regimental quartermasters, cooks, and caterers, or soldiers' wives in search of food, &c.; its five gates held by military guards—the merry Zouave, the grave and stern Scottish Highlander, the showy Coldstream, or the sombre rifleman.
Then its streets became literally alive, and crowded with the British, who came by sea, and the French, who came pouring over the Balkan. Their silence was broken by the sharp beat of the brass drum, and the sound of the ringing bugle every hour or more, and by the measured tramp of feet, as detachments on every imaginable duty marched to and fro between the camps, the town, and harbour, scaring the wild dogs from the streets, and the kites from the roofs and mosque domes, who were alike unused to such unwonted bustle and activity.
Crowds of Turks and Bulgarians, wearing caps of brown sheepskin, short jackets of undyed wool, and wide white trousers, with vacant wonder surveyed us, as brigade after brigade came on shore, our horse, foot, and artillery; while the little dark Arabs of the Egyptian contingent viewed with something akin to awe our brigade of Foot Guards, whose personal bulk and stature, with their white epaulettes and black bearskin caps, made them seem the veritable sons of Anak to those shrivelled children of the desert.
Amid the crash of military music, the glitter of arms, and the waving of silken colours, as regiment after regiment marched to its camping-ground, were to be seen the woebegone, helpless, miserable, and, in some instances, still seasick wives of our soldiers, hurrying wearily after their husbands' battalions, carrying bundles or children, sometimes both, while other scared little ones were trotting by their side, and holding by their ragged and tattered skirts; but there was one soldier's wife who appeared to European and Oriental eyes under very different auspices.
"All these marvels reached a climax," says a writer,[*] "when a boat from theHenri IV., rowed by six dashing French sailors, in snow-white shirts and coquettish little glazed hats, stuck with a knowing air on the side of their heads, shot up alongside the landing-place, and in the stern appeared the Earl and Countess of Errol—the former an officer in the rifles, and the latter intent upon sharing the campaign with her husband. I think the old civil pasha (mussellemof the city?), who was seated on a chair at a little distance, scarcely knew whether he was on his head or his heels when the lady was handed up out of the boat, and made her appearance at the town gate, with a brace of pistols in a holster at her waist, and followed by a Bulgarian porter, with a shoal of reticules, carpet-bags, and books, and taking everything as coolly as if she were an old soldier. The whole party followed the rifles to the field, and the countess is at the present moment living under canvas."
[*] In theDaily News.
This lady, who excited so much attention was Eliza, Countess of Errol, and her husband—as my uncle would have reminded me—was hereditary high constable of Scotland; as such, first subject in the kingdom, and of old leader of the feudal cavalry. Now he was a simply major in the Rifle Brigade, and was after severely wounded at the Alma. Undeterred by the miseries which he saw the soldiers' wives enduring, Sergeant Stapylton, of my troop, had the courage to take unto himself a wife in this land of the Prophet; but the fate which threw her in his way was somewhat remarkable, and made some noise at the time. It came about thus:—The wife of a soldier of the 28th Regiment, when proceeding through the corn-fields from our camp to market in Varna, and perhaps considering how far her little stock of money might go in the purchase of dainty soochook sausages and cabaubs of herbs, for the delectation of herself and Private John Smith, was surprised to find herself addressed in tolerable English by a Greek female slave, who was at work among the corn, weeding it of the brilliant poppies.
Though fairer skinned than the women of that country, she had the appearance of a woman of Bulgaria. On her head a cylindrical bonnet, of harlequin pattern, was tied by a white handkerchief under her chin. She wore a short black gown, with a deep scarlet flounce, on which were sewn ornamental pieces of variously-coloured stuffs: a broad scarlet sash, elaborately needleworked, girt her waist; a few coins, of small value, were woven into her hair, which was of a rich brown hue, and hung in profusion over her shoulders, and on her wrists were bracelets of crystal. She wore the costume of a peasant girl, and her features were soft and pleasing—even pretty, though very much sunburnt.
In English she begged the soldier's wife to give her a mouthful of water from a vessel she carried, saying that she "was sorely athirst, and weary with her work in the field."
Now, Mrs. John Smith, of the 28th Foot, was greatly surprised on hearing this humble and gentle request made in the language of her native England, by one who seemed to all intents and purposes a Bulgarian. She entered into conversation with the stranger, and discovered that she was actually English by birth and blood, and a native of Essex!
She related that her father had been a merchant captain of London, who, after her mother's death, had taken her with him in a vessel on a voyage to the Levant, where they were captured by a Greek pirate. She was then a mere child. Her father and his crew were put to death, their vessel plundered, and then set on fire, in the Gulf of Sidra, and destroyed. Her captor, a thoroughpaced old rascal, had now settled, with all his ill-gotten gains, as a small landowner, on the shore of the Bay of Varna, where she was still his bondswoman—his slave.
The soldier's wife begged the girl to follow her, and take refuge in the British camp, and she was about to comply, when the appearance of her master or owner, a fierce-looking old fellow, clad in a jacket and cap, both of brown sheepskin, his sash bristling with knives, yataghans, and pistols, altered her feeble resolution; and though the wife of Private Smith shook her gingham umbrella with vigour, and threatened him with the "p'leece," and the main-guard to boot, he, nothing daunted, replied only by a contemptuous scowl, and dragging the slave girl into his house, secured the door.
It chanced luckily, however, that Sergeant Stapylton, of ours, with a mounted party of ten lancers, was returning along the Silistria road—where he had been sent in search of forage—and to him the soldier's wife appealed, and detailed what had taken place. He at once surrounded the house, and demanded the girl, in what fashion or language I know not; but he made the proprietor aware that fire or sword hung over him if she was not surrendered instantly.
Armed to the teeth, the Greek appeared at the door, and threatened him with thevaivodeof the district, and thekaimakan, or deputy of the Pasha of Roumelia, and of various other dignitaries; but Stapylton put the point of his lance to the throat of the old pirate, who found in it an argument so irresistible, that he at once gave up the girl, whom our fellows brought with them in triumph to the camp, where a subscription was made for her, and she was a nine days' wonder; and that this little bit of romance might not be without itsfinale, she ultimately became the wife of Sergeant Stapylton.
Our regiment was encamped eighteen miles distant from Varna, in the lovely vale of Aladyn, surrounded by forests of the finest timber, where the springs of water were numerous and pure, and where the grass and verdure were of the richest description; yet there it was that disease—the fell cholera and dysentery—broke out among us, and decimated our ranks more surely and more severely than the Russian bullets could have done. But amid their horrors folly ever found its way; and several of our people, French and British, got into scrapes with the Bulgarian and Turkish damsels, especially the latter, who are rather prone to intrigue, notwithstanding the dangers attendant on it, in such a land of jealousy and the prompt use of arms. Perhaps theyashmac, and the mystery it gave to their faces, of which the ever brilliant eyes alone were visible, and the mouth—usually its worst feature—was hidden, had much to do with this.
By the Koran, aged women alone are permitted to "lay aside their outer garments, and go unveiled." A very old history of Constantinople—Delamay's, I think—relates that a pasha, remarkable for the size and ugliness of his nose, married, before the kadi, a lady who, on being unveiled, proved to his great disgust to be exceedingly plain.
"To whom, of all your friends," she asked, with her most winning smile, "am I to show my face?"
"To all the world," said he; "but hide it from me!"
"My lord, patience," she whispered, humbly.
"Patience have I none!" he exclaimed, wrathfully.
"Allah kerim!you must have a great deal of it to have borne that great nose so long about you," she retorted, as she hurled her slipper at his head.
A pair of dark and brilliant eyes, sparkling through the folds of a fine white muslinyashmac, were very nearly the means of ridding me of Berkeley, and the impending duel, while we lay at Varna.
He and Frank Jocelyn, of my troop, a smart and handsome young fellow, whilom the prime bowler and stroke oar at Oxford, as good-hearted and open-handed a lad as any in the service, began an intrigue with two Turkish damsels, whom they found at prayer before anaekie, or Mahommedan wayside chapel, and whom they followed home to a kiosk in the vale of Aladyn.
Their love affair did not make much progress, being simply maintained by tossing oranges in the dusk over a high wall, which was furnished with a row of vicious-looking iron spikes. The oranges of Jocelyn and Berkeley contained notes written in French and Italian, of which the girls could make nothing, of course, the language of the educated Turks being a mixture of Turkish, Persian, and Arabic, the former being spoken by the peasantry alone; so the ladies responded by oranges, in which flowers were stuck, till on the fourth or fifth night, in reply to a very amatory epistle, souse came over the garden wall an iron six-inch shell, with its fuse burning!
Our Lotharios had only time to throw themselves flat on the ground, when it exploded in the dark with a dreadful crash; but without hurting either of them, and they retired, somewhat crestfallen, while hearing much loud laughter and clapping of hands within the garden wall. After this rough hint, they went no more near the ladies, who proved to be the wife of ayuse bashi, or captain of Turkish artillery, and her female slave.
While the months we wasted so fruitlessly at Varna crept slowly away, there occurred to me a singular adventure—in fact, one so remarkable in its import, and in reference to the future, that it still makes a deep impression upon me; and this episode I shall detail in the following chapter.
CHAPTER XXXI.
So gaze met gaze,And heart saw heart, translucid through the rays,One same harmonious universal law,Atom to atom, star to star can draw,And heart to heart. Swift darts, as from the sun,The strong attraction, and the charm is done.THE NEW TIMON.
So gaze met gaze,And heart saw heart, translucid through the rays,One same harmonious universal law,Atom to atom, star to star can draw,And heart to heart. Swift darts, as from the sun,The strong attraction, and the charm is done.THE NEW TIMON.
So gaze met gaze,
So gaze met gaze,
And heart saw heart, translucid through the rays,
One same harmonious universal law,
Atom to atom, star to star can draw,
And heart to heart. Swift darts, as from the sun,
The strong attraction, and the charm is done.
THE NEW TIMON.
THE NEW TIMON.
THE NEW TIMON.
To the letter I wrote Louisa from Gallipoli no answer was ever returned.
Had it reached her, or been intercepted, and by whom?
I began to associate Berkeley—groundlessly, certainly—with her singular silence. All my former animosity to him returned; but, for the personal safety of the survivor, our strangely deferred meeting could not take place till we found ourselves in the vicinity of the enemy. I feared, too, that he might discover how completely she had ignored—or, to all appearance, forgotten—my existence. To me there was pure gall in the idea that he should have cause for triumph in suspecting it.
I constantly wore her engagement ring—the pearl with the blue enamel. Did she gaze on my Rangoon diamond as frequently as I did on the tiny gold hoop which once encircled her finger, and had hence become a holy thing to me? I was now beginning to fear that she did not.
The past had but one feature, one which every thought and memory seemed metaphorically to hinge; and the future but one object—the same—around which every hope was centred—Louisa. Viâ the Bosphorus, the mail steamers came puffing regularly into Varna Bay. They seemed to bring letters to all but me, and gradually my heart became filled by anxiety and fear.
Louisa might be ill—dead! I thrust aside that thought as impossible; I must have heard of so terrible a calamity from Cora, or from Wilford, who was in constant correspondence with his sister.
Her answer to my Gallipoli letter might have miscarried. Why her letter alone? Those of my uncle and of cousin Cora came at the requisite time, and in course of post. Could it actually be that Louisa was forgetting me? Her last look—her eyes so full of grief—her last kiss, so full of tremulous tenderness, forbade this fear, and yet it was passing strange that neither Cora nor Sir Nigel ever mentioned her in their correspondence with me.
I frequently prayed that her love might be as lasting in her as it proved agonizing to me.
Studhome knew my secret. To conceal from him that I was miserable was impossible, but honest Jack's advice "to take heart of grace—to remember that there were as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it, that—
"'There were maidens in Scotland more lovely by far,Who would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar,'"
"'There were maidens in Scotland more lovely by far,Who would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar,'"
"'There were maidens in Scotland more lovely by far,
Who would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar,'"
and a great deal more to the same effect and purpose, proved but sorry comfort and counsel.
On a Saturday evening I had tiffed with him in his tent. We had no second parade or anything to do. He vowed that he was tired of his studies, which generally consisted of theRacing Calendar, Hart's "Annual Army List," "White's Farriery," and the "Field Exercise and Evolutions for the Cavalry," varied byPunchandBell's Life, so we ordered our horses, and rode to Varna, the variety and unwonted bustle of which afforded the means of amusement and relief, after the quiet and monotony of our camp in the green wooded vale of Aladyn.
We put up our horses at an old rickety Turkish khan, which an enterprising French sutler had turned into a species of hotel, for over the door a gay signboard, painted in tricolour, informed us that it was "Le restaurant de l'Armée d'Orient, pour messieurs les officiers et sous-officiers."
There we had a bottle of excellent Greek wine, in a large whitewashed room, full of French officers, of every branch of the service and of all ranks, who received us with great politeness. They were all smoking cigarettes, chatting, laughing, playing chess or dominoes, and reading theMoniteurorCharivari, which last caricatured the Russians as unmercifully as our good friendPunchever did.
Their gaiety andétourdifashion of quizzing the women who passed drew many a scowl of wonder and reprehension from the turbaned, shawled, and solemn Turks, for few of the believers took kindly to "the sons of perdition who had come to aid them and the Vicar of God—the refuge of the world—from the Muscovite dog," as one was heard to say; "and at the behest of a queen—a woman—Allah razolsum!" he added, with special reference to us.
"What a change all this is from our recent barrack life at Maidstone," said Studhome. "We see such strange scenes—a new world here."
"For our used-up guardsmen and hussars, who have been hitherto bored by the mere aimlessness and emptiness of their lives, our friend, the Emperor Nicholas, has certainly provided that which Sir Charles, inUsed Up, would call a 'new sensation,' and a little healthy excitement."
A young sous-lieutenant of Zouaves was particularly vehement and droll in describing a certain Egyptian magician, who had shown some wonderful things to him and his friends. His words seemed to excite much laughter, and, on drawing nearer, I discovered him to be Jules Jolicoeur, the Zouave, who had now been promoted to the rank of second-lieutenant in his regiment, in the ranks of which the cholera had already made sad ravages.
"Monsieur Jolicoeur," said I; "a magician, do you say?"
"Peste!you know my name," said he, smiling, while he pirouetted about and twirled his moustache.
"I have to congratulate you on your promotion. Better this than poring over Lemartinière, Ambrose Paré, and so forth, at the Ecole de Médecin, eh?"
"Parbleu, monsieur!how do you come to know all this?" he asked, with pardonable surprise.
"Perhaps I am a magician too," said I, laughing. "But this Egyptian of whom you tell us—he is a juggler, I presume?"
"Jouer—joueuse de gobelets, you mean? Oh, no. In a little water or ink, poured into the hollow of your hand, he will show you the face of any friend you most desire to see. It is miraculous."
"Diable!" exclaimed Victor Baudeuf, a well-decorated captain of a French line regiment; "then he shall show me Mogador."
The name of this well-known French dancer elicited a burst of laughter; but Jolicoeur said—
"Monsieur, you should call her Madame la Comtesse de Chabrillan!"
"And where the devil ismonsieur le Comte?" asked Baudeuf, with a grimace.
"At the gold-fields, having spent his fortune twice on the girl."
"Well, to a wife in Paris a husband at the gold-fields is just as valuable as no husband at all.Très bon! I shall see pretty Mogador, if your magician has any skill."
"And where does your magician hang out?" asked Studhome.
"Hang—hang—il mérite la corde, you mean, monsieur?" asked the puzzled Frenchman.
"No, no; where is he to be found?"
"Monsieur le magicienholds a spiritual séance to-night," observed a French hussar, whose gorgeous dolman was almost sword-proof with silver lace.
"Très bon!" exclaimed another; "there are twenty girls in Paris I want to see."
"What is his time, Jules?"
"Eight o'clock."
"'Tis but twenty minutes from that now."
"We shall go too," said Studhome, "and have our fortunes told; it will be as good a lark, monsieur, as any other."
"Lark—aloutte—oh, yes,très bon!" replied Jolicoeur, with a good-natured smile, though quite at a loss to understand why the bird was referred to.
"My fortune has often been told me, Newton, by gipsies, at Maidstone and Canterbury. By no two alike; but it was magnificent, according to the fee I gave, and always droll. We shall see what this astrologer—a real magician—has to show us."
"If he shows us Louisa Loftus, Jack, I'll forfeit a year's pay!"
"Come, messieurs, to the séance," shouted Jolicoeur, as he buckled on his sabre. "I wish to see Mademoiselle Sophie of ours, who has gone to Constantinople."
"And I Mogador," said Captain Baudeuf, "the delicious little dancer at the Mabille."
"And I Rose Pompon!" exclaimed the hussar, tying the cords of his silver dolman. "Rose, the heroine of a thousand flirtations."
"Mogador, the empress of ten thousand hearts," added the captain.
"Hearts such as thine,mon camarade," said the hussar, laughing.
"And Fleur d'Amour," added another heedless fellow, "the Queen of the Tourlurous!"[*]
[*] Camp phrase for the French linesmen.
"Ah, mon capitaine," said Jules. "Peste!what arouéit is. He has made as many conquests as our good friend Don Juan, in the delightful opera which bears his name."
"Beware!" said the other, with a mock frown; "I'm an ace of diamonds man with the pistol, Jules."
"Bah! Your pistol will never be levelled at me. Have a cigarette?"
"Thanks. As for Mogador, her silk tights were a study at the Mabille, and the grace with which she showed her feet and ankles——"
"Cordieu, mon ami!we haven't a man in the 2nd Zouaves who has not appreciated that generous exhibition to the utmost. I hope she'll appear in Baudeuf's hand as Diana, or the chaste Lucretia!" said Jolicoeur.
These remarks elicited roars of laughter from the gay Frenchmen.
"By Jove, Newton," whispered Studhome, "our fair friends will be conjured up in odd company. These fellows are naming the most notoriouslorettesin Paris!"
With a prodigious clatter of swords and spurs, we all quitted the restaurant together for the residence of the magician; and Lieutenant Jolicoeur, who seemed disposed to fraternize with us, informed me that this personage, who was making so much noise in Varna, was a native of Al Kosair, on the Egyptian coast of the Red Sea, and that he was now chief hakim, or senior surgeon, of the 10th Battalion of Egyptian Infantry, which formed a portion of the Viceroy's contingent with the Turkish army. So we looked forward with some interest to the interview, as he had a high reputation among the Osmanlees for the marvels he produced, and was faithfully believed.
After an interview, this magician strongly reminded me of the Sooltan described by Lane, in his "Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians."
If in England, at this hour, so many persons believe implicitly in table-turning, spirit-rapping, mesmeric slumber, and mesmeric mediums, and many other outrageous whim-whams, it can surely be no wonder that the poor, ignorant soldiers of the Turkish and Egyptian armies should believe in the magic powers of the hakim Abd-el-Rasig, who, by the medium of another human soul, could show them whether their friends, their fathers, and mothers, at Gaza, at Cairo, or on the banks of the Nile, were still in the land of the living, as clearly as if they peeped through the magical telescope of the favoured prince in the fairy tale.
It was just about the period of which I write that the public of the modern Athens—that happy city of bibacious saints and briefless Solons—was electrified by a series of letters which appeared in one of her journals, signed by a tolerably well-known historian, occupying, however a lucrative legal position, to the effect that "he possessed a peculiar medium," of whose person and spirit he had such entire mesmeric control that he had sent the latter to the Arctic regions, in search of Sir John Franklin, whom she saw, accoutred with cocked hat and quadrant, seated sorrowfully on a heap of snow; next, that he had sent her on a visit to one of Her Majesty's ships in the West Indies, where she pryed into the savoury secrets of the midshipmen's berth; and, not content with these wonderful voyages, he actually announced that he sent her spirit to heaven to visit his friends, and a much warmer climate to visit his enemies; and this blasphemous rubbish and mid-summer madness found believers in the Scottish capital, though it excited the laughter of the masses; but one night the fair medium, "being hot with the Tuscan grape, and high in blood," or having imbibed over much alcohol, fairly unmasked the would-be Northern Balsamo as a dupe and fool, by forgetting to play her assumed character.
"Allons, mes camarades!" said Jules, placing his arm through mine and Studhome's; "we shall all face this Cagliostro together—one for all, and all for one, like Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, in 'Les Trois Mousquetaires.'"
It was impossible not to be pleased with the gaity and winning manner of this young Frenchman. His bearing and uniform, half Parisian and half Oriental, gave him somewhat of the aspect of a dandy brigand; but that bearing is peculiar to all the officers and men of the regiments of Zouaves.
Evening was approaching, and the shadows were falling eastward. Those of the tall minarets, and the rows of cypress-trees that guard "the City of the Dead," were cast to a great distance, over the flat ground on which Varna stands. Many "true believers" were awaiting the shrill, boyish voice of the muezzin to call them to prayer; and the tambours of the French troops were gathering at their places of arms, and bracing up their drums, preparatory to beating the evening retreat, as we passed along the strangely-crowded streets, towards the Armenian church.
At a coffee-house, the whole front of which was open, we passed several of the Colonel Hadjee Mehmet's soldiers, all drowsy with tobacco or bang, and seated like so many tailors, each on a scrap of tattered carpet. Some were idling over the chequers of a chess-board, and others were listening to the wild fairy tale of an itinerant dervish, to whom, from time to time, they tossed a quarter piastre (about a halfpenny) as it waxed more and more exciting.
Passing through a street which had just been named the Rue des Portes Franchises—a corporal of sappers being in the act of nailing up that title on the rickety mansion of a wondering and indignant emir—we reached the temporary residence of the hakim Abd-el-Rasig, near which several Turkish women in long caftans, a few hawk-nosed Greeks, and squalid Jews were loitering, as if pondering whether they dared tempt his skill by unwisely seeking to probe the future.
To the street the house presented nothing but a small door, having a curved arch, like a horseshoe, and a low, whitewashed wall.
Passing through, we found ourselves in a cool, shady courtyard, surrounded, as usual, by those inexplicable Turkish sheds, a well in the centre, a few rose-trees in tubs, and a few flowers and tiny shrubs forcing their way up between the slabs of pavement.
The mansion was almost entirely built of wood, and painted saffron and blue. We were ushered in by a little tawny Egyptian servant-boy, clad in baggy blue breeches and a scarlet tarboosh, and whom, to our disgust, we discovered to be tongueless—a mute!—and found ourselves in thedivan hanée, or principal apartment; and now the hitherto ceaseless gabble and merriment of our French friends became hushed into comparative silence, as the hakim, who had been smoking his chibouque, with its long cherry-stick, rose from a luxurious pile of silken cushions to welcome us.
He was a little man, with Arab features, and a complexion of mahogany. His bushy beard was of a great amplitude. Time had long since dyed that appendage white, but the proprietor had turned it to a rich brown. He wore a green turban, a long, flowing coat, fashioned like a dressing-gown, of bright blue cloth, elaborately braided on the breast and seams with scarlet cord; his vest and trousers were of white linen, girt by a sash of green silk. Round his neck hung a comboloio, or Mahommedan rosary, of ninety-nine sandalwood beads.
Save that his intensely black eyes had under their impending brows a keen and hawk-like expression, his appearance was neither unpleasing nor undignified. His cheekbones were somewhat prominent; he had the organs of locality largely defined, and his forehead was high, but receding.
A Turkish soldier, an onbashi, or corporal of the Hadjee Mehmet's corps, had just preferred some request as we entered; and on learning that we had come to see a trial of his power at the séance, or whatever else he was pleased to call it, he invited us all into an inner apartment which opened off thedivan hanée.
It was lighted by four lamps, suspended from the ceiling, each with a large tassel below it. From these lamps flickered four flames, which emitted a strange mephitic odour. The chamber had been recently whitewashed; the doors and windows were all bordered by arabesques in black and red, and with elaborate sentences from the Koran, which I afterwards learned to be the following:—
"If they accuse thee of imposture, the apostles before thee have also been accounted impostors, who brought evident demonstrations, and the book which enlighteneth the understanding."
"They will ask thee concerning the spirit; answer, the spirit was created at the command of my Lord; but ye have no knowledge given unto you, except a little."
"This is light added unto light. God will direct His light unto whom He pleaseth."[*]