It is usual with the Turks, when suspicion rests on particular persons, to resort to torture for a confirmation of their doubts. Accordingly, after four or five days, persons, to the number of thirty-two, having been arrested, and all these but six having proved their innocence (which six were, the porter, Andrea’s servant, and three Greeks, with a woman, the wife ofone of them), the suspected were confined in separate rooms, and the investigation was begun in the following manner. Meal barley, wetted, was made up into boluses of a large size, and one of these was given to each of the accused. If he swallowed it, he was innocent; if guilty, it was supposed to be impossible to do so. Let it not, however, be imagined that the Turks place more reliance on evidence of this sort than we do. But they know that guilt sometimes betrays itself in superstitious trials, where the regular process of justice would be balked. Andrea’s servant was most cruelly tormented. He was placed on a cross, like that on which we represent St. Andrew to have been crucified. His temples were screwed by the pressure of a diadem of what are vulgarly called knuckle bones. Hot stones were applied to his head, hot irons to his flesh. Inflammable matter was smeared on him, and then ignited; and he was prevented from sleeping by persons placed near him for that purpose. On the other Greeks and on the gatekeeper the same torture was exercised.[108]
For the woman, a mode of torture was resorted to which may be called a refinement on cruelty. The trousers worn by women in these countries are exceedingly large, and tied at the ancles and waist. The plan pursued with her was this. A cat was put into the trowsers, which, being pricked and beaten, and unable to escape, grows furious, and tears the thighs and legs of the sufferer with his teeth and claws.
It was in the midst of this dreadful investigation that I arrived at Leucosia; and, walking the next day by the palace, I was startled by the sight of a man dangling by the neck to the iron grating of one of the palace windows, from fifteen to twenty feet from the ground. This was the porter, who had been hanged in this way, just as he was about to expire from the tortures he had undergone. As the investigation advanced, it was rumoured that an Armenian seràf (banker to the governor, and the rival of Andrea’s influence among the Turks) had invented this nefarious plot for the purpose of ruining Andrea. The servant of the latter died soon afterwards of his sufferings.
In the mean time, Andrea himself was exposed to the greatest danger, for his enemies were powerful; and, although the proofs of his innocence were satisfactory at home, he knew that such representations might be made at Constantinople as would totally change the face of things. And the event justifiedhis apprehensions; for, although the cause was still under investigation when I left Cyprus, and the certainty of the Armenian’s plot became every day more apparent, the affair was not finished without a great sacrifice of money on the part of the archbishop; whilst Andrea, to avert a continuance of the persecution, sold off his household furniture and pictures, which he had recently imported from Italy, and reduced his establishment and his dress to so humble a guise, that envious and malevolent people should not have it in their power to allege anything against him.[109]
I got back to Larnaka just before Easter day. It fell this year on the 6th of April, and to a dull Lent succeeded visiting and festivities. Mass was celebrated at midnight, and, this over, the ceremony of kissing the cheek and saluting each other with “Christ is risen,” began. By 10 o’clock, Mr. Vondiziano’s courtyard was filled with drums and dancers, whilst in the saloon was the bishop with a party of priests chanting.
A circumstance, however, somewhat interrupted the harmony of the inhabitants. On the restoration of Louis XVIII., and the arrival of a new ambassador at Constantinople, religion had again raised herhead, and the Catholic priests attempted to resume the influence which they had once so extensively enjoyed, even in these distant colonies. The freemasons were supposed to have been the fomenters of all the insults which the priests had suffered for so many years during the revolution, and the anathemas of the preachers were now levelled principally against them.
This spirit of persecution was encouraged by the arrival of the Abbé de Masure, almoner to the French ambassador, who denounced them as the machinators of all evil, political and moral. It is customary for Roman Catholics to confess themselves before receiving the sacrament at Easter; and, according to the new order of things, the French consul and the nation (for so the few individuals of each country style themselves) went to confession. Three, who were freemasons, were sent back, unless they would give up their masonic diplomas, which, of course, they refused to do. Nor was the matter settled until the consul threatened to imprison the priest, if he withheld absolution any longer from the individuals in question.
I dismissed my servant Giovanni, who was to return to Syria, where he proposed marrying a young person to whom he had been affianced three or four years. Wishing to make the best recompence in my power to a man, who, though he sometimes gave me reason, as has been related, to be angry with him, still had served me faithfully, I had previously presentedhim, on quitting Abra, with the best part of the furniture my cottage contained; and I now made him a present of a few articles for his bride, and of a sum of money for himself.