In Greek Waters: A Story of the Grecian War of Independence

“How can he recognize you? You can either fasten a piece of black cloth over your face, or what will do just as well, get a cork and burn it, and rub it over your face till you are as black as coal. Your own brother wouldn’t know you then, and the pasha will have enough to think about without staring at you.”

“I like that better than the cloth,” the man said. “If there is a scuffle the black cloth may come off.”

“We will rig you up in the clothes of one of the sailors here. You can put them on over your own if you like, and then you will have nothing to do but to throw them away, wash your face, and walk boldly into the town in the morning.”

The brigantine had two boats. These were, as soon as it became dark, lowered, and a quarter before nine the landing party mustered. The men had already torn up some blankets and old sail-cloth, and wrapped them round their cutlasses and muskets so as to deaden the sound should these strike against the wall. The guns were not loaded, but each man carried thirty rounds of ammunition and a brace of pistols, which were to be loaded as soon as they got down into the garden, Martyn, however, giving the strictest orders that whatever happened not a shot was to be fired without his permission.

“I do not think it is likely that we shall meet with any resistance, lads,” he said before they stepped down into the boats. “If there is, knock them down with your fists; or if there is anything serious, use your cutlasses. Mr. Horace will place the four men told off for the doors, at their posts. These will follow him through the house regardless of anything that is going on around. Everything depends upon our preventing anyone from leaving the house and giving the alarm. I shall myself post men at all the lower windows before we enter. Their duty will be to prevent anyone from coming out into the garden. If there is yelling or shrieking in the garden it will alarm the town. As long as they only shriek in the house there is no fear of its being heard. Now you each know what you have got to do. As to scaling the wall, this must be done as quietly as if you were making sail on board a smart frigate.”

CHAPTER XIII

THE PASHA OF ADALIA

PACKED closely in the two boats of the Turkish craft the landing party rowed for the shore. As soon as they reached it the boats were drawn up on the strand, and in silence Martyn led his men across the road. Then he struck off into the orchard on the other side, so as to escape the notice of any of the people in the houses by the road. The cobbler and Horace went first, Martyn and the men followed a short distance behind. Half an hour’s walking took them to the edge of the ditch, and after a short search they found a bough that Horace and Zaimes had cut off and thrown down by the side of the path, to mark the spot where they were to make the ascent.

Two sailors were posted on the path, at fifty yards above and below them, in case anyone should come along, although the risk of this was exceedingly small. There was no difficulty in scrambling down into the ditch. As soon as they did so the sailor who carried the grapnel advanced to the foot of the wall, and at the second attempt succeeded in getting it to hold on the parapet. Another, with one of the rope-ladders, went forward, fastened the rope to it, and the two of them hauled the ladder up to the block, and kept the rope taut while Martyn mounted. He found, as he had expected, that there was a platform behind the wall for men to stand on while firing. Taking his place on it he took hold of the ladder rope and told the men below to loosen their end. Holding it partly up he fastened it at the block. Then two men joined him, hauled the wooden gangway up, and planted it against the top of the inner wall. The rest of the men followed, and Martyn led the way across. The others soon stood beside him, all stooping down on the platform as soon as they had crossed, so that their heads should not show above the skyline, should anyone happen to be looking out from the windows of the house.

Two sailors helped the cobbler across the gangway. Horace was the last to mount, with the exception of the two sentries, whom he summoned with a low whistle as soon as the others were up. When they reached the top they hauled the rope-ladder after them, and laid it ready for lowering again. By the time Horace crossed to the inner wall Martyn and most of the men had already descended to the garden by the second rope-ladder.

“That has all been managed well,” Martyn said when Horace joined him below. “Now, you and I will go forward and reconnoitre a bit.”

The house was seventy or eighty yards away. There were lights in several windows on the ground-floor, and at almost all the windows on the flat above it.

“We had better take off our shoes, Horace. It is no use running any risks. Shove them in your sash beside your pistols.”

They stole noiselessly up to the house and looked in at the windows. In one room were a group of servants sitting round a brazier, smoking; another room was empty; but in the third, which was much the largest, four Turkish officials were seated on a divan, and a Nubian slave was handing them coffee.

“That old chap is the pasha, no doubt,” Martyn whispered. “He is evidently master of the house. You see he is giving some order or other to the slave. Here is the garden door into a hall; let us see if it is open. Yes; that is all right. Well, I think now we will bring up the men. Now, as soon as we are in, Horace, you take four men; go in first and post them at the doors leading out of the house. I will take six men and seize the pasha and his friends. Other four will pounce upon the servants. Your cobbler fellow had better go with them to tell the servants that if they make the least row they will have their throats cut. The other men will scatter about in the passages and down stairs, and pounce upon anybody who may come along. As soon as you have posted your men, go to the room where the servants are, and bring the interpreter in to me. Tell the sailors to bind the fellows and lay them down, and put a couple of guards over them.”

They returned to the men and told them off to their several duties. All were ordered to take their shoes off, and put them in their belts.

“Now, you can draw your cutlasses, lads,” Martyn said. “Have you all loaded your pistols?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, mind they are not to be used; a pistol-shot might destroy all our plans. I hope to manage it so that there shall not be any noise whatever.”

They made their way quietly up to the house. Horace opened the door and led the way in, followed by his four men. They passed through the hall and a long passage, from which several rooms opened; and he was sure, by the direction in which he was going, that this must lead to the offices. At the end was a strong door; only one bolt was shot, as doubtless the officers would be leaving by this way. He put up a heavy bar that was standing beside it, stationed two of the sailors there, and then retraced his steps with the others. Just as he reached the hall again a sailor came up to him.

“This is the way to the big door, your honour;” and turning down another passage they arrived at a double door, which Horace had no doubt was the one that he had seen in the court-yard. Posting the men there he hurried back, and soon found the room where the servants had been sitting. The work had already been done. The sailors had all been provided with short lengths of rope, and the Turks were lying bound upon the floor. Telling the cobbler to accompany him, he went into the next room. Two sailors, with drawn cutlasses, were standing by the side of the pasha. The three officers had been bound, and were lying on the divan, with a sailor standing over each, while the other sailor stood over the attendant, who cowered on the ground in an attitude of abject terror. Martyn was standing facing the pasha.

“Now, Horace,” he said, “tell your man what to say to the pasha.”

This had been arranged between them, and Horace at once addressed the pasha.

“Do you speak Greek?”

The pasha shook his head.

“Tell him,” Horace said in that language to the interpreter, “that we belong to the ship to which the officers and sailors he has in his prison also belong, and that we have come here to fetch them away. We are fighting under the flag of Greece; but we are Englishmen by blood, and we shall do no harm to him or his family. The prisoners, however, we will have; and unless he sends at once, with an order for their delivery from the prison, and hands them over to us, we shall be obliged to carry him, the three officers here, and the ladies of his family and his children, off on board our ship as hostages; and if a hair of the prisoners’ heads is touched, we shall be forced to hang him and the whole of his family to the yard-arms of the ship.”

The interpreter translated his words sentence by sentence. The Turk had at first looked perfectly impassive; but at the threat to carry off his women and children his expression changed, the veins stood out of his forehead, and his face flushed with fury.

“Tell him,” Horace went on, “that we should deeply regret to have to take such a step, and that we sincerely trust that he will see the necessity for his yielding to our demands. There is no possibility of assistance reaching him, we are a well-armed body of determined men, his servants have been secured, and all the doors are guarded, as also the windows outside – he is completely in our power. As we came in noiselessly and unobserved, so we shall depart. If he refuses to comply with our demands we shall, of course, be compelled to bind and gag all our captives, and to carry the ladies and children.”

When the last sentence had been translated, Horace said to Martyn, “I think, Captain Martyn, you had better get those officers carried into the next room, so that we can touch upon the money side of the question.”

Martyn gave the order, and the officers and the attendant were removed.

“Now, pasha,” Horace went on, “let us look at this thing reasonably. On the one side is the certainty that you and the ladies of the household and your children will be carried away; and that unless the prisoners are given up to us in exchange for you, you will be all put to death. On the other hand, you have but to surrender prisoners whom you did not even capture in war, but who were wrecked on your shore. We know that you have sent to Smyrna for directions concerning them. Were it not for that you would have handed them over to us without difficulty; but as the pasha there, who is your superior, now knows of it, you think that he will be angry when he hears of their escape, and that you might fall into disgrace. But I don’t think that the pasha of Anatolia, if he were placed in the same position as you are, would hesitate a moment in giving up a score of captives of no great importance[Pg 229][Pg 230] one way or the other; and that if the matter were placed by you in the proper light before him, accompanied, perhaps, by a present, nothing more would be heard about it. In any case we are ready to pay you the sum of one thousand pounds as a ransom for them. We have sent your officers out of the room that they should not hear this offer, which will be entirely between ourselves. It is not meant as a bribe to you, but as a ransom, which, if you choose to send it to Smyrna, will doubtless assist the pasha there to perceive that being, with your whole family, at our mercy, you had no resource but to comply with our commands. We will give you five minutes to make up your mind.”

When this was translated, the pasha asked:

“How am I to know that, if the captives are restored to you, you will not still carry me and my family away?”

“You have simply the word of English gentlemen,” Horace said when the question was translated to him. “You see we are acting as considerately as we can. Your ladies upstairs are still unaware that anything unusual is going on. Our men have touched nothing belonging to you. We are neither robbers nor kidnappers, but simply men who have come to save their comrades from a cruel death.”

“I will write the order,” the pasha said firmly. “Had I been in the house by myself I would have died rather than do so. Being as it is, I cannot resist.”

“Who will you send with the order?” Horace asked.

“One of the officers you have taken away is the colonel of the regiment. He will take it and bring the prisoners here. He is the oldest of the three.”

Horace went into the next room and ordered the officer to be unbound and brought in by two of the sailors.

“You have heard, Colonel Osman, the terms that these strangers have laid down, and that unless the prisoners are surrendered, you, the two bimbaches, myself, and the members of my family, will be carried off as hostages and hung if the prisoners are not delivered up.”

“I heard that, pasha.”

“What is your opinion, colonel?”

“My opinion is that you have no course but to give up the prisoners. No one would expect you to sacrifice the lives of the ladies of your family and your children, to say nothing of your own and ours, merely for the sake of twenty shipwrecked sailors. It seems to me that it were madness to hesitate, pasha.”

“That is also my opinion,” the pasha said. “Therefore, colonel, I will now write you an order to fetch them from prison and bring them under an escort here. You will understand that it will be better that absolute silence should be observed about this affair. The less it is talked of the better. If the officer in special charge of them asks any questions you can intimate that, without knowing it, you believe that the messenger may have arrived from Smyrna with instructions as to their disposal. Dismiss the escort at the outer gate and bring the prisoners yourself here.”

The pasha wrote the order, which he handed to the colonel, who at once hurried off with it.

“You are sure that he will faithfully obey the order, pasha?” Horace asked through the interpreter.

The pasha nodded.

“One of the bimbaches here is his own brother, and he would be sure that his life would be sacrificed were there any treachery.”

At this moment there was a little shriek heard.

“I am afraid,” Horace said, “that one of the ladies’ attendants has come downstairs and has been seized. Perhaps you will like to go upstairs and assure them that there is no cause for alarm. In the meantime I will hand you this bag, which contains the amount of the ransom in gold.”

“You Englishmen act nobly,” the pasha said as he took the bag. “You had us in your power, and need have paid nothing, and you treat me as a friend rather than as an enemy. It is a pity that you fight for the Greeks. When I was a young man I fought in Egypt by the side of your troops.”

Horace escorted him through the sailors in the passages to the foot of the stairs and there left him.

“Your scheme is turning out trumps and no mistake,” Martyn said as he returned to the room. “There is no fear, I hope, of that Turkish colonel bringing all his men down on us.”

“I don’t think so.” And Horace then repeated what the pasha had said as to one of the officers in his hands being the colonel’s brother.

“That is good, Horace. I don’t think he would venture on it anyhow. Evidently the pasha has no fear. If he had he would not have sent him, because he must have known that his treachery jeopardized his own safety and that of his family.”

“How long do you think they will be before they are back?”

“Not much above half an hour, I should think. I don’t think the Turkish soldiers do much in the way of undressing, and certainly our fellows won’t. Now we will leave five men to look after the prisoners here, and we will put all the others in the offices you say look into the court-yard, so that if by any chance this fellow does bring troops down with him we can give them a hot reception.”

“If he does, Horace, do you take the five men in the house, rush upstairs, let one man put a pistol to the pasha’s head, and let the others snatch up any children they can find there and take them away over the wall – pasha and all – and march them straight down to the boat and get them on board ship. Let me know when you are off with them. We will defend the place as long as we can, and then make a bolt through the garden to the ladder and follow you.”

The men loaded their muskets and took their places at the windows of the offices. Horace and Martyn stood at the door leading from the house into the court-yard. The interpreter stood with them. Presently they heard the tramp of feet approaching. Then they heard a word of command, followed by silence, and the interpreter said:

“He has ordered the soldiers to halt. The prisoners alone are to enter the court-yard. When the gates close behind them the soldiers are to march back to barracks.”

The gates that had been left ajar by the officer as he went out opened, and in the moonlight they saw him enter, followed by Miller, Tarleton, and the sailors. The officer himself closed and barred the gate as the last entered. Then Martyn and Horace rushed forward and grasped the hands of their friends. These were for a time speechless with astonishment, but the men burst into exclamations and then began to cheer. Martyn checked them at once.

“Hush, lads! Come in silently and quietly. We will talk and cheer when we get away. Pass the word inside, Horace. Tell the men to file out at once. Form up in the garden. I will wait here till you have cleared the house.”

The greetings were hearty indeed when the two parties met in the garden.

“March to the ladder, lads,” Martyn said, “but don’t begin to climb it till we join you. Now, Horace, we will say good-bye to the old pasha. Bring the interpreter in with you.”

The pasha had returned to his room again where he had been joined by the three officers, the colonel having already liberated the other two.

“Tell the pasha that Captain Martyn wishes to thank him for the promptness with which the arrangement has been carried out, and also to express to him his very great pleasure that this incident should have terminated without unpleasantness. Captain Martyn wishes also to say, that although, in order to rescue his officers and men, he was obliged to use threats, yet that, as far as the ladies of the pasha’s family were concerned, they were threats only; for that, even had he refused, he should have respected the privacy of his apartments; and although he would have been obliged to carry off the pasha himself, his children, and these officers as hostages, he would have retaliated for the murder of the prisoners only upon the adults. No English officer would use disrespect to ladies, and no English officer would avenge the murder even of his dearest friends upon children.”

When this was translated to the pasha, he replied: “The courtesy that the captain and his sailors have exhibited since they entered the house is in itself sufficient to show me that his words are true, and that the ladies of my household would have been respected. I feel myself humiliated by thus having my prisoners carried off from the midst of the town, but I have no reason to complain. It is the will of Allah, and I shall always remember these English officers as gallant gentlemen. There are not many who would risk their lives to save a few of their countrymen.”

A few more words were exchanged, and then Martyn and his companions joined the sailors at the wall. Miller and Tarleton had by this time gathered from the men a short account of how their rescue had come about.

“Now,” Martyn said briskly when he reached them, “the sooner we are off the better. Horace, do you lead the way with ten of the men who came with us; let the last two of that party help your interpreter over. Mr. Miller, you with your party will follow. I will bring up the rear with the other ten men.”

In five minutes all were over the walls. The last party had pulled up the ladder from the garden after them, then removed and lowered down the gangway; and after Martyn, who came last, reached the ditch, the grapnel was shaken from its hold on the wall.

“It wouldn’t do to leave these things here,” he said to Horace. “There is no saying what yarn the pasha may set afloat. It is quite on the cards that if he gets an order from Smyrna to execute the prisoners, he will have it given out that they were marched to the court-yard of his house and there executed. At any rate our taking away the ladders will leave it open to him to give his own account of the matter. Now, my lads, you will all follow me. It is of no use forming up in order, as we are going through orchards; but keep close together, don’t straggle and don’t talk. You will have plenty of time to compare notes when you are once on board.

“Now, Miller,” he said as he started, “we are fairly out of it. I am delighted, indeed, to see you and Tarleton again. I thought at one time it was all up with you.”

“So did we,” Miller said, “and I can hardly believe we are free even now.”

“It is due to Horace and Zaimes, Miller, though it is to Horace entirely that the credit of hitting upon the plan by which we have got you out belongs. However we will talk all about that when we get on board. You will have to tell your yarn to the chief; besides, as I have told the men not to talk, I don’t want to set a bad example.”

Horace had greeted Marco warmly in the court-yard, and as soon as they started he fell behind with him, chatting with him in low tones.

“Zaimes couldn’t come with us, Marco, for he and the doctor had to stay on board with my father to look after some prisoners there, but he was here with me this morning and made all the arrangements for the escape. We landed at the mouth of the bay and walked here last night, both disguised in peasants’ dresses we got hold of. I know it was a great privation to him not to be able to come himself and aid in your rescue.”

Here Martyn, catching the murmur of voices, passed the word for silence, and nothing more was said until they reached the boats which they had drawn up on the shore. A few minutes later they were alongside the brigantine. Mr. Beveridge hailed them as they approached.

“Is that you, Martyn?”

“Yes, sir. Horace’s plan has worked perfectly, and we have got them all out. The boats can only carry half. He is waiting with the rest on the beach.”

“Thank God for that, Martyn! No one hurt at all?”

“No one, not even a Turk has been knocked down. The only scrimmage has been with one of the pasha’s wives’ maids, who fought like a wild-cat before two of our men could make her a prisoner.”

Directly the rest of the party came off the anchor was weighed and sail made on the brigantine, and she was headed from the land. In half an hour a look-out in the bow called out: “I think I can make out the schooner away on our beam, sir.”

“I think it is her,” Martyn said after going forward to have a look. “Light that red flare-up we brought with us, Horace.”

As soon as the red flame broke out, a similar signal was shown by the craft in the distance. The brigantine was headed for her, and the two vessels rapidly approached each other. Presently a hail from Tom Burdett came across the water.

“Captain Martyn ahoy!”

“Ay, ay, Tom! We have got them all. Everyone is safe and well.”

A cheer broke out from the schooner, which was answered by a louder one from the brigantine.

“Throw her up in the wind, Tom,” Martyn shouted, “and we will bring this craft alongside.”

In two or three minutes the vessels lay side by side. Before leaving the brigantine its crew were released. Mr. Beveridge, in his delight at the success of the plan, made them each a handsome present for the inconvenience they had suffered. The cobbler of Adalia had not come aboard with the boats, Horace having given him his reward of twenty-five pounds before embarking. As soon as the crew of the schooner were all on board the head-sails were filled, and she rapidly drew away from the brig. The boatswain was ordered to serve out a ration of grog all round, and the officers then assembled in the cabin, where the Greeks placed some cold meat and wine on the table, to which all, especially Miller and Tarleton, fell to with a good appetite. When they had done, Martyn told the story of the steps that had been taken for their rescue.

“You see, Miller, it was entirely Horace’s plan; he made the whole arrangements, and we had only to carry them out, which was the simplest thing in the world. Now let us have your account.”