With the melancholy story of Constantine Vidimo in my mind, the reader may imagine with what emotion I heard the Turkish drums beating in the barrack-yard for the punishment parade next morning, and our three pipers playing the gathering, for our little detachment, as a portion of the Allied troops, had to attend the painful scene.
Callum Dhu, now a smart and active soldier, appeared punctually to accoutre me with my pipe-clayed belt, sword, &c., and while the sun was yet below the sea, I issued into the shady square of the Coumbazadjilar-Kislaci, where our sergeants were calling the roll, and where the battalion of the Mir Alai Saïd, with short blue tunics, scarlet trousers, and tarbooshes, were falling in by companies, while a few topchis, or gunners, were being slowly and laboriously paraded and mustered by the ponderous Yuze Bashi Hussein.
The parade was soon formed, and the two commanding officers, Mir Alai Saïd and Major Catanagh, mutually complimented each other on the appearance of their men; and, in truth, this Turkish battalion, in efficiency, order, and discipline, would have done no discredit to any army in Europe. Their faces were dark and fierce, keen and Asiatic; their words of command, like their names, sounded wild and barbaric, as ours must have been to them; but, with a few exceptions, every manoeuvre and tactic were modelled after our own.
While expressing astonishment and even merriment at the large plumed bonnets, hairy sporrans, and bare knees of our men, the Mir Alai was delighted by their athletic figures. The jewelled dirks, claw-pistols, and basket-hilted claymores of the officers excited his interest, and he vowed by the beard of the Prophet that he had never before seen weapons of such a fashion or of finer workmanship.
'Stout fellows all,' said he, in strange English, as he patted the shoulder of Callum, who was a flank file; 'their hands will soon be hardened by carrying the brass-butted musket.'
'If they do not become food for powder and the Russian worms, colonel,' replied Catanagh.
The sun rose above the sea of Marmora, and at that instant the shrill wild voice of the muezzin from the lofty minaret of an adjacent mosque pierced the silence and purity of the morning with the summons to early prayer.
Then the Turkish battalion, which had been standing at ease, with ordered arms, and formed in open columns of companies at quarter distance, bent their heads in prayer, and many produced their beads of cedar-wood, and commenced their orisons with a fervour that impressed us with no small respect for these poor Moslem soldiers; but after a time the sharp drum beat a roll, the whole battalion started to 'attention'—the bayonets were fixed—the arms 'shouldered,' and as the right was assigned to us, the whole presented arms, with drums beating, and their single colour flying, as we marched out to the place of execution, with our pipes playing. The Osmanlies followed, with their brass band, cymbals, bells, tambourines, and triangles, performing something that was meant for a march; but its measure was more wild and barbaric than pleasing.
The morning was brilliant; on our left the sea of Marmora shone like an ocean of glass, and the rakish little Greek caiques were shooting out upon its bosom from the shady creeks and sunny inlets, where they had been anchored overnight.
Marching out by an ancient gate, which was encrusted by carving and old inscriptions, and covered by ivy and acanthus-leaves, we traversed a causeway coeval perhaps with the days of Zeuxis and the palace of Vespasian, and reached a little hollow, which was surrounded by groves of the olive, the emblem of peace—the tree which Minerva gave to Greece, and which, as the poets say, was grasped by Latona in her maternal throes.
It was a lonely place, and no sound was heard there but the coo of the wild pigeon or the flapping of a stork's wing, as he sat on a prostrate column, the rich Corinthian capital of which was almost buried among luxuriant creepers, weeds, and wild flowers. In this valley stood a little gilded mosque, having a shining dome, and two taper minarets, like gigantic candlesticks, the tops of which, to complete the resemblance, seemed to be lighted; but this was merely the sun's rays tipping with fire their bulbous-shaped roofs of polished brass. Around towered a group of solemn cypresses, which cast their shadows on the marble slabs, the green mounds, the turbaned headstones, and gilded sarcophagi that marked where many a true Believer lay.
A little apart from these, a new grave freshly dug was yawning darkly among the green grass and dewy morning flowers.
Beside it knelt the Greek officer, and near him were twelve Turkish soldiers, with their bayonets fixed.
As we halted in the valley, and formed three sides of a hollow square, a bell jangled in the mosque, and the Hafiz Moustapha, and moolah or priest, wearing long robes and a turban of green cloth, came slowly forth, bearing the Koran in his hand; and now a chill fell on all our hearts, for to us this scene and all these preparations were solemn, strange, and new.
I gazed with deep interest at the poor young Greek, who was still upon his knees, and who seemed to have given up all his soul to God in prayer and outpouring of the heart—and as I surveyed his face, so pure and cold, so noble and severe in its classic beauty, all the episodes of his dark and terrible story came before me; and at that time I felt an abhorrence of all Osmanli in general, and our bulbous-shaped Yuze Bashi in particular. Of all who were present his visage expressed the least concern, for to him the shooting of a Greek was infinitely of less moment than the shooting of a crow.
The poor Albanian!
On rising from his orisons, he looked calmly about him; but nowhere save in our own ranks did he meet with eyes of sympathy. Perhaps we had somewhat of a fellow-feeling for a bare-kneed soldier whose garb so nearly resembled our own, for the white camise of the mountaineer of Albania and the tartan kilt of the mountaineer of Albany are as nearly identical as the old tradition of that mutual descent from one stock would make us, a tradition strangely corroborated by the old classic names of Hector, Æneas, Helen, and Constantine being still preserved among the Highland clans. But enough of this legendary fustian.
Constantine Vidimo was drawing nearer our ranks, when again the bell rang in the mosque; and shrinking back to the side of the newly-dug grave, he folded his arms and gazed fiercely at the Turks.
The spiritual consolation of a Greek priest of his own religion was denied him in this terrible hour, the bitterness of which the old wretch named Moolah Moustapha left nothing unsaid to enhance, for he was an ancient Mohammedan, who could remember the 'good old times' when the true Believer had the power of forcing every Christian dog, however high in rank, to sweep the muddy streets of Stamboul before him at his caprice and whim.
With his hands crossed on the Koran, which he pressed to his breast; with his long white beard spreading over it, and his long green robe falling in heavy folds from his shoulders to the grass, he faced the Turkish troops, and strung together a number of disjointed quotations from the Koran, which, as Belton whispered, were mere incentives to bloodshed and bigotry.
'Oh, true Believers! wage war against such of the Infidels as are near you—let them find no security in you, and know that God is only with those who fear him. Should the divine vengeance fall upon you either by day or by night, believe that the wicked have hastened it upon you. The Believer dieth happy, a possessor of Eden, through which flows rivers of wine and sherbet; he is adorned with bracelets of fine gold, and he is clothed in silken garments of fine green cloth; glory surrounds him; he sleeps in a couch of pearl, with his head pillowed on the soft bosom of a black-eyed girl, and his reward is to dwell for ever in the abode of delight; but thou, oh Greek! after appearing at the last day, chained to the geni who seduced thee, shall broil for ever in the dark caves of everlasting fire—a poor bubble, swept down the burning torrents of the river of Woe!'
To all this I could perceive that the Turkish soldiers listened with considerable impatience; for there is, I believe, a natural antipathy springing up between the military and the religious of the Ottoman empire. Being rough, and not ungenerous, the Turkish soldier despises the moolahs, muftis, imaums, dervishes, calanders, and fakirs, for their cunning, avarice, hypocrisy, and secret immorality; while they, in turn, rail at and preach against the soldiers for wearing tight pantaloons, relinquishing the turban for the fez, learning to drink raki, and generally for following a little too closely the customs of Europe.
'Have a righteous fear of Mohammed, oh, Believers!' resumed the Hafiz Moustapha, 'and you will die in the faith, and find the Koran the only sure cord to heaven; but,' he added, turning his face to us, for this moolah had been a soldier—a corporal of Grenadiers—in his youth, as the reader shall learn more at length; 'but may the holy Prophet, who sees all that night veils and day enlightens—who knoweth and heareth all things, bless these infidels, who have come to fight for the land of Islam!'
'Amaum! amaum!' muttered the Mir Alai Saïd, as he waved his sabre impatiently to the mulazim commanding the party of twelve soldiers, whose muskets were to despatch the prisoner, and a chaoush (sergeant) who stood on their flank, armed with a pistol, carefully examining its lock and priming.
An onboshi (corporal) approached with a handkerchief to bind up the eyes of the Greek lieutenant; but scorning alike to kneel or be blindfolded, he stood boldly confronting the firing party at the distance of thirty yards, fearlessly and firm. He drew a cross from his breast—the coral cross of Hussein's savage story—the cross his mother had tied around his neck at Acre, and after kissing it, he held it up in our view, and said in somewhat broken English—
'It is the emblem of your faith—the religion in which I die. Let not these Turkish swine defile it when I am gone. Who among you Christian men will take it from my hand, and keep it as the last gift of a wretch who never knew what it was to be happy?'
'I will!' exclaimed I, starting forward.
He grasped my hand, and his beautiful dark eyes flashed with dusky fire, as he waved his right arm with pride, and exclaimed—
'Now, dogs—I am ready for you!'
His aspect and bearing were splendid.
Stern and unyielding as the Prometheus of Æschylus, braving the fury of his tyrants, and scorning to sue for mercy or stoop his haughty head, the noble Greek stood before the levelled muskets that were to destroy him.
'Nishan ale!' (ready—present) cried the Turkish commander of the platoon.
'Atesh!' (fire)
Flame flashed from the twelve iron tubes; twelve bullets whistled shrilly past us, and the reports rang like thunder in the narrow valley, scaring the stork from the ruined column, and the wild pigeons from the olive-grove. The smoke curled upward in the pure atmosphere, and the poor Greek officer lay prone on the grass, breathing heavily, with blood pouring in streams from his throat and bosom. Three balls had pierced him, yet he was not dead.
Now something like a groan ran along our ranks, for at that moment the chaoush with the pistol approached the dying man, placed the muzzle to his ear, and coolly and deliberately blew out his brains!
So ended this scene of blood.
* * * *
Our bagpipes yelled again, and the Turkish drums and flutes rang merrily in that valley of olives, as we wheeled from hollow square into open column, and breaking into sections, marched back to the barracks; but my heart felt sick and sore, and oblivious of the martial display, I thought only of the coral cross which I had taken from the dead man's hand, and of the barbarous mode in which I had seen his mutilated and coffinless remains thrust into the grave, and hastily earthed up, by the water-carriers, or Nubian slaves, of the Mir Alai Saïd's regiment.