Returning one evening, dispirited and provoked after a second unsuccessful visit to the Ruined Hermitage, on entering the castle of Rodosdchig, I was informed by Callum that the Yuze Bashi had been inquiring for me everywhere, urgently and angrily. Surprised to hear this, I repaired at once to his quarters, and was introduced without ceremony; for the unfortunate captain of Bombardiers was considerably perturbed, and in great tribulation.
I found him seated on a carpet, in a corner of an apartment, the walls of which were, as usual, covered with pious sentences from the Koran. He was smoking a narguillah, through a crystal vase of rose-water, and the window, through which he usually watched the sun dip behind the hills, was open, to admit the sea-breeze, for he was flushed and feverish. An urgent despatch had come from the Seraskier and Kiaja Kiatibi, summoning him to appear without a moment's delay at Constantinople, on peril alike of his military button and his head.
'Beard of Ali!' he exclaimed, 'is not this alarming?'
'Rather,' said I, remembering that the first-named official was generalissimo of the Sultan's forces, and that the second was minister for the Home Department; and now the memory of a thousand peculations, local oppressions, extortions, and tyrannies came appallingly before Hussein, who, in his administration at Rodosdchig, had been about as tenderhearted as a Madras collector. Besides, he knew that he had ever been savagely severe with his men; for that obedience which is simple subordination in the European soldier, degenerates into mere slavery in the Turk.
Poor Hadjee Hussein Ebn al Ajuz felt his respected head wag somewhat loosely on his shoulders; but while he prepared to depart at once for Stamboul, in his selfish alarm for himself, the actual interest of his wife and household were nearly forgotten.
His wife; here was a devil of a dilemma! What was to be done? The question would have puzzled the seven wiseacres of the East, had they been with us.
'And now,' said Hussein, relinquishing his narguillah with a sigh, and belting his sabre about his portly person; 'I look to you for a great service.'
'If I can serve you in anything, command me.'
'I shall not be gone many days.'
'Take care, Hussein; I would bet a month's pay, or a quarter's field allowance, against the chances of your ever coming back again.'
'Bismillah! don't say so, pray—I shall come back!'
'And this service?' said I.
'Is to take charge of my wife in my absence.'
'I beg pardon—did I hear you aright? to take charge of——'
'My wife,' continued Hussein, grinding his teeth; 'there is none other here to whom I can apply. The Moolah Moustapha, curses on him! is—I know not where; and there is no Turkish officer in the castle, save myself. You are a beyzadeh (gentleman's son) as well as a soldier. I can trust you.'
'But your wife, Yuze Bashi—'tis a perilous trust, especially in Turkey.'
'I have no resource,' said he, stamping his feet with rage; 'none—I must leave this in ten minutes, and cannot apply to my soldiers, and still less to yours, to act for me in this delicate matter.'
'Excuse my plainness—but I do not like the duty.'
'I like you the better for this sincerity, and trust you the more.'
'But——'
'But me no buts! You are like Sadd Ebn Kais, who said to the Prophet on his march to Tabuc, "Give me leave to stay behind, and expose me not unto temptation;" because, as the Koran hints, he dared not trust himself among the black-eyed girls of Greece. Your scruples are just; but remember, they who do good shall obtain good, even in this world.'
'I have never seen the lady,' said I, doubtfully; 'is she beautiful?'
The Yuze Bashi knit his brows, for this was approaching forbidden ground; but he answered,
'Beautiful as a Houri, and young—so young that I might be her father; so you must watch over her and guard her as if she was concealed by the seven blessed doors of the Prophet Zacharias.'
'So I am to be the guardian of a Turkish harem—what next?' thought I.
'You have still doubts,' said Hussein, with increasing irritation. 'Listen to me; when I was in the castle of Selyvria, my subaltern, afterwards the Cole-agassi Mohammed Saïd, was suddenly ordered to join the train of artillery then embarking for the Crimea, and it was on peril of his head that he loitered for a moment, after receiving the summons of the Seraskier. Here was just such a dilemma as mine; but he came to me, saying,
'Hussein, you must be unto me as my brother; my purse, my wife, and my household, I leave in your safe keeping.'
'You have my word of honour,' said I.
'It is unnecessary,' said he, 'for I believe in you.' And so he sailed for the Euxine.
'For three months I had charge of his young and pretty wife. I never saw her; but my servants by turns watched the house, allowing none to enter—none at least but Ali Pasha, who paid me a hundred piastres for every visit; so you see I was very strict, and daily sent my grandfather, who was a decrepit old man, to ask if she required anything.'
'And the subaltern Mohammed Saïd?'
'Came back no more.'
'How?'
'He died a major at the passage of the Alma.'
'And his wife?'
'When her jewels were sold, married Hussein Aga (the steward of Ali Pasha), who paid me fifty piastres each time he left his slippers at the door. But you are an Ingleez—I can trust you to guard my wife better than I guarded the wife of Saïd—so watch her well, though she is pure as the daughter of Imraun, and gentle as the west wind, or the memory of a love we have lost when young.'
In ten minutes afterwards this coolest, queerest, and most cunning of all Yuze Bashis, had poised his huge bulk on the saddle of a fleet horse. With many sore misgivings, and terrors of the Seraskier and the Kiaja Kiatibi, he took his departure for Stamboul, leaving me in full possession of the fortress, and, more than all, of his wife, about whom, although I had not seen her, I felt some curiosity as he had acknowledged her to be young and beautiful as a Houri.
The plot of my Greek adventures was thickening!
'In love with the wife of one Turk, and solemnly requested, in a fatherly way of course, to look after the rib of another!' says Jack Belton, in one of his letters, which I received about this time by the hand of a mounted Koord. 'An arduous duty for a subaltern, Allan, but beware of meddling with such matters in Turkey! If the Horse Guards make light of dangers risked in the field of Mars, they will make lighter still of those encountered in the field of Venus. Allons, my boy! on the llth February, Fort Alexander at Sebastopol was blown up and entirely destroyed. There is no word of our moving in that direction yet, though it is said that a costermonger's ass would not exchange duties with our poor fellows in the trenches. I send you a box of prime cheroots; the last month's "Army List," the last Scotch newspaper, "Punch," and the corkscrew you required so much, and wishing you safe back again with your pins under the mess mahogany, remain, ever yours,
'J. BELTON
'Heraclea, March 1856.'