'If I were cast into a deep pit,' saith the quaint Hobbes, 'and the devil put down his cloven-foot, I would take hold thereof, to be drawn out by it.'
This is an apt, but somewhat fallacious application of the mode of working ascribed, with what truth I say not, to the Jesuits, viz., that we may do evil if good should come of it; and of the system upheld by the philosopher of Malmesbury, 'that it is lawful to make use of an ill instrument to do ourselves good.'
Callum and I, though sunk in dejection, dispirited, and exasperated, and feeling ourselves fitted to attempt or encounter anything desperate to achieve our liberty, had scarcely reached the climax referred to by the learned Hobbes. I thought of bribery; but my foster-brother, though poor as a cadger, was proud as a king, and with some scorn rejected my proposal to tamper with our not over-scrupulous Turkish guards and turnkeys.
These officials (as Achmet Effendi informed me), by the connivance of the governor and his subalterns, could favour or permit the escape of the worst malefactor committed to their care, if there were friends without, who were ready to pay down the requisite number of piastres, on receipt of which their names would at once be struck off the books of the Bagnio as dead.
'Suppose cholera should break out here?' said I, one day, when almost suffocated by the overpowering malaria of the prison.
'In the name of mercy do not think of it!' replied the Turkish lieutenant; 'I have seen that dreadful pest more than once within these walls, and all the Koran says of hell cannot equal the horrors of the scene. The dead, collapsed, pale, and frightful, have lain among us in their chains for days, until the governor, by offers of liberty, bribed some of the prisoners, and by threats of death forced others, to convey them from this vault, into which the vilest of his slaves refused to enter.'
These brief conversations increased my desire to leave the place. My horror of it; my anger at being detained; my anxiety for the issue, and for the construction which the regiment might put upon my unaccountable disappearance, with a thousand other exciting reflections, rendered me at times only fit company for a maniac. Often my spirit sank to the lowest ebb; and, crouched at the foot of a pillar, with my head resting on kind Callum's brawny shoulder, I have slept, or striven to sleep, through the long and dreary hours of a monotonous night, after the equally long and dreary hours of a horrible day. And even these snatches of uneasy slumber were filled by countless dreams, visions, and thoughts of incidents long past, and places, faces, and voices far, far away.
Amid all this misery I thought much of Iola, who was now where her errors would be more lightly judged than by the sons of men.
Strange it was that when I dreamt of her—her death, that scene of horror, seemed all a dream, that had passed away with night and sleep. She was again alive and beside me, as of old, with her soft angelic smile! Again her lips were warm and breathing; and her breath came hot and fragrant, as her white bosom palpitated against mine. Dear Iola! Then the atmosphere seemed dense and full of languor; again I was trembling, dazzled, and confused with delight, as she lay within my arms in all her Oriental beauty, waking in my heart a thousand thoughts and aspirations hitherto unknown to me.
Then her face would fade like the dissolving views of a magic-lantern; melting half away, it changed and brightened into another that resembled Laura Everingham; then I would start with a convulsive shudder and awake, to find around me the grizzly, unshaven, and dreadful visages of my Asiatic and Turkish companions, with all the horrors of that earthly hell, the Mohammedan Bagnio.
Many a time the scenery of my native land came before me. Again, in fancy, I trod the purple heath, and heard the roar of the Uisc-dhu, as it thundered over its steep precipice into the black linn below; again I saw my mother's grave, and the old jointure-house shining in the sunlight; the lofty scalp of Ben Ora capped with the snows of the past winter, and its sides clothed with bronze-like thickets of larch and pine; again I saw the azure loch on which the wild swans floated, bordered by its groves of silver birch, of wavy ash, and the rowan with its scarlet berries; and out of that deep, dark, and pestilential vault, the desolate glen of the Ora passed thus before me like a panorama, with all its moss-grown hearths and roofless homes; the waving woods, the rocks, and mountains, shining under a glorious sun.
On waking from dreams like these my spirit sank lower, but sturdy Callum never quailed, for he cuffed and kicked the Turkish prisoners, and sang 'The Brown-eyed Maid,' or whistled endless and interminable pibrochs, as he said, 'just to relieve his mind and let off the steam a little.'
Anon I was with the regiment again—'roughing it,' among rough and gallant spirits, who hovered round me in all the glittering appurtenances of Highland chivalry. I heard the comic song, the glee, the laughter of the mess; or I was again at sea on board the Vestal, passing over the waste of water like a floating spirit, and gliding along the dim and distant coasts of France and Spain—that seemed pale and blue by sunny day, and dark by starry night—or lit only by the solitary light-houses that burned like ocean-stars upon the horizon's tremulous verge; on—on—on the wings of steam, swiftly, silently, and mysteriously.
Iola still!
It would come before me again and again, that face of tender beauty and reproachful sadness. Her eyes were ever on me, by night, when all was darkness and profundity; and in the day-time, when the misty flakes of sunshine fell through the prison-bars, in waking or in sleeping, they were ever gazing on me—those dark and sad, but sweet imploring eyes.
Eve fell even in Paradise—why not Iola?
With such thoughts for my companions, how heavy was my sorrow, how dull and monotonous my captivity!
At last, even Callum, who could boldly face all those disagreeables which usually rise like dust along the roadway of life, began to sink under the weariness of our existence in this hideous place; and once, to my surprise, I discovered tears hovering in his eyes.
'Co-dhalta,' said I, kindly, placing a hand on his shoulder; 'what are you thinking of?'
'I am thinking, Mac Innon, of that green place where God gives rest to the weary—the old kirkyard at home, where your mother and mine, too, are sleeping under the shadow of the old stone cross; and I was pondering on——'
'What?'
'Our chances of ever being laid beside them.'
'Let us rather think of escape.'
'To work, then,' said Callum, briskly; 'let us not continue to waste what little Father Raoul was wont to term the poor man's best inheritance?'
'What may that be, Callum?'
'Time,' was the pithy reply.
This brief conversation was interrupted by the arrival of two more prisoners, who were immediately greeted by the usual appalling chorus of yells, cries, curses, and laughter, together with that clattering accompaniment of chains, bolts and fetters, which had so strangely startled Callum and me on our first entrance to this Cimmerian and infernal abode.