Story 2—Chapter VIII.
Amongst the Brigands.
As soon as the Muscadine had succumbed to her ill fate so tragically, the felucca made sail at once from the place, steering north, as well as Captain Harding could make out; for neither he nor the boys were allowed to look at the compass, and they none of them spoke to Tompkins since his betrayal of the captain’s trust, although he could probably have told them, for he “appeared to be hail fellow well met” with his captors, as Charley said.
The night passed, and again another day and night, without anything noteworthy happening, the swift craft sailing at racehorse speed, and always in the same direction, to the best of their belief, as if towards some fixed destination; but the corsair did not enlighten them, and, indeed, did not address them during the interval.
Towards the evening of the second day on which they were on board her, the felucca drew near land, from which she held off and on until the shades of night covered her movements, when she approached close to the shore, and a boat was lowered over her side.
The pirate chief then, for the first time since the Muscadine disappeared under the waters of the Aegean Sea, addressed Captain Harding and his companions, who had found the time of their captivity hang wearily on their hands, although they were virtually free to walk about on board their prison-house, with the exception of speaking to any of the crew or looking at the compass, both of which were interdicted, with significant threats whenever they tried to evade the prohibition.
“Now, captain,” said the corsair, with an oily smile, which sat worse upon his countenance than a frown, “I will thank you to sign this order,” producing the skipper’s bank-draft, and a pen and ink all ready for the purpose. “Just sign it, and I will put you and your brother Englishmen ashore at once.”
“Where are we?” asked the captain.
“On the coast of Greece,” was the answer, “not far from Salonica, where I am going with the felucca to dispose of my cargo,” with a naïve candour which made Charley Onslow laugh outright.
“His cargo, indeed,” he whispered to Tom. “You have often talked of my Irish impudence, but, bedad, that beats Banagher.”
“Be quiet,” replied Tom; “you’ll only get us into a row.”
But the leader of the pirates took no heed of the interruption; he was too busy about the money order.
“Come, sign,” he repeated to the captain.
“And suppose I don’t?” said he.
“Then you and your companions will be imprisoned in the mountains until you do, up to a certain period—until I have time to complete my business at Salonica, that is—and if, on my return from thence, you still continue obdurate, why, then all of you had better say your prayers—” completing his sentence with an emphatic gesture which could not be misunderstood.
The captain was obstinate. He thought that now they were near a well-known port, and in comparatively civilised regions, the pirate chief would not dare to carry out his threat, and after a time, if he only held out, would be satisfied with the share of booty he had already secured, particularly, as from some remarks which he casually let fall when the cargo was being shifted, it had turned out to be more valuable than he had anticipated.
Once he had made up his mind, nothing would make the captain budge an inch from the position he had taken up. He could be as obstinate as a mule when he liked.
“I refuse to sign the draft, and you may whistle for the money,” he said doggedly.
“You better had,” urged the other. “I only advise you for your own good. Those brigand friends of mine in the mountains, who will be your jailers, are a rough lot, and not to be trifled with.”
“I will see you hanged first!” shouted out the captain, out of all patience, and he then closed his lips together tightly to show that he did not intend saying another word.
“Absit omen,” quoted the corsair; “hanging is a ticklish subject. Polydori,” turning to one of the Greeks, “take charge of these Englishmen, with ten others of your best men. Your lives will answer for theirs until you give them into Mocatto’s keeping. You know the rendezvous, where to meet him and his band. Captain, and young gentlemen, adieu! May you be of a more practical mind when I see you again, which will not be long.”
And, with these words, the corsair took leave of the captives, who, after being gagged again, and having their hands all tied behind them—including Tompkins this time, much to the boys’ satisfaction—were put into the boat that lay alongside, and rowed ashore, under a strong guard, with the Greek Polydori at their head.
It was a change of scene from their cooped-up quarters on board the felucca; but after they had had a toilsome march, uphill all the way, through mountainous defiles and along the roughest of paths, they wished themselves back again in their floating prison.
Arrived at a cross-turning surrounded by a thicket of stunted shrubs, the leader of the guard that accompanied them cried a halt, uttering a shrill and prolonged whistle, which was presently repeated from the hills above.
An approaching footstep was then heard, and a challenge, to which Polydori replied with some password, after which there was a long colloquy between him and the stranger.
They were then ordered to resume their march, although they had been walking two hours since they had quitted the shore, Polydori and the stranger leading the column, with the prisoners in the centre and the other guards in the front and rear. In this manner they proceeded until the unfortunate captives were ready to drop with fatigue, while their board ship shoes were worn into shreds by the stones and prickles of the path they had traversed, and their feet all bleeding and torn.
“I can’t go a step farther!” exclaimed Tom, dropping in his footsteps. “Good-bye all.”
But the guards prodded him with their knives, and made him rise again. So he tottered along, until the column, marching in a sort of military order, and passing numerous sentinels, who challenged the leaders, and stopped them till they gave the countersign, entered suddenly on a large encampment of men, squatting on the ground amidst a circle of fires. There were no tents nor waggons to bear out the illusion, but otherwise the scene resembled a bivouac of some expeditionary force.
The brigands, as the English readily guessed these gentry to be, were some forty or more in number, and were principally Greeks and Albanians, clad in their picturesque dress—a short sleeveless jacket, coarse gaiters and shoes, a kilt of some rough texture, and a fez; while across their chests they carried a cartridge belt, and around their waist a sash, in which were stuck pistols and knives, not forgetting the long yataghan, that hung to their sides in the same fashion as they had noticed with the crew of the pirate felucca.
Amongst this band of miscreants, who thought less of murder than they did of killing a fowl, the survivors of the Muscadine suffered a species of moral torture for more than a week, being moved from place to place meanwhile, generally by night, as the brigands’ encampment was shifted to evade the pursuit of the Turkish troops, who were wonderfully active in hunting the mountain gentry about—after Mr Suter’s and Colonel Synge’s release!
During this time, they heard nothing of the pirate chief, although the leader of the brigands—a gigantic Albanian named Mocatto—was continually engaged in pleasantly putting before Captain Harding what he and his countrymen might expect should the bank-draft remain unsigned after the corsair’s return—of course acting under that worthy’s instructions; pointing the moral of his remarks by practising the most unheard-of cruelties on such captives as the brigands brought in day by day, who were unable or unwilling to send to their friends to ransom them.
At last, one day, after witnessing the horrible exhibition of a poor Turk having his clothing saturated with paraffine oil, and then set fire to, the captain, urged more by considerations for the safety of Tom and Charley and his men, than for his own, gave in, and told Mocatto that he would sign the draft.
“That is good,” said the brigand. “Demetri comes to-night, and you can sign it in the presence of the chief. If you do not, you know the consequences.”
However, as it turned out, Captain Harding was fortunately able to keep his word to the corsair, when he said “he would see him hanged first” before he should attach his name to the money order.
That very same afternoon, a whole battalion of Turkish troops, sent out from Salonica, surrounded one of the mountains in which the brigands’ stronghold was situated; and after desperate fighting, in which many men were killed on either side, compelled the surrender of Mocatto’s band.
Demetri, the pirate chief, who was on his way, like Shylock, for his bond or pound of flesh from the captain, got captured amongst other prisoners, and was subsequently hanged along with them on the mountain side, as a warning to all dishonest folk.
Tom and Charley, and the captain, escaped scot free,—through a miracle almost, the brigands being attacked so suddenly that they were unable to murder their captives, as they invariably do when assailed by the troops—and so did the sailors along with them; all but Tompkins, who, as if in punishment for his treachery and cowardice, got shot by a passing bullet.
“It is a long lane that has no turning,” as the proverb runs; and, to paraphrase it, it must be a long story which has no ending: so there must be an end to this.
The Muscadine could not be raised again. But Captain Harding got another ship, of which Tom Aldridge was appointed second officer, and Charley Onslow third, on probation; and the three, captain and youngsters, have had a voyage or two already. But they have not forgotten, nor are they likely to forget, their memorable adventures in their passage from Beyrout, nor Mohammed’s old friend, “The Corsair of Chios.”