A creaking noise was heard from the ponderous wheels. The four bullocks put forth all their strength; it was a useless effort, one of them pulled the cart a little to one side, the next instant it was upset and half buried in the mire. The two men with naught on them save little red fez caps and with their tucked-up shirts, presented a doleful picture. They were not burdened with much flesh, and ribs and shoulder bones were prominently thrown into relief by the coating of mud which reached as high as their waists. One poor fellow, wading up to us, asked Osman to give him a light for his pipe. The other one, looking more woe-begotten, if possible, than his fellow, had no pipe, and mournfully asked for a cigarette.
"Effendi," said Osman, "this is a dreadful place. We may be upset. Our horses will not get through. Better go back to Ismid and wait there till the mud becomes hard."
"No; go on. Horses can march where bullocks cannot."
Osman turned white, he was riding a little in advance of me, and did not at all like being sent forward to experiment upon the depth of the mire.
"He is a poor creature," observed Radford, contemptuously, "Lor, sir, what else can we expect of them? They don't drink no beer. They turn hup their noses at wine. Hosman's blood ain't no thicker than ditch-water—I will lay a pound it ain't."
Our saddle-bags were covered with mud when we gained a footing on the other side. Osman, riding up to my side, congratulated himself on having guided us through in safety.
"Your face was very white," I observed.
"Yes, Effendi, my blood had turned to milk. It was not for myself, it was for the Effendi. I thought that he might be suffocated. Osman is yours, you can do with him what you like."
All these were very pretty speeches; however, I had been sufficiently often in the East to know how to appreciate them at their true value. I felt tolerably certain that if Osman's courage was ever put to the test, he would be found to value his existence in this world more than the society of a million beautiful wives in the world to come.
After all, he would have been no exception to mankind in general. I remember during the last Carlist war hearing a story about a priest who, on the eve of an expected battle, addressed the soldiers in his battalion, and informed them that whoever was slain in the morrow's fight should sup with Nuestro Señor in Paradise. The morrow came, the battle raged, and the Carlists were beaten—the priest's battalion being the first to run away, headed by the divine himself, who, tucking up his cassock, ran as fast as his legs could carry him. A soldier touched the reverend gentleman on the shoulder, and said, "You told us, my father, that whoever was slain in to-day's fight should sup in Paradise, but you are running away." "My son," replied the Cura, who was very much out of breath, "I, I—never sup—I suffer from a weak digestion—I only dine." Some people in England believe that a doctrine of predestination makes the Turkish soldiers indifferent to death. This may be true in a few isolated instances; but, as a rule, both Turks and Christians have an extreme dislike to the dread ordeal.