“Yes, I have heard about that,” the Pasha said. “We have all heard of the white schooner. She has been a dangerous enemy to us, and has done us more harm than the whole of the Greeks together; but after your humanity at Athens I cannot feel animosity against you. It was a noble deed and worthy of brave men. Thus it is that nations should fight, but the Greeks began by massacre, and have been false to the oaths they swore twenty times. How can you fight for men who have neither courage nor faith, and who are as cruel as they are cowardly?”
“There have been cruelties on both sides,” Horace said, “though I own that the Greeks began it; but in England we love freedom, and it is not long since we drove the French out of Egypt and preserved it for you. Our sympathies are with the Greeks, because they were oppressed. We have never killed a Turk save in fair fight, and the crews of every ship we have taken we have permitted to return to shore in their boats without injuring one of them.”
“This also I have heard,” the Pasha said, “and therefore I will do you no harm. I will send you to Constantinople, where the Sultan will decide upon your fate. He has given orders that all foreigners taken in arms against us shall at once be put to death for interfering in a matter in which they have no concern; but as you were not taken in arms I do not feel that the order applies to you, and will therefore take upon myself to send you to him.”
“I thank you, sir,” Horace said, “though I fear it will only be a reprieve.”
“I cannot say,” the pasha replied gravely. “The Sultan strikes hard when he wishes to give a lesson. You see, his people were massacred wholesale by the Greeks, and at Chios he taught them that he could retaliate; but he is not cruel by choice. He is unswerving when his mind is made up. Whether he will make an exception in your case or not is more than I can say. I can only send you to him, and hope that he will be as merciful in your case as I would be had I the power.”
Then he ordered one of his officers to take charge of the prisoners, to see that they had a comfortable tent and were well cared for, and that none molested them. Four soldiers were to be always on guard at the tent, and to answer for the safety of the prisoners with their lives. In a short time they were placed in a tent among those allotted to the officers, and four sentries were placed round it. After sunset two soldiers brought large trays with meat, vegetables, and sweets from the pasha’s own table, and also a bottle of raki.
“The Turk is a gentleman, Horace,” the doctor said as, after having finished dinner, he mixed himself some spirits and water. “I am not saying, mind you, that I would not have mightily preferred a bottle of good whisky; but I am bound to say that when one has once got accustomed to it, raki has its virtues. It is an insinuating spirit, cool and mild to the taste, and dangerous to one who is not accustomed to it. What do you think of it, Horace?”
“I don’t care for it, but then I don’t care for any spirits,” Horace said; “but I thoroughly agree with you that the pasha is a good fellow, only I wish he could have seen his way to have let us go. The Sultan is a terrible personage, and the way he has hung up hostages at Constantinople has been awful. If he has made up his mind that he will deter foreigners from entering the Greek service by showing no mercy to those who fall into his hands, I have no very great hope that he will make any exception in our case.”