UPON the following morning horses were brought round and they were ordered to mount. An officer with twelve Turkish troopers took charge of them. The pasha came out from his tent.
“I am sending a letter to the Porte saying what I know of the doings of your ship, and of the service you rendered by saving our countrymen at Athens. I have also given directions that the vessel conveying you shall touch at Tenedos, and have written to the governor there asking him also to send on a letter in your favour.”
After an hour’s riding they reached the town of Larissa, and then followed the river on which it stands down to the sea.
“What a lovely country!” Horace exclaimed as he looked at the mountains to the right and left.
“We are travelling on classical ground,” the doctor replied. “This is the vale of Tempe, that hill to the right is Mount Ossa, that to the left is Mount Olympus.”
“They are grand,” Horace said, “though I should certainly enjoy them more under other circumstances. Fancy that being the hill that Jove used to sit on. It would be a grand place to climb, wouldn’t it?”
“I should be quite content to look at it comfortably from the deck of the schooner, Horace, and should have no desire whatever to scale it.”
“Where is the schooner now, do you think, doctor?”
“Where we left her. They would wait at the village where they expected us to be handed over to them till late in the afternoon, and then most likely march back to the shore. This morning they will be trying to get news of us. It is possible that one of the Greeks has taken down the news of our capture by the Turks, in hopes of getting a reward. He would not know whether we were killed or captured—they bolted too fast for that; but if a fellow does take news of the fight he will probably offer to show the spot. Martyn will take out a strong party, and when he finds the bodies of the two Greeks and no signs of us, he will arrive at the conclusion that we have been carried off. The Greeks probably recognized the men who attacked them as being a band of Albanians. The white petticoats alone would tell them that; and as the Christian Albanians would certainly not be likely to be plundering on this side at the present time, they will be sure they are Mohammedans either raiding on their own account or acting with the Turkish forces in Thessaly.