They retreat as fast as they can to Karagatch—a Greek village about a mile and a half south-west of Adrianople, on the river Arda. There the Ambassador gets a house for himself, Sir Thomas Baines, and their servants; the Chaplain, through the kind offices of his brother-papas, the village priest, obtains a tiny apartment in a cottage close by; and the others lodge, one here, one there, wherever they can find room—no easy matter in a small village for a company of one hundred and twenty persons. For the Treasurer alone there is no escape from the pestilent city. Business compels him to be always there. “Care was taken,” he says, “to find me constant employment, and for the most part I went at the will and pleasure of his Excellency.” North is a philosopher, and takes health and sickness as he does light and darkness or the vicissitudes of the seasons: as things to which a wise man has to accommodate himself; only taking care, whatever befalls him on this moonstruck planet, not to lose his temper with it. Nevertheless, though prudence holds his tongue, he cannot help some sarcastic reflections on “the Italick caution of the Ambassador and selfishness of the Knight,” who thus shift almost the whole burden on to his shoulders.[134]
Curiously enough, while showing so little regard for the English Treasurer’s safety, Sir John invites the Spanish friars to share his retreat with him—an invitation which is, naturally, accepted with gratitude and alacrity.[135] Let us hope that they repay him by their saintly exhortations and example of patience under affliction: there is call enough for both from that day onward.
As the weeks go by, and the Plague, with the increasing heat, grows fiercer, the Ambassador’s desire to have his Audience and his Capitulations, and to be gone, becomes acuter. His Dragomans are incessantly at work, pressing the Kehayah for dispatch; and, to add weight to their solicitations, Sir John writes to that worthy, desiring to know if there is any hitch in the business, declaring himself ready to argue any point before the Grand Vizir against any one, and asking whether he should make a direct application to the Vizir. The Kehayah answers, with his accustomed suavity, that his Excellency should not fret: all is well. As soon as the Tefterdar, or Lord Treasurer, can get ready the money for the pay of the Janissaries, Sir John will have his heart’s desire. There is nothing to be done but to let things take their course.
At last the Grand Signor decides to return to the Seraglio for the Audience. And, on the 27th of July, an hour before dawn, two chaoushes arrive at Karagatch to fetch his Excellency.
“Is my Lord ready?”
Ready for anything is my Lord—anything that promises deliverance from purgatory. Dressed and wigged and breakfastless, he and his companions follow briskly the thrice-welcome messengers to the head of a wooden bridge on the Arda, and there wait till the rest of the chaoushes who compose the guard of honour make their appearance. Then, crossing the river, our pilgrims mount their horses and set off through the dim twilight. About them the plain lies veiled in pestiferous mists; overhead a few stars still twinkle in the pale sky; the dew sparkles on the bare sandy soil underfoot. In front, with its solemn domes and slender minarets silhouetted against the horizon, looms the city of Adrianople.
They enter, and ride up the crooked, deserted streets, pitch-dark under the overhanging upper storeys of the houses, the noise of the horses’ hoofs on the rough cobbles rousing the inhabitants from their feverish dreams. Sir John’s heart grows almost merry within him at the thought that he is seeing that mournful city of death for the last time.
At about half-past five they alight at the great gate of the Seraglio. Our old friends, the Chaoush-bashi and Capiji-bashi, reinforced by a new one, the Peskeshji-bashi, or Chief Receiver of Gifts, come forth and conduct the visitors across a vast court lined with Janissaries to whose officers the Ambassador bows as he goes on, prompted by the Peskeshji-bashi, who walks before him with a long silver staff in his hand. After traversing this court, they step through a stone porch into the Divan: a small hall—not more than eight or nine yards square—with a bench running round the three sides, covered, as is also the floor, with embroidered silk. This hall serves many purposes: it is here that laws are enacted, lawsuits decided, troops paid, and ambassadors made fit to be introduced to the august presence of the Grand Signor: it has no doors, but stands always open for all the world to enter and seek justice.
The visitors look about them curiously: “The Truth is, Right Honorable, it was a sight worthy of any man’s seeing,” says Sir John, “but I have not here any time to dilate upon it.” Fortunately the Rev. John has and does. On one side of the bench sits a Secretary of State designated Nishanji-bashi, whose function it is to affix the Sultan’s cipher (toughra) to Imperial decrees. On another sits the Grand Vizir, with the two Cadileskers, or Supreme Judges of Europe and Asia. On the third side sits the Tefterdar. Over the Vizir’s head protrudes something that every one present thinks of all the time, though no one dares for a single moment gaze at—a bow-window screened with gilded lattice-work, through which, it is understood, the Grand Signor watches the proceedings unseen.
Having made his obeisance to the Vizir and the rest, the Ambassador is given a velvet stool to sit on, and, after “a little discourse,” is conducted to the bench on the Vizir’s right-hand side and placed beneath the Nishanji-bashi, “which, as I am told, was a Respect.” Next to him stands Dr. Mavrocordato, the Dragoman of the Porte, and his own two chief Dragomans. The other members of the suite take their appointed places at the farther end of the room: they may turn sideways to look out into the court, but when one or two of them, in so doing, venture to turn their backs to the Vizir, they are sharply reprimanded.