* * * * *
"I say, sir," said Jack Mackenzie to Mr. Sturdy one night, as they sat together on the skylight, while the good ship Gurnet was speeding onwards and eastwards over the Atlantic, with every stitch of canvas drawing that she could bear, and stun'-sails alow and aloft,—"I say, sir, what is our immediate cause of quarrel with Russia?"
"A very pretty question, Jack; a parson couldn't have put it in better English. But really, lad, a parson might be a fitter man to answer it than a rough sailor like me. Seems to me, however, and from what I learned on board the Limpet, that Russia thinks it is high time to reform Turkey."
"To reform her with the sword?"
"Ay, ay, lad—the old fashion. To improve the greatest portion of her off the face of the earth, and to sweep all the Turks who won't turn Christian back into the land of heathendom—that is, clean out of Europe into Asia."
"Seems very mindful of Russia, doesn't it, sir? And if successful, does she expect no reward?"
"Reward? why, yes; and a proud reward too. She, and she alone, is to rule where Turkey now rules; to have complete possession of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles—take a look at your map, lad, when you go below—and thus have the freedom of the Mediterranean, and a sea-board on the warmer and sunnier southern climes. No wonder that such a prospect dazzles the Czar, and even his people.
"And no more fitting time, he believes, could be than the present, Jack. Russia, you see, is trying her hand at the construction of a new map of Europe. It would be a very handy map for the Czar, but a very expensive one for other Powers. If we—the British, for instance—desired to hold our own, to keep Malta, Alexandria, or to open up a near route to our possessions in India, we should have then to maintain a fleet in the Mediterranean at least three times as large as it now is. But France, to say nothing of Prussia and Italy, has also interests to protect. It would suit neither to see Russia acquiring a splendid new capital—namely, Constantinople—and therefore holding the key of the Mediterranean."
"Ahem!" said Jack. "Of course I don't know enough to argue on either side. But, sir, doesn't it seem a little rough on Russia to be locked up in the icy north, and to have no outlet to the southern seas?"
"She might have, lad—she might have, if she could be trusted. But she won't play fair. She wants to eat all the pie, and give nobody else a plum. As for Austria, if Russia gets hold on Turkey, she gets command of the Danube at the same time, and would in time, no doubt, turn that country, nolens volens, into a province of her own."