'Hush,' whispered the Mir Alai, in a tone of rebuke; 'beware what you say, Hussein; they have come to fight with us against the Muscovites, and may the Prophet—he who knoweth all things—shed a ray of light upon the darkness of their souls!'
'Amaum!' mumbled the lieutenant, who, as in duty bound, applauded all that the Mir Alai said; 'but oh, Allah! only two wives per company!'
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE YUZE BASHI.
Leaving a small party under Lieutenant Logan, of ours, to protect the landing of the baggage and stores, accompanied by our three Turkish acquaintances, we forded a stream, with pipes playing and bayonets fixed, and crossing the promontory, marched towards Heraclea, which lies at the bottom of a little bay, and on the land side is defended by walls, though somewhat old and rent; and in a short time we marched in, making its streets of old dilapidated and worm-eaten timber houses; its domed mosques, and tall white-painted minars; its ruined palace of Vespasian; its Greek café; its Jewish bazaar; its whirling windmills; its stony and slippery thoroughfares and old ruins of the Grecian days, ring to the sharp rat-tat of the British brass drum and to the skirl of three great Scottish war-pipes, from the chanters and nine deep drones of which our pipers poured the stirring 'Haughs of Cromdale,' with such effect, that the big-breeched, long-bearded, stupid-looking old Turks, who sat smoking on carpets and platforms at the doors and in the street, with yataghans and pistols in their red-shawl girdles; the lively Greeks, in tarboosh, short jacket, and blue inexpressibles; the sharp-visaged Jews and solemn Armenians, all opened their round black eyes, and threw up their hands in wonder, as we wheeled up towards the fortress in sections of threes, with arms sloped, our tartans waving, and black feathers flaunting in the wind.
A fry of little Osmanli gamins, barelegged, though wearing short wide breeches and the red fez with its long tassel, scampered about us, gamboling, uttering shrill cries of wonder, and styling us Janissaries, Arnaouts, Albanians, Giaours, and anything but Britons; and thus escorted, we reached the spacious Coumbazadjilar-Kislaci, or barrack of the Bombardiers, where a battalion of Turkish infantry was under arms to receive us; and with ranks open, presented arms in a manner which would have done no discredit to any other European troops, their drums beating, and the officers saluting with the edge of their Damascus sabres outwards—as it is turned inward to none but the Sultan himself.
The officers of this battalion had done their best to provide us with a handsome collation—so handsome and luxurious indeed that, after our recent hardship, the very memory of it is enough to make one whistle; and apart from certain peculiarities, we found them very pleasant, quaint, and conversible fellows, though very few of them could boast of education sufficient to entitle them to add the envied appendage of effendi to their names. Their language, like that of the better class of Osmanli, was a mixture of Persian and Turkish, while that of their soldiers, like the jargon of the peasantry and boatmen of the Bosphorus, was Turkish alone: but in this these Orientals resemble ourselves; for in Britain the language of the educated people is alike distinct from the Scottish tongue and the dialects of the old Saxon.
'Mac Innon, here is to our noble selves!' said Catanagh, in Gaelic. 'How do you like the Roumelian wine?'
'It seems thin and poor.'
'Dioul! but it is more pleasant for you to be drinking it here, than be imbibing sherry-cobblers and cocktail among the Yankees.'