CHAPTER XXXV.
THE EXECUTION.
With the melancholy story of Constantine Vidimo in my mind, the reader may imagine with what emotion I heard the Turkish drums beating in the barrack-yard for the punishment parade next morning, and our three pipers playing the gathering, for our little detachment, as a portion of the Allied troops, had to attend the painful scene.
Callum Dhu, now a smart and active soldier, appeared punctually to accoutre me with my pipe-clayed belt, sword, &c., and while the sun was yet below the sea, I issued into the shady square of the Coumbazadjilar-Kislaci, where our sergeants were calling the roll, and where the battalion of the Mir Alai Saïd, with short blue tunics, scarlet trousers, and tarbooshes, were falling in by companies, while a few topchis, or gunners, were being slowly and laboriously paraded and mustered by the ponderous Yuze Bashi Hussein.
The parade was soon formed, and the two commanding officers, Mir Alai Saïd and Major Catanagh, mutually complimented each other on the appearance of their men; and, in truth, this Turkish battalion, in efficiency, order, and discipline, would have done no discredit to any army in Europe. Their faces were dark and fierce, keen and Asiatic; their words of command, like their names, sounded wild and barbaric, as ours must have been to them; but, with a few exceptions, every manoeuvre and tactic were modelled after our own.
While expressing astonishment and even merriment at the large plumed bonnets, hairy sporrans, and bare knees of our men, the Mir Alai was delighted by their athletic figures. The jewelled dirks, claw-pistols, and basket-hilted claymores of the officers excited his interest, and he vowed by the beard of the Prophet that he had never before seen weapons of such a fashion or of finer workmanship.
'Stout fellows all,' said he, in strange English, as he patted the shoulder of Callum, who was a flank file; 'their hands will soon be hardened by carrying the brass-butted musket.'
'If they do not become food for powder and the Russian worms, colonel,' replied Catanagh.
The sun rose above the sea of Marmora, and at that instant the shrill wild voice of the muezzin from the lofty minaret of an adjacent mosque pierced the silence and purity of the morning with the summons to early prayer.
Then the Turkish battalion, which had been standing at ease, with ordered arms, and formed in open columns of companies at quarter distance, bent their heads in prayer, and many produced their beads of cedar-wood, and commenced their orisons with a fervour that impressed us with no small respect for these poor Moslem soldiers; but after a time the sharp drum beat a roll, the whole battalion started to 'attention'—the bayonets were fixed—the arms 'shouldered,' and as the right was assigned to us, the whole presented arms, with drums beating, and their single colour flying, as we marched out to the place of execution, with our pipes playing. The Osmanlies followed, with their brass band, cymbals, bells, tambourines, and triangles, performing something that was meant for a march; but its measure was more wild and barbaric than pleasing.