All became quiet after a time. Then we heard the clatter of horse's hoofs, as a mounted messenger galloped from the fort, which made me suspect that our Yuze Bashi had sent some awkward instructions to the Bostandgi Bashi of the police; or worse still, to some of the lawless Bashi-Bozouks, an orta or regiment of whom, were cantoned at Carga, not far from us; but ere long, we learned that it was only a slave, dispatched by Iola for a certain learned Jewish Hakim, who arrived in due time, and reported, that after imprecating a torrent of maledictions on 'the chief of the bare-legged Yenitcheries,' as he termed the brave steady lads of her Britannic Majesty's — Highlanders, the Yuze Bashi had suddenly become speechless and black in the face; that his eyes had started in their sockets, and he became senseless, as if ghoules or ghinns were strangling him; that he was recovered only by bleeding and having his temples bound with a fillet, on which were traced the signs of the Zodiac. After this, he was able to make known that he wished to see the Moolah Mustapha, who had accordingly been sent for.
The plain English of all this I supposed to be, simply, that Hussein, being very short in stature, stout, pursy, and thick-necked, in his phrenzy had brought on a fit of apoplexy, the effects of which—if they had no better cure than the signs of the Zodiac—I believed would at least keep him quiet until I was recalled to Heraclea by Major Catanagh, an event for which I now devoutly prayed.
CHAPTER XLVII.
SEQUEL TO CHAPTER FORTY-THREE.
A morning or two after this, there was no small consternation existing among the soldiers of my little band at Rodosdchig, when Dugald Mac Ildhui, my sergeant, paraded them as usual, and neither Callum Dhu nor his master were forthcoming. Corporal Donald Roy was despatched to make inquiries, but returned to the parade with tidings that he had knocked repeatedly at Mr. Mac Innon's door without receiving any answer; and as it was open, he had ventured to peep in, and saw but too plainly that his camp-bed had not been slept in over-night; that the last fragment of an unextinguished candle was still burning, but streaming and guttering on the table; that his sword and belt and some of his uniform lay strewed about; but that neither he nor Callum Dhu had been seen since last night, when the Turkish sentinel at the barrier-gate thought he perceived them both pass hurriedly out, and take the path which led towards the sea.
The faithful sergeant and his corporal spent that day, all the next, and all the succeeding in vain surmises and in futile inquiries; no trace of their officer and missing comrade was to be found; and as the story of Hussein's rage and imprecations against me, for causes unknown, had by some means—perhaps through the chaoush or onbashi of the Bombardiers—reached the little band of Celts, they began to look darkly and inquiringly in each other's faces, while vague whispers of assassination gained strength and corroboration among them. The sergeant and his corporal had been among the wandering Highland dancers who went to Paris in 1848, and were so near being shot by the Republican troops for appearing kilted and plaided, with dirk and claymore, in the Place de Carrousel; and having imbibed thereafter a great doubt of, and detestation for, all foreigners whatsoever, they came to the conclusion that we had met with an untimely end.
The circumstance of a boat being found by a Galiondgi adrift near the castle, containing an officer's regimental sash, spotted with blood, and a Highland private's Glengarry bonnet, increased this terrible mystery, and led the soldiers to believe that, beyond a doubt, the unfortunate Ensign Mac Innon and his fidus Achates had become food for the fishes of the Propontis, and the whole beach around the bay was searched in vain for their bodies.
The sergeant—a sober, steady, and brave soldier, one of the many who were daily forced from their homes into our ranks, for he was an evicted Sutherland Highlander (evicted because he was unable to pay the marriage-tax of forty shillings now daily and illegally exacted by the grasping factors of the north and west Highlands from the people, to keep the number of the population down)—procured a thin yellow sheet of Turkish paper, and after holding a solemn council of war, in which a vote of vengeance was unanimously passed on the Yuze Bashi, who was still under the Jewish Hakim and the signs of the Zodiac, he squared his elbows, made a broad margin, carefully nibbed his pen, and proceeded to prepare an official report to Major Catanagh, recounting the strange disappearance of the officer commanding the detachment; and this report caused no small excitement at the mess-table when it reached Heraclea.
Some weeks elapsed before this mystery was cleared up; and the origin of it all was as follows:—
One evening, after the arrival of the Moolah Moustapha, of whose presence at the fortress I had an intuitive dread, an unusual bustle, and then a dead silence were remarked in the apartments of the Yuze Bashi; and in half an hour after sunset, Callum Dhu, with his dark face flushed and excited, came in haste to inform me, that a boat—one of those straight prowed and heavily-built craft, called by the Turks a kochamba—with several men in it, had come from the harbour round the promontory of the castle, and was now close to the sea staircase, a flight of steps hewn in the rocks near the lower gun-battery. He added more startling intelligence.