But never was assault more fatally devised, or more signally unsuccessful.
In a moment the prow of the caique came with a frightful crash against the quarter of the lumbering kochamba; the shock threw me forward upon the thwarts, by one of which I was severely cut and bruised about the face, while I narrowly escaped three pistol shots, one of which grazed and slightly wounded Callum's left hand; but our misfortunes were only beginning; for in the concussion I lost my revolver-pistol. On relinquishing the oar, and springing up, I instinctively grasped for it at my waist-belt—but alas! the pistol was gone. For a moment I groped wildly and fruitlessly about the bottom of the caique, without finding it; and then, as no time could be lost, with my naked dirk, I sprang madly on board the kochamba, followed by Callum, who made free use of his bayonet, and now a deadly struggle took place; the Turks assailing us with batons, drawn sabres, and the brass knobs of their long-barrelled pistols, amid a storm of yells and barbarous maledictions.
Grasping one powerful galiondgi by the waist, Callum flung him fairly overboard, tossing him into the air like an India-rubber ball; and he was left by his fatalist friends to sputter and sink, or scramble on board as best he could.
The huge boat swayed from side to side, plashing and surging heavily, while we fought and grappled like wild animals; but though individually more than a match for any of the Osmanlies present, Callum and I were overborne by their number, and must inevitably have been shot, stabbed and tossed overboard, but for the exertions and authority of the Moolah Moustapha, who would not allow them to slay us; but under pain of his everlasting curse and displeasure, commanded them to spare our lives, "as he had eaten bread and salt with us." Though four of the fellows whom we encountered, and with whom we had exchanged several buffets, blows, and stabs in the dark, belonged to the unscrupulous force of the Bostandgi Bashi, or Police Inspector on the banks of the Bosphorus and its adjacent villages, the voice of the Moolah, who ordered us to be taken alive, proved all powerful. We were soon beaten down, and severely, roughly, even brutally, tied like sheep with a wet rope which lay steeping in the bilge at the bottom of the boat; and while we were lying helplessly there, the revengeful Osmanlies trampled and spat upon us, reviling us at the same time with such epithets as can only come from a vituperative Turkish tongue.
'Allah burn you, you dog's sons—you imps of Shaitaun!' said one whom they frequently named Zahroun, and who seemed to be half Bostandgi and half seaman.
'The drunken Inglees—whose dogs are they?' asked another, mockingly.
'They worship the devil, like the wild Yezidies of Iraun—the children of hell, and are false as the falsest Yahoudi. Dirt be upon their beards!' said the ferocious Zahroun.
'Son of Shaitaun,' said another, kicking me so severely that I thought my right arm was broken, 'it is your khismet (destiny) to die here, and I know not why the simple Moolah spares you.'
'Infidel that you are,' said a fourth, 'your khismet is written on your forehead by the finger of the prophet—and it is a skinful of the cold Bosphorus.'
To all this, the others added coarse and vulgar ribaldry, such as one might expect from the boatmen and Bostandgi of the Bosphorus, a depraved and murderous class at all times; and my heart swelled with honest rage when I thought of the futile war we had waged for those insensate Turks, whose name had not been heard in battle since our army landed in the Crimea, and who, with all their boasted valour, had fled at Balaclava, and left a single Highland regiment—"the thin red streak" of Sir Colin Campbell—to receive in line the charge of all the Russian cavalry!