'May they all go to Jehannum!'
''Tis their kismet.'
'And who can avert it?'
'Bono—bono!'
'No bono—wallah!'
'Hah-ha! Hah—ha!'
Such were the cries and yells we heard on all sides, mingled with groans, idiot or ferocious laughter, brutal jests and scurrility, in all the dialects of the Bosphorus and the Levant. Many of these prisoners were nude, or nearly so, and their muscular limbs and olive skins were fretted by the massive and rusty fetters which confined them to the walls on each side. Others were clad in every diversity of oriental costume, fashion, and colour. We could perceive the blue gown of the Jew; the torn but ample white robes of the Armenian; the gay cap of the short-trousered Greek; the fur pelisse of the hawk-eyed Tartar; and the red tarboosh that covered the woolly head of the Egyptian; but all these men were squalid, tattered, and beyond description, filthy. Assassination, robbery, and a thousand crimes of the deepest die, were legibly stamped on the hideous fronts of this crew of hardened desperadoes; and we shrank from their touch, on each side, as we hovered in the middle, and kept carefully beyond their reach, for I had once heard of a prisoner who was placed in a Turkish bagnio unchained, a privilege which so greatly exasperated his fettered companions, that they flung, beat, kicked, and tore him from man to man, until his mangled corpse defied their further efforts at insult or torture.
Most of these prisoners, as I afterwards ascertained, were men who had committed those foul murders and robberies, such as, since the war, are nightly occurring in the dark, unlighted, unpaved, and narrow streets of Stamboul—that Stamboul, boasted by the Turks as 'the refuge of the world—the city full of faith;' and these fierce denizens of the prophet's patrimony, would all, ere long, receive the reward of their crimes in some form of law; for though the land is almost lawless, its punishments, like its people, are barbarous and severe.
For several days and nights Callum and I remained together in this hideous place, ignorant of what fate had in store for us; whether we were to be detained there in hopeless captivity; whether we were to be brought before a court of malevolent muftis and ignorant kadis; or whether we were to be delivered to our own military authorities; to the Turkish, or to that enterprising ambassador who has immortalised himself by the anxiety and diplomatic energy he evinced during the defence of Kars; and from whom, by his conduct on that occasion, we had so much to expect in the form of protection and aid!
By day, Callum and I paced to and fro in the centre of this dreadful place, keeping apart from all our companions, and we soon became almost as oblivious of their presence, as they were of ours; and during this monotonous time our sole employment was watching the long flakes of misty light which streamed through four iron-grated apertures or narrow slits down to the Bagnio; and which, like four palpable objects, passed slowly round from one side of the dungeon to another, as the sun declined and day faded away. At these holes the Turkish sentinel, with his scarlet fez, dark moustachioed face, and cunning eye, was seen at times peering into the place to see if "all was right;" and through these apertures, I was told, they had been wont to fire ball-cartridge, when any unusual commotion took place among the prisoners.