'In the name of mercy do not think of it!' replied the Turkish lieutenant; 'I have seen that dreadful pest more than once within these walls, and all the Koran says of hell cannot equal the horrors of the scene. The dead, collapsed, pale, and frightful, have lain among us in their chains for days, until the governor, by offers of liberty, bribed some of the prisoners, and by threats of death forced others, to convey them from this vault, into which the vilest of his slaves refused to enter.'
These brief conversations increased my desire to leave the place. My horror of it; my anger at being detained; my anxiety for the issue, and for the construction which the regiment might put upon my unaccountable disappearance, with a thousand other exciting reflections, rendered me at times only fit company for a maniac. Often my spirit sank to the lowest ebb; and, crouched at the foot of a pillar, with my head resting on kind Callum's brawny shoulder, I have slept, or striven to sleep, through the long and dreary hours of a monotonous night, after the equally long and dreary hours of a horrible day. And even these snatches of uneasy slumber were filled by countless dreams, visions, and thoughts of incidents long past, and places, faces, and voices far, far away.
Amid all this misery I thought much of Iola, who was now where her errors would be more lightly judged than by the sons of men.
Strange it was that when I dreamt of her—her death, that scene of horror, seemed all a dream, that had passed away with night and sleep. She was again alive and beside me, as of old, with her soft angelic smile! Again her lips were warm and breathing; and her breath came hot and fragrant, as her white bosom palpitated against mine. Dear Iola! Then the atmosphere seemed dense and full of languor; again I was trembling, dazzled, and confused with delight, as she lay within my arms in all her Oriental beauty, waking in my heart a thousand thoughts and aspirations hitherto unknown to me.
Then her face would fade like the dissolving views of a magic-lantern; melting half away, it changed and brightened into another that resembled Laura Everingham; then I would start with a convulsive shudder and awake, to find around me the grizzly, unshaven, and dreadful visages of my Asiatic and Turkish companions, with all the horrors of that earthly hell, the Mohammedan Bagnio.
Many a time the scenery of my native land came before me. Again, in fancy, I trod the purple heath, and heard the roar of the Uisc-dhu, as it thundered over its steep precipice into the black linn below; again I saw my mother's grave, and the old jointure-house shining in the sunlight; the lofty scalp of Ben Ora capped with the snows of the past winter, and its sides clothed with bronze-like thickets of larch and pine; again I saw the azure loch on which the wild swans floated, bordered by its groves of silver birch, of wavy ash, and the rowan with its scarlet berries; and out of that deep, dark, and pestilential vault, the desolate glen of the Ora passed thus before me like a panorama, with all its moss-grown hearths and roofless homes; the waving woods, the rocks, and mountains, shining under a glorious sun.
On waking from dreams like these my spirit sank lower, but sturdy Callum never quailed, for he cuffed and kicked the Turkish prisoners, and sang 'The Brown-eyed Maid,' or whistled endless and interminable pibrochs, as he said, 'just to relieve his mind and let off the steam a little.'
Anon I was with the regiment again—'roughing it,' among rough and gallant spirits, who hovered round me in all the glittering appurtenances of Highland chivalry. I heard the comic song, the glee, the laughter of the mess; or I was again at sea on board the Vestal, passing over the waste of water like a floating spirit, and gliding along the dim and distant coasts of France and Spain—that seemed pale and blue by sunny day, and dark by starry night—or lit only by the solitary light-houses that burned like ocean-stars upon the horizon's tremulous verge; on—on—on the wings of steam, swiftly, silently, and mysteriously.
Iola still!
It would come before me again and again, that face of tender beauty and reproachful sadness. Her eyes were ever on me, by night, when all was darkness and profundity; and in the day-time, when the misty flakes of sunshine fell through the prison-bars, in waking or in sleeping, they were ever gazing on me—those dark and sad, but sweet imploring eyes.