She related that her father had been a merchant captain of London, who, after her mother's death, had taken her with him in a vessel on a voyage to the Levant, where they were captured by a Greek pirate. She was then a mere child. Her father and his crew were put to death, their vessel plundered, and then set on fire, in the Gulf of Sidra, and destroyed. Her captor, a thoroughpaced old rascal, had now settled, with all his ill-gotten gains, as a small landowner, on the shore of the Bay of Varna, where she was still his bondswoman—his slave.
The soldier's wife begged the girl to follow her, and take refuge in the British camp, and she was about to comply, when the appearance of her master or owner, a fierce-looking old fellow, clad in a jacket and cap, both of brown sheepskin, his sash bristling with knives, yataghans, and pistols, altered her feeble resolution; and though the wife of Private Smith shook her gingham umbrella with vigour, and threatened him with the "p'leece," and the main-guard to boot, he, nothing daunted, replied only by a contemptuous scowl, and dragging the slave girl into his house, secured the door.
It chanced luckily, however, that Sergeant Stapylton, of ours, with a mounted party of ten lancers, was returning along the Silistria road—where he had been sent in search of forage—and to him the soldier's wife appealed, and detailed what had taken place. He at once surrounded the house, and demanded the girl, in what fashion or language I know not; but he made the proprietor aware that fire or sword hung over him if she was not surrendered instantly.
Armed to the teeth, the Greek appeared at the door, and threatened him with the vaivode of the district, and the kaimakan, or deputy of the Pasha of Roumelia, and of various other dignitaries; but Stapylton put the point of his lance to the throat of the old pirate, who found in it an argument so irresistible, that he at once gave up the girl, whom our fellows brought with them in triumph to the camp, where a subscription was made for her, and she was a nine days' wonder; and that this little bit of romance might not be without its finale, she ultimately became the wife of Sergeant Stapylton.
Our regiment was encamped eighteen miles distant from Varna, in the lovely vale of Aladyn, surrounded by forests of the finest timber, where the springs of water were numerous and pure, and where the grass and verdure were of the richest description; yet there it was that disease—the fell cholera and dysentery—broke out among us, and decimated our ranks more surely and more severely than the Russian bullets could have done. But amid their horrors folly ever found its way; and several of our people, French and British, got into scrapes with the Bulgarian and Turkish damsels, especially the latter, who are rather prone to intrigue, notwithstanding the dangers attendant on it, in such a land of jealousy and the prompt use of arms. Perhaps the yashmac, and the mystery it gave to their faces, of which the ever brilliant eyes alone were visible, and the mouth—usually its worst feature—was hidden, had much to do with this.
By the Koran, aged women alone are permitted to "lay aside their outer garments, and go unveiled." A very old history of Constantinople—Delamay's, I think—relates that a pasha, remarkable for the size and ugliness of his nose, married, before the kadi, a lady who, on being unveiled, proved to his great disgust to be exceedingly plain.
"To whom, of all your friends," she asked, with her most winning smile, "am I to show my face?"
"To all the world," said he; "but hide it from me!"
"My lord, patience," she whispered, humbly.
"Patience have I none!" he exclaimed, wrathfully.