Salmoni promptly obeyed her instructions; he discovered a ship for the Levant, and, by a note tossed over the wall, informed her of the night, and the very hour of their departure.
She was in the act of reading this note—probably not for the first time—when the Sultan Achmet suddenly entered her apartment; and she had barely time to toss it, unseen, into a porphyry vase; for this billet, if discovered, might have consigned her to the bowstring of the capidgi-bashi, or the sack of the black channatoraga, and its concealment forms an important feature in the story of the fugitives.
The hour—almost the moment—for flight had arrived, and Salmoni, she knew, awaited her below the garden wall; yet, amid all the terror and anxiety of the time, so strong was Emilia's love for the little baby-girl of whom she had the chief care, that she resolved to convey the child away with her, and hoped eventually to rear it as a Christian. Collecting all her jewels, and those which Achmet had already lavished on the infant, she took with them the silken fetfa, or record of its birth; and, to be brief, escaped unseen by means of the steel-yard and ladder.
As she descended, the latter was held for her by a person in a gray cloak, whom she believed to be Salmoni, and into whose arms she was, consequently, about to throw herself, when another man started forward, and plunged a sword into his breast. He fled, and a cry escaped Emilia, who fell to the ground; but at that moment the captain of the vessel, by which Salmoni had arranged they should escape, rushed up, and, tearing off the mufflings of the fallen man, merely exclaimed, "It is not he!" and bore her off to the seashore.
An alarm had been given. There was no time to wait for the absent Salmoni; she was placed at once on board the vessel, which immediately sailed and made all speed to leave the Golden Horn behind. She proved to be a small craft belonging to Bayonne, commanded by a young captain from Dieppe; who ultimately landed Emilia and her charge at Génes, where her first care was to have the little Turque baptized according to the rites of the Catholic church.
This, it is recorded, was done by the curé of St. Eulalie de Génes, who named her Marie Cécile; and in honour of an event so remarkable, a salute was fired by the cannon of the château and those of the ramparts of the fort; and three religeuses, named respectively, La Mère St. Agnes, La Mère St. Modeste, and La Mère de l'Humilité, are mentioned as having taken a deep interest in the escaped fugitive and her charge, who was kept in ignorance of her origin till her fifteenth year.
We know not how many daughters Achmet III. is said to have had; but in a letter of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, dated from Adrianople, she writes of his eldest being betrothed in marriage to Behram Bassa, then the reigning court favourite, and translates a copy of verses he had addressed to her.
Cécile was now taken to several European courts, "at which"—according to the narrative—"she was received with all the honours due to her illustrious rank." In Russia, she was presented to the Czar, Peter I., (who died in that year); but in England, she would seem to have contented herself with a short residence at a coffee-house (café), in Covent Garden! Among other sovereigns, she was presented to Pope Clement XI., at Rome, where her beauty, which she inherited from her Georgian mother, especially the profusion of her exquisite hair, began to surround her with snares and perils.
In Rome, her guardian, Emilia, had the joy of once more meeting Salmoni! The man who had been stabbed beneath the seraglio wall had not been he, but the Turkish corsair, through whom he had first traced her there, and who had hoped to make profit out of the intended escape by treacherously revealing it to the sultan; and for this purpose he had plotted with a female slave attached to the palace. This woman, through whose hands the important billet passed, had artfully erased the hour of twelve, fixed by Salmoni, and substituted eleven. Hence, though the sailor had full time to make the attempt, he failed in the execution of his purpose; so now, after all their perils, Salmoni and Emilia were married in the Eternal City, where the love affairs of "La Belle Turque" speedily began to attract notice.
First, we are told, that a duke fell in love with her; but she made him her friend, assuring him that he could never be more to her, as she had already become inspired by a passion for a handsome young Knight of Malta, who hoped soon to be absolved from his vow of celibacy. While waiting for this, the knight's father, old Prince ——, as mischance would have it, became enamoured of her, reckless that he was a rival of his son; and, to avoid his importunities, she and the Salmonis set out suddenly for Paris, where, by the knavery of a banker, she lost much of the proceeds of the jewels brought from Constantinople; so that her fortune was reduced from sixty thousand livres yearly, to about ten thousand.