And, with these words, the corsair took leave of the captives, who, after being gagged again, and having their hands all tied behind them—including Tompkins this time, much to the boys’ satisfaction—were put into the boat that lay alongside, and rowed ashore, under a strong guard, with the Greek Polydori at their head.
It was a change of scene from their cooped-up quarters on board the felucca; but after they had had a toilsome march, uphill all the way, through mountainous defiles and along the roughest of paths, they wished themselves back again in their floating prison.
Arrived at a cross-turning surrounded by a thicket of stunted shrubs, the leader of the guard that accompanied them cried a halt, uttering a shrill and prolonged whistle, which was presently repeated from the hills above.
An approaching footstep was then heard, and a challenge, to which Polydori replied with some password, after which there was a long colloquy between him and the stranger.
They were then ordered to resume their march, although they had been walking two hours since they had quitted the shore, Polydori and the stranger leading the column, with the prisoners in the centre and the other guards in the front and rear. In this manner they proceeded until the unfortunate captives were ready to drop with fatigue, while their board ship shoes were worn into shreds by the stones and prickles of the path they had traversed, and their feet all bleeding and torn.
“I can’t go a step farther!” exclaimed Tom, dropping in his footsteps. “Good-bye all.”
But the guards prodded him with their knives, and made him rise again. So he tottered along, until the column, marching in a sort of military order, and passing numerous sentinels, who challenged the leaders, and stopped them till they gave the countersign, entered suddenly on a large encampment of men, squatting on the ground amidst a circle of fires. There were no tents nor waggons to bear out the illusion, but otherwise the scene resembled a bivouac of some expeditionary force.
The brigands, as the English readily guessed these gentry to be, were some forty or more in number, and were principally Greeks and Albanians, clad in their picturesque dress—a short sleeveless jacket, coarse gaiters and shoes, a kilt of some rough texture, and a fez; while across their chests they carried a cartridge belt, and around their waist a sash, in which were stuck pistols and knives, not forgetting the long yataghan, that hung to their sides in the same fashion as they had noticed with the crew of the pirate felucca.
Amongst this band of miscreants, who thought less of murder than they did of killing a fowl, the survivors of the Muscadine suffered a species of moral torture for more than a week, being moved from place to place meanwhile, generally by night, as the brigands’ encampment was shifted to evade the pursuit of the Turkish troops, who were wonderfully active in hunting the mountain gentry about—after Mr Suter’s and Colonel Synge’s release!
During this time, they heard nothing of the pirate chief, although the leader of the brigands—a gigantic Albanian named Mocatto—was continually engaged in pleasantly putting before Captain Harding what he and his countrymen might expect should the bank-draft remain unsigned after the corsair’s return—of course acting under that worthy’s instructions; pointing the moral of his remarks by practising the most unheard-of cruelties on such captives as the brigands brought in day by day, who were unable or unwilling to send to their friends to ransom them.