Pym soon determined that a very small pretext would suffice to make him throw himself in the way of a decided intervention in behalf of the non-combatants, and did not fail to exert all his influence on Dickson to obtain an official request that he should cruise on the coast in advance of the Pasha's army, and to "seize every available opportunity for affording refuge to any Christian in distress who may seek protection on board his ship," and to convey such refugees to Greece. Pym had declared to me (and possibly to Dickson) that he should, on his own responsibility, take such a step if he did not get the requisition from the consul; and, on leaving for a run to Candia, said that he should go thence to Selinos and put himself in the way of humanity. Under these circumstances, Dickson's humanity, further stimulated by Murray's and Pym's enthusiasm, got the better of his official prepossessions, and, without waiting for a reply from his Government to a petition addressed to all the Christian powers to send ships to save the women and children exposed to such chances as those of Arkadi, had followed up his remonstrances to the Commissioner with a proposal to send a ship to pick up the families gathered before the army in its movement into Selinos. The Commissioner, still under the impression of the effect produced by recent events on European public opinion, dared not refuse his consent to such a demand from his best friend, and, it may be conceived, reluctantly, verbally, and evasively gave it. But Dickson, too honest and earnest to comprehend the duplicity, took him literally at his word. As a consequence of all these considerations and conclusions, the Assurance found herself at Suia of Selinos while Mustapha was pounding away at the passes, and took three hundred and fifteen women and children and twenty-five wounded men on board and transported them to Peiræus.
No act could have been purer or more free from ulterior views than this of Pym's—an expression of what not only he, but all of his fellow-officers of the English navy whom I saw on the station, with one exception, felt—the compassionate desire to stand between women and children and the devilish policy which butchered them to terrify their husbands and fathers into submission. I saw Pym and his officers on their return from this voyage, and not one of them but would have given a month's pay to have gone on another similar trip. Their Government, in passing judgment on the act, could not condemn it, but to two parties, unfortunately, it was a political movement—the Hellenes, who insisted on considering it an intervention in their favor, and so compelled the English Government to forbid its repetition; and the French, who regarded it as a manœuvre to block the game of the Viceroy. The French agent who afterwards succeeded Derché assured me that they had the most conclusive evidence that Captain Pym had orders from London to give the insurrection a jog, because the annexation to Egypt would have been the result of the failure of the insurrection at this juncture, and that, although Pym was immediately recalled and, to all intents and purposes, disgraced, and I believe retired on account of his venture, he was only so in appearance, and really had been rewarded for his apparent punishment.
There were, at this time, two Italian corvettes, an Austrian frigate and gunboat, and a French gunboat, besides the Russian frigate, all of which, except the Frenchman, had, or were reported to have, orders to follow the lead of any other Power in rendering assistance to the non-combatants, and most of the commanders were anxious to follow Pym, but their delay in learning of his venture, and the quick disapproval of it, deterred all from intervention, and while correspondence was going on the war seemed suspended. It appeared finally to be decided that no one should imitate the English commander. The insurrection seemed on the point of collapsing, through the severity of the winter and the discouragement of the Cretans. Volunteers had been coming over from Greece—a motley mass of all nations—many of them from Smyrna and other Turkish parts, who, as soon as they landed, began to breed disaffection and maltreat the Cretans, creating the most angry feeling in the island, which did not stop short of violence. At this time, the whole body were driven into the Sphakian mountains, where, exposed to intense cold, half-fed, and without any discipline, they were dangerous only to the insurrection, and yielded readily to proffers of the Pasha to give them free exit and conveyance to Greece. A portion of them accepted the proposition on condition that they should be sent on European ships, and the Vice-Commissioner called a council of those consuls whose governments had naval representatives in Cretan waters, to propose that their ships should go to receive the disaffected volunteers, but with the condition that no non-combatants or Cretans should be accepted. None of the commanders were willing to accept the mission on these terms, except the French, and the gunboat which he commanded went, therefore, to Loutro, a port of Sphakia (the Port Phœnix of St. Paul), and embarked four hundred and eighty men, who were landed at Peiræus, where they were received with violence and insults by the excited populace, and some barely escaped paying the last penalty for their defection.
[CHAPTER VIII.]
The remaining auxiliaries, paralyzed by want of organization, the usual dissensions of the chiefs, and their mutual jealousies, even more than by their want of supplies, retreated before Mustapha, who, after some weeks of indecision, resumed his campaign; but, instead of following up his advantages by land, and getting possession of Omalos as a better base of operations, and preventing the Cretans from reoccupying it, he embarked his troops at Suia, and attempted to land at St. Rumséli, the entrance of the ravine of Samariá, the stronghold and place of refuge par excellence of Sphakia, and where, at this time, were gathered thousands of women and children. This movement menaced too closely the mountaineers, who opposed the landing, and finally repelled the attack, as well as a subsequent one at Tripiti, nearer to Suia, when Mustapha returned to his camp in Selmos, and passed another period of inaction, during which the insurrectionary committees in Greece, admonished by the imminent danger the movement seemed to have evaded for the moment, renewed their efforts to send relief, and threw over other bodies of volunteers, mainly Mainotes, a hardy, courageous race, regarded as better irregulars even than the Albanians, who, landing in the eastern provinces, revived the insurrection where the government was ill able to meet it. The best of the volunteers, under Coroneos and Yennissarli, recovering from their demoralization by rest and the removal of the more disorderly elements, moved eastward to join the new bodies, leaving the Sphakiotes to guard their own country. If Mustapha, after the affair of Krustogherako, had followed the attack up with vigor, two weeks would have finished the insurrection. Even as it was, Sphakia being strongly disposed to purchase freedom from conquest by neutrality, and several of the captains having openly embraced the Turkish cause, there seemed very little hope for the prolongation of the insurrection, when another of those wanton acts of barbarity, which had on more than one occasion strengthened the insurgents instead of weakening their courage, gave it another jog.
The Russian minister at Constantinople had, as soon as the news reached that place that an English ship had rescued a number of non-combatants from Crete, obtained from the Grand Vizier a reluctant consent that other ships might intervene, and despatched a steamer at once to Crete, with orders to the Grand Admiral to commence deportation. A violent storm favored the Turks by delaying the avviso for several days, and, when finally the order came, we had the news that the English Government had disapproved Pym's acts, and the Commissioner (who had plenary powers in all matters connected with Crete) had withdrawn the permission given to Dickson, and both Dendrino and Boutakoff hesitated to execute the order, anticipating its revocation. The former, a timid, irresolute man, master of the arts of intrigue, but lost as soon as he had an open part to play in which he must bear the responsibility of decision, was more concerned for his own security than for the fate of the Christians, and hesitated to give a requisition to the captain to move, while the latter, indifferent to the consequences to himself, as weighed against the relief of the Christian sufferers, hesitated to move before getting renewed orders after the long delay, lest he might compromise his Government in the event of a change of its momentary policy, which was to avoid all appearance of ultra-advocacy of the insurgent cause. It lacked but two or three days of our regular weekly courier when the avviso had arrived, and both the Russian officials had decided to wait the courier before moving.
As for myself, since the affair of Arkadi I had thrown aside all reserve, and, while never going beyond the limits of moral intervention, I had used all my influence with my colleagues, and with our minister at Constantinople as well as our Government, to provoke acts of positive intervention. I made no secret of it, nor did the Turkish Government of its hostility to me. A patrol of zapties watched my front door, and another my back door, and no Cretan dared enter my house. I was regarded as the postman of the insurgents, and so complete was the delusion that the authorities entirely neglected to watch my colleagues, two of whom daily received and sent letters to the mountains. All the little persecutions which a petty local government could inflict were laid on me, and I reciprocated, as I best could, by disseminating news of the true condition of the insurrection, and stimulating the activity of my colleagues. Mr. Morris, our minister at Constantinople, at first strongly under the influence of the English ambassador, the just and liberal Lord Lyons, became convinced that nothing was to be expected in the way of humane intervention from England, and passed entirely over to the Russian policy, and lent me his whole prestige and influence, made himself my defender at the Porte, and gave me instructions after my own drawing up. I made common cause, therefore, with my Russian colleague, on whose irresolution I managed, in most cases, to impose my resolutions, and, little by little, gained all the control over him which I desired for critical emergencies, while I flattered his amour propre by giving him the credit of making up his own mind. I had also organized a sort of news agency, by which I was able to get the earliest and most reliable news of all movements in the island, so that gradually not only the consuls but the naval officers came to expect from me the most reliable information.