In Greek Waters Part 27

Zaimes and Horace had both brought on sh.o.r.e a considerable amount of gold stowed in belts beneath their clothes, in case they should find any opportunity of bribing a prison official, and had in their pockets an ample sum for any ordinary expenditure. As the peasant only asked about three times the amount which the clothes would cost new, they paid for them without bargaining, and at once put them on.

"I have a brother at Adalia," the man said, well pleased with the bargain he had made; "and if you go to him and say that you come from me, his brother Alexis, of this village, I am sure he will be glad to lodge you, especially when you tell him that you too belong to Naxos."

After receiving instructions as to how to find the man's brother in Adalia they started at once upon their journey. They lay down for three hours in the middle of the night in a wood, and entered Adalia at eight o'clock in the morning. They went straight to the address the peasant had given them. It was a small house with but two rooms, and its master was a cobbler. As soon as Zaimes mentioned his brother's name, and said that they were ready to pay for the accommodation, the shoemaker agreed at once to receive them. He was a chatty fellow, and was very anxious to hear news about affairs in Greece, when they told him that they had but lately arrived from there.

"Now," he said, "what is your business? Of course I can see that you do not belong to us. You are from Naxos, as you say; I notice a few turns of speech such as my father used to use. But what have you come here for? and why have you bought my brother's clothes from him, for I recognized them directly you came in? I like to know things, not because I am inquisitive, but because I do not want to have the pasha's executioner suddenly coming in at the door and taking off my head, without even explaining the reason why."

"I am what I told you, a Greek of Naxos," Zaimes said; "and as I explained to your brother, I have a brother who is one of the crew of that s.h.i.+p that was wrecked here six days ago; and I have come to see whether, by greasing the palms of some of the officials, I can manage to get him out."

"That you can't," the man said decidedly. "If he were in the civil prison it might be done; but the pasha, guessing perhaps that many of us Christians would sympathize with them, or possibly having an idea that the mob might rise, handed them over to the soldiers, and they are confined in a room in the military prison in the centre of the barracks, where there are lots of sentries. The gates have been closed since they were taken there, and no civilian is allowed to enter under any pretence. So you see there is no bribing to be done.

Of course the sentries are changed frequently. There is no knowing what officer has the prisoners specially under his charge. And even if he were bribed, there would be no getting them past the sentries. So you can give up the idea altogether of getting your brother out."

"How long does it take for a messenger to go from here to Smyrna?"

Zaimes asked, with a slight glance at Horace to show that he was changing the conversation purposely.

"By ordinary travelling some two weeks; but a mounted messenger, with relays of horses, can do it in four days."

"Then in another three days the answer may come from Smyrna?"

"That is so. I wonder myself that the pasha took the trouble of sending to the governor of Anatolia, instead of hanging the prisoners at once."

"I suppose he thought that the governor might like to have them sent to him, so that he could forward them to Constantinople."

"Are you thinking of delaying the messenger's return? That might be done, you know." And the man drew his finger across his throat significantly.

"I don't see that the delay would be of any use," Zaimes replied. "If there is no chance of getting my brother out, it matters not whether the messenger arrives to-day or a fortnight hence. However, it is a matter that may be worth thinking over later. At any rate we will go out and have a look at the barracks. Will you go with us? I am not without money, and can make it well worth your while to aid us by your advice."

"I am ready enough," the man said. "Trade is dull, and a man must live; and besides, I would gladly save a Christian and a native of my own island from the Turks."

"I would not trust him too far," Zaimes said in an undertone to Horace when the man went into the apartment behind to speak to his wife. "He is now inclined to help us, especially if he thinks that he will be well paid for it. But we had better not let him know anything of our plans. When he saw there was danger, what with fear as to his own safety and the hope of a bigger reward than he could expect to get from us, he might decide to turn traitor. We had better let him suppose that we have given up all hope."

"I agree with you, Zaimes. His hint about the messenger may be a useful one. I don't mean, of course, that we should cut the poor beggar's throat; but we might bind him and fasten him up for a few days if we find there is need of time to make our preparations."

"I am afraid time will not help us," Zaimes said. "The fellow can have no motive for lying; and if what he says is a fact, I don't see a shadow of a chance of our getting them out, even if we had all the crew of the schooner here."

"We shall know more about it when we have seen the place, Zaimes. I expected they would be securely locked up, and it is not much worse than I looked for. It is hard if we can't hit on some plan for getting them out."

CHAPTER XII

PLANNING A RESCUE

"Even Horace was obliged to admit, when he with Zaimes and their guide had walked round the barracks, that he saw no chance whatever of being able to get the prisoners out by force. The barracks consisted of an old castle, a portion of which was, as the shoemaker told them, now used as a military prison; and round this at some distance ran a strong wall some fifteen feet high, loopholed for musketry. The troops were lodged in huts between this wall and the castle.

"There you see," the guide said, "what I said was true. You could not get a bird out of that place, much less a man."

"That is so," Zaimes agreed. "Well, what cannot be done, cannot.

However, we will talk it over this evening at your house. Now let us walk about and view the city. Truly it is a fine one."

Few towns, indeed, have a finer situation than Adalia, standing as it does at the head of a n.o.ble bay, a great portion of which is fringed with lofty and precipitous cliffs. The town, which at that time contained some ten thousand inhabitants, stands on ground sloping upwards from the sea in terraces rising one above another. It was surrounded by a ditch and a double wall of ma.s.sive construction, with square towers every fifty yards. Beyond the walls stretched gardens and groves of orange, lemon, and mulberry trees. Ten mosques with their domes and minarets reared themselves above the houses, and there were several churches belonging to the Christian population, which was, the guide told them, about two thousand in number, the great proportion of whom spoke only the Turkish language. "I can talk equally well in both, for it is but fifty years since my father settled here, and we always talked Greek in the family as long as he lived. Now I always speak Turkish; it is safer, and does not remind the Turks continually that we are of Greek race."

"Where does the pasha reside?" Horace asked presently.

"I will show you his place; it is at the lower corner of the north wall. His gardens stretch down to the wall by the water, and another high wall on this side separates them from the town."

Pa.s.sing through several streets they arrived opposite the residence of the pasha of the sanjak of Tekeh, of which Adalia is the chief town.

The residence itself stood at the angle of the two walls dividing the garden from the town. It was a ma.s.sive building. Some soldiers sat on benches at either side of the gate that opened into the court-yard, and townspeople and officials pa.s.sed in and out.

"The public offices are in the court-yard," the guide said. "The pasha's private dwelling and his harem lie behind it."

"I suppose we can walk in?"

"Certainly," the guide said; and they pa.s.sed through the gates into the court-yard. On one side was a guard-room, stables, and other offices; on the other were the rooms of the secretaries and officials and that in which the pasha transacted business and received visitors.

The portion of the house facing the gates was blank on the bas.e.m.e.nt story, except that a door faced the gateway. Above were a line of windows, all closed with jalousies. "That is the dwelling-house,"

their guide said. "I believe all the apartments of the family face the garden. Those windows you see there are only those of the apartments of the servants and slaves."

After leaving the pasha's they walked down to the bottom of the town, where two gates with strong flanking powers opened upon the port, which was smaller than Horace had expected to find it. However, he was glad to see that there were several craft anch.o.r.ed in the roadstead, some near the port, some at a distance, showing that vessels did not come in unless for shelter in bad weather or to discharge heavy cargoes. Whatever the craft, then, in which the crew of the schooner might arrive, it would not attract attention by anchoring outside the port, as arranged. They returned with their guide to his house and had a meal there. Zaimes was profoundly discouraged. He saw no prospect whatever of rescuing his brother or the other prisoners, and the strength of the walls and the guns that were mounted upon them--a step which, the host told him, had been taken a few months before to defend the town against the Greek fleet, should it make its appearance there--showed that there was no prospect of the Turks being alarmed by the appearance or threats of a craft like the schooner.

"It seems altogether hopeless," Zaimes said to the Greek.

The latter shook his head, "I can see no possible way," he replied.

"If it had been an ordinary prisoner in the jail it could be managed without difficulty. I could have got one of our countrymen of some influence to have approached the prison officers, or I myself could have worked with the warders; a small sum of money would have done it.

But now it seems to me hopeless, and even if we stop the messenger and gain another eight days while the pasha sends again to Smyrna, we should only run some risk and gain nothing."

Zaimes a.s.sented mournfully.

"You had better make the man a present, Zaimes," Horace said when they were alone for a minute after the meal was finished. "Tell him that it seems to us to be hopeless, and that we shall probably go right away; but that if, thinking it over, we can hit upon any possible plan we will be back again this evening and sleep here."

Zaimes carried out the suggestion, gave their host a gold coin, and said that they saw no use in staying longer, but would think it over in every way and might return that evening.

"If you go outside the town you must be back by sunset," the man said; "the gates are closed at that hour."

"We will not forget, but I do not think you will see us again."

"Even if our people don't arrive this evening, Zaimes, I think it will be just as well not to go back into the town," Horace said as they issued out through the gates into the country. "I don't say for a moment that the man is not honest, but it is just as well not to put temptation in his way. He knows that we are friends of the prisoners, and he, no doubt, guesses that we belong to the craft that captured the polacca that was wrecked. No doubt he would not openly betray us; that would bring him into discredit with all the Christians in the town. But a few words whispered to some Turk, and an agreement to share any reward that may be given for our capture, would answer the purpose just as well. I don't say he would do it, you know, but it would be just as well not to run the risk."

On issuing from the gate, Horace saw that there was a narrow road running between a deep dry ditch at the foot of the city walls and the outlying gardens and orchards.

"This will be our shortest way down to the water, Zaimes, let us follow it."

The Greek turned without question. When they had gone half-way down between the gate and the bottom of the hill, Horace stopped. "Now, let us have a good look at this place. On the other side of that wall is the garden of the pasha's house. I counted the number of steps up from the house to the cross-road leading to the gateway, and I have counted them coming down again; we are about fifty yards below the upper wall of the garden."

"I daresay it is so," Zaimes replied listlessly.

"This ditch is about ten feet deep, and from the bottom of the ditch to the top of that first wall is from five-and-twenty to thirty; between that wall and the higher one inside it is about fifteen feet; and the inner wall is about fifteen feet higher than the outer one; those square towers form junctions between the two walls. Now, we may be quite sure that there are no sentries either on the wall or on the square towers. I don't suppose there are sentries anywhere except in the batteries on the water-face, but there certainly won't be here, for they would command a view down into the pasha's garden; so we may quite conclude that except for the trouble of scaling the walls there is nothing to prevent our getting over. A couple of rope-ladders and one or two twenty-foot planks with bits nailed across them to give a foothold would take us on to the inner wall; then we should need another long ladder to get down into the garden. That would be about thirty-five feet, I should say."