In Greek Waters Part 42

"My friend does not speak Greek," Horace replied. "As you must be well aware we are officers of that schooner that was lying off the village.

This is the doctor, I am third lieutenant. We are friends of Greece, we have been in action against the Turkish s.h.i.+ps of war, we have saved great numbers of Greek fugitives from the Turks, now this is the treatment that we receive at the hands of the Greeks."

Horace's reticence as to the fact that he was the son of the owner of the schooner was the result of a conversation with the doctor.

"These scoundrels have no doubt carried us off either for the purpose of getting a ransom for us or of handing us over to the Turks as an acceptable present. I expect the idea of ransom is at the bottom of it. We have heard of this fellow Rhangos before. He is a noted klepht, and more Albanian than Greek. Whatever you do, Horace, don't you let out you are the owner's son. If you do there is no saying how much ransom they might ask for you. They think that an Englishman who fits out a s.h.i.+p at his own expense to come out here must be rolling in money. As long as they think that they have only got hold of a doctor and a third lieutenant they cannot ask a high price for them, but for an owner's son there is no saying what figure they might put him at.

Have you got a second name?"

"Yes, I am Horace Hendon Beveridge. Hendon was my mother's name."

"That is lucky; you can give them Horace Hendon. It is likely they may know your father's name, for the _Misericordia_ and her doings have been a good deal talked about. I am not in favour of anyone telling a lie, Horace, but as it is no lie to give your two first names without giving your third, I cannot see that there is harm in it."

"The s.h.i.+p belongs to the Lord Beveridge?" Rhangos asked next.

"Yes, that is his name," Horace replied.

"What is your name and that of your companion?"

Horace gave his two Christian names and the name of his companion.

"Have you paper?" the klepht said.

"I have a note-book in my pocket."

"That will do. Now write in Greek: My Lord Beveridge, This is to give you notice that--now write the two names--'Donald Macfarlane and Horace Hendon,'" Horace repeated as he wrote them, "surgeon and third lieutenant of your s.h.i.+p, are captives in my hands, and that unless three hundred pounds in gold are paid to me as ransom for them they will be put to death. If there is any attempt to rescue the prisoners they will at once be shot. The messenger will arrange with you how and where the ransom is to be paid."

The klepht added his own name in scrawling characters at the bottom of the note, then called one of the men and gave him instructions as to where and how the ransom was to be paid, and then sent him off. As soon as the band had satisfied their hunger the march among the mountains was continued for another two hours. Then they threw themselves down by the side of a stream in a valley surrounded on all sides with craggy hills, and two men with muskets were placed as sentries over the prisoners.

"Well, this is not so bad," Horace said. "It is certainly very lucky you gave me that hint about my name. Three hundred is not very much to pay to get out of such a sc.r.a.pe as this. I suppose there is no fear about their giving us up when they get the money."

"I think not," the doctor replied. "They would never get ransoms if they did not keep their word. I only hope that no one may let out before the messenger who you are. If they do, there will be a very serious rise in prices."

"Fortunately none of them speak Greek but my father, and probably he would read the note before he would ask any questions."

"Maybe yes, and maybe no," the doctor said. "He is as like as not to say when he sees a messenger, 'Is my son alive and well?' and then the cat would be out of the bag. Still, your father is a prudent man, and may keep a still tongue in his head, especially when he sees that the note is in your own handwriting. However, we will hope for the best."

Morning had dawned some time before there was any movement among the band. Then their fires were lighted and breakfast cooked.

"Will the English lord pay the ransom for you, do you think?" Rhangos asked, sauntering up to Horace.

Horace shrugged his shoulders.

"It is a large sum to pay for two officers," he said.

"He is rich, it is nothing to him."

"He is well off, no doubt," Horace said; "but it is not everyone who is well off who is disposed to part with money for other people."

"Well, it will be bad for you if he doesn't pay," the klepht said significantly.

Three hours later the messenger was seen coming up the valley. Horace looked at him anxiously as he approached, and was pleased to see that, as he spoke to Rhangos, there was no expression of surprise or exultation in the latter's face. He nodded when the other had finished, and then went to the fire where two or three of his lieutenants were sitting, saying briefly to Horace as he pa.s.sed him, "He will pay." Horace could hear what he said to the others.

"Demetri says the Englishman did not like paying the money. There was a good deal of talk between him and his officers before he came back to him and said, that though the demand was extortionate he would pay it. He said he should complain to the central government, and should expect them to refund it and settle with you." There was a general laugh among his hearers.

"I ought to have asked more," the klepht went on; "but I don't know these English. Of course if any of you were taken, my dear friends, I would give all I have to ransom you." The a.s.sertion was received with mocking laughter, as he went on calmly: "But you see other people are not animated by the same generous feeling as we Greeks, and I don't suppose this milord sets any particular value on the lad, or on that long-shanked doctor. He can hire more of them, and I expect he only agreed to pay the money because his other officers insisted on it.

They are rolling in wealth these English, but they are mean; if not, how is it that our pockets are not filled with English gold when we are fighting for a sacred cause?"

His hearers were highly tickled by this sentiment.

"When are they to be delivered up, Rhangos?"

"At mid-day to-morrow at Pales, the village halfway between the foot of the hills and the sea. Four men are to take them down to within a quarter of a mile of the village; then Demetri will go in and get the gold; then when he returns with it to the others the prisoners will be freed."

"I should have thought the matter might have been arranged to-day,"

one of the men said.

"So it might have been," the klepht replied; "but I could not tell that. I thought that Demetri would not be able to go off to the s.h.i.+p this morning. He had six hours' walking, and would not be there until two hours past midnight; then he would have to rest for an hour or two after he had seen them, and then six hours to walk back. It would have been too late to deliver them up before dark, and I should never think of sending them in the dark--their guards might fall into an ambush.

As it was, Demetri found them in the village. They had not returned, as I thought they would do, on board their s.h.i.+p. He walked in, thinking the place was empty, when two of those sailors jumped out on him with cutla.s.ses. Thinking that they were going to cut his throat he showed them the letter. They led him to the princ.i.p.al house in the village, and one went in while another held him fast outside. He heard a great talking and excitement in the house, and presently he was taken in. Then, as I told you, there was a great talk, and at last they agreed to pay the ransom. As soon as he got his answer he started on his way back, lay down for an hour or two in an empty cottage, and then came on here. We will stay where we are until to-morrow morning; then, Kornalis, you shall start with four men, and Demetri and the captives, and we will go on our way. We will deal another blow to Vriones, and then we will be off. We will fix on some place where you can join us after you have got the ransom."

"It could not have happened better for us," Horace said to his companion after he had translated the klepht's story. "As it turned out, you see, my father got the note before he could say a word to the messenger. That was a capital move their pretending to hesitate about paying the ransom. If they had jumped at it this scoundrel is perfectly capable of raising his terms. As it is, he thinks he was clever enough to hit upon just the maximum sum that could be got for us. Well, it is all right now."

"It will be all right when we are among the others, Horace; there is never any saying what may happen in this country. Some of the peasants these fellows have been robbing may fall on us, seeing we are but a small party. This Vriones with his bandits, who I daresay are just as bad as these fellows, may happen to meet us. No, we won't calculate too confidently. Things have gone on very well so far. We will just hope they will go on to the end."

Now that the affair was considered to be settled, but little attention was paid to the prisoners. Their cords were taken off, and they were permitted to move about, two men keeping an eye upon them, but not following them closely. They congratulated themselves that the sailors had withheld their fire, for undoubtedly their position would have been very different had some of the brigands been killed. So far from bearing any animosity now, the men chatted with them in a friendly manner, asked questions about their s.h.i.+p, and their encounters with the Turks.

"We would rather fight for the Greeks than the Turks," one said: "but we follow our captains. There is neither pay nor plunder to be obtained with the Greeks; and as Odysseus and all the other chiefs play their own game, and think only of making money, why should poor devils like us be particular? All Albanian tribes have had their wars against each other as long as we or our fathers can remember. We know nothing about the Greece that they talk so much of now. There were the Morea and other provinces, and so there have always been so far as we know, and it is nothing to us whether they are ruled by Turks or by their own captains. As to religion, many of our tribes are Mussulmans, many are Christians. We do not see that it makes any difference.

"Everyone plunders when he gets a chance. Why should I want to cut a man's throat because he is a Mussulman? His father was a Christian before him; my son may be a Mussulman after me. What does it matter?

Since the fight at Petta many chiefs have gone over to the Turks, and if the Greeks win a battle most of them will go back again. The affair is nothing to us. On the mountains we hunt where we are most likely to get game. You like to hunt for amus.e.m.e.nt, and so you have come out here on a matter which does not at all concern you. We hunt to live, and don't much care whether we take a sheep out of one flock or another."

Horace smiled at the man's avowal of the want of any principle whatever.

"I was a schoolmaster," one of the lieutenants of the band, who was stretched at full length smoking and listening to the conversation, remarked. "I know about the old time, but I don't know anything of this Greece you speak of. Where was it? What did it do? It was just then as it is now. There were a number of little tribes under their own captains. Athens, and Corinth, and Sparta, and Argos, and Thebes, and the rest of them always fighting against each other just as our Albanian clans do; not even ready to put aside their own quarrels to fight against an invader. Pooh! There never was a Greece, and I neither know nor care whether there ever will be. Why should we throw away our lives for a dream?"

"Yes; but at any rate the Greeks have a common language, which shows they are one people."

"Families fall out more than strangers," the man replied with a laugh.

"You English and the Americans have a common language, and yet you have been fighting against each other, and they refuse to remain one nation with you. These things signify no more than the smoke of my pipe. A Christian's money, and a Christian's goods and cattle, are worth just as much to me as a Turk's; and my captain, who pays me, is more to me than either Mavrocordatos or the Sultan. I daresay that English milord is a worthy man, though he must be a fool, and yet the wine I shall buy out of my share of his money will be just as good as if it had grown in my father's vineyard."

Horace laughed. He was not skilled in argument, even had he any inclination to indulge in it at the present time; and he sauntered off and sat down by the doctor, who, not being able to talk with the Greeks, found the time hang heavy on hand. Horace repeated to him his conversation with the two brigands.

"I own I did not know how to answer the last fellow, doctor."

"There is no answer to be made, Horace. To argue, men must have a common ground to start from. There is no common ground between you and him. His argument is the argument of the materialist everywhere, whether he is Briton, Frenchman, or Greek. To a man who has neither religion nor principles there remains only self-interest, and from that point of view there is no gainsaying the arguments of that Albanian scamp any more than it would have been of use for a lowland merchant carried off by Highland caterans to urge upon them that their conduct was contrary to the laws both of morality and political economy. They would have said that they knew nothing about either, and cared less, and that unless his goodwife or fellow citizens put their hands in their pockets and sent the ransom they demanded, his head would be despatched to them in a hamper with small delay. He certainly had you on the hip with what he said about ancient Greece, for a more quarrelsome, cantankerous, waspish set of little communities the world never saw, unless it were the cities of Italy in the middle ages, which at any rate were of a respectable size, which was, by the way, the only respectable thing about them. Religion and principle and patriotism are the three things that keep men and nations straight, and neither the Greek nor Italian communities had the least glimmering of an idea of either of them, except a love for their own petty states may be called patriotism."

"A good deal like your Highland clansmen, I should say, doctor,"

Horace laughed. "The head of the clan was a much greater man in the eyes of his followers than the King of Scotland."

"That is so, Horace; and the consequence was, that while there was peace and order and prosperity in the lowlands, the Highlands scarcely made a step forward until the clans were pretty well broken up after Culloden. It was a sore business at the time, but no one can doubt that it did good in the long run. And now, lad, I think that I will just take a sleep. It was not many hours we got of it last night, and you see most of these fellows have set us an example."