Caught by the Turks Part 13

She went to a gla.s.s cupboard, opened it, and lit two candles. A scent of rose-leaves and incense came from the shrine, which contained oranges and ikons and Easter eggs and a large family Bible.

For a moment or two we all stood silent.

Then----

Just when I was expecting a prayer, the old lady blew out the candles and shut up the cupboard and crossed herself. The thanksgiving was over, and we dispersed with very cordial good-nights. I think Themistocle wanted to kiss us, but we felt we had been through trials enough for the time and refused to offer even one cheek.

The family retired to the pa.s.sage and settled down to rest with squeaks and giggles, while Robin and I, after thanking G.o.d for all His mercies, with very humble and grateful hearts, threw ourselves down on the bed, too exhausted to undress, and slept the sleep of free men.

Next instant, it seemed to me, although in reality two hours had elapsed, we were awakened by the twins, who looked on us as their especial charges, and thought us tremendous fun.

"Time to get up," they said excitedly. "The house might be searched at any minute."

Instantly we were afoot.

"Where are the police?" I asked.

"There is a detective standing at the corner of our street," said Hyppolite.

"And they often come to see if all our lodgers are registered!" added his sister.

We bundled our maps, compa.s.ses, and other belongings into a towel, and staggered downstairs, with fear and sleep battling for mastery in our minds.

But in the pantry, we found the seniors of the household quite unconcerned. There was no imminent danger of a search. . . . On the other hand, there was the immediate prospect of breakfast.

A saucepan was actually being b.u.t.tered (and b.u.t.ter was worth its weight in gold) to make us an omelette. By now we had been thoroughly stirred from sleep, and realised how hungry we were. I forget how many omelettes we ate, or how much b.u.t.ter we used, but I think that that charming breakfast cost a five-pound note, or thereabouts.

When it was over, an engaging sense of drowsiness began to creep over me again, but the twins were adamant.

"You must practise getting into the cistern," said Hyppolite.

"Like the forger did," chimed in Athene--"and then you must arrange a hiding-place for your things."

The worst of it was, that their suggestions were so practical. Obviously it was our duty to at once take all precautions.

I consequently took off my clothes, and removing the lid of the cistern, I was let down through a hole in the floor into the waters below. In my descent I re-opened the wounds in my hands, and it was in no very cheerful mood that I found myself in darkness, with water up to my shoulders. I moved cautiously about, trying to imagine our feelings if fate drove us to this chilly and conventional hiding-place while detectives were conducting a search for us above. Then I barked my foot on something hard, and stooping down through the water I picked up a large block of pumicestone, which was doubtless the forger's engraving die. Something scurried on an unseen ledge; a rat no doubt. I felt I had seen enough of the cistern. Groping my way back to the lid, my fingers touched a little thing that cracked under them, and instantly I felt a stinging pain. Whether it was a beetle or a sleepy wasp I did not stop to inquire.

"Lemme get out," I bleated through the hole in the floor. . . . "Robin,"

I said, when I was safe once more, "if ever we are driven down there, we must take something to counteract the evil spirits."

All that morning we pa.s.sed in the pantry, eating and dozing by s.n.a.t.c.hes.

Morning merged into afternoon, the afternoon lengthened into evening, and no policeman came. We were safe.

At nightfall, after sending Hyppolite as a scout up the stairs to see that the other lodgers were not about, we ascended to our room again, and settled down definitely.

Our stay, we then thought, might last several weeks, so as to give us leisure to weigh the reliability of the various routes and guides that offered. There was no particular hurry. The longer we stayed, the more likely the Turks would be to relax such measures as they had taken for our recapture.

But we had reckoned without our host: the host of vermin. They were worse in this room than in any other place I have seen in Turkey, not excepting the lowest dungeons of the military prison, where they breed by the billion. Their voracity and vehemence made a prolonged stay impossible. Except for the first sleep of two hours, when exhaustion had made us insensible, we never thereafter had more than a single hour of uninterrupted rest.

Throughout the long and stifling nights of our stay, Robin and I lay in the stately double bed, wondering wearily how any man or woman alive could tolerate the creatures that crawled over its mahogany-posts and swarmed over its flowered damask. Every three-quarters of an hour, one or other of us used to light a candle, and add to the holocaust of creatures we had already slain.

"What hunting?" I used to ask sleepily.

"A couple of brace this time, and a cub I chopped in covert," Robin would say.

"That makes twenty-two couple up to date--and the time is 12.35 a.m."

Then at one o'clock it was Robin's turn to ask what sport I had had.

"A sounder broke away under your pillow," I reported. "Six rideable boar and six squeakers."

Ugh!

Those first days of our liberty were a trying time. To the external irritation of insects were added the mental anxieties of our situation.

What, for instance, would happen to the twins if we were caught in that house? And, again, was Themistocle faithful? Would he be tempted by the reward offered for our recapture? At times we were not quite certain. He used to talk very gloomily about the risks and the cost of life.

"Everyone is starving," he used to say thoughtfully--"even the policemen go hungry for bribes. A friend of mine, a policeman, said to me the other day: 'For the love of Allah find somebody for me to arrest.

Among all the guilty and the innocent in this town, surely you can find somebody that we could threaten to arrest? Then we would share the proceeds.'"

"What did you say to that?" I asked.

"I said," he answered thoughtfully, "that I would do my best."

"But what sort of man would you arrest?" I asked.

"Any sort of man. A drunkard perhaps, if I saw one, or a rich man, if I dared."

"Rich men are apt to be dangerous," said I meaningly.

"I know. But what can one do?" he asked, spreading out his hands. "One must live!"

"And let live," said I, thinking suddenly of the bugs, and wondering what Themistocle thought of them.

It was then that I noticed his method of combating the household pets.

Previously I had observed that the ends of his pyjamas (we always talked at night) were provided with strong tapes, which were tied close to his ankles; but the object of this fastening only became apparent when I noticed the excited throngs of insects on his elastic-sided boots. They could not get higher. They were balked of their blood. If he ever felt any discomfort, he merely tightened the tapes.

After a careful study of Themistocle's psychology (which was so full of outlooks new to me that I never achieved more than a glimpse into the pages of his past) I came to the conclusion that he was implicitly to be trusted. In his frail frame there burned a spirit of adventure and a courage that might "step from star to star." His soul had been born to live in a great man, only somehow it had made a mistake and taken a tenement instead of a manor-house to live in. . . .

I think sunset and sunrise were the pleasantest hours in our new abode.

It was possible then to draw back the blinds without any danger of being seen, and enjoy the cool of the evening and the magnificent view which our situation afforded. Our house, although it stood in a side street, commanded a prospect of the upper end of the Golden Horn, as well as a view of one of the most populous thoroughfares of the town.

We used to sit and gaze at the twilit city, until the creeping darkness overtook us.

If circulation be a test of a city's vitality, then Constantinople was certainly at a low ebb. The pedestrians seemed to get nowhere. They were hanging about, waiting for something to happen. The whole town was dead-tired, unspeakably bored of life as it had to be lived under the Young Turks. Constantinople was getting cross. . . . Cross, like someone who was tired of adulation from the wrong person. Some trick of sea and sun give her this human quality of s.e.x. Anyone who has lived for long in her houses must feel her personality. She is the courtesan of conquerors, but inherent in her is some witchcraft, by which she weakens those who hold her, so that they die and are utterly exterminated, while she remains with her fadeless and fatal beauty, an Eastern Lorelei beside the Bosphorus. . . . She sapped the strength of the Roman Empire, she overthrew the dominion of the Greeks, and now, after a period of fretful wedlock, she was shaking herself free from the Turk.