Part 2

In this garden were many slaves, among which was an Englishman, that may have been a proper youth at one time, with good features and pleasing countenance, but now all so sunken that he looked a poor pitiful creature enough. I spoke to him with kindness out of the abundance of my good nature, the which pleased him so much that he did whatsoever of my work that he was able for me, while I sat by and smoked; for though our work was hard, our meat poor, and our lodging not fit for beasts, yet the Turks cannot conceive that a man may live if he do not smoke, and therefore they supply their slaves with an inferior sort of tobacco, which is marvellously cheap in these regions. One evening, after the labour of the day was over, he appeared to be wondrously tired, for he was a weak creature that had hardly yet attained to manhood, and for that reason had been put to the lighter labour of the garden, I observed the tears rolling down his cheeks, and asked him whether perchance he was thinking of his home, and if he had any hopes of obtaining his ransom? ‘My ransom,’ he replied, ‘I doubt much whether even if it were offered to me I would accept of it; nor do I know what it is still holds me to this hated life if it be not the misery that I am enduring. Hear me,’ he said, ‘hear what it is that I suffer, and then say whether any man would care for life were he so wretched as I, and tormented as I am! To begin, then, I never knew a father, and my mother died while I was still so young that I have hardly any remembrance of her. Her brother, to whom she commended me on her dying bed, brought me to his wife, who, like a true woman, took pity on the helpless thing, and they bred me up as their son. About two years afterwards a daughter was born to them, and we grew up together as brother and sister, although we knew of the relationship between us. As brother and sister we loved each other and wandered hand in hand over the surrounding country, rejoicing together in the air and sunshine, watching together the habits of the birds and beasts, and making posies for each other of the wildflowers. Insensibly with my years my love for her changed, and I rejoiced that I was not really her brother and began to look forward to a closer and dearer tie. On her side, I doubt that her thoughts ever changed towards me, or that she ever thought of me otherwise than as of a brother. Afterwards, perhaps, when she too had learned what sorrow was, then she also, if she looked back, may have divined somewhat of the love which I had so hopelessly cherished for her. For the present, indeed, it was sufficient for me to be near her, to see her, to breathe the atmosphere in which she dwelt. Can I ever forget the time when she, then scarcely sixteen, called me aside one day and spoke words of sisterly esteem and love. Ah! how I trembled, and would have fallen on my knees and told her then how I worshipped her, but the words seemed to dry up in my throat and I could not. I think I must have had a feeling of what was coming, and therefore it was that I could not speak; and I was glad afterwards that it was so. She told me that she loved the son of a gentleman in our neighbourhood, who was far above us in rank. Poor girl! She blushed and hesitated, pure soul that she was; and all her difficulty hurt me, for I could not bear to see her even in that pain. She told me that her parents had forbidden her to see him, and that she wished me to help her to disobey them. Alas! alas! I was to betray all that was dearest to me also. Yet I took her message to him, and I saw them meet. He gave me light words of thanks and put a tester in my hand, and I threw it on the ground and felt that I could have murdered him, but her image was between us, and I thought that he might make her happy. She trusted that evil man and left the home of which she was the life. Would that I had murdered him! Could she but have known in that glamour of faith and love what sorrow she was bringing on her parents! I felt like a traitor to them, a snake that they had nursed in their bosoms; but they still continued to treat me with kindness though I had told them all, for they knew that I also had loved her. How carefully they tended everything that had been hers, as if they were persuaded that one day she might still return to them: her pet birds, and her little dog Hope, who would wander seeking for her all about the cottage and be pricking up his ears at every passing footstep. Often have I seen them pass on tiptoe by her room as though she slept there, and they were feared to wake her! Often, ah, how often! have I watched the tears roll down her mother’s cheeks as she would sit in the ingle nook thinking of what might have been! I could not bear to leave them, and yet I could not bear to stop; until at last her silence determined me to set off in search for her. To this end I wandered through France, until one coming from Italy gave me to believe that she had died at a town called Perugia; and I was on my way thither when I was captured by these corsairs. Now it seems indifferent to me whether I return or not; or whether my lot be life or death.’ When he had finished, I clapped him on the back, and bade him be of good cheer, for if she were dead, she was dead, and there were quite as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it. But, as I have already said, he was a weak creature, and perhaps ’twas as well that he lived not much longer, as I shall relate in due course.

I need not say that a man of my kidney could not brook, without indignation, this state of bondage, and that I was ever casting about for some means of escape--although I well knew that this could not be done without peril of my life. Yea, even to speak of it to my fellows in bondage was a matter of danger; for some, especially those of France and Italy, were so broken in spirit that they would confess a plot in order that they might win their master’s grace, and bring their fellow captives to a horrid death by torture in order that they might gain a slight indulgence for themselves. I have seen some who were caught as they attempted to escape, punished in the most horrible of fashions: those who were too valuable as able bodied slaves to be done to death, were given a hundred blows on the back, and a hundred blows on the belly, and then were sent into the galleys; and, indeed, I think from my own later experience, that the manners of death I am about to relate are not so terrible as this. Others were executed in divers fashions: for some they threw from high rocks upon a company of sharp pointed stakes, planted below, in order that they might die torn and crushed; one was spread with honey and exposed naked on the hot sands to the fury of the sun and the stings of venomous insects; one again was done to death in a more horrid manner, for he was flayed while he was yet living, and his skin used to cover one of their drums; while another had a stake thrust through his living body, and there, lifted on high in the midst of the town, he died soon after, more from the heat of the sun than from the agony of his wounds. But, methinks, the worst death was of one who in his rage cursed their prophet Mahomet; for they poured down his throat boiling lead. He could utter no cry: for all his throat was instantly burnt away, and there was nought but a hideous soughing of steam to proclaim his torments. God preserve me from the like sights again! Though I be not of a weak nature, such things make a man to think twice before he will attempt to escape and risk the like punishment!

Now, in my peregrinations as physician, I had been sent to a house which stood in a garden next to that of my master, in order that I might prescribe for one of the women therein. Think not, gentle reader, that I was allowed to cheer myself with a view of her fair countenance; for these followers of the devilish Mahomet, who drink no honest liquor but in secret, nor know any true religion, never suffer their women to be seen. When they go forth ’tis as a bundle of clothes with a veil over their features; nor, even when I was called upon to prescribe for their diseases, was I ever permitted to set eyes upon them. There they sat, behind a curtain, and the most I was permitted to do was to feel a pulse. I think now that my fair neighbour, for whom, as I have said, I was called upon to prescribe, did not suffer from ought, but had seen me through her meshrebeeyeh (which is a sort of Venetian window of small pieces of wood cunningly joined together, so that one may look through it from within, but may not be seen from without)--I say she may have seen me while I was at work in her neighbour’s garden. But what a thrill ran through me as I took that fair small wrist! I think that I pressed her hand, nay, I would almost swear that I did, but my mind was so perturbed that I cannot be sure, and I will not write what I do not know for certain to be true. I thought that I had offended her, for she quickly withdrew it, but she returned it again in a short space, and to my great wonder, as I withdrew, I found that she had pressed into my hand, for some sign, two small pieces of charcoal, a lump of salt, and a leaf. In great perplexity I returned to my quarters, cudgelling my brains to think what this might mean. That the women of the Turks cannot indite an epistle I knew, as, indeed, can few of the men. I therefore felt the more sure that these things conveyed some message, a message from one sympathising with me in my misfortunes! That was sweet, indeed, to one who had known nought but hardship, had seen nought but rudeness, and felt nought but blows since he had been in this accursed country. A message it surely was, but what? All night I lay awake thinking, until at last, in a flash, it became clear to me what she meant. The signs conveyed this:--‘Two nights hence, meet me in the garden at the borders of the sea.’ It could mean but that! The two lumps of charcoal stood for two nights hence, the lump of salt for the sea, and the leaf showed that she would meet me in the garden. Time seemed to move with leaden steps, and for fear that I should mistake, I was there as soon as ever we were free to retire for rest from the labours of the day. As I left my lair among the sleeping slaves, the moon was rising in all her splendour as though she were a town on fire: everything was silent, but for the incessant barking of the dogs, the occasional cry of the owl, or the distant howls of the jackals quarrelling over the carcass of some dead camel beyond the ramparts. A fitful light could be seen on the distant mole; but there was nought else to illumine the deep shadows that the moon cast as she rose. The deep masses of blackness, broken by the outlines of feathery palms and the tall spires of the mosques, from which the muezzin calls these heathens to pray, was set off by the white gleaming roofs of the houses. All this I admired as I stole along and ensconced myself in some tall bushes in the garden by the sea shore. Presently I perceived two female figures stealing down to the place where I lay concealed, which I doubted not were my Reyya and a slave; and in another instant she was in my arms.

O Love, thou subtle teacher of all that is sweetest in knowledge; breaker of bolts and bars; thou for whom difficulties only exist in order that they may be overcome; thou who suffusest the cheek with the blush of life, and makest the eyes more brilliant than the stars; giver of more than human subtlety, the only author of modesty, that chiefest charm of woman, and gallantry, the greatest virtue of man! By thy grace, although we were mutually ignorant of each other’s language, yet were we enabled to understand each word the other uttered, words breathing fire, and love, and truth, and enduring affection! Sweet indeed were those moments, and bright enough to gild even a captive’s chain! When I look back again upon that time, and see again in the shimmering light of the moon those drooping eyelashes that served but to render endurable to weak human nature the flashes of those coal-black eyes; flashes which otherwise would have consumed my innermost heart to dust! When I recall again that tender form melting in my enclasping arms, I feel again what it is to live, a dream of bliss lasting but a moment, yet not to be forgotten while still a breath is left in the decaying tenement on which devouring time has laid his palsied hand! But though I love to train back my thoughts to the memory of that time, to picture to myself its joys, and once again linger over its sweetness, yet is it tinged with the memory of the bitterness that was to follow upon our delicious intercourse, a bitterness too often inseparable, alas! from forbidden pleasures.

By the time that we had been tenderly enjoying each other’s society in these stolen interviews for about the space of a month (for nearly every night Reyya used to come down to the garden attended by but one female slave) and when we had learned to converse in a sort of lingua franca, I began to open to her my thoughts of escape. We had continued so long in our peaceful interviews, and so pure was her heart, that she had begun to think that this was to be her life, and had ceased to project her mind beyond the present moment. When however she understood that I had thoughts of escape, her heart seemed to stand still, she clung to me as one distraught, for she was the only daughter of a tender father whom she greatly loved, and it at once became clear to her that the time was come when she must elect between me and him. What tears she shed! Now would she pray me to stay and be one of them; and anon she would dissolve in an agony of grief as she foresaw how impossible this would be, for though even I should apostatize, how could her father unite her to a slave! Nevertheless love to a stranger is ever greater than filial love, and so her mind was after no long time settled in my favour, though with heaviness and sorrow; she agreed to assist all she could in furthering my escape, for she could deny me nothing. Fervently did I embrace the dear creature at this crucial evidence of her great love for me, and straightway I proceeded to mature the plans necessary for my purpose.

There were eleven Englishmen among the slaves of the garden, including myself: six were seafaring men; one was a merchant from Bristol; one was an adventurer that had journeyed over nearly all Europe, offering his sword to the best paymaster; another was a young Cornishman of means, that had been travelling abroad to see foreign countries; while yet another was the youth whose story I have related. The seamen and the Cornishman I knew that I could trust: the former were blunt honest creatures that would brave the devil to obtain their freedom again, while the Cornishman was a gentleman of courage as I could see. But I somewhat mistrusted the soldier who cared not on whose side he fought; as also the merchant, whom I feared would prove to be fainthearted when it came to the pinch, and who, moreover, was an old man. The youth I could trust; but he would be of but little use, and I therefore said nothing to him on the matter. Taking first the seamen aside one by one, I communicated my design to them, and they all, like brave men as they were, agreed to risk everything with me. One was a master-carpenter, and I found him afterwards of great value to my purpose. Now I had noticed an old boat laid up among the rocks on the sea shore at the bottom of the garden, almost worn out, that had last been used for carrying ballast in the harbour. This I hoped that we should be able to repair, but we still wanted for oars and sails, provisions and water. I told Reyya of our necessities, and with her woman’s wit she supplied some of them in the following manner. Her father, who held some office in the fort at the foot of the mole, was wont to sail over the harbour to get there, thereby saving a long round by land. She feigned one day again to be unwell, and protested that she longed mightily to pass an evening on the sea; which her father agreed to, and with several rowers they put out and rowed along the coast. When they were gotten opposite to where our old boat lay, Reyya stood upright as if to gaze around her, and making as though she stumbled over the gear, which was a mast and sail and two pairs of oars that lay at the bottom of the boat, fell straightway into a violent rage, nor would anything satisfy her but that the offending matter should be cast out, which her father consented to, knowing the spot, and intending to send for them later. I, however, who had been on the watch, instantly conveyed them to another place, and scraping a shallow trench in the sand, there buried them so that they could not be found by others. Reyya also, little by little, brought us dried bread, lentils, rice, and a small breaker for water, which I thought might be sufficient for us until we had gained a Christian coast or had been picked up by a passing ship. When all was ready, I fixed upon a moonless night towards the end of their fasting time, which they call Ramadan. In this time, which endures for forty days, they fast while the sun is up, only eating at night time; wherefore they are weak, and moreover are occupied in their houses in eating and smoking at night, and are therefore at that time the less likely to keep good ward; although even then they still have galleys kept in readiness, and the slaves sleep in their chains at the oars.