In the Track of the Troops, R. M. Ballantyne [best pdf ebook reader TXT] 📗

I see,” (with a smile of sudden intelligence,) “who’s you? Just so. I’m Jacob Lancey, groom in the family of Mrs Jeff Childers, of Fagend, in the county of Devonshire, England.”

This having been outrageously misunderstood by the Turk, and misinterpreted to the officer, the next question was—

“Wessyoocumfro?”

“Wessyoocumfro?”

Again Lancey repeated the word, and once more, with a smile of sudden intelligence, exclaimed, “Ah, I see: w’ere’s you come from? Well, I last come from the water, ’avin’ previously got into it through the hupsettin’ of our boat.”

Lancey hereupon detailed the incident which had left him and me struggling in the water, but the little that was understood by the Turks was evidently not believed; and no wonder, for by that time the Russians had been laying down torpedoes in all directions about the Danube, to prevent the enemy from interfering with their labours at the pontoon bridges. The Turkish sailors were thus rendered suspicious of every unusual circumstance that came under their notice. When, therefore, a big, powerful, and rather odd-looking man was found clinging to one of their cables, they at once set him down as an unsuccessful torpedoist, and a careful search was instantly made round the vessel as a precaution.

Meanwhile Lancey was led rather roughly down to the cabin to be questioned by the captain.

The cabin, although very luxurious in its fittings, was not so richly ornate as had been anticipated by the English groom, whose conceptions of everything had been derived from the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, or rather from a fanciful imagination fed by that romantic work. The appearance of the Turkish captain, however, and the brightly-coloured costume of an officer who sat by his side, were sufficiently striking and Oriental.

On Lancey being placed before him, the captain turned and said a few words to the officer at his side, who was a splendid fellow, in the prime of life, with a square bony frame and red beard, which harmonised, if it did not contrast, with his scarlet fez and blue tassel. A rich Eastern shawl encircled his waist, from the folds of which peeped the handles of a brace of pistols.

He looked at the dripping Englishman earnestly and sternly for a few moments, and the slightest tinge of a smile lighted his grave countenance as he said in broken, but sufficiently fluent English—

“The captin do want you to repeat vat you have say on deck.”

Lancey repeated it, with a considerable number of additions, but no variations.

After translating it all, and listening to something in reply, the officer turned again to Lancey.

“The captin,” he said, with quiet gravity, “bids me tell to you that you is a liar.”

Lancey flushed deeply. “I would tell you,” he said, with a frown, “to tell the captain that ’e’s another, on’y that would show I was as bad-mannered as ’imself.”

“If I do tells him zat,” returned the officer, “you should have your head cutted off immediately.”

Lancey’s indignation having already half-cooled, and his memory being refreshed just then with some vivid remembrances of the Eastern mode of summoning black slaves by the clapping of hands, followed by the flying off of heads or the prompt application of bowstrings to necks, he said, still however with an offended air—

“Well then, tell ’im what you like, hall I’ve got to say is that I’ve told the plain truth, an’ ’e’s welcome to believe it or not as ’e likes.”

Without the slightest change in his grave countenance, or his appearing in the least degree offended by Lancey’s free-and-easy manner, the red-bearded officer again turned to address the captain. Lancey now observed that the latter replied with a degree of deferential respect which seemed unnatural in mere brother officers.

“You is regarded as a spy,” said the red-beard, turning once more to Lancey, and fixing his cold grey eye intently on him, as if to read his thoughts.

“No, I ain’t a spy,” returned the unfortunate man, somewhat bitterly, “nor never mean to be. ’Ang me if you like. I’ve nothink more to say.”

Neither the captain nor the red-bearded officer replied, but the former waved his hand, and the two sailors who had led Lancey to the cabin again seized him and led him away, more roughly than before. The free spirit of my poor servant resented this unnecessary rudeness, and he felt a strong inclination to fight, but discretion, or some faint remembrance of scimitars and bowstrings, induced him to submit.

Full well did he know what was the fatal doom of a spy, and a sinking of the heart came over him as he thought of immediate execution. At the very least, he counted on being heavily ironed and thrust into the darkest recesses of the hold. Great, then, was his surprise when the man who had at first acted as interpreter took him below and supplied him with a dry shirt and a pair of trousers.

Thankfully accepting these, and standing between two guns, he put them on.

“Who is the hofficer with the red beard?” he asked, while thus engaged.

The interpreter seemed unwilling to answer at first, but, on a repetition of the question replied—

“Pasha.”

“Pasha, eh? Ah, that accounts for the respect of the cap’n—rather shorter in the legs these ’ere than I could ’ave wished; ’owever, beggars, they say, mustn’t be—well, they’re wide enough anyhow.—A Pasha, is ’e? Don’t look like a sailor, though. Is ’e a sailor?”

“No,” replied the interpreter sharply.

“Well, well, no offence meant,” said Lancey, buttoning his shirt. “If you don’t feel commoonicative I won’t trouble you, no more than to thank ’ee for the shirt an’ trousers, which the latter bein’ dry is a blessin’, though they air a trifle short in the legs an’ wide in the ’ips.”

After this Lancey was supplied with food.

While he was eating it he was startled by sudden rushing and shouting, which was immediately followed by the discharge of musketry on deck. He sprang up, and seeing that the Turkish sailors were grasping their arms and swarming up the hatchways, he mingled with one of the streams. No one paid any attention to him. At that moment he felt a shock which he afterwards described as resembling an earthquake or the blowing up of a powder-magazine. Part of the planking near to where he stood was shattered. Some of the guns appeared almost to leap for an instant a few inches into the air. Gaining the deck he ascertained that an attack of Russian torpedo-boats was going on. It was, in fact, the attack which I have already described, the monitor by which Lancey was rescued being that which had been selected by the Russian commander as his victim.

When the second torpedo exploded, as already described, Lancey was standing near the gangway, and saw that the men were lowering the boats in urgent haste, for the vessel was evidently sinking.

“Yoos know ’bout dat,” said a stern voice near him. At the same moment he was seized by the interpreter and another man, who made an effort to hurl him into the sea. But Lancey was strong, and tenacious of life. Before a third sailor, who was about to aid his comrades, could act, the red bearded officer appeared with the captain and was about to descend into the boat when he observed Lancey struggling in the grasp of the sailors.

“Spy!” he exclaimed in the Turkish tongue, “you must not escape. Get into the boat.”

The sailors fell back. Lancey, not sure whether to regard this as temporary deliverance or his death-warrant, hesitated, but at a sign from the Pasha he was collared by five or six men and hurled into the bottom of the boat, where he lay, half-stunned, while they rowed towards the shore. Before reaching it, however, he was still doomed to rough handling, for one of the shots from the large guns, which were fired almost at random from the flotilla, accidentally struck the boat and sent it to the bottom.

Lancey was a good swimmer. The cold water restored him to full vigour, and he struck out boldly for the shore. He soon left the boat’s crew behind, with the exception of one man who kept close to his side all the way. As they neared the shore, however, this man suddenly cried out like one who is drowning. A second time he cried, and the gurgling of his voice told its own tale. The stout Englishman could not bear to leave a human being to perish, whether friend or foe. He swam towards the drowning man and supported him till their feet touched bottom.

Then, perceiving that he was able to stagger along unassisted, Lancey pushed hurriedly from his side in the hope of escaping from any of the crew who might reach land, for they were evidently the reverse of friendly.

He landed among a mass of bulrushes. Staggering through them, and nearly sinking at every step, he gradually gained firmer footing.

“Ah, Jacob,” he muttered to himself, pausing for a few minutes’ rest, “little did you think you’d git into such an ’orrible mess as this w’en you left ’ome. Sarves you right for quittin’ your native land.”

With this comforting reflection he pushed on again, and soon found himself on a road which led towards a town, or village, whose lights were distinctly visible.

What should he do? The village was on the Bulgarian side, and the natives, if not enemies, would of course become so on learning from any of the saved men of the monitor who he was. To swim across the Danube he felt was, after his recent exertions, impossible. To remain where he was would be to court death among the frogs.

Lancey was a prompt man. Right or wrong, his conclusions were soon come to and acted on. He decided to go straight to the village and throw himself on the hospitality of the people. In half an hour he found himself once more a prisoner! Worse than that; the interpreter, who was among the men saved from the wreck, chanced to discover him and denounced him as a spy. The mood in which the Turks then were was not favourable to him. He was promptly locked up, and about daybreak next morning was led out to execution.

Poor Lancey could scarcely credit his senses. He had often read of such things, but had never fully realised that they were true. That he, an innocent man, should be hung off-hand, without trial by jury or otherwise, in the middle of the nineteenth century, was incredible! There was something terribly real, however, in the galling tightness of the rope that confined his arms, in the troop of stern horsemen that rode on each side of him, and in the cart with ropes, and the material for a scaffold, which was driven in front towards the square of the town. There was no sign of pity in the people or of mercy in the guards.

The contrivance for effecting the deadly operation was simple in the extreme,—two large triangles with a pole resting on them, and a strong rope attached thereto. There was no “drop.” An empty box sufficed, and this was to be kicked away when the rope was round his neck.

Even up to the point of putting the rope on, Lancey would not believe.

Reader, have you ever been led out to be hanged? If not, be thankful! The conditions of mind consequent on that state of things is appalling. It is also various.

Men take it differently, according to their particular natures; and as the nature of man is remarkably complex, so the variation in his feeling is exceedingly diverse.

There are some who, in such circumstances, give way to abject terror. Others, whose nervous system is not so finely strung and whose sense of justice is strong, are filled with a rush of indignation, and meet their fate with savage ferocity, or with dogged and apparent indifference. Some, rising above sublunary matters, shut their eyes to all around and fix their thoughts on that world with which they may be said to be more