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Getting Started with R
This page intentionally left blank
 Getting Started with R
An Introduction for Biologists

ANDREW P. BECKERMAN
& OWEN L . PETCHEY

Department of Animal and Plant Sciences

University of Sheffield
&
Institute of Evolutionary Biology and
Environmental Studies
University of Zürich

1
1
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© Andrew P. Beckerman and Owen L. Petchey 2012
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
First Edition published in 2012
Impression: 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics
rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011945448
ISBN 978–0–19–960161–5 (hbk.)
978–0–19–960162–2 (pbk.)
Printed in China by
CC Offset Printing Co. Ltd
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
Table of Contents

Preface vii
What this book is about vii
What you need to know to make this book work for you viii
How the book is organized ix

Chapter 1: Why R? 1

Chapter 2: Import, Explore, Graph I—Getting Started 5

2.1 Where to put your data 7
2.2 Make a folder for your instructions (code, script) 10
2.3 How to get your data into R and where it is stored in R’s brain 10
2.4 Working with R—hints for a successful first (and more) interaction 11
2.5 Make your first script file 15
2.6 Starting to control R 18
2.7 Making R work for you—developing a workflow 19
2.8 And finally . . . 21
Chapter 3: Import, Explore, Graph II—Importing and Exploring 23
3.1 Getting your data into R 23
3.2 Checking that your data is your data 26
3.3 Summarizing your data—quick version 28
3.4 How to isolate, find, and grab parts of your data—I 28
3.5 How to isolate, find, and grab parts of your data—II 30
3.6 Aggregation and how to use a help file 31
3.7 What your first script might look like (what you should now know) 35
vi TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 4: Import, Explore, Graph III—Graphs 39

4.1 The first step in data analysis—making a picture 39
4.2 Making a picture—bar graphs 40
4.2.1 Pimp my barplot 44
4.3 Making a picture—scatterplots 50
4.3.1 Pimp my scatterplot: axis labels 53
4.3.2 Pimp my scatterplot: points 54
4.3.3 Pimp my scatterplot: colours (and groups) 56
4.3.4 Pimp my scatterplot: legend 59
4.4 Plotting extras: pdfs, layout, and the lattice package 64
Chapter 5: Doing your Statistics in R—Getting Started 65
5.1 Chi-square 66
5.2 Two sample t-test 70
5.2.1 The first step: plot your data 72
5.2.2 The two sample t-test analysis 76
5.3 General linear models 77
5.3.1 Always start with a picture 78
5.3.2 Potential statistical and biological hypotheses—it’s all
about lines 80
5.3.3 Specifying the model 83
5.3.4 Plot, model, then assumptions 84
5.3.5 Interpretation 86
5.3.6 Treatment contrasts and coefficients 89
5.3.7 Interpretation 89
5.4 Making a publication quality figure 92
5.4.1 Coefficients, lines, and lines() 93
5.4.2 Expanded grids, prediction, and a more generic
model plotting method 94
5.4.3 The final picture 99
5.4.4 An analysis workflow 101
Chapter 6: Final Comments and Encouragement 105

Appendix: References and Datasets 109

Index 111
Preface

What this book is about

This is a book about how to use R, an open source programming language

and environment for statistics. It is not a book about statistics per se, but a
book about getting started using R. It is a book that we hope will teach you
how using R can make your life (research career) easier.
We love R. We use statistics in our everyday life as researchers and we
use R to do this. We are first and foremost evolutionary ecologists, but over
the past 10 years we have developed, at first in parallel and then together,
an affinity for R. We want to share our 20 years of combined experience
using R to show you how easy, important, and exciting it can be. This book
is based on a 3–5 day course we have given in various guises around the
world. The course is designed to give students and staff alike a boost up the
steep initial learning curve associated with R. We assume that course par-
ticipants already use some spreadsheet, statistical, and graphing programs
(such as Excel, GLIM, SAS, JMP, Statistica, and SigmaPlot). Most partici-
pants have some grasp of common statistical methods, including chi-
square tests, the t-test, and ANOVA. In return for a few days of their lives,
we give participants knowledge about how to easily use R, and R only, to
manage data, make figures, and do statistics. R changed our research lives,
and many participants agree that it has done the same for them.
The effort we put into developing the course and this book are, however,
miniscule compared to the effort of the R Core Development Team. Please
viii PREFACE

remember to acknowledge them when you use R to analyse and publish

your amazing results.

What you need to know to make this book work for you

There are a few things that you need to know to make this book, and our ideas,
work for you. Many of you already know how to do most of these things,
having been in the Internet age for long enough now, but just to be sure:

1. You need to know how to download things from the Internet. If

you use Windows, Macintosh, or Linux, the principles are the
same, but the details are different. Know your operating system.
Know your browser and know your mouse (both buttons!).
2. You need to know how to make folders on your computer and save
files to them. This is essential for being organized and efficient.
3. You need to understand what a “PATH” is on your computer. This
is the address of the folders and files (i.e. the path to a file). On
Windows, depending on the type you are using, this involves a
drive name, a colon (:) and slashes (\\ ’s or / ’s). On a Macintosh and
Linux/Unix, this requires the names of your hard drive, the name
of your home directory, the names of folders, and slashes (/).
4. You need to be able to type instructions that your computer (R,
actually) will attempt to carry out. Menus and the mouse are not
very important in R! You’ll eventually love this feature of R. You
might not like it in the beginning.
5. You need to know how to use Microsoft Excel or a program that
saves rows and columns of data as a “comma separated values file”
(“.csv”). While there are other ways of getting data into R, our
method is based on storing a copy of your raw data in a spread-
sheet, specifically as a .csv file (comma separated). Again, this is a
convention we take, and no more than that.
6. Finally, you need to know how to do, and why you are doing, sta-
tistics. We recommend that you know the types of questions a
 PREFACE ix

t-test, a chi-square test, linear regression, ANOVA, and ANCOVA

are designed to help you answer BEFORE you use this book. As we
said, we are not aiming to teach you statistics per se, but how to do
some of the most common plotting and frequent statistics in R,
and understand what R is providing as output.

How the book is organized

In this book, we will show you how to use R in the context of every day
research in Biology. Our philosophy assumes that you have some data and
would like to derive some understanding from it. Typically you need to
manage your data, explore your data (e.g. by plotting it), and then analyse
your data. Before any attempt at analysis, we suggest that you always plot
your data. As always, analysing (modelling) your data involves first devel-
oping a model and testing critical assumptions associated with the statisti-
cal method (model). Only after this do you attempt interpretation. Our
focus is on developing a rigorous and efficient routine (workflow) and a
template for using R for data exploration, visualization, and analysis. We
believe that this will give you a functional approach to using R, in which
you always have the goal (understanding) in mind.
We start by providing in-depth instruction for how to get data into R,
manipulate and summarize your data, and make a variety of informative,
publication-quality figures common to our field. We then provide an
overview of how to do some common analyses. In contrast to other
books, we spend most of our time helping you to develop a workflow for
analysis and an understanding of how to tell R what to do. We also help
you identify core pieces of R output that are reported regularly in our
field. This is important because the output of all statistic packages is
different.
Chapter 1 is titled Why R? It is an (our) overview of why you might
spend a few days (and more!) of your valuable time converting your data
management, graphics, and analysis to R. There are many reasons, though
x PREFACE

we advise all readers to make a careful decision about whether the invest-
ment of time and effort will give sufficient return.
Chapters 2–4 are based on our tried and tested Import, Explore, Graph.
We walk you through one of the most difficult stages in using R—getting
your data into R and producing your first figure in R. Then we show you
how to explore your data, summarize it in various forms, and plot it in
various formats. Visualizing your data before you do statistics is vital.
These chapters also introduce you to the script—a permanent, repeatable,
annotated, shareable, cross-platform record of your analysis.
Chapter 5 introduces you to our workflow for implementing and inter-
preting t-tests, chi-square tests, and general linear models. General linear
models are a flexible set of methods that include the more well-known
concepts of regression, ANOVA, and ANCOVA. In the spirit of functional-
ity and making R work for you, our objective is to help you develop a re-
peatable and reliable workflow in R. We focus on helping you produce
interesting, appealing, and appropriate figures, interpreting the output of R
and crafting sensible descriptions of the methods and results for publica-
tion. Our focus is the workflow.
Throughout the book, we highlight where you can work along with us,
on your own computer, using R through the use of this symbol at the left.
Throughout the book, we use syntax (code) colouring as found in the
OSX R script editor. This should help visualize the instructions you need to
give R. We believe this book can be used as a self-guided tutorial. All of the
datasets we use are available online at http://www.r4all.org. There are also
13 boxes embedded in the book with extra detail about certain topics. Take
your time and learn the magic of R.
 1
1
Why R?

S ome of you will have established research careers based around using a
variety of statistical and graphing packages. Some of you will be start-
ing with your research career and wondering whether you should use some
of the packages and applications that your supervisor/research group uses,
or jump ship to R. Perhaps your group already uses R and you are just look-
ing for that “getting started” book that answers what you think are embar-
rassing questions. Regardless of your stage or background, we think a
formal introduction to an approach to, and routine for using R, will help.
We begin by reviewing a core set of features and characteristics of R that we
think make it worth using and worth making a transition to from other
applications.
First, we think you should invest the effort because it is freely available
and cross-platform (e.g. it works on Windows, Macs [OS X], and Linux).
This means that no matter where you are and with whom you work, you
can share data, figures, analyses, and most importantly the instructions
(also known as scripts and code) used to generate the figures and analyses.
Anyone, anywhere in the world, with any kind of Windows, Macintosh, or
Linux operating system, can use R, without a license. If you, or your
2 GET TING STARTED WITH R

department, or your university invest heavily in multiple statistical pack-

ages, R can save a great deal of money. When you change institutions, R
doesn’t become inaccessible, get lost, or become un-usable.
Second, R is a command line programming language. It does not in-
volve extensive use of menus. As a result you have to know what to ask R,
know why you are asking R for this, and know what to expect from R. You
can’t just click on menus and get some results. This means that by using R,
you continually learn a great deal about statistics and data analysis.
Third, it is free. Oh, we said that already. Actually, it’s more accurate to
state that it’s freely available. Lots of people put an awful lot of effort into
developing R . . . that effort wasn’t free. Please acknowledge this effort by
citing R when you use it.
Fourth, we believe that R can replace common combinations of pro-
grams that you might use in the process of analysing your data. For exam-
ple, we have, at times, used two to three of Excel, Minitab, SAS, Systat, JMP,
SigmaPlot, and CricketGraph, to name a few. This results in not only costly
licensing of multiple programs, but software specific files of various for-
mats, all floating around in various places on your computer (or desk) that
are necessary for the exploration, plotting, and analysis that make up a re-
search project. Keeping a research project organized is hard enough with-
out having to manage multiple files and file types, proprietary data formats,
and the tools to put them all together. Furthermore, moving data between
applications introduces extra steps into your workflow. These steps are re-
moved by investing in R.
Fifth, you can make publication-quality figures in R, and export them in
many different formats, including pdf. We now use only R for making
graphs, and when submitting manuscripts to journals we usually send only
pdf files generated directly from R. One of the nice things about pdfs is
that they are resolution independent (you can zoom in as far as you like
and they don’t get blocky). This means that publishers have the best possi-
ble version of your figure. And if the quality is poor in the published ver-
sion of your paper, you know it is down to something the publishers have
done!
 WHY R ? 3

Finally, and quite importantly, R makes it very easy to write down and
save the instructions you want R to execute—this is called a script in R. In
fact, the script becomes a permanent, repeatable, annotated, cross-platform,
shareable record of your analysis. Your entire analysis, from transferring
your data from field or lab notebook, to making figures and performing
analyses, is all in one, secure, repeatable, annotated place.
So, if you have not already done so, go get R. Follow this link and locate
the server closest to you holding R:

http://cran.r-project.org/mirrors.html

Then click on the operating system (Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux) you
use. This will take you to a page specific to your operating system. For
Mac OS X users, look down until you see a link to something like R-2.13.
pkg. Click on this, and then install the downloaded file. For Windows
users, you get taken to a page where you click on the “base” link (you want
the “base” version of R); from here the on-screen instructions make it clear
what to do next. If you get stuck here, please read the instructions about
installation in the FAQs, linked at the bottom of every R homepage. Linux
users, and those of other operating systems, probably know how to get and
download R. If any of you are stuck at this stage, take a look at Box 2.1 and
Box 2.2 for more information on setting up your computer and getting
and installing R. If you’re still stuck, email one of us. Really.
This page intentionally left blank
 2
2
Import, Explore, Graph I
Getting Started

O ne of the most frequent stumbling blocks for new students and sea-
soned researchers using R is actually just getting the data into R. This
is really unfortunate, since it is also most people’s first experience with R!
Let’s make this first step easy.
Assume you have some datasheets on your clipboard or in your lab
book. Perhaps these data are measures of the abundances of various
species in various places, or morphological measurements of individual
organisms. Obviously, you need to put this data into your computer in
order that you can then get it into R. And though we’ve implied that R is
good for everything, it is not so good for entering large amounts of
data.
Instead, use a spreadsheet application such as Microsoft Excel, Open
Office, or Numbers to enter your data. Make the first row of your spread-
sheet the names of your variables (column names). Keep these variable
names informative, brief and simple. Try not to use spaces or special sym-
bols, which R can deal with but may not do so particularly nicely. Also, if
you have categorical variables, such as sex (male, female) use the category
names rather than codes for them (e.g. don’t use 1 = male, 2 = female).
6 GET TING STARTED WITH R

R can easily deal with variables that contain words, and this will make sub-
sequent tasks in R much more efficient.
Finally, we highly recommend that you enter data so there is one obser-
vation per row. That is, make a dataset with column names like treatment1,
treatment2, replicate, response_variable. This will make your R-life much,
much easier, since many of the functions in R prefer data this way. If
you, for example, made a dataset with columns treatment1, treatment2,
response of replicate 1, response of replicate 2, and response of replicate 3,
you would have to do some data manipulation to get the data into the
correct shape for many R functions.
Next, print your entered data onto paper, and check that this copy of
your data matches the data on your original datasheets. Correct any mis-
takes you made when you typed your data in.
Now, don’t save your file as an .xls, .xlsx, .oo, or .numbers file. Instead,
save it as a “comma separated values” file (.csv file). In Excel, Open Office
or Numbers, after you click Save As . . . you can change the format of the file
to “comma separated values’, then press Save. Excel might then, or when
you close the Excel file, ask if you’re sure you’d like to save your data in this
format. Yes, you are sure! At this point in our workflow, you have your
original datasheets, a digital copy of the data in a .csv file, and a printed
copy of the data from the .csv file.
One of the remarkable things about R is that once a copy of your “raw
data” is established, the use of R for data visualization and analysis will
never require you to alter the original file any way (unless you collect more
data!). Therefore keep it very safe! In many statistical and graphing pro-
grams, your data spreadsheet has columns added to it, or you manipulate
columns or rows of the spreadsheet before doing some analysis or graphic.
With R, your original can always remain unmanipulated. If any adjust-
ments do occur, they occur in an R copy only and only via your explicit
instructions.
But how do you do actually get the data in this .csv file into R? How do
you go from making a dataset in a .csv file to having a working copy in R’s
brain to use for your analysis?
 IMPORT, EXPLORE , GRAPH I : GET TING STARTED 7

2.1 Where to put your data

Part of keeping your data safe is putting it somewhere safe. But where? We
like to be organized and we want you to be organized too.
Make a new folder in the main location/folder in which you store your
research information—perhaps you have a Projects folder in MyDocu-
ments (PC) or in the Documents folder (Mac and e.g. Unbuntu); create a
folder inside this location. Give the folder an informative name—perhaps
“MyFirstAnalysis”.
Understanding where your data is stored is very important for learning
how to use R. The location, or address, for information on a computer is
known as the PATH. How do you find out the PATH to a folder or dataset on
a computer? First, note that there are some really easy ways to get the PATH
to your raw data file without having to type it in. This is important, since
typing in PATHs incorrectly is one of the most common early stumbling
blocks, and a very frustrating one. Essentially, the trick for getting paths is to
copy them from the Finder (OS X) or the Explorer (Windows) (see Box 2.1
for details). You shouldn’t ever have to type a PATH in, though sometimes
you might choose to. In case you do, here’s what you need to know.
In Windows, the location of things historically starts with a drive letter
followed by a colon and some slashes, for example “C:\\MyDocuments\\
project1\\raw data\\file.csv”. The conventions for the direction of the
slashes in Windows varies, depending on how old your version of Win-
dow’s is—they are either presented as single or double backslashes. On a
Macintosh or Linux/Unix machine, the location will usually be in some
folder in the path from your home directory, such as “Users/username/
Documents/project1/raw data/file.csv” or “~/Documents/project1/raw
data/file.csv”.
In R, the convention for writing a PATH is always a single forward slash.
So, whether you are on a PC or a MAC or a Linux/Unix box, the way you
describe where files are within your folders is consistent: one forward slash.
However, if you copy PATH information from Windows, you will probably
need to change backward slashes to forward slashes.
8 GET TING STARTED WITH R

Box 2.1: The PATH: Where are your files?

Linux/Unix
Our guess is that if you are using Linux/Unix to run R, you understand the PATH.

Macintosh
To make OSX show the PATH in the title of the Finder, you need to invoke a
command in the Terminal.
Go to Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app and double click.
At the prompt, type the following:

defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES

Next, type the following (this restarts the finder).
killall Finder

Now, the top of your finder window should show the location where you are—
the PATH.
Note that Linux/Unix systems and Macintosh systems use the same convention
for describing the PATH—a forward slash separates all folders and documents in the
final folder.
One feature of OSX is that you can actually drag this information to another
document. If you click and hold the folder symbol, you can drag this information to
any text editor, including an R script. In fact, dragging ANY folder or document to
the script editor for the Macintosh will paste the path.

Drag the folder icon to the

other window (script)
 IMPORT, EXPLORE , GRAPH I : GET TING STARTED 9

Windows
To make Windows show the path in the explorer, you need to set the preferences in
the Tools menu for the explorer. Tools->Folder Options->View Tab will take you to a
list of tick boxes. There should be a tick box labelled “Display full path . . .” which will
show the path to files in the address bar and the title bar.

IMPORTANT NOTE: In contrast to Linux/Unix and the Macintosh operating system,

Windows tends to present paths using a single backslash. The even older conven-
tion is two backslashes. R accepts either ONE forward slash or TWO backslashes to
read files from the hard drive into R. Even if you copy the path from the Explorer
into R, you will need to change the “slashes” to ONE forward, or TWO backwards.
10 GET TING STARTED WITH R

If you’re confused by any of that, don’t forget you can copy and paste
paths, and Box 2.1 provides a bit more detail about how to do this. We
assume that Linux/Unix users are familiar with PATHs.

2.2 Make a folder for your instructions (code, script)

Now, inside that folder you just made, make another folder called analyses
(i.e. “MyFirstAnalysis/analyses”). And perhaps another folder called
manuscript. Perhaps another one called Important PDFs. We think you
might be getting the point: use folders to organize separate parts of your
project. Your file of instructions for R—your script file—will go in the
analyses folder. We’ll build one soon. Be patient.☺
What is the script file? As we noted in the Preface, R allows you to write
down and save the instructions that R uses to complete your analysis. Trust
us, this is a desirable feature of R. As a result of making a script, you, as a
researcher, end up with a permanent, repeatable, annotated, shareable, cross-
platform archive of your analysis. Your entire analysis, from transferring
your data from notebook, to making figures and performing analyses, is all
in one, secure, repeatable, annotated place. We think you can see the value.

2.3 How to get your data into R and where it is stored in R’s brain

Now comes the fun part. You’ve organized your life a bit. You know where
your data is, and you know where you will store things associated with a
particular project/experiment/analysis. Let’s use R.
Wait! R? Where is it? If you have not installed it yet, Box 2.2 provides
detailed instructions on how to install R on your machine—be it a PC,
Macintosh, or Linux. It’s not hard, but there are some helpful hints in
there.
Now, assuming the installation has been successful, start R. Click the
icon on your desktop, navigate to the start menu, find the applications
folder, click on the icon in the dock . . . you know what to do. You are clever.
You know how to start an application on your computer!
 IMPORT, EXPLORE , GRAPH I : GET TING STARTED 11

Starting R does the same thing on Windows and Macintosh machines.

The most obvious is the creation of at least one window, called the
R CONSOLE. This is the window into the engine of R. This is the window
which accepts commands from you, sends these commands to the little
people inside R that are really smart and talk in a language of 1s and 0s,
and then returns an answer.
The second type of window in R is called the SCRIPT. Not to labour the
point, but the SCRIPT is a permanent, repeatable, annotated, shareable,
cross-platform archive of your analysis. It is a bit like a word-processing
window that you write stuff in, but it tends to have at least one major feature
that word processors don’t—there are combinations of keyboard strokes
that send information from the SCRIPT to the R Console, automatically.
To make a new SCRIPT, simply go to the File menu and choose New
Document (OS X) or New script (Windows). Box 2.3 provides some added
insight into the built-in script editors in the Windows and Macintosh ver-
sions of R.
Now you are ready to use R. If you have been working along with us, you
will have a data file residing in a folder, R running as an application, and
two windows visible on your desktop—the CONSOLE and a SCRIPT
window.

2.4 Working with R—hints for a successful first

(and more) interaction

First, if you are a Windows users, consider downloading Rstudio (http://

www.rstudio.org/) and using it to run R. We’re pretty sure that you’ll like it
more than the Windows R application, simply for the script functionality.
Among other things, it does a much better job of keeping your different R
windows organized. And it has a nice script editor. You can use Rstudio on
a Macintosh, but there is a nice script editor already built in.
Second, we’d like to introduce a very special keyboard character. It is the
# character. It is important to find this character on your keyboard. It may
not be obvious on European keyboards, especially European Macintosh
12 GET TING STARTED WITH R

Box 2.2: Downloading and installing R

R software is maintained at the Comprehensive R Archive Network—CRAN. The R

Project Home Page is http://www.r-project.org/. However, there are many mirrors
providing local access to all software and documentation—physical locations
around the world with up to date copies of the latest versions of R and its associ-
ated packages.
We suggest that you locate the mirror closest to you:

You can bookmark your favourite mirror in your web browser. The mirror provides
all the files and instructions necessary for installing R on your computer. Here we
show the mirror at Bristol University, UK. Simply click on the link for your operating
system, READ THE INSTRUCTIONS, and proceed to enjoy R. There is a section at the
bottom of the boxes called “Questions About R”. If you think you might ignore these,
you are exactly the people they are written for.
IMPORT, EXPLORE , GRAPH I : GET TING STARTED 13

Prepared Binary Distributions and

Instructions for all operating systems
14 GET TING STARTED WITH R

Box 2.3: Script editors

Macintosh
The Macintosh version of R comes with a feature-rich script editor. It provides line
numbering, syntax colouring, and a keyboard combination for sending information
from the script to the console.

Line numbering

Syntax colouring:
Text is red (within quotes)
Numbers are green
Boolean operators are yellow
Function components are blue

To “send” this information from the script to the console, you may use the
keyboard combination:
cmd + return
or the leftmost icon in the script, with the red arrow (send this to the console).
If you simply press cmd + return, the line on which the cursor is on will be sent to
the console. Alternatively, you can select larger portions of the script, and then
press cmd + return. This will send the entire selection to R.
Because the Mac is now based on UnixBSD, it also has access to a variety of Unix/
Linux script editors including vi, emacs, and so on. The Mac version of emacs can be
fully functional and integrated with R (using Emacs Speaks Statistics).

Windows
The built in Windows script editor is currently as basic as it gets. It is simply a text
editor. It contains no line numbering or syntax highlighting. However, it does possess
a keystroke combination for sending lines or selections from the script to the console:
control + R
Despite the lack of features for the built in editor, there are numerous Windows edi-
tors that interface with R very well. The two most popular with our students seem to
be TinnR and Rstudio (which is actually available for Windows, Macintosh and Linux):
http://www.sciviews.org/Tinn-R/
http://rstudio.org/

General
There are innumerable scripting applications available for many platforms. A small
repository can be found here: http://www.sciviews.org/_rgui/index.html.
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
flames, and the whole of the crew, eight hundred in number,
perished.
But Kanaris seemed to be the only Greek naval officer who had the
necessary courage and coolness to manœuvre successfully with fire-
ships. The other captain ran his fire-ship alongside the man-of-war
which carried the flag of the capitan-pasha. The position of the fire-
ship was, however, ill chosen, and after being set on fire it drifted
away without doing injury to the Turk. The rest of the Turkish fleet
cut their cables and made for the Dardanelles, while one corvette
ran ashore on Tenedos. Another was abandoned by her crew.
Kanaris and the crews of the two fire-ships returned safely to Psara
in their boats.
 CHAPTER XIX
PRISONERS

O NE day, after cruising along the coast inside the island of

Eubœa or Negropont, the Misericordia entered the Gulf of
Zeitouni, the Sinus Maliacus of the ancients. When they were nearly
at the head of the gulf Horace asked Captain Martyn to let him go
ashore to a little village at the water’s edge to get some vegetables
and fruit, of which the supply had run out.
“Just as you like, Horace. A boat-load of green stuff of some sort or
other would be very welcome, and if you can pick up half a dozen
kids so much the better.”
“I am thinking I will go with you, Horace,” Macfarlane said; “it does a
man good to stretch his legs ashore once in a way.”
The gig was at once lowered, and on Horace and the doctor taking
their seats in the stern, four sailors rowed them ashore.
“I sha’n’t take the trouble to anchor,” Martyn said as they left the
ship. “I expect you will be back in an hour, and I shall keep her
standing off and on till I see you put out.”
Leaving two of the men in charge of the boat, Horace told the other
two to take some of the baskets they had brought ashore and follow
him. Some women looked out timidly at the doors of the houses, but
no men were to be seen about.
“We are friends,” Horace said; “do you not see we are flying the
Greek flag? Where are all the men?”
“They have gone away with Vriones. He came with an armed band
and said that every man must go with him to fight.”
“Who have they gone to fight?”
“Ah! that we don’t know. He talked about fighting the Turks, but we
think it more likely that he is going to fight Rhangos. They are at
war with each other. Oh, these are bad times! What with the war
with the Turks, and the war of one captain with another, and what
with bands of klephts who plunder everyone, there is no peace nor
quiet. They say Rhangos is going to join the Turks, as many other
klepht leaders have done. To us it makes little difference who are
masters, so that we know who they are. In the time of the Turks we
had peace; we had to pay taxes, but we knew what they were. Now
everybody wants taxes. These are evil days.”
“We want some vegetables and some fruit,” Horace said. “We do not
wish to rob you, and are ready to pay a fair price for everything.”
“Those we can sell you,” the woman said, “it is nearly all we have
left. There are vegetables everywhere, and they are not worth
stealing.”
The news soon spread, and the women and children of the village
were soon engaged in gathering and tying up vegetables. The sailors
made several trips backwards and forwards to the boats with laden
baskets, while the doctor and Horace, seated upon a low wall,
watched the women at work in the gardens, and paid the sum
agreed upon for each basketful that was carried off. Suddenly,
without the slightest warning, there was a rush of men behind them,
and before they could draw their pistols they were seized, thrown
down, and bound.
“What is the meaning of this?” Horace asked indignantly. “We are
officers of that ship there, which is in the service of Greece. As you
are Greeks, what do you mean by molesting us?”
No reply was given. There was a sudden outburst of firing down by
the boat, and the screams of women rose in the air. The men who
had bound them moved away at the order of an officer, leaving two
with muskets standing over the prisoners.
“This is a nice business, doctor; I expect we have fallen into the
hands of Rhangos, the fellow the women were speaking about, and
the men of this village have gone out with some other scoundrel to
fight. I suppose he had spies about, and came down to plunder the
place in their absence. She said she heard Rhangos was going to
join the Turks; his capturing us certainly looks as if at present he
was hostile to the Greeks. If he takes us away and hands us over to
the Turks it is a bad look-out.”
“He will have to be quick about it,” the doctor said, “they are still
firing occasional shots down by the water. That looks as if the boat
has got away, and you may be sure Martyn won’t be long before he
sends as many men as he can spare ashore to find us. There, do
you hear?” and as he spoke there was the deep boom of a gun,
followed by the rush of a shot overhead.
Orders were shouted angrily directly afterwards. Some men ran up,
cut the cords that bound the prisoners’ legs, and then, seizing them
by the arms, hurried them away, threatening them with instant
death if they did not keep up with them. As they mounted the high
ground behind the village Horace glanced round. Three boats were
just leaving the schooner. A blow from one of the Greeks that, bound
as he was, nearly threw him down, compelled him to turn his head
and hurry forward again. For hours they hastened along. When
about a mile from the village a sharp fire was heard to break out in
that direction. As they had only eight men with them, they doubted
not that Rhangos was with the main body opposing the landing.
“Our fellows will soon clear them out of the village,” Horace said to
the doctor. “I only hope that, as they retire, the Greeks will follow
us, for you may be sure that Martyn and Miller will press hard on
them, and may perhaps overtake us.”
Up to nightfall, however, none of the band came up. The country
had been getting more and more hilly, and at sunset they halted far
up on the side of a mountain. Here a fire was lit, and some portions
of a kid that had evidently been part of the plunder of the village
were put over it to roast. The fire was kept blazing, and the doctor
and Horace agreed that it was probably intended as a signal to their
comrades. A lump of meat was thrown to each of the captives, their
cords being loosed sufficiently to enable them to use their hands,
their legs being tightly bound again as soon as they had halted. At
eight o’clock a sound of voices was heard, and presently a party of
Greeks, fully a hundred strong, came up. They were evidently in an
ill temper, and replied sulkily to the questions of the guard of the
prisoners. Horace gathered from their answers that they had fired a
volley upon the boats as they approached; then, seeing they came
on without a pause, had at once run from the village and scattered,
reuniting some miles on.
“We lost everything we had taken,” one of the men said. “We had it
all packed and ready to carry away, when those confounded sailors
came. Some of us did start with our bundles, but they came so fast
up to us that we had to throw everything away, and even then we
had a lot of difficulty in keeping away from them. I expect they
caught some. It was lucky we started off when we did; if we had
waited till they landed very few would have got away.”
“Didn’t they shoot?” one of the guards asked.
“No, they never fired a shot. I don’t know whether they came ashore
without powder, but from first to last they never fired.”
“They knew we had these two in our hands,” the guards said, “and
they were afraid if they killed any of us we should take it out of our
prisoners, and I think they were about right. Ah! here comes
Rhangos. He had to take to a farmhouse before he had gone half a
mile, and I suppose if any of them looked in they would have seen
him feeding pigs or something of that sort, with his finery and arms
hidden away.”
The klepht had now come up to the fire. He was a spare man, some
fifty years old, with a keen hungry face.
“Are all here?” he asked briefly.
“We are six short of our number,” a man, who by his dress had
evidently the rank of an officer among them, replied.
“Killed?”
“No, there was no firing; I expect those sailors ran them down.”
“Then we must march in half-an-hour, they will make them lead
them here. Now, then, who are you?” he asked the doctor as the
elder of the prisoners.
“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 ships 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 ship 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 ship 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 ship, 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 scrape 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 passed 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 assertion 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 ship 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
ship. He walked in, thinking the place was empty, when two of those
sailors jumped out on him with cutlasses. Thinking that they were
going to cut his throat he showed them the letter. They led him to
the principal 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 ship, 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
amusement, 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.”
The next morning they started at daybreak. The main body of the
band had moved off hours before, leaving the Lieutenant Kornalis,
Demetri, and four of the men. Three hours’ walking took them out of
the mountains. There was little talking. The Greeks would have
preferred going with their leader to plunder another village, for
although the booty taken was supposed to be all handed over to the
chief for fair distribution, there were few who did not conceal some
trinket or money as their own special share of the plunder. They
were but a mile or two beyond the hills, when, from a wood skirting
the road, four or five shots rang out.
Two of the Greeks fell; the rest, throwing away their guns, fled at
the top of their speed. Before the prisoners had time to recover from
their surprise a number of men rushed out, and with the butts of
their muskets and pistols struck them to the ground. When they
recovered their senses a group of men were standing round them,
while at some little distance they could hear the sound of firing,
showing that the pursuit of their late captors was being closely
maintained. By this time they had become sufficiently accustomed to
the various costumes to know that they had now fallen into the
hands of men of one of the Albanian tribes, probably Mussulmans
acting as irregulars with the Turkish army, engaged upon a raiding
expedition. One of them asked Horace a question, but the dialect
was so different to that of the Greeks of Athens and the Morea that
he was unable to understand it. Presently the men who had gone in
pursuit returned, and the whole party set off to the north, placing
their prisoners in their midst, and warning them by pointing
significantly to their knives and pistols that they had better keep up
with them.
“Eh! man,” the doctor said; “but it is dreadful. Just as we thought
that everything was settled, and that in another couple of hours we
should be with our own people, here we are in the hands of a pack
of villains even worse than the others.”
“You said that we should not shout until we were out of the wood,
doctor, and you have turned out a true prophet; but at present I am
thinking more of my head than of anything else, I am sure I have
got a couple of lumps on it as big as eggs.”
“It shows the folly of man,” the doctor said philosophically. “What
good could they expect to get from knocking us down? We were
neither fighting nor running away. We had not our wits about us,
lad, or we should have just taken to our heels.”
“I expect they would have caught us if we had. We have neither of
us had much walking lately, and those fellows are always climbing
among their mountains. Do you think it is of any use trying to make
them understand that if they will take us a few miles farther they will
find three hundred pounds waiting for them?”
“You might try, Horace; but I don’t think that it will be of any use. I
expect they are just skirting along at the foot of the hills to see what
they can pick up. There are not above thirty of them, and they
would not like to go far out upon the plains; besides, I don’t know
that it would turn out well. If they were to go on in a body, Martyn
would as likely as not fire at them, and then they would think that
we had led them into an ambush, and shoot us without waiting to
ask any question. Still, you can try if you like; we might be sorry
afterwards if we didn’t.”
But when Horace tried to speak to the men he was threatened
roughly, and he lapsed into silence. For three hours they ascended a
great range of hills running east and west. When they gained the
crest they could see stretched away far in front of them a flat and
fertile country.
“The plains of Thessaly,” the doctor said; “the fairest and richest
portion of the Greece of old. There is little chance of its forming part
of the Greece of the future, at least not until a complete overthrow
of the Turkish Empire. If Greece attains her independence the
frontier line will be somewhere along the crest of these hills, for
Thessaly, although there was some slight trouble there at first, has
not joined the movement. There are no mountains and fortresses
where they can take refuge, and a troop of Turkish cavalry could
scour the whole country. There is where we are bound for, I expect;”
and he pointed to a large clump of white tents far out on the plain.
“I expect that is the camp of the Pasha of the province. I suppose he
is going to operate on this side when the main force advances to the
west.”
It took them another four hours’ walking before they approached the
camp. When within a short distance of it their captors turned off and
entered a village where numbers of their countrymen were sitting in
the shade smoking or dozing. The band went on until they reached
the principal house in the village, and four of them entering took
their prisoners into a room where a tall old chief was sitting on a
divan. They talked for some minutes, evidently explaining the
circumstances of their capture. When they had done, the chief asked
the prisoners in Greek who they were.
“We are Englishmen,” Horace replied; “we belong to a ship lying off
a village whose name I don’t know. We had landed to buy fruit and
vegetables, and then we were suddenly seized and carried away to
the mountains by some Greek brigands led by a fellow named
Rhangos. We had arranged for a ransom and were on our way under
a guard to the village where the money was to be paid when your
band put the Greeks to flight and made us prisoners.”
“How much ransom was to be paid?” the Albanian asked.
“Three hundred pounds, and if you will send us there now our
friends will be glad to pay it to your people. I tried to explain that to
them on the way, but they would not listen to me.”
“They are fools,” the chief said decidedly; “and besides, they don’t
speak Greek. It is too late now. I must take you to the Pasha, who
will deal with you as he chooses.” Then rising, and followed by a
group of his officers and the prisoners in charge of four men, he
walked across to the Turkish camp.
“They are a picturesque-looking set of cut-throats,” Macfarlane said.
“That they are. People at home would stare to see them with their
white kilted petticoats and gaudy sashes, with their pistols inlaid
with silver, and their embroidered jackets and white shirt sleeves.
Well, what are we to say if we are asked about the ship?”
“We must tell the truth, lad; I doubt not they have had news before
now that the schooner is cruising about on the coast; and even if we
were disposed to tell a lie, which we are not, they would guess
where we had come from. No English merchantman would be likely
to be anchored off the coast here to buy vegetables; and, indeed,
there are very few British vessels of any sort in these waters now.
You need not just tell them that the schooner is the craft that has
been playing the mischief over on the other coast and robbed them
of their Chiot slaves; nor is it precisely necessary to enter into that
affair near Cyprus. We need simply say, if we are asked, that we are
Englishmen in the naval service of Greece; I don’t expect they will
ask many questions after that, or that we shall have any occasion to
do much more talking.”
“You think they will hang us, doctor.”
“It may be hanging, Horace, or it may be shooting, and for my part I
am not very particular which it is. Shooting is the quickest, but then
hanging is more what I may call my family way of dying. I should
say that as many as a score of my ancestors were one way or
another strung up by the Stuarts on one miserable pretence or other,
such as cattle-lifting, settling a grudge without bothering the law-
courts, and trifles of that sort.”
Horace burst into a fit of laughter, which caused the Albanian chief
to look round sharply and inquiringly.
“It is all right, old chap,” Macfarlane muttered in English; “we are
just laughing while we can, and there is no contempt of court
intended.”
The Pasha was in a tent considerably larger than those that
surrounded it. The Albanian went in, leaving the prisoners in charge
of their guard. In five minutes he came out and signed to them to
follow him in. The Pasha was an elderly man with a snow-white
beard. He looked at the prisoners with some interest.
“I hear that you are Englishmen,” he said in Greek.
“That is so, sir.”
“And that you are in the Greek service.”
“We were in the Greek service, but after being carried off by Greek
brigands I do not know that we shall have any inclination to remain
in it.”
“If you had been taken fighting against us I should have ordered you
to be shot,” the Pasha said; “but as it is I do not know. Do you
belong to that schooner with white sails that has been cruising off
the coast some days?”
“We do,” Horace admitted.
“I am told,” the Pasha went on, “that she is the ship that did us
much harm at Chios.”
“We were attacked, and we beat off the boats,” Horace said. “That is
fair warfare. Our principal object has been to rescue people in
danger or distress, whether Christian or Turk. We rescued numbers
of Chiot slaves. And on the other hand we saved numbers of Turks
at the surrender of the Acropolis at Athens, and conveyed them
safely to Tenedos, where we landed them; and the governor there
recognized our service to his countrymen, and came off to the ship
and invited us on shore to dine with him.”
“Yes, I have heard about that,” the Pasha said. “We have all heard of
the white schooner. She has been a dangerous enemy to us, and has
done us more harm than the whole of the Greeks together; but after
your humanity at Athens I cannot feel animosity against you. It was
a noble deed and worthy of brave men. Thus it is that nations
should fight, but the Greeks began by massacre, and have been
false to the oaths they swore twenty times. How can you fight for
men who have neither courage nor faith, and who are as cruel as
they are cowardly?”
“There have been cruelties on both sides,” Horace said, “though I
own that the Greeks began it; but in England we love freedom, and
it is not long since we drove the French out of Egypt and preserved
it for you. Our sympathies are with the Greeks, because they were
oppressed. We have never killed a Turk save in fair fight, and the
crews of every ship we have taken we have permitted to return to
shore in their boats without injuring one of them.”
“This also I have heard,” the Pasha said, “and therefore I will do you
no harm. I will send you to Constantinople, where the Sultan will
decide upon your fate. He has given orders that all foreigners taken
in arms against us shall at once be put to death for interfering in a
matter in which they have no concern; but as you were not taken in
arms I do not feel that the order applies to you, and will therefore
take upon myself to send you to him.”
“I thank you, sir,” Horace said, “though I fear it will only be a
reprieve.”
“I cannot say,” the pasha replied gravely. “The Sultan strikes hard
when he wishes to give a lesson. You see, his people were
massacred wholesale by the Greeks, and at Chios he taught them
that he could retaliate; but he is not cruel by choice. He is
unswerving when his mind is made up. Whether he will make an
exception in your case or not is more than I can say. I can only send
you to him, and hope that he will be as merciful in your case as I
would be had I the power.”
Then he ordered one of his officers to take charge of the prisoners,
to see that they had a comfortable tent and were well cared for, and
that none molested them. Four soldiers were to be always on guard
at the tent, and to answer for the safety of the prisoners with their
lives. In a short time they were placed in a tent among those
allotted to the officers, and four sentries were placed round it. After
sunset two soldiers brought large trays with meat, vegetables, and
sweets from the pasha’s own table, and also a bottle of raki.
“The Turk is a gentleman, Horace,” the doctor said as, after having
finished dinner, he mixed himself some spirits and water. “I am not
saying, mind you, that I would not have mightily preferred a bottle
of good whisky; but I am bound to say that when one has once got
accustomed to it, raki has its virtues. It is an insinuating spirit, cool
and mild to the taste, and dangerous to one who is not accustomed
to it. What do you think of it, Horace?”
“I don’t care for it, but then I don’t care for any spirits,” Horace said;
“but I thoroughly agree with you that the pasha is a good fellow,
only I wish he could have seen his way to have let us go. The Sultan
is a terrible personage, and the way he has hung up hostages at
Constantinople has been awful. If he has made up his mind that he
will deter foreigners from entering the Greek service by showing no
mercy to those who fall into his hands, I have no very great hope
that he will make any exception in our case.”
 CHAPTER XX
AT CONSTANTINOPLE

U PON the following morning horses were brought round and

they were ordered to mount. An officer with twelve Turkish
troopers took charge of them. The pasha came out from his tent.
“I am sending a letter to the Porte saying what I know of the doings
of your ship, and of the service you rendered by saving our
countrymen at Athens. I have also given directions that the vessel
conveying you shall touch at Tenedos, and have written to the
governor there asking him also to send on a letter in your favour.”
After an hour’s riding they reached the town of Larissa, and then
followed the river on which it stands down to the sea.
“What a lovely country!” Horace exclaimed as he looked at the
mountains to the right and left.
“We are travelling on classical ground,” the doctor replied. “This is
the vale of Tempe, that hill to the right is Mount Ossa, that to the
left is Mount Olympus.”
“They are grand,” Horace said, “though I should certainly enjoy them
more under other circumstances. Fancy that being the hill that Jove
used to sit on. It would be a grand place to climb, wouldn’t it?”
“I should be quite content to look at it comfortably from the deck of
the schooner, Horace, and should have no desire whatever to scale
it.”
“Where is the schooner now, do you think, doctor?”
“Where we left her. They would wait at the village where they
expected us to be handed over to them till late in the afternoon, and
then most likely march back to the shore. This morning they will be
trying to get news of us. It is possible that one of the Greeks has
taken down the news of our capture by the Turks, in hopes of
getting a reward. He would not know whether we were killed or
captured—they bolted too fast for that; but if a fellow does take
news of the fight he will probably offer to show the spot. Martyn will
take out a strong party, and when he finds the bodies of the two
Greeks and no signs of us, he will arrive at the conclusion that we
have been carried off. The Greeks probably recognized the men who
attacked them as being a band of Albanians. The white petticoats
alone would tell them that; and as the Christian Albanians would
certainly not be likely to be plundering on this side at the present
time, they will be sure they are Mohammedans either raiding on
their own account or acting with the Turkish forces in Thessaly.
“No doubt they will offer a reward for news of us, and will probably
learn from some peasant or other that a party of Albanians crossed
the range into Thessaly about mid-day. Then when they hear that
the pasha’s force was lying in the plain, not far from the foot of the
hills, they will arrive at the truth that we were taken there. What
their next step will be I cannot say, but I should fancy they will sail
round the promontory and try and open communication with some
small village, and get someone to visit the camp and try and pick up
news of what has become of us. It must be days before they can do
all this, and by the time they find we have been put on board ship
we shall be at Constantinople.
“At any rate, Horace, I regard the idea of there being a chance of
their rescuing us as out of the question. What they will do is, of
course, beyond guessing. It is vexing to think that if they did but
know at the present moment we were being put on board ship, they
might cut us off at the mouth of the Dardanelles. It is little farther
from the Gulf of Zeitouni than it is from the mouth of this river, and
the schooner would probably sail twice as fast as any craft we are
likely to be put on board. It is annoying, but it is of no use being
annoyed. They don’t know we are going to be embarked, and they
can’t learn it for four or five days at the very earliest, so don’t let us
worry about that. We have reasonable cause for worry in knowing
that we are going to be taken to Constantinople, for not improbably
we will be executed when we get there.”
“You think that it is probable, doctor?”
“I do, indeed. The Sultan is not the man to stand on niceties. He has
decided not to give quarter to foreigners who fight against him, and
as a matter of policy he is perfectly right. We knew all along what
our fate would be if we fell into the hands of the Turks. We have
done them an immense amount of mischief: we have destroyed a
frigate and beaten off their boats; we have taken a lot of prizes, and
delivered some two or three thousand valuable slaves from their
hands. The only set-off to this is that we assisted to save some three
hundred Turkish women and children, as to whose fate the Sultan
was probably perfectly indifferent. The balance is very heavy against
us.”
Horace could not but admit that this was so, but in this beautiful
valley, and with Constantinople still in the distance, the idea that ere
long a violent death might befall him there was not sufficiently vivid
to depress his spirits greatly.
After four hours’ riding they came down upon the little port at the
mouth of the river. Two or three craft were lying there under the
guns of the battery.
“That is our vessel, you will see, Horace. It is a man-of-war brig. I
expect she is placed here on purpose to enable the pasha to
communicate direct with Constantinople, instead of having to send
up through the passes to Salonika.”
Leaving the prisoners under charge of the guard, the officer took a
boat and rowed off to the brig. In a few minutes a large boat lying
beside her was manned by a dozen sailors and rowed ashore. The
officer was on board of her. Two of the men who had brought their
valises strapped behind their saddles had already removed them,
and stepped into the boat forward, while their comrades took charge
of their horses. The officer then signed to Horace and the doctor to
step on board, and they were rowed out to the brig. Half an hour
later the anchor was got up, the sail set, and the vessel left the port.
There was no attempt at restraint of the prisoners. A young
lieutenant who spoke Greek informed them, in the name of the
captain, that the orders of the pasha were that they were to be
treated as ordinary passengers, and he requested them to take their
meals with him in the cabin. They would be entirely at liberty, except
that they would not be allowed to land at Tenedos, or at any other
port at which the vessel might touch.
The brig proved a fairly fast sailer; the wind was favourable, and late
on the afternoon of the day after they had sailed they dropped
anchor off Tenedos, and the officer in charge of the captives at once
went ashore with the pasha’s letter to the governor. He returned late
at night, after the prisoners had turned in in one of the officers’
cabins that had been vacated for their use. There was not a breath
of wind in the morning, and the captain accordingly did not attempt
to weigh anchor.
“It would be a fine thing if this calm would last for a fortnight,” the
doctor said as they came on deck in the morning.
“Yes, but there is no chance of that, doctor. We have never had a
dead calm for more than three days since we came out.”
“Well, we might do equally well with a light breeze from the north.
That would help the schooner across the gulf, and at the same time
would not enable the brig to work up the Dardanelles; there is a
strongish current there. Still, I am not at all saying it is likely; I only
say that I wish it could be so.”
When the officer came on deck he informed them, through the
lieutenant, that the governor had given him a strong letter to the
Porte speaking in the highest terms of the humanity they had shown
towards the Turks they had rescued from Athens. An hour later two
or three boats came off. Among those on board them were several
women. When these saw the doctor and Horace leaning over the
bulwark, they broke into loud cries of greeting.
“I expect they are some of those poor creatures we brought over,”
Horace said. “I don’t remember their faces, we have had too many
on board for that, and I don’t understand what they are saying, but
it is evidently that.”
Some of the boatmen understood both Greek and Turkish, and these
translated the expressions of the women’s gratitude, and their regret
at seeing him a prisoner. They were not allowed to set foot on the
brig, but they handed up baskets of fruit and sweetmeats. One of
the women stood up in the boat and in Greek said in low tones to
Horace, as he leant over the rail:
“There are but few of us here, and we are poor. Our hearts melted
this morning when the news spread that you were prisoners on
board a ship on her way to Constantinople. We can do nothing but
pray to Allah for your safety. My husband was one of the soldiers
you brought over, the one who had lost his arm, and who was
tended by the hakim. As he was of no more use they have
discharged him, and he has remained here, as I am a native of the
island and have many friends. He will start in an hour with some
fishermen, relations of mine. They will land him above Gallipoli, and
he will walk to Constantinople. Then he will see the bimbashi and his
former comrades, and find out Osman and Fazli Beys, who were with
us, and tell them of your being prisoners, so that they may use their
influence at the Porte, and tell how you risked your lives for them,
and all—May Allah protect you both, effendis!”
Her story terminated abruptly, for the captain at this moment came
up and ordered the boat away from the side.
“What is all that about, Horace?” Macfarlane asked as Horace
returned the woman’s last salutation with two or three words of
earnest thanks. “Why, what is the matter, lad? there are tears in
your eyes.”
“I am touched at that poor woman’s gratitude, doctor. As you can
see by her dress she is poor. She is the wife of a discharged soldier,
that man who lost his arm. You dressed the stump, you may
remember. I know you said that it had been horribly neglected, and
remarked what a splendid constitution the Turk had; you thought
that had he been an Englishman the wound would probably have
mortified long before.”
“Of course I remember, Horace. And has he got over it?”
“He has.” And Horace then told him what the woman had said.
“It does one good to hear that,” Macfarlane said when he had
finished. “Human nature is much the same whether it is in the wife
of a Turkish soldier or of a Scottish fisherman. The poor creature and
her husband are doing all they can. The bimbashi and the beys were
great men in their eyes, and they doubtless think that they are quite
important persons at Constantinople. Still, it is pleasant to think that
the poor fellow, whose arm must still be very far from healed, is
undertaking this journey to do what he can for us. It minds me of
that grand story of Effie Deans tramping all the way from Scotland to
London to ask for her sister’s pardon.
“I don’t say that anything is like to come of it, but there is no saying.
If these Turks are as grateful as this soldier and his wife they might
possibly do something for us, if it were not that the Sultan himself
will settle the matter. An ordinary Turkish official will do almost
anything for money or favour, but the Sultan is not to be got round;
and they say he is a strong man, and goes his own way without
asking the advice of anyone. Still it is, as I said, pleasant to know
that there are people who have an interest in us, and who are doing
all in their power to help us.”
An hour later a small boat was seen to put out from the port and to
row away in the direction of the mainland.
For three days the brig lay at her anchorage. Then a gentle breeze
sprang up from the south. Making all sail, the brig was headed to
the entrance of the Dardanelles.
“Unless there is more wind than this,” Horace said, “I should hardly
think she will be able to make her way up, doctor. She is not going
through the water more than two knots an hour.”
“No, she will have to anchor again as soon as she is inside the straits
unless the wind freshens, and I don’t think it is likely to do that. To
my mind it looks as if it would die out again at sunset.”
This proved to be the case, and before it became dark the brig was
anchored in a bay on the Asiatic side a short distance from the
entrance.
The next morning the breeze again blew, and somewhat fresher
than before. All day the captain strove to pass up the straits.
Sometimes by keeping over out of the force of the current he made
two or three miles, then when they came to some projecting point
the current would catch the vessel and drift her rapidly down, so
that when the breeze again sank at sunset they had gained only
some four miles. Next day they were more fortunate and passed the
castle of Abydos, and the third evening came to anchor off Gallipoli.
On the following morning the wind blew briskly from the east, and in
the afternoon they dropped anchor off Constantinople.
“Eh, man, but it is a wonderful sight!” Macfarlane said, as they
looked at the city with the crenellated wall running along by the
water’s edge, the dark groves of trees rising behind it, and the
mosques with their graceful minarets on the sky-line. Ahead of them
was Pera with its houses clustering thickly one above the other, and
the background of tall cypress. Across the water lay Scutari, with its
great barracks, its mosques, and the kiosks scattered along the
shore. Caiques were passing backwards and forwards across the
water; heavy boats with sailors or troops rowing between the ships
of war and the shore; native craft with broad sails coming up astern
from Broussa and other places on the Sea of Marmora; pleasure
boats, with parties of veiled women rowing idly here and there; and
occasionally a long caique, impelled by six sturdy rowers, would
flash past with some official of rank.
“I have seen many places,” the doctor went on, “but none like this.
Nature has done more for Rio, and as much perhaps for Bombay,
but man has done little for either. We may boast of our western
civilization, and no doubt we can rear stately buildings; but in point
of beauty the orientals are as far ahead of us as we are ahead of the
South Sea Islanders. Who would think that the Turks, with their
sober ways, could ever have even dreamed of designing a thing so
beautiful as that mosque with its graceful outlines. See how well
those dark cypresses grow with it; it would lose half its beauty were
it to rise from the round heads of an English wood.
“Just compare the boats of light-coloured wood all carved and
ornamented with their graceful lines, and the boatmen in their snow-
white shirts, with their loose sleeves and bare arms, and their scarlet
sashes and fezzes with the black tub of an English or Scottish river.
Look at the dresses of the peasants in that heavy boat there, and
compare them with those of our own people. Why, man, we may be
a great nation, intelligent, and civilized, and all that; but when it
comes to an appreciation of the beautiful we are poor bodies,
indeed, by the side of the Turk, whom we in our mightiness are
accustomed to consider a barbarian. I know what you are going to
say,” he went on, as Horace was going to speak. “There is tyranny
and oppression, and evil rule, and corruption, and other bad things
in that beautiful city. I grant you all that, but that has nothing to do
with my argument. He may be a heathen, he may be ignorant, he
may be what we call uncivilized; but the Turk has a grand soul or he
never would have imagined a dream of beauty like this.”
As the sun set half an hour after the anchor was dropped the officer
sent with them by the pasha did not think it necessary to land until
the following morning, as the offices would all be shut. At eight
o’clock he was rowed ashore and did not return until late in the
evening. Business was not conducted at a rapid rate in the offices of
the Porte. The lieutenant interpreted to the prisoners that the letter
of the governor of Tenedos had been laid before the grand vizier,
who would deliver it with that of the pasha to the Sultan at his
audience in the evening.
“Did he see the grand vizier himself?” Horace asked.
The answer was in the affirmative.
“Did he gather from him whether it was likely that the Sultan would
regard the matter favourably?”
The two Turks spoke together for some time. “I am sorry to say,” the
lieutenant replied when they had done, “that the vizier was of
opinion that the Sultan would be immovable. He has sworn to spare
none of those who have stirred up his subjects to rebellion, and
who, without having any concern in the matter, have aided them
against him. He regards them as pirates, and has resolved by
severity to deter others from following their example. The vizier said
that he would do his best, but that when the Sultan’s mind was once
made up nothing could move him; and that having himself received
the reports of the destruction of one of his war-ships, and the very
heavy loss inflicted on the boats of the fleet at Chios, and having,
moreover, received memorials from the merchants at Smyrna as to
the damage inflicted on their commerce by what was called the
white schooner, he felt that he would be deaf to any appeal for
mercy to two of her officers.”
At eight o’clock next morning a boat with twelve soldiers and an
officer came off to the brig. The officer, mounting on the deck,
handed to the captain an order for the delivery to him of the two
prisoners sent from Thessaly.
“Things look bad, I am afraid,” Horace said as they stepped into the
boat. “I saw the officer exchange a word or two with the cavalry
man who brought us here and the captain, and I am sure, by the
expression of their faces, that the news was bad. I am sure, too,
from the way they shook hands with us at parting.”
“Some of these men’s faces seem familiar to me,” the doctor said as
they were being rowed towards a landing to the east of the palace
gardens. “I can’t say that they were among the men we brought
from Athens, but I have a strong idea that two or three of them
were. Do you recognize them?”
“I can’t say that I do. You see they were only on board one day, and
I thought more of the women and children than of the soldiers and
sailors.”
“I am almost sure of them, Horace; yet it is curious, that if they are
the men we saved they did not make some sign of recognition when
we came down the ladder. Turkish discipline is not very strict. They
did not seem to look up much. They were all sitting forward of the
six oarsmen, and I noticed, that till we pushed off they seemed to
be talking about something together, and were so intent on it that
they did not look up until after we had pushed off. I did notice that
the oarsmen looked a little surprised when the officer, as we pushed
off, gave an order to the man steering, and they saw which way the
boat’s head was turned.
“I don’t suppose they knew that we were prisoners, Horace, and
were expecting to go back to the place they came from. I suppose
the landing they are taking us to is the nearest one to the prison.”
There were no boats lying at the broad steps alongside which the
boat drew up. Six of the soldiers took their places in front of them,
the officer marched between them, and the other six soldiers
followed behind. The road, which was a narrow one, ran between
two very high walls, and rose steeply upward.
“Evidently this landing-place is not much used,” the doctor said. “I
suppose it leads to some quiet quarter.”
A hundred yards from the landing-place the officer gave the word to
halt, and then another order, upon which one of the men, who
carried a bag, began to open it.
“Quick, gentlemen!” the officer said in Greek; “you must change
here. Quick! there is not a moment to lose.”
Astonished at the order, the doctor and Horace obeyed it.
“I suppose,” the former muttered, “they don’t want it known they
have got two European prisoners. I don’t see what else they can be
up to.”
The change was quickly made. Two long baggy Turkish trousers
were pulled over their own, their jackets were thrown into the bag,
and they were enveloped in Turkish robes. Their caps were thrown
beside their jackets, and turbans placed on their heads, while their
shoes were pulled off and their feet thrust into Turkish slippers. The
officer and two of the soldiers aided in the work, and in a couple of
minutes the metamorphosis was complete.
“Allah be praised!” the officer exclaimed fervently; and the words
were echoed by the soldiers. These for a moment, regardless of
discipline, gathered round the prisoners. One after another seized
their hands, and bending over them pressed them to their forehead;
then the officer gave an order, and one or two at a time—the
soldiers carried only their side-arms—left the group and hurried on
ahead, until the officer remained alone with the astonished
Englishmen.
“What does this all mean?” Horace asked the officer in Greek.
“It means that you are free, my friends,” he said, shaking each of
them cordially by the hand; “at least, so far free. Now let us follow
the others.”
Still, almost thinking they were dreaming, the doctor and Horace
accompanied their companion up the narrow lane, and emerged into
a quiet street behind a great mosque; skirting the wall of this, they
entered a wider street.
“Be careful,” the officer said in Greek; “walk along carelessly, and
seem to be conversing with me.”
Horace translated the remark to the doctor.
There were not a great many people about, but as they went along
the number increased. They crossed a busy street, turned down a
lane on the other side, and then walked for upwards of half an hour,
turning frequently, and as far as Horace could guess, making a wide
detour, and again approaching the busy part of the town. Presently
the officer stopped near the corner of a lane in a quiet street, and
began to talk in an animated tone about the size of the town and
other matters, until he saw that the street was for a moment empty;
then he turned sharply down the lane, which ran between the backs
of two sets of houses, went for a hundred yards, and then stopped
at a door in the wall; opened it with the key, hurried them in, and
locked the door behind him.
“Allah be praised!” he again said; “you are safe thus far. Now come
in, they are anxiously expecting us.”
He entered the house, which stood in a small inclosure, and led the
way into a room. They were received at the door by a Turk, whom
both recognized at once as Osman Bey, one of the principal Turks
they had carried from Athens. He repeated the officer’s pious
exclamation:
“Allah be praised for his mercies!” and then in Greek he said, “Truly I
am rejoiced, my friends, that Allah has granted me an opportunity of
showing that I am not ungrateful, and that as you saved me and
mine from death, so have I been able to save you; and I am doubly
glad in seeing, what I knew not before, that one of you is the son of
the Englishman to whom principally we owed our escape.”
“We are grateful, indeed,” Horace said; “but at present we
understand nothing. This officer has told us nothing whatever.”
“This officer is my son, and is only an officer for the occasion,”
Osman Bey said. “But come into the next room; my wife and
daughters are eagerly expecting you.”
Three ladies rose from a divan on which they were sitting when the
bey entered the room. They were lightly veiled, but the bey said:
“Lay aside your veils. These are as my sons, and you can unveil as if
they were members of the family.”
The ladies unveiled. Horace had not seen their faces before on board
ship, for the women of the upper class had remained closely veiled.
The mother was a stout, elderly woman, with a kindly face. Her
daughters were girls of fourteen or fifteen, with dark hair, somewhat
colourless faces, and lovely eyes. The bey’s wife expressed her
pleasure at the arrival of the Englishmen. The girls shrank rather
timidly behind her, embarrassed at being thus unveiled before
strangers.
“Now sit down,” the bey said. “Zuleika, do you bring in coffee and
sweetmeats yourself. I do not wish your attendant to enter while
these gentlemen are here.”
“I have sent her down the town on a message,” the bey’s wife said,
while the younger girl rose and left the room. “She is faithful, but
girls will chatter. Mourad, we know, we can trust.”
The girl soon returned with a tray with coffee, cakes, and
sweetmeats. Then the bey said:
“Now I will tell you all about this. Ahmed, the sooner you get rid of
that uniform the better. Give it to Mourad at once, and let him take it
back to its owner, he may want it.”
The young man left the room.
“Now this is how it happened,” the bey began. “Three days ago
came the messenger from Tenedos. Did you know of his being sent
hither?”
“Yes; his wife told us he was leaving—a soldier who had lost his
arm.”
“That was the man. He went to Hassan Bimbashi, who brought him
first to Fazli Bey, and then to me. We had a consultation. It was clear
to us all that it would be intolerable that men who had behaved with
such humanity to us should be put to death, if we could possibly
save them. It took us a long time to arrange the matter, and we
three sat in the next room there debating the matter all night. We
took Ahmed into our council at once, for he was, of course, as
anxious to aid the men who had saved his parents and sisters from
massacre as we were. Naturally, we at first thought of getting you
out of prison by bribing the guards; but though this would have
been comparatively easy, it was doubtful whether there would be
time to carry it out. There are several prisons here, and there was
no saying which you might be sent to, or who would be the men in
charge of you; therefore, time would be needed after you arrived
here, and we saw that it was probable that no time would be given
us. The Sultan might, of course, view your case favourably; but, on
the other hand, if he ordered you to execution, there would be no
delay.
“When a thing has to be done, especially when foreigners are in the
case, it is better to do it at once; otherwise, the Porte would be
pestered by the foreign representatives. It was agreed, therefore,
that if you were to be rescued, it must be done between the time of
your arrival and your being put in prison. We divided the work into
four parts. Fazli, who has most interest at the Porte, was to try all in
his power to influence the ministers, and to get the grand vizier to
represent the matter favourably to the Sultan. He was to give us the
earliest news of whatever decision might be arrived at, and above
all, he was to get some minor official there to follow the officer to
whom the order for bringing you ashore should be given.
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