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"Now we'll have a dinner-party," cried the Brownie; and squatted down like a Turk, crossed his queer little legs, and sticking his elbows upon his knees, in a way that nobody but a Brownie could manage. "Sit in a ring! sit in a ring! and we'll see who can eat fastest." The children obeyed. How many cherries they devoured, and how fast they did it, passes my capacity of telling.
Now, as a few days of sunshine had favoured us with very mild weather, my houris did not fail to go and stroll about the lawns. Naturally enough they attracted the attention of some indiscreet persons whose curiosity had been quickened by the apparent mystery of this closed house, and by all the gossip in the neighbourhood about "the Turk."
The lady destined by him for this pleasant fate was reported to be the loveliest woman in Europe, a fitting gift for such an one as the Grand Turk. The fame of her surpassing loveliness had reached even the corsairs. She was the widow of Vespasian Colonna, Duchess of Trajetto, and Countess of Fundi; she had now been a widow since 1528, and lived at Fundi, some ninety miles north-east of Naples.
If all had gone on as Smith believed the kind lady intended, he might have been a great Bashaw and a mighty man in the Ottoman Empire, and we might never have heard of Pocahontas. In sending him to her brother, it was her intention, for she told him so, that he should only sojourn in Nalbrits long enough to learn the language, and what it was to be a Turk, till time made her master of herself.
Turk Righter and some of the other fun makers tied the shoe strings together, and hung them out of the window where they blew noisily against the window pane.
Then opened the gates of romance, and with Fitz-James we drove the chase, till "Few were the stragglers, following far, That reached the lake of Vennachar, And when the Brig of Turk was won, The foremost horseman rode alone." From that time, for months, there was usually a little volume of Scott in one's pocket, in company with the miscellaneous collection of a boy's treasures.
At length a Turk approached, who, from his look and habit, appeared to be of superior rank, and after glancing his eye over the rest with an expression of compassion, he fixed them at last upon young Francisco, and demanded of the captain of the ship what was the price of that young man. The captain answered that he would not take less than five hundred pieces of gold for that captive.
Most of our patrols in consequence came in without having seen a Turk at all, but it was not a comfortable job, as machine guns were firing bursts all night.
The Albanians are not reckoned strict Mahommedans; but no Turk, however irreligious himself, ever disturbs the devotion of others. It was then the fast of Ramazan, and the travellers, during the night, were annoyed with the perpetual noise of the carousal kept up in the gallery, and by the drum, and the occasional voice of the Muezzin.
But suddenly the vague complaint gave way to a higher note. "Alarm," said Ashton-Kirk. "Something has happened." He reached up and turned on the electric bulb that hung above his head; then he drew his feet up under him after the fashion of a Turk and waited, calmly. The padded steps swiftly approached his door; a sharp knock sounded on the panels. "Well?" demanded the young man.
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