The Circassian Slave, or, the Sultan's favorite Part 4

Besides her fore and mainsail, and those already named, the schooner, for so we must call her, carried two heavy, but graceful topsails upon her fore and mainmasts, and even a jigger sail or spanker and gaff above it, on a slender spur rigged from the quarter deck. Altogether the schooner with her various appurtenances, resembled such a yacht as some of the English n.o.blemen sail in the channel and about the Isle of Man in the sporting season.

The schooner was not un.o.bserved from the sh.o.r.e, and a careful observer could have noticed a group of persons that were evidently regarding her with no common interest from the landing just above the harbor of Anapa.

"That must be the craft that has been so long expected," said one of the group, "and we had best get our girls ready at once to put on board before the morning."

"This comes in a bad time, for the steamer should be here before nightfall."

"That's true; as she doesn't seem inclined to run in too close, perhaps she knows it."

"What was the signal agreed upon?" asked the first speaker of his companion, who was silently regarding the schooner.

"A red flag at the foretopmast head, and there it goes. Yes, it is here sure enough."

"How like a witch she looks."

"They say she will outsail anything between here and Gibraltar, in any wind."

"What does that mean? she's going about."

"Sure enough, and up goes her foresail, they work with a will and are in a hurry."

"She don't like the looks of something on the coast," said the other.

The fact was, while the schooner lay under the easy sail we have described, just off the port of Anapa, the little Russian government steamer that plies between Odessa and the ports along the Circa.s.sian coast held by the emperor's troops, hove in sight, having just come down the Sea of Azoff through the Straits of Yorkcale. Her dark line of smoke was discovered by those on board the schooner, before she had doubled the headland of Tatman, and it was very plain, that, let the schooner's purpose be what it might, she desired to avoid all unnecessary observation, and especially that of the steamer.

A single movement of the helm while the mainsail sheet was eased away, and the schooner brought the gentle night breeze that was still setting from the north and east off the Georgian sh.o.r.e, right aft, and quietly hoisting her foresail, the two were set wing and wing, and a sea bird could not have skimmed with a more easy and graceful motion over the deep waters that glanced beneath her hull, than she did now. If the steamer had desired she might have overhauled the schooner, but it would have taken all night to do it with that leading wind in her favor; and so, after looking towards the clipper craft with her bows for a moment, the steamer again held on her course.

"Too swift of wing for that smoke pipe of yours," said one of the Circa.s.sians who had been watching the evolutions of the two crafts from the sh.o.r.e.

"The steamer has put her helm down and gives it up for it bad job,"

said another, as her black bow came once more to look towards the port of Anapa.

"She will be off before night sets in, and we shall have the schooner back again."

This was in fact the policy of those on board the schooner; for no sooner did she find herself unpursued than she hauled her wind, jibed her foresail to starboard and looked down, towards the coast of Asia Minor, until the moon crept up from behind the mountains of the Caucasus as though it had come from a bath in the Caspian Sea beyond, when the schooner was closer hauled on the other trick, and bore up again for the harbor of Anapa.

We have said that the little clipper numbered some hundred tons, but though her appearance would indicate this to be the case, yet your thorough-bred sailor would have marked how stiffly she bore so much top hamper, and would have judged more correctly by the depth of water that the schooner evidently drew. It was plain that she was deep and much heavier than she looked. A few sprightly Greek youths, in their picturesque costume were dispersed here and there in the waist and on the forecastle, while two or three persons wearing the same dress and evidently of that nation, were talking together in a group upon the weather-side of the quarter-deck.

As the hours drew towards midnight, the schooner at length opened communication with the land by means of signal lanterns, and immediately after boats commenced to ply between the clipper and the sh.o.r.e, and continued to do so for several hours. It was plain enough to any one who knew the usages and trade of these waters, that the schooner was preparing to run a cargo of Circa.s.sian girls, the trade having been, as we have already shown, made contraband by the Russians.

At last the clipper seemed to have received all on board that she expected in the shape of pa.s.sengers, but still stood off and on for some reason until the breaking day began to tinge the mountain tops beyond Anapa; when a last boat with five persons, one of whom was a female, came down to the clipper which was thrown in the wind's eye long enough for those to get on board, or rather for three of them to do so; and then, as the other two pulled back to the sh.o.r.e, the schooner gradually came round under the force of her topsail, and one sail after another was distended and sheeted home until she looked to those on sh.o.r.e as though enveloped in canvas, and drove over the waters like a flying cloud.

One of those who pulled away from the schooner as she lay her course, would have been recognized by the reader as Krometz; and now half way to the landing he motioned his companion to cease rowing, while he paused himself and looked after the receding clipper with a strange medley of expression pictured in his face.

"Give way, give way," said his companion at last, somewhat impatiently; "one would think, by the way you look seaward, that you would like to head in that direction instead of pulling into the harbor."

"You are right, comrade. I do wish that yonder clipper was carrying me away from here."

"You are a queer fellow, Krometz, to let that girl make you so unhappy, but she's off now, and will probably bring up in some Turkish harem, where she will end her days. Not so bad a fate either," continued the oarsman. "Surrounded by every luxury the heart could wish or the imagination conceive, it's a better lot than either yours or mine."

"Well, say no more of this, and remember the utmost secrecy is to be observed, for that tiger of an Aphiz will hunt us to death if he does but suspect that we had a hand in the business."

"Our disguise was sufficient," said the other, "and by-the-way, we may as well get rid of this black stuff now;" and as he spoke he dashed the water from alongside upon his face and hands, and removed a coat of black from them.

"Now give way again; let us get in, and separate before any one is stirring abroad."

Leaving Krometz and his companion to pursue their own business, and the clipper craft with her course laid for the Sea of Marmora, we will, with the reader, return once more to the mountain side where we met Komel and Aphiz.

In time of peace, or rather when there was no open outbreak between the Circa.s.sians and the Russian forces, Aphiz Adegah pa.s.sed his time in hunting among the rugged hills and cliffs, and with the early morn was abroad with his gun strapped to his back, and in his hand the long iron-pointed staff that helped him to climb the otherwise inaccessible rocks of the mountain's sides. Thus equipped, he came, in the morning referred to above, to the cottage of Komel's parents, but, instead of the cheerful, happy welcome that usually greeted him on such occasions, he beheld consternation and misery written in the father's face, while the mother wept as though her heart would break.

"What means this strange scene?" asked the young hunter, hastily.

"Where is Komel?"

"Alas! gone, gone," sighed both.

"Gone!"

"Ay, gone forever."

"What mean you? whither has she gone? what has happened to render you so miserable?"

"Alas, Aphiz; Komel has gone to be the star of some proud Turkish harem," said the father.

"And with your consent?"

"No! O, no!"

"Nor by her own free will, that I know," he continued, quickly.

"Alas! no; this night she was stolen from us, and we saw her borne away before our very eyes."

"Was there no one by to strike a blow for her, no one to render you aid?"

"Yes, one there was, an honest friend who lives in the next cottage.

He was aroused by the noise, and outraged by the violence he beheld, he rushed upon the thieves, but they struck him bleeding and dead to the earth. It was a terrible sight and poor Komel saw it as they carried her away, and uttered such a fearful, piercing scream that it seems to ring in our cars even now. She fainted then in their arms, and we saw her no more."

"Heaven guard her!" said Aphiz, with inward anguish expressed in his face.

"Amen!" said the aged father, with a deep, heartfelt sigh, full of sorrow.

This told the whole story of the previous night, and the last boat that put off from, the sh.o.r.e for the clipper schooner contained Komel as a prisoner, insensible to all about, abducted by her own countrymen, incited by the revengeful spirit of Krometz. Actuated by the vilest motives himself, he had persuaded a companion, as we have seen, by a small bribe and the representation that Komel would in reality be better off than with her parents, to aid him in his object. Krometz had not hesitated to receive the handsome sum that one so beautiful as Komel could not fail to command.

Aphiz was almost too miserable to be able to find words to express his feelings. A bitter tear stole down his sunburnt check as he saw the mother's grief, but a stern flash of the eye was also visible in the expression of his face. He sought at once the highest cliff beyond the cottage, and in the distant, far-off horizon, could dimly make out the white canvas of the slave cutter, no bigger than a sea-bird, on the skirts of the horizon. He sat down in the bitterness of his anguish, alone and heart-broken, and then he remembered the scene of the previous evening, how they both together had seen the hawk pounce down and carry off in its talons the poor wood dove.

That scene, so suggestive to his mind, was not without its meaning.

It was the forerunner of the calamity under which his heart now grieved so bitterly. Aphiz Adegah's life had been a bold one, he knew no fear. The air of his native hills was not freer than his own spirit and as he looked off once more at the tiny white speck in the distance that marked the spot where Komel was, his resolution was instantly made, and he swore to follow and rescue her.

It was but natural that the young mountaineer should desire to find out the agency by which that evil business had been consummated. He knew very well that such a plan as Komel's abduction could not have been perpetrated without the aid of parties that knew her and her home, but never for one moment did he suspect Krometz. He had ever professed the warmest friends.h.i.+p for both him and Komel, and he was deemed honest. But during the melee, when the honest mountaineer had rushed to Komel's rescue, and had received the fatal blow, her parents heard a voice that they recognized, and both exclaimed, "Can that voice be Krometz's!"