Lancey gets Embroiled in Troubles, and Sees some Peculiar Service.  
Meanwhile Jacob Lancey, impressed with the belief that the Turkish detachment had taken to the mountains, travelled as rapidly as possible in that direction.
 
Next morning at daybreak he found himself so thoroughly exhausted as to be unable to proceed. With difficulty he climbed a neighbouring eminence, which, being clear of bushes, gave him a view of the country around. There was a small village, or hamlet, within a stone’s throw of him. The sight revived his drooping spirits. He descended to it at once, but found no one stirring—not even a dog. Perceiving a small outhouse with its door ajar, he went to it and peeped in. There were a few bundles of straw in a corner. The temptation was irresistible. He entered, flung himself on the straw, and fell sound asleep almost immediately.
 
The sun was shining high in the heavens when he was awakened by a rude shake. He started up and found himself in the rough grasp of a Bulgarian peasant.
 
Lancey, although mentally and morally a man of peace, was physically pugnacious. He grappled at once with the Bulgarian, and being, as we have said, a powerful fellow, soon had him on his back with a hand compressing his windpipe, and a knee thrust into his stomach. It would certainly have fared ill with the Bulgarian that day if a villager had not been attracted to the hut by the noise of the scuffle. Seeing how matters stood, he uttered a shout which brought on the scene three more villagers, who at once overwhelmed Lancey, bound him, and led him before the chief man of the place.
 
This chief man was a Turk with a very black beard. Lancey of course expected to receive severe punishment without trial. But, on hearing that he had merely attacked a Bulgarian, the Turk seemed rather inclined to favour the prisoner than otherwise. At all events, after ascertaining that he could not communicate with him by any known language, he sent him to his kitchen to obtain a meal, and afterwards allowed him to depart, to the evident indignation of the Bulgarian and his friends, who did not, however, dare to show their feelings.
 
For some time Lancey wandered about endeavouring to make friends with the people, but without success. As the day advanced, the men, and most of the women, went to work in the fields. Feeling that he had not obtained nearly enough of sleep, our wanderer took an opportunity of slipping into another outhouse, where he climbed into an empty loft. There was a small hole in the loft near the floor. As he lay down and pillowed his head on a beam, he found that he could see the greater part of the village through the hole, but this fact had barely reached his brain, when he had again fallen into the heavy slumber of an exhausted man.
 
His next awakening was caused by shouts and cries. He raised himself on one elbow and looked out of his hole. A large body of Russian soldiers had entered the village, and were welcomed with wild joy by the Bulgarians, while the Turkish inhabitants—those of them who had not been able or willing to leave—remained quiet, but polite. The column halted. The men swarmed about the place and “requisitioned,” as the phrase goes, whatever they wanted—that is, they took what they chose from the people, whether they were willing or not. To do them justice, they paid for it, though in most cases the payment was too little.
 
There was a good deal of noisy demonstration, and some rough treatment of the inhabitants on the part of those who had come to deliver them, but beyond being “cleaned out,” and an insufficient equivalent left in money, they were not greatly the worse of this visit from the regulars.
 
The loft where Lancey had ensconced himself did not attract attention. He felt, therefore, comparatively safe, and, while he watched the doings of the soldiery, opened his wallet and made a hearty meal on the débris of his rations.
 
Before he had finished it the trumpets sounded, the troops fell in, and the column left the place.
 
Then occurred a scene which astonished him not a little. No sooner were the troops out of sight than the Bulgarian population, rising en masse, fell upon their Turkish brethren and maltreated them terribly. They did not, indeed, murder them, but they pillaged and burned some of their houses, and behaved altogether in a wild and savage manner. Lancey could not understand it. Perhaps if he had known that these Bulgarians had, for many years, suffered horrible oppression and contemptuous treatment from the Turks under whose misrule they lay, he might have felt less surprise, though he might not have justified the act of revenge. If it be true that the worm turns on the foot that crushes it, surely it is no matter of wonder that human beings, who have long been debased, defrauded, and demoralised, should turn and bite somewhat savagely when opportunity offers!
 
It had occurred to Lancey, when the Russians had arrived, that it would be well for him to descend and join these troops, so as to get out of his present predicament; but, remembering that he had actually accepted service with the Turks, and that, being clothed in a semi-Turkish costume, he might be taken for a spy, he resolved to remain where he was. The riot in the village after the Russian column had left confirmed him in his intention to remain quiet.
 
“Your wisest plan, Jacob,” he soliloquised, “is to ’old on and bide your time. Don’t ’urry yourself on any account.”
 
Scarcely had he made this resolve when, looking through his hole of observation, he observed a body of spearmen galloping along the road that led to the village. The inhabitants also observed them with some anxiety, for by that time they had come to know the difference between regular and irregular troops.
 
The horsemen proved to be Cossacks. The Bulgarians, of course, regarded them as friends. They formed a portion of the army of deliverers from Turkish misrule. As such they were received with cheers. The cheers were returned heartily—in some cases mingled with laughter—by the gay cavaliers, who had also come to make “requisitions.” Their mode of proceeding, however, was quite different from that of their “regular” brethren. Leaping from their saddles, they set about the business without delay. Some went to the fields and cut grain for fodder. Others entered the houses and carried off victuals and wine, while many chased and caught pigs and poultry.
 
They were evidently in a hurry. So much so, that they had no time to put off in making payment! It was obviously to be regarded as an outstanding debt against them by the villagers. As the rear-guard passed out of the place, the corporal in command observed a fat young pig in the middle of a by-road. He turned aside sharply, charged, picked the pig neatly up on the point of his lance, and galloped after his friends, accompanied by a tune that would have done credit to a Scotch bagpipe.
 
All this did Lancey see from his secret point of observation, and deeply did his philosophic mind moralise on what he saw.
 
The village in which he had sought shelter was in the very heart of the district swept by the wave of war. The panorama of incidents commenced to move again at an early hour.
 
When morning light had just begun to conquer night, Lancey was once more awakened from a refreshing sleep by a noise in the room below. He looked down and saw an old, old woman, with bent form, tottering step, and wrinkled brow. She was searching for something which, evidently, she could not find. Scraping various things, however, and tasting the ends of her thin fingers, suggested that she was in search of food. Lancey was a sympathetic soul. The old woman’s visage reminded him of his own mother—dead and gone for many a day, but fresh and beautiful as ever in the memory of her son.
 
He descended at once. The old woman had flung herself down in despair in a corner of the hovel. Lancey quickly emptied the remnants of food in his wallet into her lap.
 
It would have saddened you, reader, to have seen the way in which that poor old thing hungrily munched a mouthful of the broken victuals without asking questions, though she glanced her gratitude out of a pair of large black eyes, while she tied up the remainder in a kerchief with trembling haste.
 
“No doubt,” soliloquised Lancey, as he sat on a stool and watched her, “you were a pretty gal once, an’ somebody loved you.”
 
It did not occur to Lancey, for his philosophy was not deep, that she might have been loved more than “once,” even although she had not been a “pretty gal;” neither did it occur to him—for he did not know—that she was loved still by an old, old man in a neighbouring hut, whose supper had been carried off by the Cossacks, and whose welfare had induced her to go out in search of food.
 
While the two were thus engaged their attention was attracted by a noise outside. Hastening to the door Lancey peeped out and beheld a band of Bashi-Bazouks galloping up the road. The Turks of the village began to hold up their heads again, for they regarded these as friends, but scant was the courtesy they received from them. To dismount and pillage, and to slay where the smallest opposition was offered, seemed the order of the day with these miscreants. For some time none of them came near to the hut where Lancey and the old woman were concealed, as it stood in an out-of-the-way corner and escaped notice.
 
While the robbers were busy, a wild cheer, accompanied by shots and cries, was heard some distance along the road. The Bashi-Bazouks heard it and fled. A few minutes later Lancey saw Turkish soldiers running into the village in scattered groups, but stopping to fire as they ran, like men who fight while they retreat. Immediately after there was a rush of men, and a column of Turkish infantry occupied the village in force. They w............