Micah Clarke Chapter 8 - Of Our Start for the War

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Chapter 8 of Micah Clarke. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit librivox.org. Recording by Dionne Jines, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Micah Clarke by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Chapter 8 of Our Start for the Wars.

All along the ridge of Ports Down Hill, we had the lights of Portsmouth and of the harbor ships twinkling beneath us on the left, while on the right the forest of Barra was ablaze with the signal fires which proclaimed the landing of the invader.

One great beacon throbbed upon the summit of Butser, while beyond that, as far as I could reach, twinkling sparks of light showed how the tidings were being carried north into Berkshire and eastward into Sussex. Of these fires, some were composed of faggots piled into heaps, and others of tar barrels set upon poles. We passed one of these last, just opposite to Portchester and the watchers around it, hearing the tramp of our horses and the clank of our arms, set up a loud huzzah, thinking doubtless that we were king's officers bound for the west. Master Decimus Saxon had flung to the winds the precise demeanor which he had assumed in the presence of my father, and rattled away with many a jest and scrap of rhyme or song, as we galloped through the darkness.

Gadzooks, said he frankly, it is good to be able to speak freely without being expected to tag every sentence with a hallelujah or an amen.

You were ever the leader in those pious exercises, I remarked dryly. Ay, indeed, you have nicked it there. If a thing must be done, then take a lead in it, whatever it may be.

A plague-y good precept, which has stood me in excellent stead before now, I cannot bear in mind whether I told you how I was at one time taken prisoner by the Turks and conveyed to Stamboul.

There were a hundred of us or more, but the others either perished under the Bostanado or are to this day chained to an oar in the Imperial Ottoman galleys, where they are like to remain until they die under the lash, or until some Venetian or Genoese bullet finds its way into their wretched carcasses. I alone came off with my freedom. And pray, how did you make your escape? I asked. By the use of the wit, wherewith providence hath endowed me, he answered complacently. For seeing that there a cursed religion is the blind side of these infidels, I did set myself to work upon it. To this end, I observed the fashion in which our guard performed their morning and evening exercises. And having transformed my doublet into a praying cloth, I did imitate them, save only that I prayed at greater length and with more fervour. What? I cried in horror. You did pretend to be a muscle man? Nay, there was no pretense. I became a muscle man. That, however, betwixt ourselves, as it might not stand me in very good stead, with some Reverend Amenadab, Font of Grace in the rebel camp, who is no admirer of Mahmoud. I was so astounded at the impudence of this confession, coming from the mouth of one who had been leading the exercises of a pious Christian family, that I was fairly bereft of speech. Decimus Saxon whistled a few bars of a sprightly tune and then continued, my perseverance in these exercises soon led to my being singled out from among the other prisoners until I so prevailed upon my jailers that the doors were open for me, and I was allowed out on condition of presenting myself at the prison gates once a day.

What you think ye did I make of my freedom?

Nay, you are capable of anything, said I.

I set off forthwith to their chief mosque, that of St. Sophia. When the doors opened and the mousine called, I was ever the first to hurry into devotions and the last to leave them. Did I see a muscleman strike his head upon the pavement? I would strike mine twice. Did I see him bend and bow? I was ready to prostrate myself. In this way, ere long, the piety of the converted jower became the talk of the city, and I was provided with a hut in which to make my sacred meditations. Here, I might have done well, and indeed, I had well-nigh made up my mind to set up as a prophet and write an extra chapter to the Quran, when some foolish trifle made the faithful suspicious of my honesty.

It was but some nonsense of a wench being found in my hut by some who came to consult me upon a point of faith, but it was enough to set their heathen tongues wagging. So I thought it wisest to give them the slip in a Levantine coaster and leave the Quran uncompleted. It is perhaps as well, for it would be a sore trial to have to give up Christian women and pork for their garlic-breathing auras and accursed kebabs of sheep's flesh.