Halil the Pedlar: A Tale of Old Stambul

CHAPTER V.

From time to time a regiment of Janissaries or a band of Albanian horsemen passes across the street, or escorts the buffaloes that drag after them the long heavy guns on wheeled carriages. The mob in its thousands follows them along the road leading to Scutari, where the camp has already been pitched. For at last, at any rate, the Padishah is surfeited with so many feasts and illuminations, and after having postponed the raising of the banner of the Prophet, under all sorts of frivolous excuses, from the 18th day of Safer (2nd of September) to the 1st day of Rebusler, and from that day again to the Prophet's birthday ten days later still, the expected, the appointed day is at length drawing near, and the whole host is assembling beneath the walls of Scutari, only awaiting the arrival of the Sultan to take ship at once—the transports are all ready—and hasten to the assistance of the heroic Küprilizade on the battlefield.

The whole Bosphorus was a living forest planted with a maze of huge masts and spreading sails, and a thousand variegated flags flew and flapped in the morning breeze. The huge line of battle-ships, with their triple decks and their long rows of oars, looked like hundred-eyed sea-monsters swimming with hundreds of legs on the surface of the water, and the booming reverberation of the thunder of their guns was re-echoed from the broad foreheads of the palaces looking into the Bosphorus.

Everywhere along the sea-front was to be seen an armed multitude; sparkling swords and lances in thousands flash back the rays of the sun. The whole of the grass plain round about was planted with tents of every hue; white tents for the chief muftis, bright green tents for the viziers, scarlet tents for the kiayaks, dark blue tents for the great officers of state, the Emirs, the Mecca, Medina, and Stambul justiciaries, the Defterdars, and the Nishandji; lilac-coloured tents for the Ulemas, bright blue tents for the Müderesseks, azure-blue tents for the Ciaus-Agas, and dark green designates the tent of the Emir Alem, the bearer of the sacred standard. And high above them all on a hillock towers the orange-coloured pavilion of the Padishah, with gold and purple hangings, and two and three fold horse-tails planted in front of the entrance.

At sunset yesterday there was not a trace of this vast camp, all night long this city of tents was a-building, and at dawn of day there it stands all ready like the creation of a magician's wand!

The plain is occupied by the Spahis, the finest, smartest horsemen of the whole host; along the sea-front are ranged the topidjis, with their rows and rows of cannons. Other detachments of these gunners are distributed among the various hillocks. On the wings of the host are placed the Albanian cavalry, the Tartars, and the Druses of Horan. The centre of the host belongs of right to the flower, the kernel of the imperial army—the haughty Janissaries.

And certainly they seemed to be very well aware that they were the cream of the host, and that therefore it was not lawful for any other division of the army to draw near them, much less mingle with them, unless it were a few delis, whom they permitted to roam up and down their ranks full of crazy exaltation.

The whole host is full of the joy of battle, and if, from time to time, fierce shouts and thunderous murmurings arise from this or that battalion, that only means that they are rejoicing at the tidings of the declaration of war: the war-ships express their satisfaction by loud salvoes.

Sultan Achmed, meanwhile, is engaged in his morning devotions, day by day he punctually observes this pious practice.

The previous night he did not spend in the harem, but shut himself up with his viziers and counsellors in that secret chamber of the Divan, which is roofed over with a golden cupola. Grave were their deliberations, but nobody, except the viziers, knows the result thereof; yet when he issues forth from his prayer-chamber the Kizlar-Aga is already awaiting him there and hands the Sultan a signet-ring.

"Most glorious of Padishahs! the most delicious of women sends thee this ring. Well dost thou know what was beneath this ring. Deadly venom was beneath it. That venom is no longer there. The Sultana Asseki sends thee her greeting, and wishes thee good luck in this war of thine. 'Hail to thee!' she says, 'may thy guardian angels watch over all thy steps!' The Sultana meanwhile has locked herself up in her private apartments, and in the very hour in which thou quittest the Seraglio she will take this poison, which she has dissolved in a goblet of water, and will die."

The Sultan had all at once become very grave.

"Why didst thou trouble me with these words!" he exclaimed.

"I do but repeat the words of the Sultana, greatest of Padishahs. She says thou art off to the wars, that thou wilt return no more, and that she will not be the slave-girl of the monarch who shall come after thee and sit upon thy throne."

"Wherefore dost thou trouble me with these words?" repeated the Sultan.

"May my tongue curse my lips, may my teeth bite out my tongue because of the words I have spoken. 'Twas the Sultana that bade me speak."

"Go back to her and tell her to come hither!"

"Such a message, oh, my master, will be her death. She will not leave her chamber alive."

For a moment the Sultan reflected, then he asked in a mournful voice:

"What thinkest thou?—if thy house was on fire and thy beloved was inside, wouldst thou put out the flames, or wouldst thou not rather think first of rescuing thy beloved?"

"Of a truth the extinguishing of the flames is not so pressing, and the beloved should be rescued."

"Thou hast said it. What meaneth the firing of cannons that strikes upon my ears?"

"Salvoes from the host."

"Can they be heard in the Seraglio?"

"Yea, and the songs of the singing-girls grow dumb before it."

"Conduct me to Adsalis! She must not die. What is the sky to thee if there be no sun in it? What is the whole world to thee if thou dost lose thy beloved? Go on before and tell her that I am coming!"

The Kizlar-Aga withdrew. Achmed muttered to himself:

"But another second, but another moment, but another instant long enough for a parting kiss, but another hour, but another night—a night full of blissful dreams—and it will be quite time enough to hasten to the cold and icy battlefield." And with that he hastened towards the harem.

There sat the Sultana with dishevelled tresses and garments rent asunder, without ornaments, without fine raiment, in sober cinder-coloured mourning weeds. Before her, on a table, stood a small goblet filled with a bluish transparent fluid. That fluid was poison—not a doubt of it. Her slave-girls lay scattered about on the floor around her, weeping and wailing and tearing their faces and their snowy bosoms with their long nails.

The Padishah approached her and tenderly enfolded her in his arms.

"Wherefore wouldst thou die out of my life, oh, thou light of my days?"

The Sultana covered her face with her hands.

"Can the rose blossom in winter-time? Do not its leaves fall when the blasts of autumn blow upon it?"

"But the winter that must wither thee is still far distant."

"Oh, Achmed! when anyone's star falls from Heaven, does the world ever ask, wert thou young? wert thou beautiful? didst thou enjoy life? Mashallah! such a one is dead already. My star shone upon thy face, and if thou dost turn thy face from me, then must I droop and wither."

"And who told thee that I had turned my face from thee?"

"Oh, Achmed! the Wind does not say, I am cold, and yet we feel it. Thy heart is far, far away from me even when thou art nigh. But my heart is with thee even when thou art far away from me, even then I am near to thee; but thou art far away even when thou art sitting close beside me. It is not Achmed who is talking to me. It is only Achmed's body. Achmed's soul is wandering elsewhere; it is wandering on the bloody field of battle amidst the clash of cold steel. He imagines that those banners, those weapons, those cannons love him more than his poor abandoned, forgotten Adsalis."

The salvo of a whole row of cannons was heard in front of the Seraglio.

"Hearken how they call to thee! Their words are more potent than the words of Adsalis. Go then! follow their invitation! Go the way they point out to thee! The voice of Adsalis will not venture to compete with them. What indeed is my voice?—what but a gentle, feeble sound! Go! there also I will be with thee. And when the long manes of thy horse-tail standards flutter before thee on the field of battle, fancy that thou dost see before thee the waving tresses of thy Adsalis who has freed her soul from the incubus of her body in order that it might be able to follow thee."

"Oh, say not so, say not so!" stammered the tender-hearted Sultan, pressing his gentle darling to his bosom and closing her lips with his own as if, by the very act, he would have prevented her soul from escaping and flying away.

And the cannons may continue thundering on the shores of the Bosphorus, the Imperial Ciauses may summon the host to arms with the blasts of their trumpets, the camp of a whole nation may wait and wait on the plains of Scutari, but Sultan Achmed is far too happy in the embraces of Adsalis to think even for a moment of seizing the banner of the Prophet and leading his bloodthirsty battalions to face the dangers of the battlefield.

The only army that he now has eyes for is the army of the odalisks and slave-girls, who seize their tambourines and mandolines, and weave the light dance around the happy imperial couple, singing sweet songs of enchantment, while outside through the streets of Stambul gun-carriages are rattling along, and the mob, in a frenzy of enthusiasm, clamours for a war of extermination against the invading Shiites.

Meanwhile a fine hubbub is going on around the kettle of the first Janissary regiment. These kettles, by the way, play a leading part in the history of the Turkish Empire. Around them assemble the Janissaries when any question of war or plunder arises, or when they demand the head of a detested pasha, or when they wish to see the banner of the Prophet unfurled; and so terrible were these kettles on all such occasions that the anxious viziers and pashas, when driven into a corner, were compelled to fill these same kettles either with gold pieces or with their own blood.

An impatient group of Janissaries was standing round their kettle, which was placed on the top of a lofty iron tripod, and amongst them we notice Halil Patrona and Musli. Both were wearing the Janissary dress, with round turbans in which a black heron's plume was fastened (only the officers wore white feathers), with naked calves only half-concealed by the short, bulgy pantaloons which scarce covered the knee. There was very little of the huckster of the day before yesterday in Halil's appearance now. His bold and gallant bearing, his resolute mode of speech, and the bountiful way in which he scattered the piastres which he had received from Janaki, had made him a prime favourite among his new comrades. Musli, on the other hand, was still drunk. With desperate self-forgetfulness he had been drinking the health of his friend all night long, and never ceased bawling out before his old cronies in front of the tent of the Janissary Aga that if the Aga, whose name was Hassan, was indeed as valiant a man as they tried to make out, let him come forth from beneath his tent and not think so much of his soft bearskin bed, or else let him give his white heron plume to Halil Patrona and let him lead them against the enemy.

The Janissary Aga could hear this bellowing quite plainly, but he also could hear the Janissary guard in front of the tent laughing loudly at the fellow and making all he said unintelligible.

Meanwhile a troop of mounted ciauses was approaching the kettle of the first Janissary regiment in whose leader we recognise Halil Pelivan. Allah had been with him—he was now raised to the rank of a ciaus-officer.

The giant stood among the Janissaries and inquired in a voice of thunder:

"Which of you common Janissary fellows goes by the name of Halil Patrona?"

Patrona stepped forth.

"Methinks, Halil Pelivan," said he, "it does not require much brain-splitting on your part to recognise me."

"Where is your comrade Musli?"

"Can you not give me a handle to my name, you dog of a ciaus?" roared Musli. "I am a gentleman I tell you. So long as you were a Janissary, you were a gentleman too. But now you are only a dog of a ciaus. What business have you, I should like to know, in Begta's flower-garden?"

"To root out weeds. The pair of you, bound tightly together, must follow me."

"Look ye, my friends!" cried Musli, turning to his comrades, "that man is drunk, dead drunk. He can scarce stand upon his feet. How dare you say," continued he, turning towards Pelivan—"how dare you say that two Janissaries, two of the flowers from Begta's garden, are to follow you when the banners of warfare are already waving before us?"

"I am commanded by the Kapu-Kiaja to bring you before him."

"Say not so, you mangy dog you! Let him come for us himself if he has anything to say to us! What, my friends! am I not right in saying that the Kapu-Kiaja, if he did his duty, ought to be here with us, in the camp and on the battlefield? and that it is no business of ours to dance attendance upon him? Am I not right? Let him come hither!"

This sentiment was greeted with an approving howl.

"Let him come hither if he wants to talk to a Janissary!" cried many voices. "Who ever heard of summoning a Janissary away from his camp?"

It was as much as Pelivan could do to restrain his fury.

"You two are murderers," said he, "you have killed the Sultan's Berber-Bashi."

At this there was a general outburst of laughter. Everybody knew that already. Musli had told the story hundreds of times with all sorts of variations. He had described to them how Halil had slain Ali Kermesh with a single blow of his fist, and how the latter's jaw had suddenly fallen and collapsed into a corner, all of which had seemed very comical indeed to the Janissaries.

So five or six of them, all speaking together, began to heckle and cross-question Pelivan.

"Are there no more barbers in Stambul that you make such a fuss over this particular one?"

"What an infamous thing to demand the lives of a couple of Janissaries for the sake of a single beard-scraper!"

"May you and your Kapu-Kiaja have no other pastime in Paradise than the shaving of innumerable beards!"

At last Patrona stepped forth and begged his comrades to let him have his say in the matter.

"Hearken now, Pelivan!" began he, "you and I are adversaries I know very well, nor do I care a straw that it is so. I am not palavering now with you because I want to get out of a difficulty, but simply because I want to send you back to the Kiaja with a sensible answer which I am quite sure you are incapable of hitting upon yourself. Well, I freely admit that I did kill Ali Kermesh, killed him single-handed. Nobody helped me to do the deed. And now I have thrown in my lot with the Janissaries, and here I stand where it has pleased Allah to place me, that I may pay with my own life for the life I have taken if it seem good to Him so to ordain. I am quite ready to die and glorify His name thereby. His Will be done! Let the honourable Kiaja therefore gird up his loins, and let all those great lords who repose in the shadow of the Padishah draw their swords and come among us once for all. I and all my comrades, the whole Janissary host in fact, are ready to fall on the field of battle one after another at the bare wave of their hand, but there is not a single Janissary present who would bow his knee before the executioner."

These words, uttered in a ringing, sonorous voice, were accompanied by thunders of applause from the whole regiment, and during this tumult Musli endeavoured to add a couple of words on his own account to the message already delivered by Patrona.

"And just tell your master, the Kiaja," said he, "and all your white-headed grand viziers and grey-bearded muftis, that if they do not bring the Sultan and the banner of the Prophet into camp this very day, not a single one of them will need a barber on the morrow, unless they would like their heels well shaved in default of heads."

Pelivan meanwhile was looking steadily into Halil's eyes. There was such a malicious scorn in his gaze that Halil involuntarily grasped the hilt of his sword.

"Fear not, Patrona!" cried he jeeringly, "Gül-Bejáze will never again be conducted into the Seraglio. She and your father-in-law have been captured as they were trying to fly, and the unbelieving Greek cattle-dealer has been thrown into the dungeon set apart for evil-doers. As for that woman whom you call your wife, she has been put into the prison assigned to those shameless ones whom the gracious Sultan has driven together from all parts of the realm, and kept in ward lest the virtue of his faithful Mussulmans should be corrupted. There you will find her."

Patrona, like a furious tiger that has burst forth from its cage, at these words rushed from out the ranks of his comrades. His sword flashed in his hand, and if Pelivan had been doubly as big as he was, his mere size could not have saved him. But the leader of the ciauses straightway put spurs to his horse, and laughing loudly galloped away with his ciauses, almost brushing the enraged Halil as he passed, and when he had already trotted a safe distance away, he turned round and with a scornful Ha, ha, ha! began hurling insults at the Janissaries, five or six of whom had set out to follow him.

"Ha! he is mocking us!" exclaimed Musli, whereupon the Janissaries who stood nearest perceiving that they should never be able to overtake him on foot, hastened to the nearest battery, wrested a mortar from the topijis by force, and fired it upon the retreating ciauses. The discharged twelve-pounder whistled about their heads and then fell far away in the midst of a bivouac where a number of worthy Bosniaks were cooking their suppers, scattering the hot ashes into their eyes, ricochetting thence very prettily into the pavilion of the Bostanji Bashi, two of whose windows it knocked out, thence bounding three or four times into the air, terrifying several recumbent groups in its passage, and trundling rapidly away over some level ground, till at last it rolled into the booth of a glass-maker, and there smashed to atoms an incalculable quantity of pottery.

Here Pelivan finally ran it to earth, seized it, hauled it off to the Kiaja, and duly delivered the message of the Janissaries, together with the twelve-pound cannon-ball, at the same time reminding him that it was an old habit of the Janissaries to accompany their messages with similar little douceurs.

Pelivan had anticipated that the Kiaja would foam with rage at the news, and would have the offending Janissary regiment decimated at the very least; but the Kiaja, instead of being angry, seemed very much afraid. He saw in this presumptuous message a declaration of rebellion, and hurried off to the Grand Vizier as fast as his legs could carry him, taking the heavy twelve-pounder along with him.

Ibrahim perfectly comprehended what was said to him, and placing the cannon-ball in a box nicely lined with velvet took it to the Seraglio, and when he got there sent for the Kizlar-Aga, placed it in his hands, and commissioned him to deliver it to the Sultan.

"The Army," said he, "has sent this present to the most glorious Padishah. It is a treasure which is worth nothing so long as it is in our possession; it only becomes precious when we pay our debts with it, but it is downright damaging if we let others pay their debts to us therewith. Say to the most puissant of Sultans that if he finds this one specimen too little, the Army is ready to send him a lot more, and then it will choose neither me nor thee to be the bearer thereof."

The Kizlar-Aga, who did not know what was in the box, took it forthwith into the Hall of Delight, and there delivered it to Achmed together with the message.

The Sultan broke open the box in the presence of the Sultana Asseki, and on perceiving therein the heavy cannon-ball at once understood Ibrahim's message.

He was troubled to the depths of his soul when he understood it. He was so good, so gentle to everyone, he tried so hard to avoid injuring anybody, and yet everybody seemed to combine to make him miserable! It seemed as though they envied him his sweet delights, and were determined that he should find no repose even in the very bosom of his family.

He embraced and kissed the fair Sultana again and again, and stammered with tears in his eyes:

"Die then, my pretty flower! fade away! wither before my very eyes! Die if thou canst that at least my heart may have nothing to long for!"

The Sultana threw herself in despair at his feet, with her dishevelled tresses waving all about her, and encircling Achmed's knees with her white arms she besought him, sobbing loudly, not to go to the camp, at any rate, not that day. Let at least the memory of the evil dreams she had dreamed the night before pass away, she said.

But no, he could remain behind no longer. In vain were all weeping and wailing, however desperate. The Sultan had made up his mind that he must go. One single moment only did he hesitate, for one single moment the thought did occur to him: Am I a mere tool in the hands of my army, and why do I wear a sword at all if I do not decapitate therewith those who rise in rebellion against me? But he very soon let that thought escape. He knew he was not capable of translating it into action. Many, very many, must needs die if he acted thus; perhaps it were better, much better, for everybody if he submitted.

"There is nought for thee but to die, my pretty flower," he whispered to the Sultana, who, sobbing and moaning, accompanied him to the very door of the Seraglio, and there he gently removed her arms from his shoulders and hastened to the council-chamber.

Adsalis did not die however, but made her way by the secret staircase to the apartments of the White Prince and found consolation with him.

"The Sultan did not yield to my arguments," she said to the White Prince, who took her at once to his bosom, "he is off to the camp. If only I could hold him back for a single day the rebellion would burst forth—and then his dominion would vanish and his successor would be yourself."

"Calm yourself, we may still gain time! Remind him through the Kizlar-Aga that he neglect not the pricking of the Koran."

"You have spoken a word in season," replied Adsalis, and she immediately sent the Kizlar-Aga into the council-chamber.

The Grand Vizier, the Kapudan Pasha, the Kiaja, the Chief Mufti, and the Sheik of the Aja Sophia, Ispirizade, were assembled in council with the Sultan who had just ordered the Silihdar to gird him with the sword of Mahomet.

"Most illustrious Padishah!" cried the Kizlar-Aga, throwing himself to the ground and hiding his face in his hands, "the Sultana Asseki would have me remind thee that thou do not neglect to ask counsel from Allah by the pricking of the Koran, before thou hast come to any resolution, as was the custom of thine illustrious ancestors as often as they had to choose between peace and war."

"Well said!" cried Achmed, and thereupon he ordered the chief mufti to bring him the Alkoran which, in all moments of doubt, the Sultans were wont to appeal to and consult by plunging a needle through its pages, and then turning to the last leaf in which the marks of the needle-point were visible. Whatever words on this last page happened to be pricked were regarded as oracular and worthy of all obedience.

On every table in the council-chamber stood an Alkoran—ten copies in one room. The binding of one of these copies was covered with diamonds. This copy the Chief Mufti brought to the Sultan, and gave into his hands the needle with which the august ceremony was to be accomplished.

Meanwhile Ibrahim glanced impatiently at the three magnificent clocks standing in the room, one beside the other. They all pointed to a quarter to twelve. It was already late, and this ceremony of the pricking of the Koran always took up such a lot of time.

The Sultan opened the book at the last page, pricked through by the needle, and these were the words he read:

"He who fears the sword will find the sword his enemy, and better a rust-eaten sword in the hand than a brightly burnished one in a sheath."

"La illah il Allah! God is one!" said Achmed bowing his head and kissing the words of the Alkoran. "Make ready my charger, 'tis the will of God."

The Kizlar-Aga returned with the news to Adsalis and the White Prince.

Even the pricking of the Koran had gone contrary to their plans.

"Go and remind the Sultan," said Adsalis, "that he cannot go to the wars without the surem of victory;" and for the second time the Kizlar-Aga departed to execute the commands of the Sultana.

The surem, by the way, is a holy supplication which it is usual for the chief Imam to recite in the mosques before the Padishah goes personally to battle, praying that Allah will bless his arms with victory.

Now, because time was pressing, it was necessary to recite this prayer in the chapel of the Seraglio instead of in the mosque of St. Sophia. Ispirizade accordingly began to intone the surem, but he spun it out so long and made such a business of it, that it seemed as if he were bent on wasting time purposely. By the time the devotion was over every clock in the Seraglio had struck twelve.

Ibrahim hastened to the Sultan to press him to embark as soon as possible in the ship that was waiting ready to convey him and the White Prince to Scutari; but at the foot of the staircase, in the outer court of the Seraglio where stood the Sultan's chargers which were to take him through the garden kiosk to the sea-shore, the way was barred by the Kizlar-Aga, who flung himself to the ground before the Sultan, and grasping his horse's bridle began to cry with all his might:

"Trample me, oh, my master, beneath the hoofs of thy horses, yet listen to my words! The noontide hour has passed, and the hours of the afternoon are unlucky hours for any undertaking. The true Mussulman puts his hand to nothing on which the blessing of Allah can rest when noon has gone. Trample on my dead body if thou wilt, but say not that there was nobody who would have withheld thee from the path of peril!"

The soul of Achmed III. was full of all manner of fantastic sentiments. Faith, hope, and love, which make others strong, had in him degenerated into superstition, frivolity, and voluptuousness—already he was but half a man.

At the words of the Kizlar-Aga he removed his foot from the stirrup in which he had dreamily placed it with the help of the kneeling Rikiabdar, and said in the tone of a man who has at last made up his mind:

"We will go to-morrow."

Ibrahim was in despair at this fresh delay. He whispered a few words in the ear of Izmail Aga, whereupon the latter scarce waiting till the Sultan had remounted the steps, flung himself on his horse and galloped as fast as he could tear towards Scutari.

Meanwhile the Grand Vizier and the Chief Mufti continued to detain the Sultan in the Divan, or council-chamber.

Three-quarters of an hour later Izmail Aga returned and presented himself before the Sultan all covered with dust and sweat.

"Most glorious Padishah!" he cried, "I have just come from the host. Since dawn they have all been on their feet awaiting thy arrival. If by evening thou dost not show thyself in the camp, then so sure as God is one, the host will not remain in Scutari but will come to Stambul."

The host is coming to Stambul!—that was a word of terror.

And Achmed III. well understood what it meant. Well did he remember the message which, three-and-twenty years before, the host had sent to his predecessor, Sultan Mustafa, who would not quit his harem at Adrianople to come to Stambul: "Even if thou wert dead thou couldst come here in a couple of days!" And he also remembered what had followed. The Sultan had been made to abdicate the throne and he (Achmed) had taken his place. And now just the same sort of tempest which had overthrown his predecessor was shaking the seat of the mighty rock beneath his own feet.

"Mashallah! the will of God be done!" exclaimed Achmed, kissing the sword of Muhammad, and a quarter of an hour later he went on board the ship destined for him with the banner of the Prophet borne before him.

In the Seraglio all the clocks one after another struck one as four-and-twenty salvoes announced that the Sultan with the banner of the Prophet had arrived in the camp.

And the people of the East believe that the blessing of Allah does not rest on the hour which marks the afternoon.

CHAPTER VI.

Shortly afterwards Ibrahim commanded him to seize all those who would not remain quiet. Hassan accordingly laid his hands on sundry who came conveniently in his way; but, for all that, the rest would pay no heed to him, and the tumult began to extend in the direction of Stambul also.

Towards midnight a ciaus reached the Kiaja with the intelligence that a number of soldiers were coming along from the direction of Tebrif, crying as they came that the army of Küprilizade had been scattered to the winds by Shah Tamasip, and that they themselves were the sole survivors of the carnage—that was why the army round Stambul was chafing and murmuring.

The Kiaja went at once in search of the Grand Vizier and told him of this terrible rumour.

"Impossible!" exclaimed Ibrahim. "Küprilizade would not allow himself to be beaten. Only a few days ago I sent him arms and reinforcements which were more than enough to enable him to hold his own until the main army should arrive.

"And even if it were true. If, in consequence of the Sultan's procrastination, we were to arrive too late and the whole of the provinces of Hamadan and Kermanshan were to be lost—even then we should all be in the hands of Allah. Come, let us go to prayer and then to bed!"

At about the same hour, three softas awoke the Chief Mufti and Ispirizade, and laid before them a letter written on parchment which they had discovered lying in the middle of a mosque. The letter was apparently written with gunpowder and almost illegible.

It turned out to be an exhortation to all true Mussulmans to draw the sword in defence of Muhammad, but they were bidden beware lest, when they went against the foe, they left behind them, at home, the greatest foes of all, who were none other than the Sultan's own Ministers.

"This letter deserves to be thrown into the fire," said Ispirizade, and into the fire he threw it, there and then, and thereupon lay down to sleep with a good conscience.

The following day was Thursday, the 28th September. On that very day, twelve months before, the Sultan's eleven-year-old son had died. The day was therefore kept as a solemn day of mourning, and a general cessation of martial exercises throughout the host was proclaimed by a flourish of trumpets.

To many of the commanders this day of rest was a season of strict observance. The Aga of the Janissaries withdrew to his kiosk; the Kapudan Pasha had himself rowed through the canal to his country house at Chengelköi, having just received from a Dutch merchant a very handsome assortment of tulip-bulbs, which he wanted to plant out with his own hands; the Reis-Effendi hastened to his summer residence, beside the Sweet Waters, to take leave of his odalisks for the twentieth time at least; and the Kiaja returned to Stambul. Each of them strictly observed the day—in his own peculiar manner.

But Fate had prepared for the people at large a very different sort of observance.

Early in the morning, at sunrise, seventeen Janissaries were standing in front of the mosque of Bajazid with Halil Patrona at their head.

In the hand of each one of them was a naked sword, and in their midst stood Musli holding aloft the half-moon banner.

The people made way before them, and allowed Patrona to ascend the steps of the mosque, and when the blast of the alarm-horns had subsided, the clear penetrating voice of the ex-pedlar was distinctly audible from end to end of the great kalan square in front of him.

"Mussulmans!" he cried, "you have duties, yes, duties laid upon you by our sacred law. We are being ruined by traitors. Fugitives from the host have brought us the tidings that the army of Küprilizade has been scattered to the winds; four thousand horses and six hundred camels, laden with provisions, have been captured by the Persians; the general himself has fled to Erivan, and the provinces of Hamadan and Kermanshan are once more in the possession of the enemy. And all this is going on while the Grand Vizier and the Chief Mufti have been arranging Lantern Feasts, Processions of Palms and Illuminations in the streets of Stambul instead of making ready the host to go to the assistance of the valiant Küprilizade! Our brethren are sent to the shambles, we hear their cries, we see their banners falter and fall into the enemy's hands, and we are not suffered to fly to their assistance, though we stand here with drawn swords in our hands. There is treachery—treachery against Allah and His Prophet! Therefore, let every true believer forsake immediately his handiwork, cast his awl, his hammer, and his plane aside, and seize his sword instead; let him close his booth and rally beneath our standard!"

The mob greeted these words with a savage yell, raised Patrona on its shoulders, and carried him away through the arcades of Bezesztan piazza. Everyone hastened away to close his booth, and the whole city seemed to be turned upside down. It was just as if a still standing lake had been stirred violently to its lowest depths, and all the slimy monsters and hideous refuse reposing at the bottom had come to the surface; for the streets were suddenly flooded by the unrecognised riff-raff which vegetates in every great town, though they are out of the ken of the regular and orderly inhabitants, and only appear in the light of day when a sudden concussion drives them to the surface.

Yelling and howling, they accompanied Halil everywhere, only listening to him when his escort raised him aloft on their shoulders in order that he might address the mob.

Just at this moment they stopped in front of the house of the Janissary Aga.

"Hassan!" cried Halil curtly, disdaining to give him his official title, and thundering on the door with his fists, "Hassan, you imprisoned our comrades because they dared to murmur, and now you can hear roars instead of murmurs. Give them up, Hassan! Give them up, I say!"

Hassan, however, was no great lover of such spectacles, so he hastily exchanged his garments for a suit of rags, and bolted through the gate of the back garden to the shores of the Bosphorus, where he huddled into an old tub of a boat which carried him across to the camp. Then only did he feel safe.

Meanwhile the Janissaries battered in the door of his house and released their comrades. Then they put Halil on Hassan's horse and proceeded in great triumph to the Etmeidan. The next instant the whole square was alive with armed men, and they hauled the Kulkiaja caldron out of the barracks and set it up in the midst of the mob. This was the usual signal for the outburst of the war of fiercely contending passions too long enchained.

"And now open the prisons!" thundered Halil, "and set free all the captives! Put daggers in the hands of the murderers and flaming torches in the hands of the incendiaries, and let us go forth burning and slaying, for to-day is a day of death and lamentation."

And the mob rushed upon the prisons, tore down the railings, broke through bolts and bars, and whole hordes of murderers and malefactors rushed forth into the piazza and all the adjoining streets, and the last of all to quit the dungeon was Janaki, Halil's father-in-law. There he remained standing in the doorway as if he were afraid or ashamed, till Musli rushed towards him and tore him away by force.

"Be not cast down, muzafir, but snatch up a sword and stand alongside of me. No harm can come to you here. It is the turn of the Gaolers now."

In the meantime Halil had made his way to that particular dungeon where the loose women whom the Sultan had been graciously pleased to collect from all the quarters of the town to herd in one place were listening in trembling apprehension.

The doors were flung wide open, and the mob roared to the prisoners that all to whom liberty was dear might show a clean pair of heels, whereupon a mob of women, like a swarm of shrieking ghosts, fluttered through the doors and made off in every direction. Those women who stroll about the streets with uncovered faces, who paint their eyebrows and lips for the diversion of strangers, who are shut out from the world like mad dogs, that they may not contaminate the people—all these women were now let loose! Some of them had grown old since the prison-gates had been closed upon them, but the flame of evil passion still flickered in their sunken eyes. Alas! what pestilence has been let loose upon the Mussulman population. And thou, Halil! wilt thou be able to ride the storm to which thou has given wings?

There he stands in the gateway! He is waiting till, in the wake of these unspeakably vile women, his pure-souled idol, the beautiful, the innocent Gül-Bejáze shall appear. How long she delays! All the rest have come forth; all the rest have scattered to their various haunts, only one or two belated shapes are now emerging from the dungeon and hastening, after the others—creatures whom the voice of the tumult had surprised en déshabillé, and who now with only half-clothed bodies and hair streaming down their backs rush screaming away. Only Gül-Bejáze still delays.

Full of anxiety Halil descends at last into the loathsome hole but dimly lit by a few round windows in the roof.

"Gül-Bejáze! Gül-Bejáze!" he moans with a stifling voice, looking all around the dungeon, and, at the sound of his whispered words, he sees a white mass, huddled in a corner of the far wall, feebly begin to move. He rushes to the spot. Surely it is some beggar-woman who hides her face from him? Gently he removes her hands from her face and in the woman recognises his wife. The poor creature would rather not be set free for very shame sake. She would rather remain here in the dungeon.

Speechless with agony, he raised her in his arms. The woman said not a word, gave him not a look, she only hid her face in her husband's bosom and sobbed aloud.

"Weep not! weep not!" moaned Halil, "those who have dishonoured thee shall, this very day, lie in the dust before thee, by Allah. I swear it. Thou shalt play with the heads of those who have played with thy heart, and that selfsame puffed-up Sultana who has stretched out her hand against thee shall be glad to kiss thy hand. I, Halil Patrona, have said it, and let me be accursed above all other Mussulmans if ever I have lied."

Then snatching up his wife in his arms he rushed out among the crowd, and exhibiting that pale and forlorn figure in the sight of all men, he cried:

"Behold, ye Mussulmans! this is my wife whom they ravished from me on my bridal night, and whom I must needs discover in the midst of this sink of vileness and iniquity! Speak those of you who are husbands, would you be merciful to him who dishonoured your wife after this sort?"

"Death be upon his head!" roared the furious multitude, and rolling onwards like a flood that has burst its dams it stopped a moment later before a stately palace.

"Whose is this palace?" inquired Halil of the mob.

"Damad Ibrahim's," cried sundry voices from among the crowd.

"Whose is that palace, I say?" inquired Halil once more, angrily shaking his head.

Then many of them understood the force of the question and exclaimed:

"Thine, O Halil Patrona!"

"Thine, thine, Halil!" thundered the obsequious crowd, and with that they rushed upon the palace, burst open the doors, and Patrona, with his wife still clasped in his arms, forced his way in, and seeking out the harem of the Grand Vizier, commanded the odalisks of Ibrahim to bow their faces in the dust before their new mistress, and fulfil all her demands. And before the door he placed a guard of honour.

Outside there was the din of battle, the roll of drums, and the blast of trumpets; and the whole of this tempest was fanned by the faint breathing of a sick and broken woman.

CHAPTER VII.

First of all he set about preparing a special forcing-bed of his own invention, in which he carefully mingled together the most nourishing soil formed among the Mountains of Lebanon from millennial deposits of cedar-tree spines, antelope manure, so heating and stimulating to vegetation, that wherever it falls on the desert, tiny oases, full of flowers and verdure, immediately spring up amidst the burning, drifting sand-hills, and burnt and pulverized black marble which is only to be found in the Dead Mountains. A judicious intermingling of this mixture produces a soft, porous, and exceedingly damp soil, and in this soil the Kapudan Pasha very carefully planted out his tulips with his own hands. He selected the bulbs resulting from last spring's blooms, making a hole for each of them, one by one, with his index-finger, and banking them up gingerly with earth as soft as fresh bread crumbs.

Then he had snow fetched from the summits of the Caucasus, where it remains even all through the summer—whole ship loads of snow by way of the Black Sea—and kept the tulip-bulbs well covered with it, adding continually layers of fresh snow as the first layers melted, so that the hoodwinked tulips really believed it was now winter; and when towards the end of August the snow was allowed to melt altogether, they fancied spring had come, and poked their gold-green shoots out of their well-warmed, well-moistened bed.

On the eve of the Prophet's birthday about fifty plants had begun to bloom, all of which had been named after battles in which the Mussulmans had triumphed, or after fortresses which their arms had captured. Then, however, the Kapudan Pasha was obliged to go to sea and command the fleet, in other words, he was constrained to leave his beloved tulips at the most interesting period of their existence.

On the very evening when the Sultan arrived at Scutari, one of the Kapudan Pasha's gardeners came to him with the joyful intelligence that Belgrade, Naples, Morea, and Kermanjasahan would blossom on the morrow.

The Kapudan Pasha was wild with impatience. There they all were, just on the point of blooming, and he would be unable to see it. How he would have liked a contrary wind to have kept back the fleet for a day or two.

But what the wind would not do for him, the Sultan's birthday gave him the opportunity of doing for himself. The day of rest appointed for the morrow permitted the Kapudan Pasha to get himself rowed across to his summer palace at Chengelköi, where his marvellous tulips were about to bloom at the beginning of autumn.

What a spectacle awaited him! All four of them, yes, all four, were in full bloom!

Belgrade was pale yellow with bright green stripes, those of the stripes which were pale green on the lower were rose-coloured on the upper surface, and those of them which were bright green above died gradually away into a dark lilac colour below.

Naples was a very full tulip, whose confusingly numerous angry-red leaves, with yellow edges, symbolized, perhaps, the fifteen hundred Venetians who had fallen at its name-place beneath the arms of the Ottomans.

Morea was the richest in colour. The base of its cup was of a dark chocolate hue, with green and rose-coloured stripes all round it; moreover, the green stripes passed into red, and the rose ones into liver-colour, and a bright yellow streak of colour ran parallel with every single stripe. On the outside the green hues, inside the red rather predominated.

But the rarest, the most magnificent of the four was Kermanjasahan. This was a treasure filched from the garden of the Dalai Lama. It was snow-white, without the slightest nuance of any other colour, and of such full bloom that the original six petals were obliged to bend downwards.

The Kapudan Pasha was enraptured by all this splendour.

He had made up his mind to present all these tulips to the Sultan, for which he would no doubt receive a rich viceroyalty, perhaps even Egypt, who could tell. He therefore ordered that costly china vases should be brought to him in which he might transplant the flowers, and he dug with his hands deep down in the soil lest he should injure the bulbs.

Just as he was kneeling down in the midst of the tulips, with his hands all covered with mould, a breathless bostanji came rushing towards him at full speed, quite out of breath, and without waiting to get up to him, exclaimed while still a good distance off:

"Sir, sir, rise up quickly, for all Stambul is in a commotion."

"Take care!—don't tread upon my tulips, you blockhead; don't you see that you nearly trampled upon one of them!"

"Oh, my master! tulips bloom every year, but if you trample a man to death, Mashallah! he will rise no more. Hasten, for the rioters are already turning the city upside down!"

The Kapudan Pasha very gently, very cautiously, placed the flower, which he had raised with both hands, in the porcelain vase, and pressed the earth down on every side of it so that it might keep steady when carried.

"What dost thou say, my son?" he then condescended to ask.

"The people of Stambul have risen in revolt."

"The people of Stambul, eh? What sort of people? Do you mean the cobblers, the hucksters, the fishermen, and the bakers?"

"Yes, sir, they have all risen in revolt."

"Very well, I'll be there directly and tell them to be quiet."

"Oh, sir, you speak as if you could extinguish the burning city with this watering-can. The will of Allah be done!"

But the Kapudan Pasha, with a merry heart, kept on watering the transplanted tulips till he had done it thoroughly, and entrusted them to four bostanjis, bidding them carry the flowers through the canal to the Sultan's palace at Scutari, while he had his horse saddled and without the slightest escort trotted quite alone into Stambul, where at that very moment they were crying loudly for his head.

On the way thither, he came face to face with the Kiaja coming in a wretched, two-wheeled kibitka, with a Russian coachman sitting in front of him to hide him as much as possible from the public view. He bellowed to the Kapudan Pasha not to go to Stambul as death awaited him there. At this the Kapudan Pasha simply shrugged his shoulders. What an idea! To be frightened of an army of bakers and cobblers indeed! It was sheer nonsense, so he tried to persuade the Kiaja to turn back again with him and restore order by showing themselves to the rioters, whereupon the latter vehemently declared that not for all the joys of Paradise would he do so, and begged his Russian coachman to hasten on towards Scutari as rapidly as possible.

The Kapudan Pasha promised that he would not be very long behind him; nay, inasmuch as the Kiaja was making a very considerable detour, while he himself was taking the direct road straight through Stambul, he insinuated that it was highly probable he might reach Scutari before him.

"We shall meet again shortly," he cried by way of a parting salute.

"Yes, in Abraham's bosom, I expect," murmured the Kiaja to himself as he raced away again, while the Kapudan Pasha ambled jauntily into the city.

Already from afar he beheld the palace of the Reis-Effendi, on whose walls were inscribed in gigantic letters the following announcements:

"Death to the Chief Mufti!

"Death to the Grand Vizier!

"Death to the Kapudan Pasha!

"Death to the Kiaja Beg!"

"H'm!" said the Kapudan Pasha to himself. "No doubt that was written by some softa or other, for cobblers and tailors cannot write of course. Not a bad hand by any means. I should like to make the fellow my teskeredji."

As he trotted nearer to the palace, he perceived a great multitude surging around it, and amongst them a mounted trumpeter with one of those large Turkish field-horns which are audible a mile off, and are generally used at Stambul during every popular rising, their very note has a provocative tone.

The trumpeting herald was thus addressing the mob assembled around him:

"Inhabitants of Stambul, true-believing Mussulmans, our commander is Halil Patrona, the chief of the Janissaries, and in the name of the Stambul Cadi, Hassan Sulali, I proclaim: Let every true believing Mussulman shut up his shop, lay aside his handiwork, and assemble in the piazza; those of you, however, who are bakers of bread or sellers of flesh, keep your shops open, for whosoever resists this decree his shop will be treated as common booty. As for the unbelieving giaours at present residing at Stambul, let them remain in peace at home, for those who do not stir abroad will have no harm done to them. And this I announce to you in the names of Halil Patrona and Hassan Sulali."

The Kapudan Pasha listened to the very last word of this proclamation, then he spurred his horse upon the crier, and snatching the horn from his hand hit him a blow with it on the back, which resounded far and wide, and then with a voice of thunder addressed the suddenly pacified crowd:

"Ye worthless vagabonds, ye filthy sneak-thieves, mud-larking crab-catchers, pitchy-fingered slipper-botchers, huddling opium-eaters, swindling knacker-sellers, petty hucksters, ye ragged, filthy, whey-faced tipplers!—I, Abdi, the Kapudan Pasha, say it to you, and I only regret that I have not the tongue of a Giaour of the Hungarian race that I might be able to heap upon you all the curses and reproaches that your conduct deserves, ye dogs! What do you want then? Have you not enough to eat? Do you want war because you are tired of peace? War, indeed, though you would take good care to keep out of it. To remain at home here and wage war against women and girls is much more to your liking; booths not fortresses are what you like to storm. Be off to your homes from whence you have come, I say, for whomsoever I find in the streets an hour hence his head shall dangle in front of the Pavilion of Justice. Mark my words!"

With these words Abdi gave his horse the spur and galloped through the thickest part of the mob, which dispersed in terror before him, and with proud self-satisfaction the Kapudan Pasha saw how the people hid away from him in their houses and vanished, as if by magic, from the streets and house-tops.

He galloped into the town without opposition. At every street corner he blew a long blast in the captured horn, and addressed some well-chosen remarks to the people assembled there, which scattered them in every direction.

At last he reached the Bezesztan, where every shop was closed.

"Open your shops, ye dogs!" thundered Abdi to the assembled merchants and tradesmen. "I suppose your heels are itching?—or perhaps you are tired of having ears and noses? Open all your shop-doors this instant, I say! for whoever keeps them closed after this command shall be hanged up in front of his own shop-door!"

The shopkeepers, full of terror, began to take down their shutters forthwith.

From thence he galloped off towards the Etmeidan.

The great fishmarket, which he passed on his way, was filled with people from end to end. Not a word could be heard for the fearful din, which completely drowned the voices of a few stump-orators who here and there had climbed up the pillars near the drinking-fountains to address the mob.

Nevertheless the resonant, penetrating voice of the horn blown by the Kapudan Pasha dominated the tumult, and turned every face in his direction.

Rising in his stirrups, Abdi addressed them with a terrible voice:

"Ye fools, whose mad hands rise against your own heads! Do ye want to make the earth quake beneath you that so many of you stand in a heap in one place? What fool among you is it would drag the whole lot of you down to perdition? Would that the heavens might fall upon you!—would that these houses might bury you!—would that ye might turn into four-footed beasts who can do nothing but bark! Lower your heads, ye wretched creatures, and go and hide yourselves behind your mud-walls! And let not a single cry be heard in your streets, for if you dare to come out of your holes, I swear by the shadow of Allah that I'll make a rubbish-heap of Stambul with my guns, and none shall live in it henceforth but serpents and bats and your accursed souls, ye dogs!"

And nobody durst say him nay. They listened to his revilings in silence, gave way before him, and made a way for his prancing steed. Halil was not there, had he but been there the Kapudan Pasha would not have waited twice for an answer.

So here also Abdi succeeded in trotting through the ranks of the rioters, and so at last directed his way towards the Etmeidan.

By this time not only the caldron of the first but the caldron of the fifth Janissary regiment had been erected in the midst of the camp. They had been taken by force from the army blacksmiths, and a group of Janissaries stood round each of them.

Abdi Pasha appeared among them so unexpectedly that they were only aware of his presence when he suddenly bawled at them:

"Put down your weapons!"

They all regarded the Kapudan Pasha with fear and wonder. How had he got here? Not one of them dared to draw a sword against him, yet not one of them submitted, and everyone of them felt that Patrona was badly wanted here.

The banner of the insurgents was waving in the midst of the piazza. Abdi Pasha rode straight towards it. The Janissaries remained rooted to the spot, staring after him with astonishment.

Suddenly Musli leaped forth from amongst them, and anticipating the Kapudan, seized the flag himself.

"Give me that banner, my son!" said Abdi with all the phlegm of a true seaman.

Musli had not yet sufficiently recovered to be able to answer articulately, but he shook his head by way of intimating that surrender it he would not.

"Give me that banner, Janissary!" cried Abdi once more, sternly regarding Musli straight between the eyes.

Instead of answering Musli simply proceeded to wind the banner round its pole.

"Give me that banner!" bellowed Abdi for the third time, with a voice of thunder, at the same time drawing his sword.

But now Musli twisted the pole round so that the mud-stained end which had been sticking in the earth rose high in the air, and he said:

"I honour you, Abdi Pasha, and I will not hurt you if you go away. I would rather see you fall in battle fighting against the Giaours, for you deserve to have a glorious name; but don't ask me for this banner any more, for if you come a step nearer I will run you through the body with the dirty end."

And at these words all the other Janissaries leaped to their feet and, drawing their swords, formed a glittering circle round the valiant Musli.

"I am sorry for you, my brave Janissaries," observed the Kapudan Pasha sadly.

"And we are sorry for you, famous Kapudan Pasha!"

Then Abdi quitted the Etmeidan. He perceived how the crowd parted before him everywhere as he advanced; but it also did not escape him that behind his back they immediately closed up again when he had passed.

"These people can only be brought to their senses by force of arms," he said to himself as away he rode through the city, and nobody laid so much as a finger upon him.

Meanwhile, in the camp outside, a great council of war was being held. On the news of the insurrection which had been painted in the most alarming colours by the fugitive Kiaja and the Janissary Aga, the Sultan had called together the generals, the Ulemas, the Grand Vizier, the Chief Mufti, the Sheiks, and the Kodzhagians in the palace by the sea-shore.

An hour before in the same palace he had held a long deliberation with his aunt, the wise Sultana Khadija.

Good counsel was now precious indeed.

The Grand Vizier opined that the army, leaving the Sultan behind at Brusa, should set off at once towards Tebrif to meet the foe. If it were found possible to unite with Abdullah Pasha all was won. Stambul was to be left to itself, and the rebels allowed to do as they liked there. Once let the external enemy be well beaten and then their turn would come too.

The Chief Mufti did not believe it to be possible to lead the host to battle just then; but he wished it to be withdrawn from Stambul, lest it should be affected by the spirit of rebellion.

The Kiaja advised negociating with the rebels and pacifying them that way.

At this last proposal the Sultan nodded his head approvingly. The Sultana Khadija was also of the same opinion.

As to the mode of carrying out these negociations there was some slight difference of detail between the plan of the Kiaja and the plan of the Sultana. In the opinion of the former, while the negociations were still proceeding, the ringleaders of the rebellion were to be quietly disposed of one after the other, whereas the Sultana insinuated that the Sultan should appease the rebels by handing over to them the detested Kiaja and any of the other great officers of state whose heads the mob might take a fancy to. And that, of course, was a very different thing.

The Sultan thought the counsel of the Kiaja the best.

At that very moment, the Kapudan Pasha, Abdi, entered the council-chamber.

Everybody regarded him with astonishment. According to the account of the Kiaja he had already been cut into a thousand pieces.

He came in with just as much sangfroid as he displayed when he had ridden through the rebellious city. He inquired of the doorkeepers as he passed through whether his messengers had arrived yet with the tulips. "No," was the reply. "Then where have they got to, I wonder," he muttered; "since I quitted them I have been from one end of Stambul to the other?"

Then he saluted the Sultan, and in obedience to a gesture from the Padishah, took his place among the viziers, and they regarded him with as much amazement as if it was his ghost that had come among them.

"You have been in Stambul, I understand?" inquired the Grand Vizier at last.

"I have just come from thence within the last hour."

"What do the people want?" asked the Padishah.

"They want to eat and drink."

"It is blood they would drink then," murmured the Chief Mufti in his beard.

"And what do they complain about?"

"They complain that the sword does not wage war of its own accord, and that the earth does not produce bread without being tilled, and that wine and coffee do not trickle from the gutters of the houses."

"You speak very lightly of the matter, Abdi. How do you propose to pacify this uproar?"

"The thing is quite simple. The cobblers and petty hucksters of Stambul are not worth a volley, and, besides, I would not hurt the poor things if possible. Many of them have wives and children. Those who have stirred them up are in the camp of the Janissaries—there you will find their leaders. It would be a pity, perhaps, to destroy all who have excited the people in Stambul to revolt, but they ought to be led forth regiment by regiment and every tenth man of them shot through the head. That will help to smooth matters."

All the viziers were horrified. "Who would dare to do such a thing?" they asked.

"That is what I would do," said Abdi bluntly. After that he held his peace.

It was the Sultan who broke the silence.

"Before you arrived," said he, "we had resolved, by the advice of the Kiaja Beg, to go back to the town with the banner of the Prophet and the princes.

"That also is not bad counsel," said Abdi; "thy glorious presence will and must quell the uproar. Unfurl the banner of the Prophet in front of the Gate of the Seraglio, let the Chief Mufti and Ispirizade open the Aja Sophia and the Mosque of Achmed, and let the imams call the people to prayer. Let Damad Ibrahim remain outside with the host, that in case of need he may hasten to suppress the insurgents. Let the Kiaja Beg collect together the jebedjis, ciauses, and bostanjis, who guard the Seraglio, and let them clear the streets. And if all this be of no avail my guns from the sea will soon teach them obedience."

Sultan Achmed shook his head.

"We have resolved otherwise," said he; "none of you must quit my side. The Grand Vizier, the Chief Mufti, the Kapudan Pasha, and the Kiaja must come along with me."

And while he told their names, one after the other, the Padishah did not so much as look at one of them.

The names of these four men were all written up on the corners of the street. The heads of these four men had been demanded by the people and by Halil Patrona.

What then was their offence in the eyes of the people? They were the men highest in power when misfortune overtook the realm. But how then had they offended Halil Patrona? 'Twas they who had brought suffering upon Gül-Bejáze.

The viziers bowed their heads.

At that same instant Abdi's messengers arrived with the tulips. They were brought to the Padishah, who was enchanted by their beauty, and ordered that they should be conveyed to Stambul, to the Sultana Asseki, with the message that he himself would not be long after them. Moreover, he patted Abdi on the shoulder, and protested with tears in his eyes that there was none in the world whom he loved better.