Halil the Pedlar Part 10

Even the p.r.i.c.king 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 s.h.i.+p 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-sh.o.r.e, 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 pa.s.sed, 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 n.o.body 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 superst.i.tion, 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d be done!" exclaimed Achmed, kissing the sword of Muhammad, and a quarter of an hour later he went on board the s.h.i.+p 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.

THE BURSTING FORTH OF THE STORM.

A contrary wind was blowing across the Bosphorus, so that it was not until towards the evening that the Sultan arrived at Scutari, and disembarked there at his seaside palace with his viziers, his princes, the Chief Mufti, and Ispirizade.

Though everything had quieted down close at hand, all night long could be heard, some distance off, in the direction of the camp, a murmuring and a tumult, the cause of which n.o.body could explain.

More than once the Grand Vizier sent fleet runners to the Aga of the Janissaries to inquire what was the meaning of all that noise in the camp. Ha.s.san replied that he himself did not understand why they were so unruly after they had heard the arrival of the Sultan and the sacred banner everywhere proclaimed.

Shortly afterwards Ibrahim commanded him to seize all those who would not remain quiet. Ha.s.san 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 Kuprilizade 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. "Kuprilizade 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 ca.n.a.l to his country house at Chengelkoi, having just received from a Dutch merchant a very handsome a.s.sortment 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 Kuprilizade 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 a.s.sistance of the valiant Kuprilizade! 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 a.s.sistance, 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.

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

Ha.s.san, 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 sh.o.r.es 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 Ha.s.san'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 pa.s.sions 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.