Access to the Yildiz Kiosk and to the Sultan had proved equally easy. I had merely to obtain an interview with Codfish Pasha, the Secretary of War, whom I found a charming man of great intelligence, a master of three or four languages (as he himself informed me), and able to count up to seventeen.
"You wish," he said, "to be appointed as English, or rather Canadian governess to the Sultan?"
"Yes," I answered.
"And your object?"
"I propose to write a book of disclosures."
"Excellent," said Codfish.
An hour later I found myself, as I have said, in a flag-stoned hall of the Yildiz Kiosk, with the task of amusing and entertaining the Sultan.
Of the difficulty of this task I had formed no conception.
Here I was at the outset, with the unhappy Abdul bent and broken with sobs which I found no power to check or control.
Naturally, therefore, I found myself at a loss. The little man as he sat on his cushions, in his queer costume and his long slippers with his fez fallen over his lemon-coloured face, presented such a pathetic object that I could not find the heart to be stern with him.
"Come, now, Abdul," I said, "be good!"
He paused a moment in his crying--
"Why do you call me Abdul?" he asked. "That isn"t my name."
"Isn"t it?" I said. "I thought all you Sultans were called Abdul. Isn"t the Sultan"s name always Abdul?"
"Mine isn"t," he whimpered, "but it doesn"t matter," and his face began to crinkle up with renewed weeping. "Call me anything you like. It doesn"t matter. Anyway I"d rather be called Abdul than be called a W-W-War Lord and a G-G-General when they won"t let me have any say at all--"
And with that the little Sultan burst into unrestrained crying.
"Abdul," I said firmly, "if you don"t stop crying, I"ll go and fetch one of the Bashi-Bazouks to take you away."
The little Sultan found his voice again.
"There aren"t any Bub-Bub-Bashi-Bazouks left," he sobbed.
"None left?" I exclaimed. "Where are they gone?"
"They"ve t-t-taken them all aw-w-way--"
"Who have?"
"The G-G-G-Germans," sobbed Abdul. "And they"ve sent them all to P-P-P-Poland."
"Come, come, Abdul," I said, straightening him up a little as he sat. "Brace up! Be a Turk! Be a Mohammedan! Don"t act like a Christian."
This seemed to touch his pride. He made a great effort to be calm. I could hear him muttering to himself, "Allah, Illallah, Mohammed rasoul Allah!" He said this over a good many times, while I took advantage of the pause to get his fez a little straighter and wipe his face.
"How many times have I said it?" he asked presently.
"Twenty."
"Twenty? That ought to be enough, shouldn"t it?" said the Sultan, regaining himself a little. "Isn"t prayer helpful, eh? Give me a smoke?"
I filled his narghileh for him, and he began to suck blue smoke out of it with a certain contentment, while the rose water bubbled in the bowl below.
"Now, Abdul," I said, as I straightened up his cushions and made him a little more comfortable, "what is it? What is the matter?"
"Why," he answered, "they"ve all g-g-gone--"
"Now, don"t cry! Tell me properly."
"They"ve all gone b-b-back on me! Boo-hoo!"
"Who have? Who"ve gone back on you?"
"Why, everybody. The English and the French and everybody--"
"What _do_ you mean?" I asked with increasing interest.
"Tell me exactly what you mean. Whatever you say I will hold sacred, of course."
I saw my part already to a volume of interesting disclosures.
"They used to treat me so differently," Abdul went on, and his sobbing ceased as he continued, "They used to call me the Bully Boy of the Bosphorus. They said I was the Guardian of the Golden Gate. They used to let me kill all the Armenians I liked and n.o.body was allowed to collect debts from me, and every now and then they used to send me the nicest ultimatums--Oh, you don"t know,"
he broke off, "how nice it used to be here in the Yildiz in the old days! We used all to sit round here, in this very hall, me and the diplomats, and play games, such as "Ultimatum, ultimatum, who"s got the ultimatum." Oh, say, it was so nice and peaceful! And we used to have big dinners and conferences, especially after the military manoeuvres and the autumn ma.s.sacres--me and the diplomats, all with stars and orders, and me in my white fez with a copper ta.s.sel--and hold discussions about how to reform Macedonia."
"But you spoilt it all, Abdul," I protested.
"I didn"t, I didn"t!" he exclaimed almost angrily. "I"d have gone on for ever. It was all so nice. They used to present me--the diplomats did--with what they called their Minimum, and then we (I mean Codfish Pasha and me) had to draft in return our Maximum--see?--and then we all had to get together again and frame a _status quo_."
"But that couldn"t go on for ever," I urged.
"Why not?" said Abdul. "It was a great system. We invented it, but everybody was beginning to copy it. In fact, we were leading the world, before all this trouble came.
Didn"t you have anything of our system in your country --what do you call it--in Canada?"
"Yes," I admitted. "Now that I come to think of it, we were getting into it. But the war has changed it all--"
"Exactly," said Abdul. "There you are! All changed! The good old days gone for ever!"
"But surely," I said, "you still have friends--the Bulgarians."
The Sultan"s little black eyes flashed with anger as he withdrew his pipe for a moment from his mouth.
"The low scoundrels!" he said between his teeth. "The traitors!"
"Why, they"re your Allies!"
"Yes, Allah destroy them! They are. They"ve come over to _our_ side. After centuries of fighting they refuse to play fair any longer. They"re on _our_ side! Who ever heard of such a thing? Bah! But, of course," he added more quietly, "we shall ma.s.sacre them just the same. We shall insist, in the terms of peace, on retaining our rights of ma.s.sacre. But then, no doubt, all the nations will."