The Sultan condescended to enter into conversation with the lawyer, and expressed himself delighted at his dialectical skill. Presently he got into the habit of asking his opinion concerning various ticklish points of law in cases about which even the members of the Divan had different opinions, and always he gave great weight to the words of Ali. At last he so far extended his favour towards him as to appoint him Chief Almoner, and raise him high among the dignitaries of the Seraglio.
So much favour absolutely blinded Hojia, it was now six months since the death of Muhzin had been proclaimed, and no doubt he thought no more about it.
One day the Sultan perceived in the girdle of Hojia a rosary just like one which was mentioned in the inventory of the merchant"s stolen treasures. It was made of coral beads of the size of filberts, engraved all round with sacred texts, and the larger beads were encrusted with diamonds.
The Sultan admired the string of beads. "What a splendid bead-string thou hast," said he. "In the whole of my treasury I have not the like of it. The coral is extraordinarily beautiful, and the workmanship priceless."
Ali was transported with joy, and made haste to offer to the Sultan the jewel which was so fortunate as to have won the favour of the Grand Signior.
The Sultan graciously condescended to accept the present, and gave Hojia instead of it three purses of gold, far more indeed than the jewel was worth, and invited him the next day to the Dzsirid Square, where a splendid entertainment was to be held.
Hojia was even more delighted by this distinction than by the Sultan"s gift; he would be able to appear on the Dzsirid in the suite of the Sultan.
The Dzsirid was the one open s.p.a.ce in the Seraglio where the Turkish magnates diverted themselves with pike-casting, dart-throwing, and other manly sports. The Sultan himself often took part in these pastimes. The best of shooting grounds also formed part of the Dzsirid.
On this occasion the Sultan also took part in the shooting; and very badly he shot, not once did he hit the mark. Wherefore he began to grow angry, and, as is the way with marksmen under such circ.u.mstances, he blamed the mark, the bowstring, the quiver, and the burning sun for his bad shooting, and at last burst forth against the ring on his finger as the cause of all his wide shooting. For it was the custom of the archer to wear on his finger a serpent-shaped spiral ring, so as to gain a firmer hold of the bow-string, and be able to make the bow tw.a.n.g to its full extent at the proper time.
The Sultan kept on grumbling at his ring, saying that it was badly made and caught in the bow-string every time, so that he could not let it go quickly enough, and with that he s.n.a.t.c.hed it off, and cried, "Give me another ring!"
His attendants hastened to offer their own rings to the Grand Signior.
The Sultan tried them all one after another.
"That won"t do, that won"t do! Ah! n.o.body makes such good archery-rings as the goldsmith Sula.s.san used to make, and he is dead now. But is there none here who has a ring made by Sula.s.san?"
At this question, Ali Hojia eagerly rushed up to the Sultan, and signified that he possessed a ring which was a production of the dead master. Would the Padishah deign to accept it from him?
Soliman did deign to accept it. This was the choicest jewel which the merchant had described to him. He accepted it from Hojia, put it on his finger, and thenceforth shot so skilfully at the mark that every one applauded him, and none more so than Ali Hojia.
After the sports in the Dzsirid, the Sultan sent for Muhzin. In his hand was the string of beads, and on his finger was the ring, and he was praying with the Koran before him.
Astonishment overcame the merchant when he saw his lost jewels in the possession of Soliman. He cast himself at the Sultan"s feet, and, catching hold of the hem of his garment, exclaimed: "Oh, my lord, the ring and the string of beads which thou holdest in thy hand are mine."
The Sultan asked him what was written on each one of the beads and how many stones were in the ring, and the merchant answered each question exactly, whereupon the Sultan sent him back to the Seven Towers.
On the following day he sent for Hojia.
He discoursed with him on all manner of juridical questions which had come before the Divan, and took the opinion of the learned lawyer upon them all. Amongst other cases, he suddenly put this one to him: a certain man had grossly abused the confidence of a friend, who had confided his property to his care while he was on his travels, and robbed him of everything; what did such a man deserve for such a monstrous act of treachery?
Now, it is notorious that the greatest sinners are the most rigorous judges of offences similar to their own in others, and it is even possible that it never occurred to Hojia that he himself had been guilty of a like offence. Besides, his sin was buried deeply away in the tomb of Muhzin, and n.o.body knew anything about it.
So the jurist replied to the Sultan that such an extraordinary offence demanded an extraordinary punishment, and the sinner deserved nothing less than pounding to death in a mortar.
"Thou hast p.r.o.nounced thine own condemnation," cried the Sultan. Then he clapped his hands, and four Izoglans came running in and bound Hojia hand and foot, took from him his keys, searched his dwelling thoroughly, and found in it the whole of the treasure which had been confided to him by his friend the merchant.
The confounded Hojia, who fancied he was bathing in the sunlight of the highest favour, and never reflected that in the sunlight everything becomes transparent, in his terror confessed everything, and also said that he was the apparition who, after fastening on a beard smeared over with a phosph.o.r.escent unguent, had come to the room of the sorrowing Muhzin and practised on the unfortunate mourner the accursed trick which had well-nigh robbed him of life and reason. It was he, too, who had stolen the body of Eminha from its tomb.
The Sultan immediately summoned a meeting of the Divan, laid the case before the Viziers, and told them of the punishment which the Hojia himself had said that a crime like his deserved.
The Viziers answered that Hojia"s opinion was just. The crime was indeed of a new sort, and it was right, therefore, that he should be the first to taste the proper punishment for it.
By the Sultan"s command, therefore, a huge mortar was cut out of marble, a huge pounding pole with four handles thereto being at the same time made to match the mortar.
Ali Hojia, meanwhile, was attired in a purple robe, with a golden turban on his head, and a bespangled girdle round his body, and so they cast him into the mortar. Then four Bostanjis seized the pounding beetle, and raising it by its four handles, rammed it with all their might into the mortar at a sign from the Aga of the Bostanjis. A frightful yell arose from the mortar, tapering off into an unspeakable, indescribable whistling shriek. The Bostanjis raised the pounding beetle a second time, and a second time they rammed it home. But now only a m.u.f.fled groan responded to the impact. The third stroke was followed by a ghastly whimper, and after the fourth stroke there was no response but the crunching of bones.
And so they went pounding away with their pestle till they were tired out, and by that time all that remained in the mortar was a shapeless mash of blood and bones and silk and gold filigree.
Thus did Sultan Soliman punish the deceiver.
Eighty years ago the French traveller Tavernier saw this very mortar, so terrible a memorial of Ottoman justice, standing in the door of the Hall of the Divan.
V
LOVE AND THE LITTLE DOG
What can there be in common between love and a little dog? Well, listen!
and I"ll tell you.
My dear friend Toni was head over ears in love with a pretty little girl whom I did not love at all. This was not because I prefer falling in love with ugly little girls, or because I consider it superfluous to love a girl who is already loved by another fellow, but simply because one eye of this particular girl was black and the other blue.
"Toni," I said, "look out for yourself! This double sort of eye bodes no good. With one of them she"ll ogle you, and with the other some one else. The blue eye may be faithful to you, the black one may deceive."
Toni replied I was quite wrong. In his opinion these two eyes harmonized admirably; they reminded him, he said, of bright dawn and starry night.
Indeed, properly speaking, he alone would be the faithless one, as he would now be loving a blue eye and a black one at the same time.
Still, I did not like the business at all, and as I felt sure that Toni would be considerably the loser by it, I was determined to save him if I could.
"It will be the worse for you if you take her," I said. "For one thing, you will not be able even to call her your better _half_. With those contradictory eyes she will, at the very utmost, only be your better _two quarters_. Depend upon it, she must have been formed from the ribs of two different men. Have nothing to do with her, Toni, my boy!"
Whereupon Toni became abusive, and told me never to regard him as a friend again.
"Who are you to talk to me like that?" he cried. "You are not my father, or my mother, or my elder brother, or my married sister, or even my G.o.dfather, are you? Who are you to ride roughshod over my happiness? I don"t care a rap what you say, and stand out of my way, or I"ll punch your head. I mean to have her in any case now."
So, as I certainly could not say that I was his father, or even his G.o.dfather, I had to stand aside and let him go galloping headlong downhill towards the Vale of Matrimony without the brake on. If he were particularly fortunate, he might, perhaps, plump into a ditch when halfway down, and so come off cheaply with a broken arm; if, however, he were doomed to be unlucky, he would plunge to the bottom of the valley and break his neck.
Nevertheless, he was lucky, and fell off his high horse when he was only halfway down.
One evening he came to me full of a great resolution.
"Well, old chap, I"m not going to marry Nelly after all."
"She has jilted you, I suppose?"
"No. Something happened when I was with her last, that"s all."