Kara Makan put on an important look, as of one who knows that the fate of empires is in his hands.
"Hearken to our desires. We are honest Mussulmans. We do not ask impossibilities. If thou canst convince us that our demands are unlawful, we renounce them; if thou canst not convince us, accomplish them."
Mahmoud"s lips wore a bitter smile at this wise speech.
"I do not strive with you," he replied. "Ye command me. The Caliph of caliphs listens to his servants. Bring hither parchment and an ink-horn, and dictate to my pen what ye demand. The Sultan will be your scribe, great rebel!"
Kara Makan was not bright enough to penetrate the irony of these words; nay, rather, he felt himself flattered by the humility of the Sultan"s speech. With haughty self-a.s.surance he bared his bosom and drew forth a large roll of ma.n.u.script.
"I will save your majesty the trouble," said he to Mahmoud, smoothing out the doc.u.ment before him. "Behold, it is all ready. Thou hast only to write thy name beneath it."
"Will ye allow me to read it?" inquired the Sultan, with the same bitter smile; "or is it the wish of the people that I should sign it unread?"
"As your majesty pleases."
Mahmoud took up the doc.u.ments one after another, and piled them up beside him as he read them.
"Ah! the appointment of a new seraskier! I will read no further. I agree, but I would know his name. Is he whom you desire fit for the post?"
"We want Kurshid," explained Kara Makan, perceiving that the Sultan had not read the doc.u.ment.
"And the Janissaries demand other rewards for themselves. "Tis only natural: I grant them. They cannot be expected to storm the Seraglio for nothing. The chief treasurer will pay you whatever you require.
This third article, too, I see, demands the capture of Janina. Be it so. I grant it. Most probably the whole Janissary host will want to go against Ali Pasha."
"So long as thou art at their head," said Kara Makan, somewhat disturbed. "The Janissaries are only bound to fight under the direct command of the Sultan."
"And all these other demands are equally reasonable, eh?" said the Sultan, just glancing at one or two of them.
He took up the last one, but when he had unfolded it his face darkened, and he suddenly leaped to his feet, his good-natured apathy changed into wrath and fierceness, and, striking the open doc.u.ment with his fist, he exclaimed, with an access of emotion:
"What"s this? Are ye so bold as to expect me to sign this paper?"
Kara Makan was so well prepared for this outburst of anger on the Sultan"s part that he was not in the least taken aback. With rustic stolidity he replied:
"We wish it, and we demand it."
"Do you know what is written in this doc.u.ment?"
"Yes; that thou must free the realm from foreigners; that thou must put the Russian amba.s.sador Stroganov on board ship and send him home; refuse to admit French and English ships into the Bejkoz; send the Sultana Valideh far away to Damascus; and slay the Grand Vizier, the Kizlar-Aga, the Berber Pasha, and the Kapudan Pasha, and give their bodies to the people."
The Grand Signior contemptuously threw the doc.u.ment to the floor and trampled it beneath his feet.
"Shameless filibusterers," he cried; "not blood but money is what you want. Ye want permission not to deliver the realm, but to plunder it.
And you expect the Padishah to sanction it! Did not you yourselves raise the Viziers to power? Were not you the cause of their not being able to make any use of that power? Whenever the arms of the Giaours were triumphant, were you not always the first to fly from the field of battle? And when the realm was sinking, were you not always the last to hasten to its a.s.sistance? You are no descendants, but the mere shadows of those glorious Janissaries whose names are written with letters of blood in the annals of foreign nations; but ye make but a poor and wretched figure therein. Kill me, then! I shall not be the first Sultan whom the Janissaries have murdered, but, in Allah"s name I say it, I shall be the last. After me, either n.o.body will sit on the throne of Omar, or, if any one sits there, he will be your ruin."
The opposition of his august captive only restored the Janissary leader to his proper element. He felt much more at home with those wrathful eyes than with the previous contemptuous nonchalance. He could now give back like for like.
He picked up the crumpled doc.u.ment, in which were written the death-sentences of the Viziers, and, brushing off the dust, again presented it to the Sultan.
"Either sign this doc.u.ment or descend from the throne of the family of Omar, and we will seek us out from among the descendants of the Prophet another who shall reign in thy stead."
"Most abject of slaves! In thy pride thou knowest not what thou sayest! Death comes from Allah and none can avoid it; but who amongst the descendants of Omar would be powerful enough to seize the royal sceptre, and who would be senseless enough to desire it?"
"Look at me."
"I am looking. The sun does not soil itself by shining upon a swamp, and therefore I may look even at thee; but I see nothing in thee that would justify the adorning of thy head with a diadem so long as one of the descendants of Sulaiman the Magnificent is alive."
"Another word and thou shalt cease to live!" cried the desperado, haughtily throwing back his head before the Sultan. "Art thou aware that thy son Abdul Mejid is in our hands?"
The Sultan shuddered. His consternation at these words was written in every feature.
"My son, Abdul Mejid? Impossible!"
"So it is. The Sultana Valideh gave him up at our request."
"Oh, madness!" exclaimed the Sultan; and he began pacing to and fro.
Abdul Mejid was still a mere child. The shock of such a rebellion might easily make an epileptic of him. To deliver him into the hands of these rebels was as good as to sign his death-warrant. Even if they did not kill him outright, his nerves might suffer from their violence, and he might perish, as the two and twenty other children of Sultan Mahmoud had perished, every one of whom had died of epilepsy.
Their delicate nervous const.i.tutions had been shattered in their youth under the influence of that perpetual terror to which the children of the Caliph of caliphs had been exposed from time immemorial. What, then, might not happen to Abdul Mejid if he fell into the hands of this savage mob?
"Oh, ye are h.e.l.l"s own children! Ye are worse than the Giaours, worse than the Greeks, worse than the Muscovites! Ye do place your feet on the heads of your rulers!"
The despair of the Sultan emboldened the Janissary still further.
"Sign this doc.u.ment, or thy son shall die in our hands!"
"Miserable cowards!" moaned the Sultan. "And cowards they also who should have defended him! Did not even his mother defend him? Was it necessary to give him up?"
"He is in no danger," said Kara Makan; "nay, he is in a safe place. It rests with thee to receive him back into thy arms;" and he shoved towards him again the soiled and crumpled ma.n.u.script.
The Padishah, overcome by the shock of his own feelings, humiliated by the sense of his own soft-heartedness, tottered to the wall, and when his groping hands came in contact with the cold marble he collapsed altogether, and leaning against it, he pressed his burning temples to the cold stone. The Janissary might now say whatever he would, the Sultan neither listened to nor answered him.
At last the rough warrior, who had jumped so suddenly into power, shouted angrily to his comrades, who were cooling their heels outside, "Bring hither the prince!"
The Sultan heard the pattering of many footsteps in the corridor outside, and the clashing of swords mingled with the murmuring of voices, but he did not look in that direction.
"Behold!" cried Kara Makan, advancing towards him, "here is thy son! A drawn sword hovers above his head! Choose either to see thine own name at the foot of that paper or his head at thy feet!"
Mahmoud trembled, but he answered nothing, nor did he turn his head.
"Write, or thy son dies!" cried a number of the Janissaries, suddenly.
Then a musical, familiar voice responded amidst the wild uproar:
"My father! hearken not unto them! Let them slay me if they be valiant enough, but chaffer not with thy slaves!"
Mahmoud looked up in astonishment at this well-known voice, and saw before him a handsome figure in the prince"s garments and with a proud and majestic countenance; but that face, though familiar to him and very dear, was not his son"s face. Ah, it was Milieva!