"Hearken, Dirham! I have known for a long time a secret, which I will venture to confide to thee."
""Twill be as though you buried it under the earth, my master."
"In the Gulf of Durazzo there lies at anchor an English vessel, under the command of Captain Morrison. On that ship I have deposited five millions of piastres in gold--not less than five millions. A large amount, eh! At any moment I like I can blow the fortress of Janina into the air, embark on board that ship, and sail away to England or Spain, and there I can live in a lordly fashion without care, just as I please. But to what purpose? My remaining days are but few. Why should I try to save them? Here I must perish. Here, where I have grown great, it becomes me to die, and it is not for me to retreat before the advancing sword. This money must serve another design of mine, which has been in my mind long since, but I seek a man capable of executing it.
"Thou shalt be that man. Falter not. Fate does great things with little ones. Thou shalt go from Janina and pa.s.s through Gaskho Bey"s army. When thou dost arrive at Durazzo, show Morrison this ring. When he sees it he will do everything thou sayest to him, for he will know that these are my commands. Thou wilt have the anchor raised and sail with the first favorable wind to Stambul. Sail not into the Golden Horn, for it will be more difficult to get out of it again, but cast thy anchor hard by Anadoli Hissar. There thou wilt land, and, taking with thee a hundred thousand piastres, thou wilt put them in sacks of chaff, the chaff being on the top, and lading sundry a.s.ses with the sacks, thou wilt take them to Adrianople. There thou wilt seek out my sons, and, humbly kissing the hem of their garments, give them to understand that I have sent thee. Then thou wilt tell them of the warfare waged around Janina, all that thou thyself hast seen and heard. If from their faces thou seest that they receive thy words coldly, and show no ardor of soul, then measure out to them the hundred thousand piastres, and bid them buy and keep shop therewith, start a large wholesale business if they feel any disposition that way, and apply themselves diligently to heap up riches upon riches, as it becomes honest men to do who have long years to live. But if thou seest their face aflame and the heroes" love of glory sparkle in their eyes; if they listen to thy words with parted lips and throbbing hearts; if they press thy hand warmly and frequently clutch the hilts of their swords; if they ask thee to tell them again and again what thou hast told them already--then tell them that the path of glory and Tepelenti"s arms are always open before them, that those one hundred thousand piastres are only for buying horses and weapons. I have five times as much on board the English ship, and five hundred times as much in the red tower of Janina. With the five millions of piastres they must get ships, and these ships they must fully equip in secret.
And this will not be difficult, for all the Greek seamen have deserted the Turkish fleet. These Greeks will offer their services gratis. When the ships are ready, let them, through thee, inform thereof Bublinia, the heroic Greek amazon, who is cruising off Crete with thirty vessels to divert the attention of the Turkish fleet, and then row out to Beikos. With favorable weather thou shouldst get to Durazzo in ten days. Simultaneously, I from one quarter, Kleon from a second, and Odysseus from a third will attack the army of Gaskho Bey, and if my sons are victorious at sea, in the evening of the same day we shall be able to rest in one another"s arms."
Dirham wept like a child.
The pasha continued his directions:
"At every step be cautious. Accomplish everything amidst the greatest secrecy. Don"t let my sons scatter their money right and left, lest their wealth be suspected and give rise to envy and jealousy. It would be better if they left the bulk of it on board ship, and only drew from it whatever may be necessary for the time being. When thou dost communicate with Bublinia, write on the parchment all sorts of different things higgledy-piggledy. Say, for instance, that thou art disembarking wool in Crete, and will consign it to Argyrocantharides, who is friendly with the Sultan and all the pashas, and, at the same time, an intermediary between us and the Greeks. But in the empty s.p.a.ces between the lines let Mukhtar write the message for Bublinia in special characters with oil of vitriol; then, when thou dost hand over the doc.u.ments, moisten these special rows of letters with a piece of citron. But stay, I will give thee a still better counsel. Melt some lunar caustic in water, and write therewith thy message on the sh.e.l.l of hard-boiled eggs. Then boil the eggs again; and when thou dost break them open thou wilt find the writing visible on the white membrane inside. Do that. Eggs are the least suspicious of cargoes."
Dirham made a careful mental note of all that was told him, secretly amazed that Ali Pasha should have extended his attention to the smallest details.
"One thing more," said Ali, and his voice trembled with emotion. "I know right well that I am giving my sons dangerous parts to play, and the issue thereof is uncertain. Take, therefore, this ring; the stone set in it contains a talisman. Give it to Mukhtar. Let him wear it on his finger, and if ever he finds himself environed by a great danger, a very great danger--which Allah forfend!--then let him open the stone of the ring and read the talisman engraved therein. But this he is only to do if a great danger be at hand, when he trembles for his life, when the lowest slave would not change heads with him; for when once it has been read the talisman loses all its virtue. And now depart, and bethink thee of all I have told thee."
Dirham kissed the hem of the pasha"s garment and promised that he would carefully perform everything. Ali accompanied him down into the garden. On their way back to the place they had to cross the spot where Zaid was buried. As the hollow earth resounded beneath Ali"s feet, he stopped for a moment and murmured to himself, "H"m! thou shalt not be the only one!"
Two weeks later Dirham met the sons of Ali in Adrianople. Morrison"s ship had taken him on the way thither, and during the voyage Dirham had countless opportunities of convincing himself that the money deposited by Ali was safely guarded in the hold of the vessel. There he said everything which Ali had confided to him, and as it seemed to the poor servant, through the medium of his tearful eyes, as if the beys grew enthusiastic at the tidings of the war which their aged father was waging, he told them, in this persuasion, that Ali had sent them five million piastres, that they might buy ships and collect arms and unite their forces to his.
The beys rejoiced greatly at the tidings of the five millions, and embraced Dirham, who did his best to attribute all the merit of the deed to Tepelenti for sending the money so magnanimously.
"The old man might have sent us still more," said Sulaiman. "What does he want with it in Janina? Sooner or later it will become the prey of his enemies."
"Pardon me, my lord!" objected Dirham. "It will become n.o.body"s prey if only you unite with him."
"Ugh!" said Sulaiman; and at that moment the two brothers caught each other"s eye, and it was as though the same thought suddenly occurred to them both.
When Dirham delivered the ring to Mukhtar, the latter asked, suspiciously:
"Is there any poison in this ring?"
"What are you thinking of, my lord? I wore it on my finger the whole way hither. There is a talisman in it."
At this both the brothers burst out laughing. They had often ridiculed Ali for his absurd superst.i.tion. Nevertheless, Mukhtar kept the ring, for there was a splendid emerald in it.
But the secret of the eggs completely won the favor of the brothers.
That was really a capital idea of Ali"s. In this way the pashas could send secret messages even in their harems. Who would ever suspect an egg? They would put it to the proof at once. They would send a declaration of love to the odalisks of the Seraskier, written in an egg.
Dirham shook his head and spoke seriously, and entreated the beys to first of all enter into a league with Bublinia, the amazon of Chios, who was even bold enough on occasions to make a dash at the Dardanelles; for if they did not hasten, the money that had been sent to them would be of no use. It would be dangerous, he urged, to show the people of Adrianople that they had received money. The English captain, moreover, was not disposed to render any other service than that of keeping safe custody of the money confided to him; but if any harm happened to them because of it, he would neither defend them nor even convey them out of Turkish waters.
These wise remonstrances made some impression upon the beys. Just as if their thoughts were pursuing the same course, they both hastened to beg Dirham to let them have at once the eggs, the lunar caustic, writing materials, and all other indispensable things. Moreover, they forgot to give him money for these purchases, so the poor fellow had to buy them out of his own purse.
Dirham"s foot was scarcely out of the house when the two brothers looked at each other and smiled.
"I have a good idea," began Sulaiman.
"And I also," said the other.
"I don"t mean to return to Ali."
"Nor I. I bear in mind what happened to Zaid."
"I propose we buy a ship, on which we may hide our money."
"And we"ll man her with a Greek crew."
"Then we will send Dirham with the messages written in the eggs to Bublinia, and we"ll write great things therein. We"ll tell her that we stand ready here with our fleets, and if she will attack the Kapudan Pasha in front we will attack him in the rear. The woman is mad. She will come forth from the Archipelago and fall upon the Turkish fleet.
Then the Kapudan Pasha will a.s.semble his forces against her, and she will engage all his attention till we have nicely set sail, nor will we stop till we reach Cadiz."
"Admirable! for that is the land of good wine and fair women."
"And then Ali Pasha may wait for us till the angel Izrafil blows his trumpet on the last day!"
"And Bublinia as well--not forgetting the Sultan! Let them worry each other."
"Mashallah! Life is sweet!"
And so it chanced that the sons of Ali, like the princes in a fairy tale, suddenly and marvellously came into the possession of great riches, and were wise enough to profit by these riches in the merriest manner in the world. The money was given to them for blood and weapons. They were going to lavish it on love and wine. And is not life lovelier so?
When Dirham came back they immediately boiled the eggs hard, and wrote upon them every sort of magnificent message that occurred to their minds. They promised to hasten to the a.s.sistance of the Greeks, both by land and by sea; to cut their way through the fleets with their fire-ships and blow the Turkish flag-ship into the air; to incite the Janissaries to rise against the Sultan and the Greeks to rise against the Janissaries; in all of which there was not a single word of truth.
Only worthy Dirham believed these things, and trembled in body and soul at the bare thought of the sublime deeds that his masters had determined to perform.
He himself hired a barge, loaded it with wool, and, hiding the eggs full of secrets in a basket, set out for the Archipelago.
The good youths meanwhile laughed to their hearts" content. They laughed at worthy Dirham; they laughed at the worthy Bublinia, and at the wise Kapudan Pasha; they laughed at this amusing piece of good fortune which brought them riches in heaps. But at n.o.body did they laugh so much as at old Tepelenti, who was believing all along that his sons were collecting war-ships for him.
But did he really believe it?
On the same day that Dirham quitted Adrianople, a fakir of the Nimetullahita Order penetrated into the Seraglio and demanded an audience of the Sultan. It was the self-same old soothsayer who had exhibited his enchantments to Ali.
On being admitted to the presence of Mahmoud, he stood audaciously upright before him, bending his head no lower than it was already crooked by the weight of years.
"Allah hath sent me to thee," said the dervish, in a deep, hollow voice, which had lost all its sonorousness. "A great danger is approaching thee. The storm hanging over thy head is at this moment compressed within the skin of an egg, and thou couldst crush it in the palm of thy hand; but if thou dost suffer it to come forth from the egg, thy whole realm will not be sufficient to contain it. This, therefore, is the word of Allah unto thee: This day and this night, and to-morrow and to-morrow night, stop every vessel which sails up the narrow waters of the Golden Horn and search them, and whenever thy guards come upon an egg, let them seize it and bring it to thee; for amongst them are diverse c.o.c.katrice eggs which, if once they be hatched, will swallow up both thee and thy realm."
Having said these words, the dervish turned him about, and without so much as saluting the Padishah, without even taking off his slippers before him, he withdrew, not even asking for a reward.
The Sultan was profoundly impressed by this audacity. He immediately sent orders to the wardens of the two watch-towers at the entrance of the Golden Horn to board and search thoroughly every vessel that pa.s.sed between them, seize every egg they found on board and bring them to him, at the same time detaining all the crews of such vessels.
Fate so willed it that Dirham"s was the first vessel that fell into the hands of the searchers.
When the unfortunate servant perceived that the guards seized the eggs, he leaped into the sea, and although he was a good swimmer, he allowed himself to be suffocated in the water lest he should be compelled to betray his masters.
The eggs they carried to the Sultan, and when he had opened them and had read the writing written on their inner skins, he was horrified.
Treachery and rebellion! The conspiracy was spreading from one end of the empire to the other. The complicated intrigue, one of whose threads was in Janina and the other in the islands of the Archipelago, had its third in the very capital. This called for terrible reprisals.