CHAPTER X.
THE FEAST OF HALWET.
The surgujal--the turban with the triple gold circlet--was on the headof Mahmud, but the sword, the sword of dominion, was in the hand ofHalil Patrona. The people whose darling he had become were accustomed toregard him as their go-between in their petty affairs, the host trembledbefore him, and the magnates fawned upon him for favour.
In the Osman nation there is no hereditary nobility, everyone there hasrisen to the highest places by his sword or his luck. Every single GrandVizier and Kapudan Pasha has a nickname which points to his lowlyorigin; this one was a woodcutter, that one a stone-mason, that otherone a fisherman. Therefore a Mohammedan never looks down upon the mostabject of his co-religionists, for he knows very well that if he himselfhappens to be uppermost to-day and the other undermost, by to-morrow thewhole world may have turned upside down, and this last may have becomethe first.
So now also a petty huckster rules the realm, and Sultan Mahmud hasnothing to think about but his fair women. Who can tell whether any oneof us would not have done likewise? Suppose a man to have been kept inrigorous, joyless servitude for twenty years, and then suddenly to beconfronted with the alternative--"reign over hearts or over anempire"--would he not perhaps have chosen the hearts instead of theempire for his portion?
At the desire of the beauteous Sultana Asseki the insurrection of thepeople had no sooner subsided than the Sultan ordered the HalwetFestival to be celebrated.
The Halwet Festival is the special feast of women, when nobody butwomankind is permitted to walk about the streets, and this blissful daymay come to pass twice or thrice in the course of the year.
On the evening before, it is announced by the blowing of horns that themorrow will be the Feast of Halwet. On that day no man, of whateverrank, may come forth in the streets, or appear on the roof of a house,or show himself at a window, for death would be the penalty of hiscuriosity. The black and white eunuchs keeping order in the streetsdecapitate without mercy every man who does not remain indoors. Noticesthat this will be done are posted up on all the boundary-posts in thesuburbs of the city, that strangers may regulate their conductaccordingly.
On the day of the feast of Halwet all the damsels discard their veils,without which at all other times they are not permitted to walk aboutthe streets. Then it is that the odalisks of one harem go forth to callupon the odalisks of another. Rows upon rows of brightly variegatedtents appear in the midst of the streets and market-places, in whichsherbet and other beverages made of violets, cane-sugar, rose-water,pressed raisins, and citron juice, together with sweetmeats,honey-cakes, and such-like delicacies, to which women are so partial,are sold openly, and all the sellers are also women.
Ah! what a spectacle that would be for the eyes of a man! Every streetis swarming with thousands and thousands of bewitching shapes. Thesewomen, released from their prisons, are like so many gay and thoughtlesschildren. Group after group, singing to the notes of the cithern,saunter along the public ways, decked out in gorgeous butterfly apparel,which flutter around their limbs like gaily coloured wings. The suns andstars of every climate flash and sparkle in those eyes. The wholegigantic city resounds with merry songs and musical chatter, and any manwho could have seen them tripping along in whole lines might haveexclaimed in despair: "Why have I not a hundred, why have I not athousand hearts to give away!"
And then when the harem of the Sultan proudly paces forth! Half athousand odalisks, the lovelinesses of every province in the Empire, forwhom the youths of whole districts have raved in vain, in garmentsradiant with pearls and precious stones, mounted on splendid prancingsteeds gaily caparisoned. And in the midst of them all the beautifulSultana, with the silver heron's plume in her turban, whose stem flasheswith sparkling diamonds. Her glorious figure is protected by a garmentof fine lace, scarce concealing the snowy shimmer of her well-roundedarms. She sits upon the tiger-skin saddle of her haughty steed like anAmazon. The regard of her flashing eyes seems to proclaim her the tyrantof two Sultans, who has the right to say: "I am indeed my husband'sconsort!"
In front and on each side of the fairy band march four hundred blackeunuchs, with naked broadswords across their shoulders, looking up atthe windows of the houses before which they march to see whether,perchance, any inquisitive Peeping-Toms are lurking there.
Dancing and singing, this bevy of peris traverses the principal streetsof Stambul. Every now and then, a short sharp wail or scream may beheard round the corner of the street the procession is approaching: theeunuchs marching in front have got hold of some inquisitive man orother. By the time the radiant cortege has reached the spot, only a fewbloodstains are visible in the street, and, dancing and singing, thefair company of damsels passes over it and beyond. Scarce anyone wouldbelieve that those wails and screams did not form part and parcel of theall-pervading cries of joy.
Meanwhile in the Etmeidan a much more free-and-easy sort ofentertainment is taking place. The women of the lower orders are therediverting themselves in gaily adorned tents, where they can buy as muchmead as they can drink, and in the midst of the piazza on round,outspread carpets dance the bayaderes of the streets, whom Sultan Achmedhad once collected together and locked up in a dungeon where they hadremained till the popular rising set them free again. In their handsthey hold their nakaras (timbrels), clashing them together above theirheads as they whirl around; on their feet are bronze bangles; and theirlong tresses and their light bulging garments flutter around them,whilst with wild gesticulations they dance the most audacious of dances,compared with whose voluptuous movements the passion of the fiercestSpanish bailarina is almost tame and spiritless.
Suddenly one of these street dancing-girls scream aloud to hercompanions in the midst of the mazy dance, bringing them suddenly to astandstill.
"Look, look!" she cried, "there comes Guel-Bejaze! Guel-Bejaze, the wifeof Halil Patrona."
"Guel-Bejaze! Guel-Bejaze!" resound suddenly on every side. The bayaderesrecognise the woman who had been shut up with them in the same dungeon,surround her, begin to kiss her feet and her garments, raise her up intheir arms on to their shoulders, and so exhibit her to all the womenassembled together on the piazza.
"Yonder is the wife of Halil Patrona!" they cry, and Rumour quicklyflies with the news all through the city. Everyone of the bayaderesdancing among the people has something to say in praise of her. Some ofthem she had cared for in sickness, others she had comforted in theirdistress, to all of them she had been kind and gentle. And then, too, itwas she who had restored them their liberty, for was it not on heraccount that Halil Patrona had set them all free?
Everyone hastened up to her. The poor thing could not escape from theclamorous enthusiasm of the sturdy muscular fish-wives and bathing womenwho, in their turn also, raised her upon their shoulders and carried herabout, finally resolving to carry her all the way home for the honourof the thing. So for Halil Patrona's palace they set off with Guel-Bejazeon their shoulders, she all the time vainly imploring them to put herdown that she might hide away among the crowd and disappear, for shefeared, she trembled at, the honour they did her. From street to streetthey carried her, whirling along with them in a torrent of drunkenenthusiasm everyone they chanced to fall in with on the way; and beforethem went the cry that the woman whom the others were carrying on theirshoulders was the wife of Halil Patrona, the feted leader of the people,and ever denser and more violent grew the crowd. Any smaller groups theymight happen to meet were swept along with them. Now and then theyencountered the harems of the greatest dignitaries, such as pashas andbeglerbegs. It was all one, the august and exalted ladies had also tofollow in the suite of the wife of Halil Patrona, the most powerful manin the realm, whose wife was the gentlest lady under Heaven.
Suddenly, just as they were about to turn into the great square in frontof the fortress of the Seven Towers, another imposing crowd encounteredthem coming from the opposite direction. It was the escort of theSultana. The half a thousand odalisks and the four hundred eunuc
hsoccupied the whole width of the road, but face to face with them wereadvancing ten thousand intoxicated viragoes led by the franticbayaderes.
"Make way for the Sultana!" cried the running eunuchs to the approachingcrowd, "make way for the Sultana and her suite!"
The execution of this command bordered on the impossible. The wholespace of the square was filled with women--a perfect sea of heads--andvisible above them all was a quivering, tremulous white figure whichthey had raised on high.
"Make way for the Sultana!" screamed the Kadun-Kiet-Khuda, who led theprocession; a warty old woman she was, who had had charge of the haremfor years and grown grey in it.
At this one of the boldest of the bayaderes thrust herself forward.
"Make way thyself, thou bearded old witch," she cried; "make way, I say,before the wife of Halil Patrona. Why, thou art not worthy to kiss thedust off her feet. Stand aside if thou wilt not come along with us."
And with these words she banged her tambourine right under the nose ofthe Kadun-Kiet-Khuda.
And then the bad idea occurred to some of the eunuchs to lift theirbroadswords against the boisterous viragoes, possibly with a view ofcutting a path through them for the Sultana.
Ah! before they had time to whirl their swords above their heads, in thetwinkling of an eye, their weapons were torn from their hands, and theirbacks were well-belaboured with the broad blades. The furious maenadsfell upon their assailants, flung them to the ground, and the nextinstant had seized the bridles of the steeds of the odalisks.
The Kizlar-Aga was fully alive to the danger which threatened theSultana. The whole square was thronged with angry women who, with facesflushed and sparkling eyes, were rushing upon the odalisks. Any singleeunuch they could lay hold of was pretty certain to meet with a martyr'sdeath in a few seconds. They tore him to pieces, and pelted each otherwith the bloody fragments before scattering them to the winds. ElhajBeshir, therefore, earnestly implored the Sultana to turn back and tryto regain the Seraglio.
Adsalis cast a contemptuous look on the Aga.
"One can see that thou art neither man nor woman," cried she, "for ifthou wert one or the other, thou wouldst know how to be courageous."
Then she buried the point of her golden spurs in the flank of her steed,and urged it towards the spot where the most frantic of the maenads stoodfighting with the mounted odalisks, tearing some from their horses,rending their clothes, and then by way of mockery remounting them withtheir faces to the horses' tails.
Suddenly the Sultana stood amongst them with a haughty, commanding look,like a demi-goddess.
"Who is the presumptuous wretch who would bar the way before me?" shecried in her clear, penetrating voice.
One of the odalisks planted herself in front of the Sultana and, restingone hand upon her hip, pointed with the other at Guel-Bejaze!
"Look!" she cried, "there is Guel-Bejaze, and she it is who bars thy wayand compels thee to make room for her."
Guel-Bejaze, whom the women had brought to the spot on their shoulders,wrung her hands in her desperation, and begged and prayed the Sultanafor forgiveness. She endeavoured to explain by way of pantomime, forspeaking was impossible, that she was there against her will, and it washer dearest wish to humble herself before the face of the Sultana. Itwas all of no use. The yells of the wild Bacchantes drowned every sound,and Adsalis did not even condescend to look at her.
"Ye street-sweepings!" exclaimed Adsalis passionately, "what evil spirithas entered into you that ye would thus compel the Sultana Asseki togive way before a pale doll?"
"This woman comes before thee," replied the bayadere.
"Comes before me?" said Adsalis, "wherefore, then, does she come beforeme?"
"Because she is fairer than thou."
Adsalis' face turned blood-red with rage at these words, whileGuel-Bejaze went as white as a lily, as if the other woman had robbed allher colour from her. There was shame on one side and fury on the other.To tell a haughty dame in the presence of ten, of twenty thousandpersons, that another woman is fairer than she!
"And she is more powerful than thou art," cried the enraged bayadere,accumulating insult on the head of Adsalis, "for she is the wife ofHalil Patrona."
Adsalis, in the fury of despair, raised her clenched hands towardsHeaven and could not utter a word. Impotent rage forced the tears fromher eyes; and only after these tears could she stammer:
"This is the curse of Achmed!"
When they saw the tears in the eyes of the Sultana, everyone for amoment was silent, and suddenly, amidst the stillness of that dumbmoment, from the highest window of the prison-fortress of the SevenTowers, a man's voice called loudly into the square below:
"Sultana Adsalis! Sultana Adsalis!"
"Ha! a man! a man!" cried the furious mob; and in an instant they allgazed in that direction--and then in a murmur which immediately diedaway in an awe-struck whisper: "Achmed! Achmed!"
Only Adsalis was incapable of pronouncing that name, only her mouthremained gaping open as she gazed upwards.
There at the window of the Seven Towers stood Achmed, in whose hands wasnow a far more terrible power than when they held the wand of dominion,for in his fingers now rests the power of cursing. It is sufficient nowfor him to point the finger at those he loves not, in order that theymay wither away in the bloom of their youth. Whomsoever he now breathesupon, however distant they may be, will collapse and expire, and nonecan save them; and he has but to pronounce the name of his enemies, andtorments will consume their inner parts. The destroying angel of Allahwatches over his every look, so that on whomsoever his eye may fall,that soul is instantly accursed. Since the death of Ispirizade thepeople fear him more than when he sat on the throne.
A deep silence fell upon the mob. Nobody dared to speak.
And Achmed stretched forth his hand towards Adsalis. Those who stoodaround the Sultana felt a feeling of shivering awe, and began towithdraw from her, and she herself durst not raise her eyes.
"Salute that pure woman!" cried the tremulous voice of Achmed, "doobeisance to the wife of Halil Patrona, and cover thy face before her,for she is the true consort of her husband."
And having uttered these words, Achmed withdrew from the window whitherthe noise of the crowd had enticed him, and the multitude clamoured asbefore; but now they no longer tried to force the suite of the Sultanato make way before Guel-Bejaze, but escorted Halil Patrona's wife back tothe dwelling-place of her husband.
Adsalis, desperate with rage and shame, returned to the Seraglio.Sobbing aloud, she cast herself at the feet of the Sultan, and told himof the disgrace that had befallen her.
Mahmud only smiled as he heard the whole story, but who can tell whatwas behind that smile.
"Dost thou not love me, then, that thou smilest when I weep? Ought notblood to flow because tears have flowed from my eyes?"
Mahmud gently stroked the head of the Sultana and said, still smiling:
"Oh, Adsalis! who would ever think of plucking fruit before it is_ripe_?"