CHAPTER VI.
THE BURSTING FORTH OF THE STORM.
A contrary wind was blowing across the Bosphorus, so that it was notuntil towards the evening that the Sultan arrived at Scutari, anddisembarked there at his seaside palace with his viziers, his princes,the Chief Mufti, and Ispirizade.
Though everything had quieted down close at hand, all night long couldbe heard, some distance off, in the direction of the camp, a murmuringand a tumult, the cause of which nobody could explain.
More than once the Grand Vizier sent fleet runners to the Aga of theJanissaries to inquire what was the meaning of all that noise in thecamp. Hassan replied that he himself did not understand why they were sounruly after they had heard the arrival of the Sultan and the sacredbanner everywhere proclaimed.
Shortly afterwards Ibrahim commanded him to seize all those who wouldnot remain quiet. Hassan accordingly laid his hands on sundry who cameconveniently in his way; but, for all that, the rest would pay no heedto him, and the tumult began to extend in the direction of Stambul also.
Towards midnight a ciaus reached the Kiaja with the intelligence that anumber of soldiers were coming along from the direction of Tebrif,crying as they came that the army of Kueprilizade had been scattered tothe winds by Shah Tamasip, and that they themselves were the solesurvivors of the carnage--that was why the army round Stambul waschafing and murmuring.
The Kiaja went at once in search of the Grand Vizier and told him ofthis terrible rumour.
"Impossible!" exclaimed Ibrahim. "Kueprilizade would not allow himself tobe beaten. Only a few days ago I sent him arms and reinforcements whichwere more than enough to enable him to hold his own until the main armyshould arrive.
"And even if it were true. If, in consequence of the Sultan'sprocrastination, we were to arrive too late and the whole of theprovinces of Hamadan and Kermanshan were to be lost--even then we shouldall be in the hands of Allah. Come, let us go to prayer and then tobed!"
At about the same hour, three softas awoke the Chief Mufti andIspirizade, and laid before them a letter written on parchment whichthey had discovered lying in the middle of a mosque. The letter wasapparently written with gunpowder and almost illegible.
It turned out to be an exhortation to all true Mussulmans to draw thesword in defence of Muhammad, but they were bidden beware lest, whenthey went against the foe, they left behind them, at home, the greatestfoes of all, who were none other than the Sultan's own Ministers.
"This letter deserves to be thrown into the fire," said Ispirizade, andinto the fire he threw it, there and then, and thereupon lay down tosleep with a good conscience.
The following day was Thursday, the 28th September. On that very day,twelve months before, the Sultan's eleven-year-old son had died. The daywas therefore kept as a solemn day of mourning, and a general cessationof martial exercises throughout the host was proclaimed by a flourish oftrumpets.
To many of the commanders this day of rest was a season of strictobservance. The Aga of the Janissaries withdrew to his kiosk; theKapudan Pasha had himself rowed through the canal to his country houseat Chengelkoei, having just received from a Dutch merchant a veryhandsome assortment of tulip-bulbs, which he wanted to plant out withhis own hands; the Reis-Effendi hastened to his summer residence, besidethe Sweet Waters, to take leave of his odalisks for the twentieth timeat least; and the Kiaja returned to Stambul. Each of them strictlyobserved the day--in his own peculiar manner.
But Fate had prepared for the people at large a very different sort ofobservance.
Early in the morning, at sunrise, seventeen Janissaries were standing infront of the mosque of Bajazid with Halil Patrona at their head.
In the hand of each one of them was a naked sword, and in their midststood Musli holding aloft the half-moon banner.
The people made way before them, and allowed Patrona to ascend the stepsof the mosque, and when the blast of the alarm-horns had subsided, theclear penetrating voice of the ex-pedlar was distinctly audible from endto end of the great kalan square in front of him.
"Mussulmans!" he cried, "you have duties, yes, duties laid upon you byour sacred law. We are being ruined by traitors. Fugitives from the hosthave brought us the tidings that the army of Kueprilizade has beenscattered to the winds; four thousand horses and six hundred camels,laden with provisions, have been captured by the Persians; the generalhimself has fled to Erivan, and the provinces of Hamadan and Kermanshanare once more in the possession of the enemy. And all this is going onwhile the Grand Vizier and the Chief Mufti have been arranging LanternFeasts, Processions of Palms and Illuminations in the streets of Stambulinstead of making ready the host to go to the assistance of the valiantKueprilizade! Our brethren are sent to the shambles, we hear their cries,we see their banners falter and fall into the enemy's hands, and we arenot suffered to fly to their assistance, though we stand here with drawnswords in our hands. There is treachery--treachery against Allah and HisProphet! Therefore, let every true believer forsake immediately hishandiwork, cast his awl, his hammer, and his plane aside, and seize hissword instead; let him close his booth and rally beneath our standard!"
The mob greeted these words with a savage yell, raised Patrona on itsshoulders, and carried him away through the arcades of Bezesztan piazza.Everyone hastened away to close his booth, and the whole city seemed tobe turned upside down. It was just as if a still standing lake had beenstirred violently to its lowest depths, and all the slimy monsters andhideous refuse reposing at the bottom had come to the surface; for thestreets were suddenly flooded by the unrecognised riff-raff whichvegetates in every great town, though they are out of the ken of theregular and orderly inhabitants, and only appear in the light of daywhen a sudden concussion drives them to the surface.
Yelling and howling, they accompanied Halil everywhere, only listeningto him when his escort raised him aloft on their shoulders in order thathe might address the mob.
Just at this moment they stopped in front of the house of the JanissaryAga.
"Hassan!" cried Halil curtly, disdaining to give him his official title,and thundering on the door with his fists, "Hassan, you imprisoned ourcomrades because they dared to murmur, and now you can hear roarsinstead of murmurs. Give them up, Hassan! Give them up, I say!"
Hassan, however, was no great lover of such spectacles, so he hastilyexchanged his garments for a suit of rags, and bolted through the gateof the back garden to the shores of the Bosphorus, where he huddled intoan old tub of a boat which carried him across to the camp. Then only didhe feel safe.
Meanwhile the Janissaries battered in the door of his house and releasedtheir comrades. Then they put Halil on Hassan's horse and proceeded ingreat triumph to the Etmeidan. The next instant the whole square wasalive with armed men, and they hauled the Kulkiaja caldron out of thebarracks and set it up in the midst of the mob. This was the usualsignal for the outburst of the war of fiercely contending passions toolong enchained.
"And now open the prisons!" thundered Halil, "and set free all thecaptives! Put daggers in the hands of the murderers and flaming torchesin the hands of the incendiaries, and let us go forth burning andslaying, for to-day is a day of death and lamentation."
And the mob rushed upon the prisons, tore down the railings, brokethrough bolts and bars, and whole hordes of murderers and malefactorsrushed forth into the piazza and all the adjoining streets, and the lastof all to quit the dungeon was Janaki, Halil's father-in-law. There heremained standing in the doorway as if he were afraid or ashamed, tillMusli rushed towards him and tore him away by force.
"Be not cast down, muzafir, but snatch up a sword and stand alongside ofme. No harm can come to you here. It is the turn of the Gaolers now."
In the meantime Halil had made his way to that particular dungeon wherethe loose women whom the Sultan had been graciously pleased to collectfrom all the quarters of the town to herd in one place were listening intrembling apprehension.
The doors were flung wide open, and the mob roared to the pris
oners thatall to whom liberty was dear might show a clean pair of heels,whereupon a mob of women, like a swarm of shrieking ghosts, flutteredthrough the doors and made off in every direction. Those women whostroll about the streets with uncovered faces, who paint their eyebrowsand lips for the diversion of strangers, who are shut out from the worldlike mad dogs, that they may not contaminate the people--all these womenwere now let loose! Some of them had grown old since the prison-gateshad been closed upon them, but the flame of evil passion still flickeredin their sunken eyes. Alas! what pestilence has been let loose upon theMussulman population. And thou, Halil! wilt thou be able to ride thestorm to which thou has given wings?
There he stands in the gateway! He is waiting till, in the wake of theseunspeakably vile women, his pure-souled idol, the beautiful, theinnocent Guel-Bejaze shall appear. How long she delays! All the rest havecome forth; all the rest have scattered to their various haunts, onlyone or two belated shapes are now emerging from the dungeon andhastening, after the others--creatures whom the voice of the tumult hadsurprised _en deshabille_, and who now with only half-clothed bodies andhair streaming down their backs rush screaming away. Only Guel-Bejazestill delays.
Full of anxiety Halil descends at last into the loathsome hole butdimly lit by a few round windows in the roof.
"Guel-Bejaze! Guel-Bejaze!" he moans with a stifling voice, looking allaround the dungeon, and, at the sound of his whispered words, he sees awhite mass, huddled in a corner of the far wall, feebly begin to move.He rushes to the spot. Surely it is some beggar-woman who hides her facefrom him? Gently he removes her hands from her face and in the womanrecognises his wife. The poor creature would rather not be set free forvery shame sake. She would rather remain here in the dungeon.
Speechless with agony, he raised her in his arms. The woman said not aword, gave him not a look, she only hid her face in her husband's bosomand sobbed aloud.
"Weep not! weep not!" moaned Halil, "those who have dishonoured theeshall, this very day, lie in the dust before thee, by Allah. I swear it.Thou shalt play with the heads of those who have played with thy heart,and that selfsame puffed-up Sultana who has stretched out her handagainst thee shall be glad to kiss thy hand. I, Halil Patrona, have saidit, and let me be accursed above all other Mussulmans if ever I havelied."
Then snatching up his wife in his arms he rushed out among the crowd,and exhibiting that pale and forlorn figure in the sight of all men, hecried:
"Behold, ye Mussulmans! this is my wife whom they ravished from me on mybridal night, and whom I must needs discover in the midst of this sinkof vileness and iniquity! Speak those of you who are husbands, would yoube merciful to him who dishonoured your wife after this sort?"
"Death be upon his head!" roared the furious multitude, and rollingonwards like a flood that has burst its dams it stopped a moment laterbefore a stately palace.
"Whose is this palace?" inquired Halil of the mob.
"Damad Ibrahim's," cried sundry voices from among the crowd.
"Whose is that palace, I say?" inquired Halil once more, angrily shakinghis head.
Then many of them understood the force of the question and exclaimed:
"Thine, O Halil Patrona!"
"Thine, thine, Halil!" thundered the obsequious crowd, and with thatthey rushed upon the palace, burst open the doors, and Patrona, with hiswife still clasped in his arms, forced his way in, and seeking out theharem of the Grand Vizier, commanded the odalisks of Ibrahim to bowtheir faces in the dust before their new mistress, and fulfil all herdemands. And before the door he placed a guard of honour.
Outside there was the din of battle, the roll of drums, and the blast oftrumpets; and the whole of this tempest was fanned by the faintbreathing of a sick and broken woman.