"Go then, draw the poultry, every cock and hen and chicken," said the
Pasha, with a wave of his hand which dismissed the household servants
and sent the luckless steward to his task.
After this pipes were refilled, fresh stories were told, and more songs
were sung. After a considerable time Mustapha returned with a large
sheet of paper covered with hieroglyphics. The man looked timid as he
approached and presented it to his master.
The Pasha seized the sheet. "What have we here?" he demanded sternly.
The man said it was portraits of the cocks and hens.
"Ha!" exclaimed the Pasha, "a portrait-gallery of poultry--eh!"
He held the sheet at arm's-length, and regarded it with a fierce frown;
but his lips twitched, and suddenly relaxed into a broad grin, causing a
tremendous display of white teeth and red gums.
"Poultry! ha! just so. What is this?"
He pointed to an object with a curling tail, which Mustapha assured him
was a cock.
"What! a cock? where is the comb? Who ever heard of a cock without a
comb, eh? And that, what is that?"
Mustapha ventured to assert that it was a chicken.
"A chicken," cried the Pasha fiercely; "more like a dromedary. You
rascal! did you not say that you could draw? Go! deceiver, you are
deposed. Have him out and set him to cleanse the hen-house, and woe
betide you if it is not as clean as your own conscience before to-morrow
morning--away!"
The Pasha shouted the last word, and then fell back in fits of laughter;
while the terrified man fled to the hen-house, and drove its occupants
frantic in his wild attempts to cleanse their Augean stable.
It was not until midnight that Sanda Pasha and Lancey, taking leave of
Hamed and his guests, returned home.
"Come, follow me," said the Pasha, on entering the palace.
He led Lancey to the room in which they had first met, and, seating
himself on a divan, lighted his chibouk.
"Sit down," he said, pointing to a cushion that lay near him on the
marble floor.
Lancey, although unaccustomed to such a low seat, obeyed.
"Smoke," said the Pasha, handing a cigarette to his guest.
Lancey took the cigarette, but at this point his honest soul recoiled
from the part he seemed to be playing. He rose, and, laying the
cigarette respectfully on the ground, said--
"Sanda Pasha, it's not for the likes o' me to be sittin' 'ere smokin'
with the likes o' you, sir. There's some mistake 'ere, hobviously.
I've been treated with the consideration doo to a prince since I fell
into the 'ands of the Turks, and it is right that I should at once
correct this mistake, w'ich I'd 'ave done long ago if I could 'ave got
the Turks who've 'ad charge of me to understand Hinglish. I'm bound to
tell you, sir, that I'm on'y a groom in a Hinglish family, and makes no
pretence to be hanythink else, though circumstances 'as putt me in a
false position since I come 'ere. I 'ope your Pashaship won't think me
ungracious, sir, but I can't a-bear to sail under false colours."
To this speech Sanda Pasha listened with profound gravity, and puffed an
enormous cloud from his lips at its conclusion.
"Sit down," he said sternly.
Lancey obeyed.
"Light your cigarette."
There was a tone of authority in the Pasha's voice which Lancey did not
dare to resist. He lighted the cigarette.
"Look me in the _face_," said the Pasha suddenly, turning his piercing
grey eyes full on him guest.
Supposing that this was a prelude to an expression of doubt as to his
honesty, Lancey did look the Pasha full in the face, and returned his
stare with interest.
"Do you see this cut over the bridge of my nose?" demanded the Pasha.
Lancey saw it, and admitted that it must have been a bad one.
"And do you see the light that is blazing in these two eyes?" he added,
pointing to his own glowing orbs with a touch of excitement.
Lancey admitted that he saw the light, and began to suspect that the
Pasha was mad. At the same time he was struck by the sudden and very
great improvement in his friend's English.
"But for _you_," continued the Pasha, partly raising himself, "that cut
had never been, and the light of those eyes would now be quenched in
death!"
The Pasha looked at his guest more fixedly than ever, and Lancey, now
feeling convinced of his entertainer's madness, began to think uneasily
of the best way to humour him.
"Twenty years ago," continued the Pasha slowly and with a touch of
pathos in his tone, "I received this cut from a boy in a fight at
school," (Lancey thought that the boy must have been a bold fellow),
"and only the other day I was rescued by a man from the waters of the
Danube." (Lancey thought that, on the whole, it would have been well if
the man had left him to drown.) "The name of the boy and the name of the
man was the same. It was Jacob Lancey!"
Lancey's eyes opened and his lower jaw dropped. He sat on his cushion
aghast.
"Jacob Lancey," continued the Pasha in a familiar tone that sent a
thrill to the heart of his visitor, "hae ye forgotten your auld Scotch
freen' and school-mate Sandy? In Sanda Pasha you behold Sandy Black!"
Lancey sprang to his knees--the low couch rendering that attitude
natural--grasped the Pasha's extended hand, and gazed wistfully into his
eyes.
"Oh Sandy, Sandy!" he said, in a voice of forced calmness, while he
shook his head reproachfully, "many and many a time 'ave I prophesied
that you would become a great man, but little did I think that you'd
come to this--a May'omedan and a Turk."
Unable to say more, Lancey sat down on his cushion, clasped his hands
over his knees, and gazed fixedly at his old friend and former idol.
"Lancey, my boy--it is quite refreshing to use these old familiar words
again,--I am no more a Mohammedan than you are."
"Then you're a 'ypocrite," replied the other promptly.
"By no means,--at least I hope not," said the Pasha, with a smile and a
slightly troubled look. "Surely there is a wide space between a
thoroughly honest man and an out-and-out hypocrite. I came here with no
religion at all. They took me by the hand and treated me kindly.
Knowing nothing, I took to anything they chose to teach me. What could
a youth do? Now I am what I am, and I cannot change it."
Lancey knew not what to reply to this. Laying his hand on the rich
sleeve of the Pasha he began in the old tone and in the fulness of his
heart.
"Sandy, my old friend, as I used to all but worship, nominal May'omedan
though you be, it's right glad I am to--" words failed him here.
"Well, well," said the Pasha, smiling, and drawing a great cloud from
his chibouk, "I'm as glad as yourself, and not the less so that I've
been able to do you some small service in the way of preventing your
neck from being stretched; and that brings me to the chief point for
which I have brought you to my palace, namely, to talk about matters
which concern yourself, for it is obvious that you cannot remain in this
country in time of war with safety unless you have some fixed position.
Tell me, now, where you have been and what doing since we last met in
Scotland, and I will tell you what can be done for you in Turkey."
Hereupon Lancey began a long-winded and particular account of his life
during the last twenty years. The Pasha smoked and listened with grave
interest. When the recital was finished he rose.
"Now, Lancey," said he, "it is time that you and I were asleep. In the
morning I have business to attend to. When it is done we will continue
our talk. Meanwhile let me say that I see many little ways in which you
can serve the Turks, if you are so minded."
"Sandy Black," said Lancey, rising with a look of dignity, "you are very
kind--just what I would 'ave expected of you--but you must clearly
understand that I will serve only in works of 'umanity. In a milingtary
capacity I will serve neither the Turks nor the Roossians."
"Quite right, my old friend, I will not ask military service of you, so
good-night. By the way, it may be as well to remind you that, except
between ourselves, I am not Sandy Black but Sanda Pasha,--you
understand?"
With an arch smile the Pasha laid down his chibouk and left the room,
and the black attendant conducted Lancey to his bedroom. The same
attendant took him, the following morning after breakfast, to the
Pasha's "Selamlik" or "Place of Salutations," in order that he might see
how business matters were transacted in Turkey.
The Selamlik was a large handsome room filled with men, both with and
without turbans, who had come either to solicit a favour or a post, or
to press on some private business. On the entrance of the Pasha every
one rose. When he was seated, there began a curious scene of bowing to
the ground and touching, by each person present, of the mouth and head
with the hand. This lasted full five minutes.
Sanda Pasha then received a number of business papers from an officer of
the household, to which he applied himself with great apparent
earnestness, paying no attention whatever to his visitors. Lancey
observed, however, that his absorbed condition did not prevent a few of
these visitors, apparently of superior rank, from approaching and
whispering in his ear. To some of them he was gracious, to others cool,
as they severally stated the nature of their business. No one else
dared to approach until the reading of the papers was finished.
Suddenly the Pasha appeared to get weary of his papers. He tossed them
aside, ordered his carriage, rose hastily, and left the room. But this
uncourteous behaviour did not appear to disconcert those who awaited his
pleasure. Probably, like eels, they had got used to rough treatment.
Some of them ran after the Pasha and tried to urge their suits in a few
rapid sentences, others went off with a sigh or a growl, resolving to
repeat the visit another day, while Sanda himself was whirled along at
full speed to the Sublime Porte, to hold council with the Ministers of
State on the arrangements for the war that had by that time begun to
rage along the whole line of the Lower Danube--the Russians having
effected a crossing in several places.
After enjoying himself for several days in the palace of his old
school-mate, my worthy servant, being resolved not to quit the country
until he had done his utmost to discover whether I was alive or drowned,
accepted the offer of a situation as cook to one of the Turkish
Ambulance Corps. Having received a suitable change of garments, with a
private pass, and recommendations from the Pasha, he was despatched with
a large body of recruits and supplies to the front.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1. A similar establishment to this was, not long ago, described by
the "correspondent" of a well-known Journal.