MOLE PASHA ASTONISHES THE NATIVES STILL MORE--THE ORDER OF THE GLASS
BUTTON.
"I am all attention," replied the lieutenant.
"I came from a land," said Mr. Mole, with a grandiloquent flourish,
"where we despise physical suffering."
The august Turks around were filled with wonder and with admiration for
the speaker.
After what they had witnessed, they were prepared to credit Mr. Mole's
most extravagant assertions.
"Would you have some further proof of my great courage?" demanded Mr.
Mole, folding his arms and striking a defiant attitude.
"Brave man, what more can you show us of your courage?" was the reply.
"Behold!" cried Mole.
The whole assembly eyed Mr. Mole's movements with the greatest
curiosity now.
"Bring me a dozen sharp implements, such as swords, knives, daggers,
etc, etc."
They were brought to him, and he then laid them down in a row upon the
carpet.
The first was a needle of the dimensions of an ordinary bodkin.
Next this, was a small iron skewer.
After this came a long-bladed dagger knife.
And finally, there was a cut-and-thrust sword of alarming dimensions.
"You shall see now," said Mole, sternly, "how I can despise such
trivialities as your bastinado."
What was he about to do now?
In solemn silence, Mr. Mole bared his right calf, then requested the
company of his black servant Tinker, who was still in the hall.
The request was granted.
"Tinker."
"Yes, Massa Mole."
"Go and fetch me----"
Here he sank his voice to a whisper, and the rest of his instructions
were heard by no one save the darkey, for whom they were intended.
In the course of a few moments, Tinker returned and passed something
slyly into Mr. Mole's hand.
It was a small sponge in an oil-skin bag.
Yet it appeared to be saturated with something, to judge by the way it
was handled, for Mr. Mole slyly put it in his pocket.
Mr. Mole then took up the smallest of the row of implements just
described.
"Behold what an Englishman can do!"
And then to the amazement of the spectators, he thrust the needle into
the thick part of his calf.
A quiet smile played about the corners of his mouth.
But no sign of the slightest suffering.
"Judge how much your bastinado can affect me," he said, with superb
disdain.
"Allah be praised!" ejaculated the Turk; "wondrous man."
"Behold," pursued Mole, picking up the skewer.
He passed it fairly through his calf, and stood there with his foot
firmly planted on the ground, gazing about him like another "monarch of
all he surveyed."
"Look again."
And Mole took up a large nail, and hammered it into his foot, so that
he was pinned to the floor.
"Allah be praised!" again shouted the Turks.
"One more proof," he said, disdainfully.
He picked up another dagger, and pushed it resolutely into the ill-used
leg.
At the same time he held the calf with his left hand, in which he
concealed, with considerable dexterity, the sponge which Tinker had
brought him.
Blood now trickled slowly through Mr. Mole's fingers, and ran down his
legs and feet.
A thrill of terror passed through the assemblage.
"Yet another proof," exclaimed Mole, grandly.
"No more, no more," exclaimed the Turk.
Mole withdrew the nail from his foot, and the dagger from his leg, and
seizing the sword, he thrust it with ferocious energy into the other
mutilated leg.
He pressed his hand to the wound, and the blood flowed out in a small
torrent, while the spectators groaned.
Mole looked round him proudly--defiantly.
Had he just conquered on the field of Waterloo, he could not have shown
a greater apparent belief in himself.
He smiled sardonically as he bound up the wounded legs with his scarf.
Mr. Mole here nearly spoilt his exhibition of his marvellous power of
endurance, for pricking his finger accidentally with a pin, he sang out
lustily, much to the astonishment of the Turks.
But he was lucky to recover himself in time before the Turks could
divine what had occurred.
"You must invent something more violent than any punishment I have yet
seen here, if you would subdue the soul of Isaac Mole."
And he strode along with the air of the heavy man in a transpontine
melodrama.
The marvellous exhibition of endurance aroused the phlegmatic Turk to
real enthusiasm.
"Mole Pasha," he exclaimed, "you are a great hero. I shall seek an
audience of his highness the Sultan, and beg of him for you some mark
of distinction, perhaps even to confer upon you the distinguished order
of the glass button."
"The glass bottle would be more in your excellency's way, Mole Pasha,"
suggested Tinker.
And henceforth when Mole walked abroad, the population was aroused.
"Behold the bravest Frank that ever lived," they said. "He is a great
hero."