THE SILVER PEDESTAL IN FRONT OF THE SERAGLIO
The emissaries of Kurshid Pasha received the veteran warrior with
great respect in the gates of the fortress, whither he went to meet
them; they showed him all the honor due to his rank; they allowed him
to retain his sword and all his other weapons. At the same time they
confirmed by word of mouth the promise which Kurshid Pasha had given
to Eminah in writing--that the executioner should never lay his hand
on Ali's head, and that he should not die a violent death, except it
were in an honorable duel or on the battle-field, which is a delight
to a true Mussulman.
A former pleasure-house, a kiosk on the island of La Gulia, was
assigned to him as a residence for the future. There they conveyed his
favorite horses, his favorite slaves and birds, and took abundant care
of his personal comfort.
Ali allowed them to do with him as they would. Neither threatening nor
pleasant faces made any impression upon him; he merely looked from
time to time at his wife, who had seized his hand, and never left him
for an instant. At such times softer, gentler feelings were legible in
his face; but at other times he would gaze steadily before him into
the distance, into infinity. Perhaps he was now thinking within
himself, "When shall I stand in front of the Seraglio on a silver
pedestal?"
The _dzhin_ of Seleucia had prophesied this termination to his career.
All the other prophecies had been strictly fulfilled; this only
remained to be accomplished.
A Mussulman's promise is stronger than his oath. Who does not remember
the story of the Moorish chieftain in whose house a Christian soldier
had taken refuge, and who begged for his protection? The Moor promised
the man his protection. Subsequently the pursuers informed the Moor
that this Christian soldier had killed his son, and still the father
would not give up the fugitive, but assisted him to escape, because of
his promise.
"A great lord is the sea," says the Kuran; "a great lord is the storm
and the pestilence; but a greater lord still is a man's given word,
from which there is no escape."
The Mussulman keeps his word, but beware of a play upon words, for
therein lies death. If he has sworn by the sun, avoid the moon, and if
he has promised to love thee as a brother, discover first whether he
hath not slain his brother.
When Sulaiman adopted Ibrahim as a son, he swore that so long as he
lived no harm should befall Ibrahim. Later on, when Ibrahim fell into
disgrace, the wise Ulemas discovered a text in the Kuran according to
which he who sleeps is not alive, and they slew Ibrahim while Sulaiman
slept.
Kurshid had given his word and a written assurance that Ali should not
die at the hand of the executioner; the document he had given to
Ali's wife, his word he had given in the presence of his whole army;
and he had escorted Ali Pasha with all due honor to the island kiosk,
permitting him to retain his weapons and the jewelled sword with which
he had won so many victories, with which he had so many times turned
the tide of the battle; nay, more, they had selected fifty of Ali's
own warriors, the bravest and the most faithful, to serve him as a
guard of honor.
Nevertheless, a courier despatched in hot haste to Stambul announced
there, from Kurshid Pasha, that the treasures of Ali Tepelenti of
Janina were in his hands, and that a Tartar horseman would follow in
three days with the head of the old pasha. And yet at this very moment
Tepelenti's head stood firmly on his shoulders, and who would dare to
say that that head was promised away while his good sword was by his
side, and good comrades in arms were around him, and the sworn
assurance of the seraskier rested upon him?
Eminah never quitted him for a moment. She was always with him. She
sat beside him, with her head on his breast, or at his feet, and in
her hand she carried the amnesty of the seraskier, so that if any one
should approach Ali with dangerous designs she might hold it before
his eyes like a magic buckler, and ward off the axe of the executioner
from his head.
But there was nothing to guard against; the executioner did not
approach Ali. He received, indeed, a great many visitors, but these
were all worthy, honorable men, musirs, effendis, officers of the
army, who treated him with all respect, and sipped their sherbet-cups
most politely, and smoked their fragrant chibooks, exchanging a word
or two now and then, perhaps, and on taking their leave saluted him in
a manner befitting grave Mussulmans.
He was allowed free access to every part of the island, and never
encountered anybody there but his own warriors.
At such times great ideas would occur to him. Perchance with these
fifty men he might win back everything once more? And then he would
hug himself with the thought of the silver pedestal in front of the
Seraglio, where he was one day to stand, amidst the joyful plaudits of
the people; and then the night before him was not altogether dark, for
here and there he saw a gleam of hope.
It was only Eminah who trembled. God has created woman for this very
purpose; she has the faculty of fearing instead of man, and can
foresee the danger that threatens him.
Whence will this danger come, and in what shape? Perchance in the
dagger of the assassin? The woman's bosom stood between it and the
heart of Ali; the assassin will not be able to pierce it. In a
poisoned cup, perhaps? Eminah herself tastes of every dish, of every
glass, before they reach the hands of Ali; the power of the poison
would reach her first.
And yet danger is near.
One day they told Ali that an illustrious visitor was coming to see
him; Mehemet Pasha, the sub-seraskier and governor of the Morea,
wished to pay his respects to him.
This was a great honor for the fallen general. Ali began to be
sensible that even his enemies respected him. Who knows? he might find
good friends amongst his very enemies, who would not think him too
old for use and employment even in his last remaining years.
On the day of the visit, the kiosk was swept and garnished. Tepelenti
put on his most costly caftan, his warriors were marshalled in front
of his dwelling, and he himself went out on horseback to meet the
seraskier when he arrived, with an escort of one hundred mounted
spahis.
Mehemet Pasha was a tall, powerful man, the hero of many a fight and
many a duel. He had often given proof of his dexterity, when the
hostile armies stood face to face, by galloping betwixt them and
challenging the bravest warriors on the other side to single combat,
and the fact that he was alive at the present moment was the best
possible proof that he had been always victorious.
The two heroes exchanged greetings when they met, and returned
together to the pleasure-house. Ali conducted the sub-seraskier into
the inner apartments; the attendants remained outside.
A richly spread table awaited them, and they were waited upon by a
group of young odalisks, the hand-maidens of Eminah, who sat at Ali's
feet on the left-hand side, and, as usual, tasted of every dish and
cup before she gave it to Ali.
Pleasant conversation filled the intervals of the repast, and at the
end of it a mess of preserved pistachios was brought in and presented
to Mehemet Pasha.
"I thank thee," said he, "and, indeed, I am very fond of them, but
piquant, hot-spiced meats always awaken within me sinful desires and a
longing for wine which is forbidden by the Prophet, and, as a good
Mussulman, I would rather avoid the occasion of sinning than suffer
the affliction of a late repentance."
Ali laughed aloud.
"Eat and be of good cheer, valiant seraskier," said he, "and set thy
mind at rest. What I give thee shall be wine and yet not wine--the
juice of the grape, yet still unfermented; 'tis an invention of the
Franks. This the Prophet does not forbid.[12] I have still got a case
of bottles thereof, which Bunaberdi[13] formerly sent me, and we will
now break it open in thy honor. Truly fizz is not wine, but only the
juice of the grape which they bottle before it becomes wine. It is as
harmless as milk."
[Footnote 12: The Moslems do not include French "fizz" amongst the
canonically forbidden drinks.]
[Footnote 13: Bonaparte.]
Mehemet shook his head and laughed, from which one could see that the
proposition was not displeasing to him, whereupon Ali beckoned to the
odalisks to fetch the bottles from the cellar.
Eminah, all trembling, bent over him and whispered, imploringly, "Oh,
put not wine on thy table; it will be dangerous to thee!"
Ali smiled, and stroked his wife's head. He thought that only
religious scruples made her dissuade him from drinking the wine, so he
drew her upon his bosom and began to reassure her.
"Say now, my one and only flower, is not Moses a prophet, like unto
Muhammad?"
"Of a truth he is. His tent stands beside the tent of Muhammad in the
Paradise of the true Believers."
"And yet Moses said: Give wine to them that be sorrowful! Leave the
matter then to the two prophets up above there; surely, what passes
thorough our lips does not make us sin?"
But that was not the reason why Eminah feared the wine.
They brought the bottles, and the liberated corks popped merrily. At
first Mehemet Pasha hesitated, but they filled his glass with fizz
and, to prevent the sparkling foam from running over, he sipped a
little of it, and quickly drained the glass, maintaining afterwards,
with a smile, that it was a similar drink to wine, but much more
pleasant.
Ali filled once more the glass of the seraskier, while Eminah
tremulously watched his features, which gradually grew darker as he
drank. Drink has this effect on some men.
Suddenly the sub-seraskier dashed his glass upon the table and
exclaimed, with a furious expression of countenance:
"I'll drink no more! I'll drink no more! Thou art a villain, Ali! Thou
hast made me drink wine and hast lied to me, saying it was not wine;
but it is wine, a frightful, burning drink, which has made my head
whirl."
"Come, come, Mehemet," said Ali, in the coaxing tone one uses to
drunken men, "be not so wrathful."
"Speak not to me, thou dog!" thundered the other, striking the table
with his fist. "I might have known when I dismounted at thy door with
whom I had to do, thou sly, treacherous fox, thou godless renegade!"
Ali leaped from his seat with flashing eyes, and clapped his hand on
the hilt of his sword at these words; but Eminah seized his hand, and
said to him, in a terrified whisper:
"Draw not thy sword, Ali; show no weapons here! Dost thou not perceive
that he only came hither to fasten a quarrel upon thee?"
Ali instantly recovered himself at these words. He saw now the snare
that had been laid for him, and calmly sat down in his place again,
crossing his legs beneath him, and, quietly taking up his chibook,
began to smoke with an air of unconcern.
Meanwhile, Mehemet played his drunken _rôle_ still further.
"I might have known beforehand, when I sat down at table with thee,
that I was sitting down with an accursed wretch, thou blood-thirsty
dog, who hath lapped up the blood of thy kinsfolk; but I never
ventured to imagine that thou wouldst be audacious enough to make me
drink that abominable liquid--may its sinfulness fall back again on
thine accursed head!"
With these words Mehemet caught up the half full glass and pitched all
the wine that was in it straight between Ali's eyes, so that it
trickled down the full length of his long white beard.
Ali, with the utmost _sang-froid_, beckoned to the attendant odalisks
to place before him a bowl of fresh water, in which he washed his face
and beard. He did not answer the sub-seraskier a single word.
Mehemet planted himself in front of him with a contemptuous
expression.
"Wretched worm! that can wipe away such an insult so tamely! Thou wert
never valiant, thy heroic deeds were so many murders. Those whom thou
didst slay, thou didst butcher as doth a headsman. Thou couldst
surprise like a thief, but to fight like a man was never thy way, and
the blood that stains thee is the blood of fettered slaves. Thou
abominable thing! The very victory is abominable which we have gained
over such a writhing worm as thou art. I should pity my sword if it
ever came into contact with thine. Let others say if they will that
they have conquered Ali, I will only say that I have struck Ali
Tepelenti in the face."
"By Allah, the one true God, that thou shall never say!" thundered
Ali, leaping from his seat; and quickly drawing his sword, he whirled
it like a glittering circle through the air.
Mehemet retreated a step backward, and drew his Damascus blade with a
satisfied air.
"Fight not, Ali; go inside!" exclaimed Eminah, violently seizing Ali
by the sword-arm.
Tepelenti shook her off and, with his sword flashing above his head,
fell upon the sub-seraskier. Mehemet parried the stroke with his
sword, and the next instant a huge jet of blood leaped into the air
from Ali's shoulder.
Eminah, full of despair, flung herself between the combatants. She saw
that Ali was bleeding profusely, and throwing one arm around his knee,
with the other hand she held up before the seraskier the amnesty of
Kurshid Pasha.
"Look at that! The general swore that Tepelenti should not be slain."
"Not by the executioner," replied Mehemet; "but he did not guarantee
him against the sword of a warrior. Come, thou coward! or wilt thou
hide behind the petticoat of thy wife?"
Eminah stretched out her arms towards Ali, but the old man thrust her
aside and rushed upon Mehemet Pasha once more; but before he could
reach him another thrust pierced him through the heart. Without a sob
he collapsed at the feet of his foe.
The terrified odalisks rushed shrieking into the camp, whilst outside
a bloody combat began between the warriors of Mehemet and the warriors
of Ali. The former were numerous, so it was not long before
Tepelenti's guards were cut down, and Mehemet, with a contented
countenance, returned to camp. A silken-net bag was hanging to his
saddle-bow, and in it was the head of Ali.
Kurshid Pasha washed his hand when the head was placed before him.
"I was not the cause of thy death!" he cried. "I guaranteed thee
against the headsman, but not against the sword of warriors. Why didst
thou provoke the lion?"
On the day fixed, beforehand, the Tartar horseman arrived in Stambul
with the head of Ali. The hours of his life had been calculated
exactly. An astronomer who determines the distances between
constellation and constellation is not more accurate in his
calculations than was Kurshid in determining the date of his enemy's
death.
On that day the Sultan held high festival.
The Tsirogan palace, the Seraglio, all the fountains were illuminated,
and Ali's head was carried through the principal streets of the town
in triumphal procession, and finally exhibited on a silver salver in
front of the middle gate of the Seraglio in the sight of all the
people.
So there he stood at last, on a silver pedestal in front of the
Seraglio. And the prophecy was fulfilled which had said, "A time will
come when thou shalt be in two places at once, in Stambul and in
Janina!" So it was.
Ali's dead body was buried at Janina, and his head, at the same time,
was standing in front of the Seraglio. At Janina, a single mourning
woman was weeping over the headless corpse; at Stambul a hundred
thousand inquisitive idlers were shouting around the bodyless head.
At that gate where the head of Ali was exhibited the throng was so
great that many people were crushed to death by the gaping
sight-seers, who had all come hither to stare at the gray-bearded
face, before whose wrathful look a whole realm had trembled.
At last, on the evening of the third day, when the well-feasted mob
had stared their fill and begun to disperse, there drew nigh to the
gate of the Seraglio an old yellow-faced fakir who, from the
appearance of his eyes, was evidently blind. His clothing consisted of
a simple sackcloth mantle, girded lightly round the waist by a cotton
girdle, from which hung a long roll of manuscript; on his head he wore
a high mortar-shaped hat, the distinguishing mark of the Omarites.
All the people standing about respectfully made way for him as, with
downcast eyes and hands stretched forth, he groped his way along, and,
without any one guiding him, made his way straight up to Tepelenti's
head.
There he stood and laid his right hand on the severed head, none
preventing him.
And lo! it seemed to those who stood round as if the severed head
slowly opened its eyes and looked upon the new-comer with cold, stony,
stiff, dim eyeballs. This only lasted for a moment, and then the
Omarite took his hand off the head and the eyes closed again. Perhaps
it was but an illusion, after all!
Then the dervish spoke. His deep, grave voice sank into the hearts of
all who heard him: "Go to Mahmoud, and tell him that I have bought
from him the head of Ali Pasha and the heads of his three sons,
Sulaiman, Vely, and Mukhtar, and a whole empire is the price I pay him
therefor."
"What empire art thou able to give?" inquired the captain of the
ciauses who were guarding the head.
"That which is the fairest of all, that which is nearest to his heart,
that which he had the least hope of--his own empire."
These bold words were reported to the Sultan, and the Grand Signior
summoned the Omarite dervish to the palace, and shut himself up alone
with him till late at night. When the muezzin intoned the fifth
namazat, towards midnight, Mahmoud dismissed the dervish. What they
said to each other remained a secret known only to themselves. The
fakir, on emerging from the Sultan's dressing-room, plucked a piece of
coal from a censer, and wrote on the white alabaster wall this
sentence, "Rather be a head without a hand than a hand without a
head," and nobody but the Sultan understood that saying.
Mahmoud commanded that nine purses of gold should be given to the
dervish; he gave him also the heads of Ali and of Ali's three sons.
The dervish left the Seraglio with the four heads and the nine
purses. With the nine purses he bought an empty field in front of the
Selembrian gate and planted it with cypress-trees, and at the foot of
every cypress he set up a white turbaned tombstone--there were
hundreds and hundreds side-by-side without inscriptions. He said, too,
that it would not be long before the owners of these tombs arrived. In
the middle of this cemetery, moreover, he dug a wide grave, and in it
he buried the heads of Ali's three sons, with their father's head in
the middle. He erected four turbaned tombstones over them, two at the
head and two at the foot of the grave, and on the largest of these
tombstones was written: "Here lies the valiant Ali Tepelenti, Pasha of
Janina, leaving behind him many other warriors who deserve death just
as much as he."
The people murmured because of what was written on the tomb, but who
durst obliterate what is inscribed on the dwellings of the dead?
There the mysterious inscription remained on the tomb for four years,
and in the fourth year its meaning was revealed.
Now this dervish was the _dzhin_ of Seleucia.