The Lion of Janina Part 31

"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 G.o.d, 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 princ.i.p.al 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 ma.n.u.script; 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 eyeb.a.l.l.s. 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 n.o.body 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.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE BROKEN SWORDS

"Allah Kerim!

Allah akbar!

Great is G.o.d and mighty!"

What avails prayer if there be no longer any to hearken? What avails the bright sword if there be none to wield it? What avails the open book if there be none to understand what is written therein?

Ye nations of the half-moon! now is the time when the song of the dervishes, and the scimitar, and the dirk, and the Kuran, can help no more! From the west and from the north strange people are coming, armed warriors in serried ranks, like a wall of steel, who are set in motion, brought to a stand-still, expanded into an endless line, contracted into a solid ma.s.s by a single brief word of command. Before the charge of their bayonets the ranks of the Janissaries scatter and disperse like chaff before the wind, and before their fire-vomiting brazen tubes the flowers of Begtash's garden fall like gra.s.s before the mower. Wise men are with them, who go about in simple black coats, who know much that ye do not know; each one of whom is capable of directing a state, and who are equally triumphant on the battle-field and in the council-chamber.

In vain ye call upon the name of the Prophet, in vain do ye knock at the gate of Paradise. It is closed. Muhammad slumbers, and the other prophets no longer trouble themselves about earthly affairs. Paradise is full already. There they look askance now at new-comers, who reach the shadow of the tuba-tree without the rumor of victory. The eternally young houris, from beyond the Bridge of Alsiroth, no longer smile upon those who fall in battle, for battle has now lost its glory. Ye must be born again, or die forever.

Look now! the more far-seeing ones among you know what to do. They send their children far, far away, to the dominions of the Giaours, there to learn worldly wisdom, and prepare to make great changes in the empire.

The old dervishes, the friends of the Turks, are excluded from the Seraglio; they do but creep stealthily up and peep through the guarded gates, and compare notes with one another, "Behold! within there, they are doing the work of the stranger, they are teaching the true-believing warriors to leap to and fro at a word of command, and twirl their weapons. They have abandoned the jiride, that ever-victorious weapon, and have stuck darts at the ends of their muskets, as do the unbelievers, who dare not come within sword-distance of the enemy. It is all over, all over with the faith of Osman."

Most jealous of all these innovations were the priests of Begtash. One could every moment see them in their ragged, dirty mantles, lounging about in front of the gates of the Seraglio, impudently looking in the faces of all who go in and out; and if an imam pa.s.sed them, or one of those wise men who favored the innovations, they would spit after him, and exclaim in a loud voice, "Death to every one who proclaims the forbidden word!"

Now this forbidden word was the name "Neshandchi." The mob of Stambul had murdered Mahmoud's father because of this name, which designated a new order of soldiers, and his successor had been compelled to order that whoever p.r.o.nounced this name should be put to death.

The mob would often follow the Grand Vizier all the way to the palace, reviling him all the way, and shouting up at the windows, "Remember the end of Bajraktar!"

Bajraktar had been the Sultan's Grand Vizier fourteen years before, who had wished to reform the Turkish army, on which account a riot broke out at Stambul, which lasted till the partisans of Bajraktar were removed from office. As for Bajraktar himself, he was burned to death in one of his palaces, together with his wife and children.

Every one who took part in these mysterious and accursed deliberations in the Seraglio, from the lowliest soldier to the sacred and sublime Sultan himself, carried his life in his hands.

It had long been rumored that some great movement was on foot, and the priests of Begtash went from town to town through all the Turkish domains fanning the fanaticism of their beloved children, the Janissaries, and gradually collecting them in Stambul. In those days there were more than twenty thousand Janissaries within the walls of the capital, not including the corporation of water-carriers who generally made common cause with them in times of uproar. When their lordships, the Janissaries, set the place on fire, it was the duty of the water-carriers to put out the flames, whereupon they plundered comfortably together; hence the ancient understanding between them.

With the exception of the Ulemas, only the blind fakirs of the Omarite order were admitted into the council of the Divan, and their chief, Behram, often took counsel with the Sultan for hours together when he was alone.

On the 23d May, 1826, at the invitation of the chief mufti, all the Ulemas a.s.sembled in the Seraglio and decided unanimously that, in accordance with the words of the Kuran, it was lawful to fight the enemy with his own weapons.

Six days later they rea.s.sembled, and then the Sheik-ul-Islam laid before them a fetva, by which it was proclaimed that a standing army was to be raised for the defence of the realm. In order, however, that n.o.body might p.r.o.nounce the accursed name of Neshandchi, three names were given to the corps of the army to be raised. The first was akinji, or "rushers," these were the young conscripts; the second was taalimluaske, "practised men," these were selected from the soldiers of the Seraglio; the third name was khankiar begerdi, and designated the corps to be chosen from amongst the Janissaries. This name meant "the will of the emperor," yet the word "khankiar" means, in Turkish, by itself, "effusion of blood."