In the Track of the Troops by R. M. Ballantyne (best books to read in life .TXT) 📕

roar, sprang up, seized his great sabre, and caused it to whistle over his friends with a sweep that might have severed the head of an elephant!

At this point, one of the attendants, who appeared to be newly appointed to his duties, and who had, more than once during the feast, attracted attention by his stupidity, shrank in some alarm from the side of his wild master and tumbled over a cushion.

Hamed glared at him for a moment, with a frown that was obviously not put on, and half-raised the sabre as if about to cut him down. Instantly the frown changed to a look of contempt, and almost as quickly was replaced by a gleam of fun.

“Stand forth,” said Hamed, dropping the sabre and sitting down.

The man obeyed with prompt anxiety.

“Your name?”

“Mustapha.”

“Mustapha,” repeated the Pasha, “I observe that you are a capable young fellow. You are a man of weight, as the marble floor can testify. I appoint you to the office of head steward. Go, stand up by the door.”

The man made a low obeisance and went.

“Let the household servants and slaves pass before their new superior and do him honour.”

With promptitude, and with a gravity that was intensely ludicrous—for none dared to smile in the presence of Hamed Pasha—the servants of the establishment, having been summoned, filed before the new steward and bowed to him. This ceremony over, Mustapha was ordered to go and make a list of the poultry. The poor man was here obliged to confess that he could not write.

“You can draw?” demanded the Pasha fiercely.

With some hesitation the steward admitted that he could—“a little.”

“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