Halil the Pedlar: A Tale of Old Stambul by Mór Jókai (most important books to read .TXT) 📗

best thing to do was to summon Sulali Hassan, a former cadi of Stambul, whose name he had heard mentioned by the town-crier along with that of Halil Patrona.

They found Sulali in his summer house, and at the first summons he appeared in the Seraglio. He declared that the rebels had been playing fast and loose with his name, and that he knew nothing whatever of their wishes.

"Then take with you the Chaszeki Aga and twenty bostanjis, and go in search of Halil Patrona, and find out what he wants!" commanded the Padishah.[Pg 155]

"It is a pity to give worthy men unnecessary trouble, most glorious Sultan," said Abdi Pasha bitterly. "I am able to tell you what the rebels want, for I have seen it all written up on the walls. They demand the delivery of four of the great officers of state—myself, the Chief Mufti, the Grand Vizier, and the Kiaja. Surrender us then, O Sultan! yet surrender us not alive! but slay us first and then their mouths will be stopped. Let them glut their appetites on us. You know that no wild beast is savage when once it has been well fed."

The Sultan pretended not to hear these words. He did not even look up when the Kapudan spoke.

"Seek out Halil Patrona!" he said to the Chaszeki Aga, "and greet him in the name of the Padishah!"

What! Greet Halil Patrona in the name of the Padishah! Greet that petty huckster in the name of the master of many empires, in the name of the Prince of Princes, Shahs, Khans, and Deys, the dominator of Great Moguls! Who would have believed in the possibility of such a thing three days ago?

"Greet Halil Patrona in my name," said the Sultan, "and tell him that I will satisfy all his just demands, if he promises to dismiss his forces immediately afterwards."

The Chaszeki Aga and Sulali Hassan, with the twenty bostanjis, forced their way through the thick[Pg 156] crowd which thronged the streets till they reached the central mosque. Only nine of the twenty bostanjis were beaten to death by the mob on the way, the eleven others were fortunate enough to reach the mosque at least alive.

There, on a camel-skin spread upon the ground, sat Halil, the rebel leader, like a second Dzhengis Khan, dictating his orders and nominations to the softas sitting before him, whom he had appointed his teskeredjis.

When the Janissaries on guard informed him that the Sultan's Chaszeki Aga had arrived and wanted to speak to him, he drily replied:

"He can wait. I must attend to worthier men than he first of all."

And who, then, were these worthier men?

Well, first of all there was the old master-cobbler, Suleiman, whom they had dragged by force from his house where he had been hiding under the floor. Halil now ordered a document to be drawn up, whereby he elevated him to the rank of Reis-Effendi.

Halil Patrona, by the way, was still wearing his old Janissary uniform, the blue dolman with the salavari reaching to the knee, leaving the calves bare. The only difference was that he now wore a white heron's feather in his hat instead of a black one, and by his side hung the sword of the Grand Vizier, whose[Pg 157] palace in the Galata suburb he had levelled to the ground only an hour before.

It was with the signet in the hilt of this sword that Halil was now sealing all the public documents issued by him.

After Suleiman came Muhammad the saddle-maker. He was a sturdy, muscular fellow, who could have held his own against any two or three ordinary men. Him Halil appointed Aga.

Then came a ciaus called Orli, whom he made chief magistrate. Ibrahim, a whilom schoolmaster, who went by the name of "the Fool," he made chief Cadi of Stambul, and then catching sight of Sulali, he beckoned him forth from among the ciauses and said to him:

"Thou shalt be the Governor-General of Anatolia."

Sulali bowed to the ground by way of acknowledgment of such graciousness.

"I thank thee, Halil! Make of me what thou wilt, but listen, first of all, to the message of the Padishah which he has entrusted to me, for I am in very great doubt whether it be thou or Sultan Achmed who is now Lord of all the Moslems. Tell me, therefore, what thou dost require of the Sultan, and if thy demands be lawful and of good report they shall be granted, provided that thou dost promise to disperse thy following."[Pg 158]

Then Halil Patrona stood up before the Sulali, and with a severe and motionless countenance answered:

"Our demands are few and soon told. We demand the delivery to us of the four arch-traitors who have brought disaster upon the realm. They are the Kul Kiaja, the Kapudan Pasha, the Chief Mufti, and the Grand Vizier."

Sulali fell to shaking his head.

"You ask much, Halil!"

"I ask much, you say. To-morrow I shall ask still more. If you agree to my terms, to-morrow there shall be peace. But if you come again to me to-morrow, then there will be peace neither to-morrow nor any other morrow."

Sulali returned to the Sultan and his ministers who were still all assembled together.

Full of suspense they awaited the message of Halil.

Sulali dared not say it all at once. Only gradually did he let the cat out of the bag.

"I have found out the demands of the insurgents," said he. "They demand that the Kiaja Beg be handed over to them."

The Kiaja suddenly grew paler than a wax figure.

"Such a faithful old servant as he has been to me too," sighed Achmed. "Well, well, hand him over, and now I hope they will be satisfied."[Pg 159]

With tottering footsteps the Kiaja stepped among the bostanjis.

"They demand yet more," said Sulali.

"What! more?"

"They demand the Kapudan Pasha."

"Him also. My most valiant seaman!" exclaimed Achmed sorrowfully.

"Mashallah!" cried the Kapudan cheerfully, "I am theirs," and with a look of determined courage he stepped forth and also joined the bostanjis. "Weep not on my account, oh Padishah! A brave man is always ready to die a heroic death in the place of danger, and shall I not, moreover, be dying in your defence? Hale us away, bostanjis; do not tremble, my sons. Which of you best understands to twist the string? Come, come, fear nothing, I will show you myself how to arrange the silken cord properly. Long live the Sultan!"

And with that he quitted the room, rather leading the bostanjis than being led by them, he did not even lay aside his sword.

"Then, too, they demanded the Grand Vizier and the Chief Mufti," said Sulali.

The Sultan, full of horror, rose from his place.

"No, no, it cannot be. You must have heard their words amiss. He from whom you required an answer must needs have been mad, he spoke in his wrath.[Pg 160] What! I am to slay the Grand Vizier and the Chief Mufti? Slay them, too, for faults which I myself have committed—faults against which they wished to warn me? Why, their blood would cry to Heaven against me. Go back, Sulali, and say to Halil that I beg, I implore him not to insist that these two grey heads shall roll in the dust. Let it suffice him if they are deprived of their offices and banished from the realm, for indeed they are guiltless. Entreat him, also, for the Kiaja and the Kapudan; they shall not be surrendered until you return."

Again Sulali sought out Halil. He durst not say a word concerning the Kiaja and the Kapudan. He knew that it was the Kapudan who had seized upon Halil's wife when she was attempting to escape by sea, and that it was the Kiaja who had had her shut up in the dungeon set apart for shameless women. He confined himself therefore to pleading for the Grand Vizier and the Chief Mufti.

Halil reflected. The incidents which had happened in the palace by the Sweet Waters all passed through his mind. He bethought him how Damad Ibrahim had forced his embraces upon Gül-Bejáze, and compelled her to resort to the stratagem of the death-swoon, and he gave no heed to what Sulali said about sparing Ibrahim's grey beard.

"The Grand Vizier must die," he answered. "As[Pg 161] for Abdullah, he may remain alive, but he must be banished." After all, Abdullah had done no harm to Gül-Bejáze.

Sulali returned to the Seraglio.

"Halil permits the Chief Mufti to live, but he demands death for the three others," said he.

At these words Achmed sprang from the divan like a lion brought to bay and drew his sword.

"Come hither, then, valiant rebels, as ye are!" cried he. "If you want the heads of my servants, come for them, and take them from me. No, not a drop of their blood will I give you, and if you dare to come for them ye shall see that the sword of Mohammed has still an edge upon it. Unfurl the banner of the Prophet in front of the gate of the Seraglio. Let all true believers cleave to me. Send criers into all the streets to announce that the Seraglio is in danger, and let all to whom the countenance of Allah is dear hasten to the defence of the Banner! I will collect the bostanjis and defend the gates of the Seraglio."

The two grey beards kissed the Sultan's hand. If this manly burst of emotion had only come a little earlier, the page of history would have borne a very different record of Sultan Achmed.

The Banner of Danger was immediately hung out in the central gate of the Seraglio, and there it remained till early the next evening.[Pg 162]

At dawn the criers returned and reported that they had not been able to get beyond the mosque of St. Sophia, and that the people had responded to their crying with showers of stones.

The Green Banner waved all by itself in front of the Seraglio. Nobody assembled beneath it, even the wind disdained to flutter it, languidly it drooped upon its staff.

The unfurling of the Green Banner on the gate of the Seraglio is a rare event in history. As a rule it only happens in the time of greatest danger, for it signifies that the time has come for every true Mussulman to quit hearth and home, his shop and his plough, snatch up his weapons, and hasten to the assistance of Allah and his Anointed, and accursed would be reckoned every male Osmanli who should hesitate at such a time to lay down his life and his estate at the feet of the Padishah.

Knowing this to be so, imagine then the extremity of terror into which the dwellers in the Seraglio were plunged when they saw that not a single soul rallied beneath the exposed banner. The criers promised a gratuity of thirty piastres to every soldier who hastened to range himself beneath the banner, and two piastres a day over and above the usual pay. And some five or six fellows followed them, but as many as came in on one side went away again on the[Pg 163] other, and in the afternoon not a single soul remained beneath the banner.

Towards evening the banner was hoisted on to the second gate beneath which were the dormitories of the high officers of state. The generals meanwhile slept in the Hall of Audience, Damadzadi lay sick in the apartment of Prince Murad, and the Mufti and the Ulemas remained in the barracks of the bostanjis. Sultan Achmed did not lie down all night long, but wandered about from room to room, impatiently inquiring after news outside. He asked whether anyone had come from the host to his assistance? whether the people were assembling beneath the Sacred Green Banner? and the cold sweat stood out upon his forehead when, in reply to all his questions, he only received one crushing answer after another. The watchers placed on the roof of the palace signified that the bivouac fires of the insurgents were now much nearer than they had been the night before, and that in the direction of Scutari not a single watch-fire was visible, from which it might be suspected that the army had broken up its camp, returned to Stambul, and made common cause with the insurgents.

Achmed himself ascended to the roof to persuade himself of the truth of these assertions, and wandered in a speechless agony of grief from apartment to apartment, constantly looking to see whether the[Pg 164] Kiaja, the Kapudan, and the Grand Vizier were asleep or awake. Only the Kapudan Pasha was able to sleep at all. The Kiaja was all