Part 14 (1/2)

Elhaj Bes.h.i.+r Aga had now held his office for fourteen years, during which time he had elevated and deposed eight Grand Viziers.

And now, how were the demands of the rebels to be discovered?

Damad Ibrahim suggested that the best thing to do was to summon Sulali Ha.s.san, 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.

”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 appet.i.tes 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 Ha.s.san, with the twenty bostanjis, forced their way through the thick 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 doc.u.ment 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 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 doc.u.ments issued by him.

After Suleiman came Muhammad the saddle-maker. He was a st.u.r.dy, 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.”

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.