Chapter 7. Tulip-Bulbs And Human Heads

________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER VII. TULIP-BULBS AND HUMAN HEADS

It is not every day that one can see budding tulips in the middle of September, yet the Kapudan Pasha had succeeded in hitting upon a dodge which the most famous gardeners in the world had for ages been racking their brains to discover, and all in vain.

The problem was--how to introduce an artificial spring into the very waist and middle of autumn, and then to get the tulip-bulbs to take September for May, and set about flowering there and then.

First of all he set about preparing a special forcing-bed of his own invention, in which he carefully mingled together the most nourishing soil formed among the Mountains of Lebanon from millennial deposits of cedar-tree spines, antelope manure, so heating and stimulating to vegetation, that wherever it falls on the desert, tiny oases, full of flowers and verdure, immediately spring up amidst the burning, drifting sand-hills, and burnt and pulverized black marble which is only to be found in the Dead Mountains. A judicious intermingling of this mixture produces a soft, porous, and exceedingly damp soil, and in this soil the Kapudan Pasha very carefully planted out his tulips with his own hands. He selected the bulbs resulting from last spring's blooms, making a hole for each of them, one by one, with his index-finger, and banking them up gingerly with earth as soft as fresh bread crumbs.

Then he had snow fetched from the summits of the Caucasus, where it remains even all through the summer--whole ship loads of snow by way of the Black Sea--and kept the tulip-bulbs well covered with it, adding continually layers of fresh snow as the first layers melted, so that the hoodwinked tulips really believed it was now winter; and when towards the end of August the snow was allowed to melt altogether, they fancied spring had come, and poked their gold-green shoots out of their well-warmed, well-moistened bed.

On the eve of the Prophet's birthday about fifty plants had begun to bloom, all of which had been named after battles in which the Mussulmans had triumphed, or after fortresses which their arms had captured. Then, however, the Kapudan Pasha was obliged to go to sea and command the fleet, in other words, he was constrained to leave his beloved tulips at the most interesting period of their existence.

On the very evening when the Sultan arrived at Scutari, one of the Kapudan Pasha's gardeners came to him with the joyful intelligence that Belgrade, Naples, Morea, and Kermanjasahan would blossom on the morrow.

The Kapudan Pasha was wild with impatience. There they all were, just on the point of blooming, and he would be unable to see it. How he would have liked a contrary wind to have kept back the fleet for a day or two.

But what the wind would not do for him, the Sultan's birthday gave him the opportunity of doing for himself. The day of rest appointed for the morrow permitted the Kapudan Pasha to get himself rowed across to his summer palace at Chengelkoei, where his marvellous tulips were about to bloom at the beginning of autumn.

What a spectacle awaited him! All four of them, yes, all four, were in full bloom!

Belgrade was pale yellow with bright green stripes, those of the stripes which were pale green on the lower were rose-coloured on the upper surface, and those of them which were bright green above died gradually away into a dark lilac colour below.

Naples was a very full tulip, whose confusingly numerous angry-red leaves, with yellow edges, symbolized, perhaps, the fifteen hundred Venetians who had fallen at its name-place beneath the arms of the Ottomans.

Morea was the richest in colour. The base of its cup was of a dark chocolate hue, with green and rose-coloured stripes all round it; moreover, the green stripes passed into red, and the rose ones into liver-colour, and a bright yellow streak of colour ran parallel with every single stripe. On the outside the green hues, inside the red rather predominated.

But the rarest, the most magnificent of the four was Kermanjasahan. This was a treasure filched from the garden of the Dalai Lama. It was snow-white, without the slightest nuance of any other colour, and of such full bloom that the original six petals were obliged to bend downwards.

The Kapudan Pasha was enraptured by all this splendour.

He had made up his mind to present all these tulips to the Sultan, for which he would no doubt receive a rich viceroyalty, perhaps even Egypt, who could tell. He therefore ordered that costly china vases should be brought to him in which he might transplant the flowers, and he dug with his hands deep down in the soil lest he should injure the bulbs.

Just as he was kneeling down in the midst of the tulips, with his hands all covered with mould, a breathless bostanji came rushing towards him at full speed, quite out of breath, and without waiting to get up to him, exclaimed while still a good distance off:

"Sir, sir, rise up quickly, for all Stambul is in a commotion."

"Take care!--don't tread upon my tulips, you blockhead; don't you see that you nearly trampled upon one of them!"

"Oh, my master! tulips bloom every year, but if you trample a man to death, Mashallah! he will rise no more. Hasten, for the rioters are already turning the city upside down!"

The Kapudan Pasha very gently, very cautiously, placed the flower, which he had raised with both hands, in the porcelain vase, and pressed the earth down on every side of it so that it might keep steady when carried.

"What dost thou say, my son?" he then condescended to ask.

"The people of Stambul have risen in revolt."

"The people of Stambul, eh? What sort of people? Do you mean the cobblers, the hucksters, the fishermen, and the bakers?"

"Yes, sir, they have all risen in revolt."

"Very well, I'll be there directly and tell them to be quiet."

"Oh, sir, you speak as if you could extinguish the burning city with this watering-can. The will of Allah be done!"

But the Kapudan Pasha, with a merry heart, kept on watering the transplanted tulips till he had done it thoroughly, and entrusted them to four bostanjis, bidding them carry the flowers through the canal to the Sultan's palace at Scutari, while he had his horse saddled and without the slightest escort trotted quite alone into Stambul, where at that very moment they were crying loudly for his head.

On the way thither, he came face to face with the Kiaja coming in a wretched, two-wheeled kibitka, with a Russian coachman sitting in front of him to hide him as much as possible from the public view. He bellowed to the Kapudan Pasha not to go to Stambul as death awaited him there. At this the Kapudan Pasha simply shrugged his shoulders. What an idea! To be frightened of an army of bakers and cobblers indeed! It was sheer nonsense, so he tried to persuade the Kiaja to turn back again with him and restore order by showing themselves to the rioters, whereupon the latter vehemently declared that not for all the joys of Paradise would he do so, and begged his Russian coachman to hasten on towards Scutari as rapidly as possible.

The Kapudan Pasha promised that he would not be very long behind him; nay, inasmuch as the Kiaja was making a very considerable detour, while he himself was taking the direct road straight through Stambul, he insinuated that it was highly probable he might reach Scutari before him.

"We shall meet again shortly," he cried by way of a parting salute.

"Yes, in Abraham's bosom, I expect," murmured the Kiaja to himself as he raced away again, while the Kapudan Pasha ambled jauntily into the city.

Already from afar he beheld the palace of the Reis-Effendi, on whose walls were inscribed in gigantic letters the following announcements:

"Death to the Chief Mufti!

"Death to the Grand Vizier!

"Death to the Kapudan Pasha!

"Death to the Kiaja Beg!"

"H'm!" said the Kapudan Pasha to himself. "No doubt that was written by some softa or other, for cobblers and tailors cannot write of course. Not a bad hand by any means. I should like to make the fellow my teskeredji."

As he trotted nearer to the palace, he perceived a great multitude surging around it, and amongst them a mounted trumpeter with one of those large Turkish field-horns which are audible a mile off, and are generally used at Stambul during every popular rising, their very note has a provocative tone.

The trumpeting herald was thus addressing the mob assembled around him:

"Inhabitants of Stambul, true-believing Mussulmans, our commander is Halil Patrona, the chief of the Janissaries, and in the name of the Stambul Cadi, Hassan Sulali, I proclaim: Let every true believing Mussulman shut up his shop, lay aside his handiwork, and assemble in the piazza; those of you, however, who are bakers of bread or sellers of flesh, keep your shops open, for whosoever resists this decree his shop will be treated as common booty. As for the unbelieving giaours at present residing at Stambul, let them remain in peace at home, for those who do not stir abroad will have no harm done to them. And this I announce to you in the names of Halil Patrona and Hassan Sulali."

The Kapudan Pasha listened to the very last word of this proclamation, then he spurred his horse upon the crier, and snatching the horn from his hand hit him a blow with it on the back, which resounded far and wide, and then with a voice of thunder addressed the suddenly pacified crowd:

"Ye worthless vagabonds, ye filthy sneak-thieves, mud-larking crab-catchers, pitchy-fingered slipper-botchers, huddling opium-eaters, swindling knacker-sellers, petty hucksters, ye ragged, filthy, whey-faced tipplers!--I, Abdi, the Kapudan Pasha, say it to you, and I only regret that I have not the tongue of a Giaour of the Hungarian race that I might be able to heap upon you all the curses and reproaches that your conduct deserves, ye dogs! What do you want then? Have you not enough to eat? Do you want war because you are tired of peace? War, indeed, though you would take good care to keep out of it. To remain at home here and wage war against women and girls is much more to your liking; booths not fortresses are what you like to storm. Be off to your homes from whence you have come, I say, for whomsoever I find in the streets an hour hence his head shall dangle in front of the Pavilion of Justice. Mark my words!"

With these words Abdi gave his horse the spur and galloped through the thickest part of the mob, which dispersed in terror before him, and with proud self-satisfaction the Kapudan Pasha saw how the people hid away from him in their houses and vanished, as if by magic, from the streets and house-tops.

He galloped into the town without opposition. At every street corner he blew a long blast in the captured horn, and addressed some well-chosen remarks to the people assembled there, which scattered them in every direction.

At last he reached the Bezesztan, where every shop was closed.

"Open your shops, ye dogs!" thundered Abdi to the assembled merchants and tradesmen. "I suppose your heels are itching?--or perhaps you are tired of having ears and noses? Open all your shop-doors this instant, I say! for whoever keeps them closed after this command shall be hanged up in front of his own shop-door!"

The shopkeepers, full of terror, began to take down their shutters forthwith.

From thence he galloped off towards the Etmeidan.

The great fishmarket, which he passed on his way, was filled with people from end to end. Not a word could be heard for the fearful din, which completely drowned the voices of a few stump-orators who here and there had climbed up the pillars near the drinking-fountains to address the mob.

Nevertheless the resonant, penetrating voice of the horn blown by the Kapudan Pasha dominated the tumult, and turned every face in his direction.

Rising in his stirrups, Abdi addressed them with a terrible voice:

"Ye fools, whose mad hands rise against your own heads! Do ye want to make the earth quake beneath you that so many of you stand in a heap in one place? What fool among you is it would drag the whole lot of you down to perdition? Would that the heavens might fall upon you!--would that these houses might bury you!--would that ye might turn into four-footed beasts who can do nothing but bark! Lower your heads, ye wretched creatures, and go and hide yourselves behind your mud-walls! And let not a single cry be heard in your streets, for if you dare to come out of your holes, I swear by the shadow of Allah that I'll make a rubbish-heap of Stambul with my guns, and none shall live in it henceforth but serpents and bats and your accursed souls, ye dogs!"

And nobody durst say him nay. They listened to his revilings in silence, gave way before him, and made a way for his prancing steed. Halil was not there, had he but been there the Kapudan Pasha would not have waited twice for an answer.

So here also Abdi succeeded in trotting through the ranks of the rioters, and so at last directed his way towards the Etmeidan.

By this time not only the caldron of the first but the caldron of the fifth Janissary regiment had been erected in the midst of the camp. They had been taken by force from the army blacksmiths, and a group of Janissaries stood round each of them.

Abdi Pasha appeared among them so unexpectedly that they were only aware of his presence when he suddenly bawled at them:

"Put down your weapons!"

They all regarded the Kapudan Pasha with fear and wonder. How had he got here? Not one of them dared to draw a sword against him, yet not one of them submitted, and everyone of them felt that Patrona was badly wanted here.

The banner of the insurgents was waving in the midst of the piazza. Abdi Pasha rode straight towards it. The Janissaries remained rooted to the spot, staring after him with astonishment.

Suddenly Musli leaped forth from amongst them, and anticipating the Kapudan, seized the flag himself.

"Give me that banner, my son!" said Abdi with all the phlegm of a true seaman.

Musli had not yet sufficiently recovered to be able to answer articulately, but he shook his head by way of intimating that surrender it he would not.

"Give me that banner, Janissary!" cried Abdi once more, sternly regarding Musli straight between the eyes.

Instead of answering Musli simply proceeded to wind the banner round its pole.

"Give me that banner!" bellowed Abdi for the third time, with a voice of thunder, at the same time drawing his sword.

But now Musli twisted the pole round so that the mud-stained end which had been sticking in the earth rose high in the air, and he said:

"I honour you, Abdi Pasha, and I will not hurt you if you go away. I would rather see you fall in battle fighting against the Giaours, for you deserve to have a glorious name; but don't ask me for this banner any more, for if you come a step nearer I will run you through the body with the dirty end."

And at these words all the other Janissaries leaped to their feet and, drawing their swords, formed a glittering circle round the valiant Musli.

"I am sorry for you, my brave Janissaries," observed the Kapudan Pasha sadly.

"And we are sorry for you, famous Kapudan Pasha!"

Then Abdi quitted the Etmeidan. He perceived how the crowd parted before him everywhere as he advanced; but it also did not escape him that behind his back they immediately closed up again when he had passed.

"These people can only be brought to their senses by force of arms," he said to himself as away he rode through the city, and nobody laid so much as a finger upon him.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, in the camp outside, a great council of war was being held. On the news of the insurrection which had been painted in the most alarming colours by the fugitive Kiaja and the Janissary Aga, the Sultan had called together the generals, the Ulemas, the Grand Vizier, the Chief Mufti, the Sheiks, and the Kodzhagians in the palace by the sea-shore.

An hour before in the same palace he had held a long deliberation with his aunt, the wise Sultana Khadija.

Good counsel was now precious indeed.

The Grand Vizier opined that the army, leaving the Sultan behind at Brusa, should set off at once towards Tebrif to meet the foe. If it were found possible to unite with Abdullah Pasha all was won. Stambul was to be left to itself, and the rebels allowed to do as they liked there. Once let the external enemy be well beaten and then their turn would come too.

The Chief Mufti did not believe it to be possible to lead the host to battle just then; but he wished it to be withdrawn from Stambul, lest it should be affected by the spirit of rebellion.

The Kiaja advised negociating with the rebels and pacifying them that way.

At this last proposal the Sultan nodded his head approvingly. The Sultana Khadija was also of the same opinion.

As to the mode of carrying out these negociations there was some slight difference of detail between the plan of the Kiaja and the plan of the Sultana. In the opinion of the former, while the negociations were still proceeding, the ringleaders of the rebellion were to be quietly disposed of one after the other, whereas the Sultana insinuated that the Sultan should appease the rebels by handing over to them the detested Kiaja and any of the other great officers of state whose heads the mob might take a fancy to. And that, of course, was a very different thing.

The Sultan thought the counsel of the Kiaja the best.

At that very moment, the Kapudan Pasha, Abdi, entered the council-chamber.

Everybody regarded him with astonishment. According to the account of the Kiaja he had already been cut into a thousand pieces.

He came in with just as much _sangfroid_ as he displayed when he had ridden through the rebellious city. He inquired of the doorkeepers as he passed through whether his messengers had arrived yet with the tulips. "No," was the reply. "Then where have they got to, I wonder," he muttered; "since I quitted them I have been from one end of Stambul to the other?"

Then he saluted the Sultan, and in obedience to a gesture from the Padishah, took his place among the viziers, and they regarded him with as much amazement as if it was his ghost that had come among them.

"You have been in Stambul, I understand?" inquired the Grand Vizier at last.

"I have just come from thence within the last hour."

"What do the people want?" asked the Padishah.

"They want to eat and drink."

"It is blood they would drink then," murmured the Chief Mufti in his beard.

"And what do they complain about?"

"They complain that the sword does not wage war of its own accord, and that the earth does not produce bread without being tilled, and that wine and coffee do not trickle from the gutters of the houses."

"You speak very lightly of the matter, Abdi. How do you propose to pacify this uproar?"

"The thing is quite simple. The cobblers and petty hucksters of Stambul are not worth a volley, and, besides, I would not hurt the poor things if possible. Many of them have wives and children. Those who have stirred them up are in the camp of the Janissaries--there you will find their leaders. It would be a pity, perhaps, to destroy all who have excited the people in Stambul to revolt, but they ought to be led forth regiment by regiment and every tenth man of them shot through the head. That will help to smooth matters."

All the viziers were horrified. "Who would dare to do such a thing?" they asked.

"That is what I would do," said Abdi bluntly. After that he held his peace.

It was the Sultan who broke the silence.

"Before you arrived," said he, "we had resolved, by the advice of the Kiaja Beg, to go back to the town with the banner of the Prophet and the princes.

"That also is not bad counsel," said Abdi; "thy glorious presence will and must quell the uproar. Unfurl the banner of the Prophet in front of the Gate of the Seraglio, let the Chief Mufti and Ispirizade open the Aja Sophia and the Mosque of Achmed, and let the imams call the people to prayer. Let Damad Ibrahim remain outside with the host, that in case of need he may hasten to suppress the insurgents. Let the Kiaja Beg collect together the jebedjis, ciauses, and bostanjis, who guard the Seraglio, and let them clear the streets. And if all this be of no avail my guns from the sea will soon teach them obedience."

Sultan Achmed shook his head.

"We have resolved otherwise," said he; "none of you must quit my side. The Grand Vizier, the Chief Mufti, the Kapudan Pasha, and the Kiaja must come along with me."

And while he told their names, one after the other, the Padishah did not so much as look at one of them.

The names of these four men were all written up on the corners of the street. The heads of these four men had been demanded by the people and by Halil Patrona.

What then was their offence in the eyes of the people? They were the men highest in power when misfortune overtook the realm. But how then had they offended Halil Patrona? 'Twas they who had brought suffering upon Guel-Bejaze.

The viziers bowed their heads.

At that same instant Abdi's messengers arrived with the tulips. They were brought to the Padishah, who was enchanted by their beauty, and ordered that they should be conveyed to Stambul, to the Sultana Asseki, with the message that he himself would not be long after them. Moreover, he patted Abdi on the shoulder, and protested with tears in his eyes that there was none in the world whom he loved better.

The Kapudan Pasha kissed the hem of the Sultan's robe, and then remained behind with Ibrahim, Abdullah, and the Kiaja.

"Abdullah, and you, my brave Ibrahim, and you, Kiaja," said he, addressing them with a friendly smile, "in an hour's time our four heads will not be worth an earless pitcher," whereupon Damad Ibrahim sadly bent his head, and whispered with a voice resembling a sob:

"Poor, poor Sultan!"

Then they all four accompanied Achmed to his ship. They were all fully convinced that Achmed would first sacrifice them all and then fall himself. _

Read next: Chapter 8. A Topsy-Turvy World

Read previous: Chapter 6. The Bursting Forth Of The Storm

Table of content of Halil the Pedlar


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book