“Do they do that in the East?” asked the count, in a joking way.

“Yes, monsieur,” said the painter, “that’s done all the world over.”

“After that,” continued Georges, “Ali gave me yataghans, and carbines, and scimetars, and what-not.  But when we got back to his capital he made me propositions, wanted me to drown a wife, and make a slave of myself,—­Orientals are so queer!  But I thought I’d had enough of it; for, after all, you know, Ali was a rebel against the Porte.  So I concluded I had better get off while I could.  But I’ll do Monsieur Tebelen the justice to say that he loaded me with presents,—­diamonds, ten thousand talari, one thousand gold coins, a beautiful Greek girl for groom, a little Circassian for a mistress, and an Arab horse!  Yes, Ali Tebelen, pacha of Janina, is too little known; he needs an historian.  It is only in the East one meets with such iron souls, who can nurse a vengeance twenty years and accomplish it some fine morning.  He had the most magnificent white beard that was ever seen, and a hard, stern face—­”

“But what did you do with your treasures?” asked farmer Leger.

“Ha! that’s it! you may well ask that!  Those fellows down there haven’t any Grand Livre nor any Bank of France.  So I was forced to carry off my windfalls in a felucca, which was captured by the Turkish High-Admiral himself.  Such as you see me here to-day, I came very near being impaled at Smyrna.  Indeed, if it hadn’t been for Monsieur de Riviere, our ambassador, who was there, they’d have taken me for an accomplice of Ali pacha.  I saved my head, but, to tell the honest truth, all the rest, the ten thousand talari, the thousand gold pieces, and the fine weapons, were all, yes all, drunk up by the thirsty treasury of the Turkish admiral.  My position was the more perilous because that very admiral happened to be Chosrew pacha.  After I routed him, the fellow had managed to obtain a position which is equal to that of our Admiral of the Fleet—­”

“But I thought he was in the cavalry?” said Pere Leger, who had followed the narrative with the deepest attention.

“Dear me! how little the East is understood in the French provinces!” cried Georges.  “Monsieur, I’ll explain the Turks to you.  You are a farmer; the Padishah (that’s the Sultan) makes you a marshal; if you don’t fulfil your functions to his satisfaction, so much the worse for you, he cuts your head off; that’s his way of dismissing his functionaries.  A gardener is made a prefect; and the prime minister comes down to be a foot-boy.  The Ottomans have no system of promotion and no hierarchy.  From a cavalry officer Chosrew simply became a naval officer.  Sultan Mahmoud ordered him to capture Ali by sea; and he did get hold of him, assisted by those beggarly English—­who put their paw on most of the treasure.  This Chosrew, who had not forgotten the riding-lesson I gave him, recognized me.  You understand, my goose was cooked,