This sentiment was greeted with an approving howl.

“Let him come hither if he wants to talk to a Janissary!” cried many voices.  “Who ever heard of summoning a Janissary away from his camp?”

It was as much as Pelivan could do to restrain his fury.

“You two are murderers,” said he, “you have killed the Sultan’s Berber-Bashi.”

At this there was a general outburst of laughter.  Everybody knew that already.  Musli had told the story hundreds of times with all sorts of variations.  He had described to them how Halil had slain Ali Kermesh with a single blow of his fist, and how the latter’s jaw had suddenly fallen and collapsed into a corner, all of which had seemed very comical indeed to the Janissaries.

So five or six of them, all speaking together, began to heckle and cross-question Pelivan.

“Are there no more barbers in Stambul that you make such a fuss over this particular one?”

“What an infamous thing to demand the lives of a couple of Janissaries for the sake of a single beard-scraper!”

“May you and your Kapu-Kiaja have no other pastime in Paradise than the shaving of innumerable beards!”

At last Patrona stepped forth and begged his comrades to let him have his say in the matter.

“Hearken now, Pelivan!” began he, “you and I are adversaries I know very well, nor do I care a straw that it is so.  I am not palavering now with you because I want to get out of a difficulty, but simply because I want to send you back to the Kiaja with a sensible answer which I am quite sure you are incapable of hitting upon yourself.  Well, I freely admit that I did kill Ali Kermesh, killed him single-handed.  Nobody helped me to do the deed.  And now I have thrown in my lot with the Janissaries, and here I stand where it has pleased Allah to place me, that I may pay with my own life for the life I have taken if it seem good to Him so to ordain.  I am quite ready to die and glorify His name thereby.  His Will be done!  Let the honourable Kiaja therefore gird up his loins, and let all those great lords who repose in the shadow of the Padishah draw their swords and come among us once for all.  I and all my comrades, the whole Janissary host in fact, are ready to fall on the field of battle one after another at the bare wave of their hand, but there is not a single Janissary present who would bow his knee before the executioner.”

These words, uttered in a ringing, sonorous voice, were accompanied by thunders of applause from the whole regiment, and during this tumult Musli endeavoured to add a couple of words on his own account to the message already delivered by Patrona.

“And just tell your master, the Kiaja,” said he, “and all your white-headed grand viziers and grey-bearded muftis, that if they do not bring the Sultan and the banner of the Prophet into camp this very day, not a single one of them will need a barber on the morrow, unless they would like their heels well shaved in default of heads.”