“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.