“What do they require?” asked the Sultan softly, withdrawing, as he spoke, a tiny knife from his girdle, with the point of which he began picking away at the earth all round the tulips in order to make it looser and softer.

“The rebels demand a full assurance that they will not be persecuted in the future for what they have done in the past.”

“Be it so!”

“Next they demand that the Kiaja Aga be handed over to them.”

The Sultan cut off one of the tulips with his knife and handed it to the Kizlar-Aga.

“There, take it!” said he.

The Aga was astonished, but presently he understood and took the tulip.

“Then they want the Kapudan Pasha.”

The Sultan cut off the handsomest of the tulips.

“There you have it,” said he.

“They further demand the banishment of the Chief Mufti.”

The Sultan tore up the third tulip by the roots and cast it from him.

“There it is.”

“And the Grand Vizier they want also.”

The last tulip Achmed threw violently to the ground, pot and all, and then he covered his face.

“Ask no more, thou seest I have surrendered everything.”

Then he gave him his signet-ring in which his name was engraved, and the Kizlar-Aga stamped the document therewith, and then handed back the signet-ring to the Sultan.

The Grand Vizier, meanwhile, was walking backwards and forwards in the garden of the Seraglio.  The Kizlar-Aga came there in search of him, and with him were the envoys of Halil Patrona, Suleiman, whom he had made Reis-Effendi, Orli, and Sulali.  Elhaj Beshir approached him in their presence, and kissing the document signed by the Sultan, handed it to him.

Damad Ibrahim pressed the writing to his forehead and his lips, and, after carefully reading it through, handed it back again, and taking from his finger the great seal of the Empire gave it to the Kizlar-Aga.

“May he who comes after me be wiser and happier than I have been,” said he.  “Greet the Sultan from me once more.  And as for you, tell Halil Patrona that you have seen the door of the Hall of the Executioners close behind the back of Damad Ibrahim.”

With that the Grand Vizier looked about him in search of someone to escort him thither, when suddenly a kajkji leaped to his side and begged that he might be allowed to lead the Grand Vizier to the Hall of Execution.

This sailor-man had just such a long grey beard as the Grand Vizier himself.

“How dost thou come to know me?” inquired Damad Ibrahim of the old man.

“Why we fought together, sir, beneath Belgrade, when both of us were young fellows together.”

“What is thy name?

“Manoli.”

“I remember thee not.”

“But I remember thee, for thou didst release me from captivity, and didst cherish me when I was wounded.”

“And therefore thou wouldst lead me to the executioner?  I thank thee, Manoli!”