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"Menouni, it is the pleasure of the pacha that you proceed." "Your slave obeys. Your sublime perspicuity is but too well acquainted with geography ?" "Not that I know of. Hath he ever left his slippers at our threshold, Mustapha?" "I suspect," replied Mustapha, "that he goes all over the world, and therefore he must have been here. Proceed, Menouni, and ask not such questions.
"Spain, your sublime highness; the infidel tribes which you allow to remain there, are employed in cultivating the olive for true believers." "Very true," rejoined the pacha; "I remember now. Let the kafir taste of our bounty. Give him two pieces of gold; and allow him to depart." "May the shadow of your sublime highness never be less," said the Spaniard.
The warning was from Kalil Pacha; and whether Kalil was moved by pity, friendship, or avarice is of no moment; certain it is the Emperor acted upon the advice. He summoned a council, and proposed war; but was advised to send a protesting embassy to the enemy. A scornful answer was returned.
The pacha was so pleased at my extraordinary valour, that he threw me a purse of five hundred pieces of gold, and ordered me to be promoted, asking me to what division of his troops I belonged. I replied, that I was a volunteer. I was made an officer; and thus did I find myself a rich man and a man of consequence by merely changing sides.
His love and thirst for revenge had hitherto slumbered, but now they were awakened to new life. He would have vengeance on him who had murdered her he loved, and heaped insult upon himself! He is now going out into the world, where he must meet Cousrouf Pacha, and on him will he wreak vengeance for all his wrongs and sufferings! Yes, his Masa, his white dove, shall be avenged!
Her taste did not run in the direction of white fox cloaks, named diamonds, and imperial jade plates; she did not use a solid gold toothbrush with emeralds set in the handle, like Ismail Pacha; bridge did not amuse her at all, nor could she derive pleasure from playing at Monte Carlo; she did not even keep an eighty-horse-power motor-car worth five thousand pounds.
On the ensuing day, the pacha was sitting at his divan, according to his custom, Mustapha by his side, lending his ear to the whispers of divers people who came to him in an attitude of profound respect.
Amongst other states, in an evil hour for that ill-fated city, they wormed themselves into an alliance with Prevesa; and in the following year their own quarrel with Ali Pacha gave that crafty robber a pretence, which he had long courted in vain, for attacking the place with his overwhelming cavalry, before they could agree upon the mode of defence, and long before any mode could have been tolerably matured.
"Such, O pacha, is the history of Yussuf, the water-carrier." "Yes, and a very good story too. Have you not another, Menouni?" "Your highness," replied Mustapha, "the caravan will depart at break of day, and Menouni has but three hours to prepare. It can no longer be detained without the chief making a report to the authorities, which would not be well received."
But I was thrown up, and made my way to this place where I have for many years lived in company with an old wretch like myself, supplicating alms. He died about a year ago, and left me in the hovel by myself. I still beg for my subsistence; and now, pacha, you have my story, and I think you will acknowledge that I may well say that "Time has been." "It is your kismet, your destiny, good woman.