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Updated: June 2, 2025
It was the first time that Ben Abdi had found himself in a position of some responsibility, in immediate touch with one of the white-skinned warriors from over seas whose methods of making war had for him all the mystery and the infinite possibilities of a religion. This silent looking out for relief partook in some small degree of the nature of a council of war.
After these dreary wastes, it was no small pleasure to rest a day at Zeghren, the native town of a considerable merchant, who accompanied the kafila. When they first left Sockna for Mourzouk, Abdi Zeleel had before taken Major Denham to his house, and presented him to his mother and sister, and he now insisted upon his taking up his quarters there altogether.
It always used to amuse me to hear Abdi calling out, "Enjani hapa, Saa Sitaa" "Come here, Six O'clock." Baa Baa was a porter who always used to sing a queer native chant in which those words were predominant. He would sing it by the hour while on the march, and before long his real name was replaced by the new one. Henceforth he will, no doubt, continue to be Baa Baa.
Nevertheless the resonant, penetrating voice of the horn blown by the Kapudan Pasha dominated the tumult, and turned every face in his direction. Rising in his stirrups, Abdi addressed them with a terrible voice: "Ye fools, whose mad hands rise against your own heads! Do ye want to make the earth quake beneath you that so many of you stand in a heap in one place?
By this time not only the caldron of the first but the caldron of the fifth Janissary regiment had been erected in the midst of the camp. They had been taken by force from the army blacksmiths, and a group of Janissaries stood round each of them. Abdi Pasha appeared among them so unexpectedly that they were only aware of his presence when he suddenly bawled at them: "Put down your weapons!"
About this time the sultan also admitted to the Council a certain Abdi Effendi of Larissa, one of the richest nobles of Thessaly, who had been compelled by the tyranny of Veli Pacha to fly from his country. The two new dignitaries, having secured Khalid Effendi as a partisan, resolved to profit by his influence to carry out their plans of vengeance on the Tepelenian family.
But my brother says you will never become Moslem won't you, to please Abdi Zeleel's sister? my mother says, God would never have allowed you to come, but for your conversion. By this time again the hood had fallen back, and I had again taken her hand, when the unexpected appearance of Abdi Zeleel, accompanied by the governor of the town, who came to visit me, was a most unwelcome interruption.
But over all there hovered that sense of well-scrubbed cleanliness which comes from the touch of a native military servant. An indulgence in this habit of rubbing and scrubbing was indeed accountable for much dilapidation; for that silent little Ghoorka man, Ben Abdi, had rubbed and scrubbed many things not intended by an ingenious camp-furnisher for such treatment.
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.
And that, of course, was a very different thing. The Sultan thought the counsel of the Kiaja the best. At that very moment, the Kapudan Pasha, Abdi, entered the council-chamber. Everybody regarded him with astonishment. According to the account of the Kiaja he had already been cut into a thousand pieces.
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