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Updated: June 8, 2025
"Remain at my side, collectors, we will cover the rear. Forward, now! go up the mountain." And while those went upward, Mohammed remained at the foot of the mountain. On either side the collectors, and in front of him all the fishermen of Praousta, more than fifty men, with threatening looks and burning eyes.
"Then I am sorry for you, poor child!" said the pacha. "Your father is lost if the tax is not paid. You say yourself that the men of Praousta cannot pay the double tax, and should they fail to do so the heads of the four prisoners must fall." "Be merciful! O master, be merciful," cried Masa. "You are rich and mighty. You can save him. Oh, save him!"
How little it seemed to him to be the best rifleman and oarsman of the island, to be renowned down in Praousta as the best fisherman! What does he care for all this? Who hears of what takes place in Cavalla, or in the miserable village of Praousta?
I, too, feel that I need sleep. Let the whole house repose, and avoid making any noise before tomorrow morning. Then I will come to her room to see her." The old man took off his shoes and noiselessly descended the stairway to his bed-chamber. It was now still in the house. All Praousta was silent. The people were resting from the pleasures of today, and the anxiety and care of yesterday.
The men of Praousta knew well that this was Masa, the sheik's daughter. They bowed low before her, and greeted her with the greeting of peace. She raised her trembling hands toward them, exclaiming: "Have pity on my unhappy father! Submit to the law! Yield to necessity! O save my father, and do not make me an orphan!"
It is impossible that Masa, the daughter of the Sheik of Praousta, is the slave of the stranger Turk! Impossible that I can have heard such a thing! Death or even madness is approaching me. It creeps stealthily toward me and stares at me wildly. O Masa, my daughter, come save your father!" About him all was still, but in the rooms above was an uproar.
"I am now about to leave you," said the pacha. "The grand-sultan calls me from here. Fear not, therefore, O sheik, that my countenance will longer humiliate you. I give you freedom. Return to your friends; you are free!" "Long live Cousrouf Pacha!" was the exultant cry of the men of Praousta. No one heard, amid the many voices, the one crying "Cursed be Cousrouf Pacha!
"I have no military force, and in Praousta dwell more than fifty brave, bold men. You know I have only fifty collectors in my service in all the districts of the peninsula. I do not know where to begin; even if I had the men, I would very unwillingly use force.
"We endeavored to make of ourselves what you were when a boy. We were told that you had been a famous climber, that no rock was too high, and the entrance to no cave too narrow, for you. And we discovered a large cave down by the shore, near Praousta. It was necessary to creep through a long, narrow passage to get into it, and what do you think we found there?
She brings these jewels, inherited from her mother, and asks me to give her their value, a sum sufficient to pay the second tax. I, however, am a poor man, and have not the hundred sequins to give her for her jewelry, in order that she may take them to the people of Praousta, for from them only will Mohammed accept payment of the tax. Therefore, pardon my importunity.
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