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Sulali entered the room with a radiant countenance, carrying in his hand the copy of the Alkoran, on which Halil and his associates had sworn the oath required of them. He laid it at the Sultan's feet. "Live for ever, oh, Sultan!" he cried, "and may thy heart rejoice in the prosperity of thy children!"
Tell me, therefore, what thou dost require of the Sultan, and if thy demands be lawful and of good report they shall be granted, provided that thou dost promise to disperse thy following." Then Halil Patrona stood up before the Sulali, and with a severe and motionless countenance answered: "Our demands are few and soon told.
"Greet Halil Patrona in my name," said the Sultan, "and tell him that I will satisfy all his just demands, if he promises to dismiss his forces immediately afterwards." The Chaszeki Aga and Sulali Hassan, with the twenty bostanjis, forced their way through the thick crowd which thronged the streets till they reached the central mosque.
At night the phantoms of darkness are let loose. You would not slay any living creature at night! Wait till the day dawns." The first ray of light had scarce appeared on the horizon when the Kizlar-Aga once more stood before the Sultan. "Master, the day is breaking." "Call hither the mufti and Sulali!" Both of them speedily appeared. "Convey death to those who are already doomed."
Ibrahim, a whilom schoolmaster, who went by the name of "the Fool," he made chief Cadi of Stambul, and then catching sight of Sulali, he beckoned him forth from among the ciauses and said to him: "Thou shalt be the Governor-General of Anatolia." Sulali bowed to the ground by way of acknowledgment of such graciousness. "I thank thee, Halil!
And now, how were the demands of the rebels to be discovered? Damad Ibrahim suggested that the best thing to do was to summon Sulali Hassan, a former cadi of Stambul, whose name he had heard mentioned by the town-crier along with that of Halil Patrona. They found Sulali in his summer house, and at the first summons he appeared in the Seraglio.
Sulali sat beside him. "Lo, the blood of the victims has now been poured forth," said Achmed in a gloomy, tremulous voice, "I have sacrificed my most faithful servants. Speak! What more do the rebels require? Why do they still blow their field trumpets? Why do they still kindle their bivouac fires? What more do they want?"
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.
Sulali and the mufti fell down on their knees. "Wherefore this haste, O my master?" cried the aged mufti, bitterly weeping as he kissed the Sultan's feet. "Because the rebels wish them to be surrendered alive." "So it is," observed the Kizlar-Aga by way of corroboration, "the whole space in front of the kiosk is filled with the insurgents." The Sultan almost collapsed with horror.
Among them were Kaplan Giraj, a kinsman of the Khan of the Crimea, Musli, old Vuodi, Mohammed the dervish, and Sulali. Sulali wrote down what Halil said. "Mussulmans. Yesterday, before the Abdestan, I was reading the book whose name is the 'Takimi Vekai." "Mashallah!" exclaimed all the Mohammedans mournfully. "In that book the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire is predicted.
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