The Lion of Janina; Or The Last Days of the Janissaries: A Turkish Novel Read online

  CHAPTER IV

  GASKHO BEY

  The lightning strikes to the earth the man that flies from it. Illluck is a venomous dog, which runs after him who would escape it.

  Ali Pasha's band of Albanians, on arriving at Stambul, began to makeinquiries about Gaskho Bey.

  He turned out to be a good honest man, by profession an inspector ofthe ichoglanler of the Seraglio, and a particularly mild and peacefulMussulman to boot. In temperament he was somewhat phlegmatic, with aleaning to melancholy. A palmist would have told you that thesympathetic line on the palm of his hand was so little prominent as tobe scarcely visible, whereas on Tepelenti's palm there was such anabundant concourse of sympathetic lines that they even ran over on tothe back of the hand. In those days the Mussulmans frequently divertedthemselves with such superstitious games as palmistry.

  As to his figure--well, Gaskho Bey might have stood for a perfectmodel of the Farnese Hercules; his huge shoulders were almost out ofproportion with the rest of his body. He could stop the wing of awindmill with one hand; on the birthday of the Sultan's heir hehoisted a six-pound cannon on his shoulders and fired it off, and hecould break a hard piastre in two when he was in a good humor.

  It could not be said that he had hitherto used this terrible strengthto injure any one; on the contrary, he was universally known as themost forbearing of men. The pages of the court, whom he taught tofence, would sometimes in the midst of a lesson, as if by accident,but really from sheer petulance, batter him with their blunt swordstill they rang again, and Gaskho Bey would always reprimand them, notfor striking him but for striking so clumsily. He had never gone towar, and those who did not send him thither flattered themselves not alittle on their humanity, for if it came to a serious tussle there wasreally no knowing what damage he might not do.

  At home he was the gentlest paterfamilias conceivable. You wouldfrequently find him on all-fours, with his little four-year-old son,Sidali, riding on his back, and persecuting his father with all sortsof barbarities. He did nothing all day but teach the pages of theSeraglio games and exercises, and at home he made paper birds for hisown little boy, flew kites for and played blind man's buff with him.Whatever time he could spare from these occupations he would spend inleaning out of the window of the Summer Palace overlooking theGoekk-sue, or Sweet Waters, and looking about him a bit with a pipe inhis mouth, the stem of which reached to the ground, and if any one hadasked him while so engaged what he was looking at, he would assuredlyhave answered, "Nothing at all."

  Now there were always the liveliest goings-on in the Goekk-sue Park ofan evening. The harems of the beys and pashas who dwelt on its bankstook the air there under the plantain-trees, and swung and danced andsang; the wandering Persian jugglers exhibited their hocus-pocus, andthe magnificent Janissaries resorted thither to fight with oneanother. Every Friday afternoon whole bands of these rival warriorsflocked thither as if to a common battle-field, and frequently lefttwo or three corpses on the scene of their diversions.

  Gaskho Bey appeared to take very little notice of all these things,his chibook curled comfortably on the ground beneath him. At everypull at it large light-blue clouds of smoke rolled upwards from itscrater, taking all manner of misty shapes and forms till theydisappeared through the window, and Gaskho Bey buried himself in thecontemplation of these smoky phantasms as deeply as if he were intenton writing a dissertation on the philosophy of pipe-smoking, obliviousof the fact that below the very house in which he was sitting twoAlbanian soldiers, in high-peaked, broad-brimmed caps and coarse blackwoollen mantles, who seemed to be taking the greatest possibleinterest in him and trying to get as near him as they could, hadalready strolled past for the third time, always separating and goingin different directions, somewhat nervously, if they perceived any onecoming towards them.

  Only now and then a sly expression on Gaskho's face betrayed the factthat he was conscious of something going on behind his back. Therelittle Sidali was amusing himself, while Gaskho Bey was leaning out ofthe window, by kneeling on the ottoman behind, and tickling theuplifted naked soles of his father's feet with a blunt arrow.Sometimes the arrow would slip and come plumping down on Gaskho'shead, and then the bey would smile indulgently at the naughtiness ofhis little son.

  And now the evening was falling, and the crowd beneath theplantain-trees grew thinner. The two Albanians, side by side, againcame towards Gaskho Bey, who now puffed forth such clouds of smokefrom his chibook that one could see neither heaven nor earth becauseof them. But the two Albanian mercenaries could make him out verywell, and both of them standing a little way from the window drewforth their pistols, and one of them standing on the right hand andthe other on the left, they both aimed at Gaskho Bey's temples at adistance of three paces.

  But little Sidali was too quick for them, for he now gave his fathersuch a poke with the arrow that the latter, provoked partly by thepain and partly by the tickling, sharply turned his head, and the sameinstant there was the report of two shots, and two bullets--one on theright hand and one on the left--buried themselves in the window-sill.

  Gaskho's movement was so unexpected that the two Albanian braves, whohad imagined that their bullets must of necessity have met each otherin the middle of the bey's brain, were so terrified when they saw himstill sitting there unwounded, that they stood as if nailed to theearth. Indeed, before they could make up their minds to fly, Gaskhowas already outside the window, upon them with a single bound, andimmediately seizing the pair of them with his terrible fists, flungthem to the ground as if he were playing with a couple of dummies,and without wasting so much as a word upon them, tied them togetherwith their own leather belts, so that on the arrival of the members ofhis own family, who flew to the spot, alarmed by Sidali's shrieks, thetwo hired assassins lay half dead and all of a heap upon the ground,for Gaskho Bey's grip had wellnigh broken all their bones.

  They were conveyed at once to the Kapu-Kiaja, and Gaskho Bey went too.For a long time he was unable to contain himself, and bellowed out allalong the road, "I never heard of anything like it--never!"

  "It is an unheard-of case, sir," said he, on arriving at theKapu-Kiaja's. "To furtively shoot at a peaceful Mussulman when he issmoking his pipe and amusing himself with his children, I never heardthe like. If any one wants to kill me, he might at least, I think, letme know beforehand, so that I may perform my ablutions, say myprayers, and take leave of my children. But just when I am smoking mychibook!--I never heard of such a thing!"

  It was plain that what he took to heart the most was that they shouldhave tried to shoot him while he was smoking his chibook.

  The Kapu-Kiaja, on the other hand, looked upon the case from anotherpoint of view. To him it was a matter of comparative indifferencewhether the deed was attempted before or after prayers. Why, he wantedto know, should these madmen run amuck of their fellow-men at all? Hetherefore asked the assassins who had set them on to murder GaskhoBey. They, at the very first stroke of the bamboo, made a clean breastof it, and threw the blame on Tepelenti.

  At first the Kapu-Kiaja regarded this confession as incredible. Why,indeed, should Tepelenti be wrath with Gaskho Bey, who knew nothing atall of Ali except by report? Nay, he greatly revered him as a valiantwarrior, and had never said a single word to his discredit.

  Nevertheless, the two assassins not only stuck to their confession,but maintained that besides themselves eight and thirty other soldiershad been sent to Stambul by Ali on the self-same mission.

  Ciauses were immediately sent to every quarter of the city to seizethe described Albanians. Five or six of them hid or escaped, but therest were captured.

  The confessions of these men were practically unanimous. Everycircumstance of the affair, the amount of the promised reward, thewords spoken on the occasion--everything, in fact, corresponded soexactly that no doubt could possibly remain that Tepelenti hadactually sent them out to murder Gaskho Bey.

  The affair made a great stir everywhere. Ali Pasha was as well knownin Stambul as Gaskho Bey. The former was as famous for his power andriches, his envy and revengefulness, as was the latter for hisstrength and gentleness, his sympathy and tenderness.

  The great men of the palace, jealous for a long time of Ali'sgreatness, brought the matter before the Divan, and great debatesensued as to what course should be taken against this mighty protectorof hired assassins. And for a long time the opinions of thecounsellors of the cupolaed chamber were divided. Some were for takingAli by the beard and despatching him there and then. Others were foradvising Gaskho Bey to be content with seeing the heads of the Arnautassassins rolling in the dust before the Pavilion of Justice, and atthe same time privately informing Ali that if he were wise he wouldwaste neither his money nor his powder on such quiet, harmless men asGaskho Bey, who had never done, and never meant in future to do, himany harm.

  The latter alternative was the opinion of the wiser heads, and amongthese wiser ones was the Sultan himself.

  "Ali is my sharp sword," said Mahmud. "If my sword wounds any oneaccidentally, and without my consent, is that any reason for snappingit in twain?"

  Nevertheless, the enemies of the pasha kept goading Gaskho on todemand satisfaction of Ali personally. The worthy giant, hearing hisown name on everybody's lips for weeks together, grew as wild as abaited heifer, and began to believe that he was a famous man, that healone was ordained to clip the wings of the tyrant of Epirus, and atlast was so absorbed by his dreams of greatness that when he had togive the usual lessons to the youths of the Seraglio he trounced themall, in his distraction, as severely as if they had been the soldiersof Ali Pasha.

  The pacific Viziers promised him a house, a garden, beautiful horses,and still more beautiful slaves. But all would not do; what he didwant, he said, was the head of Tepelenti, and he cried to He
avenagainst them for their procrastination.

  But Sultan Mahmud was a wise man. He had no need to consultstar-gazers or magicians, or even the caverns of Seleucia, as to thefuture, in order to discover and discern the storm whose signs werealready visible in the sky.

  "Ye know not Ali, and ye know not me also," he said to those who urgedhim to pronounce judgment against Ali. "If I were to say, 'Ali mustperish!' perish he would, even if my palaces came crashing down andhalf the realm were destroyed in consequence. If, on the other hand,Ali said 'No!' he would assuredly never submit, and would rather turnthe whole realm upsidedown, till not one stone remained upon another,than surrender himself. Therefore ye know not what ye want when yewish to see Ali and me at war with one another."

  The conspirators, however, were not content with this, but distributedsome silver money among the Janissaries, and egged them on to appearbefore the palace of the Kapu-Kiaja and demand Ali's head.

  The Kiaja, warned in good time of the approaching storm, took refugein the interior of the Seraglio, which was speedily barricaded againstthe Janissaries, and the mouths of the cannons attached to the gateswere exhibited for their delectation. As it did not meet the views ofthe Janissaries just then to approach any nearer to the cannons, theygratified their fury by setting fire to the city and burning down awhole quarter of it, for they considered it no business of theirs toput out the blazing houses.

  The next day, however, the tumult having subsided as usual, when theSultan and his suite were trotting out to inspect the scene of theconflagration, and had got as far as the fountain in front of theSeraglio, the figure of a veiled woman cast herself in front of thehorse's hoofs, and with audacious hands laid hold of the bridle of thesteed of the Kalif.

  The Sultan backed his horse to prevent it from trampling upon thewoman, and, thinking she was one of those who had been burned out theday before, ordered his treasurer--who was with him--to put a silverpiece in her hand and bid her depart in the name of the Prophet.

  "Not money, my lord; but blood! blood!" cried the woman; and, from thering of her voice, there was reason to suspect that she was a youngwoman.

  The Sultan in amazement asked the woman her name.

  "I am Eminah, the daughter of the Pasha of Delvino, and the wife ofAli Tepelenti."

  "And whose blood dost thou require?" asked the Sultan, scandalized tosee the favorite wife of so powerful a man prostrate in the dustbefore his horse's feet.

  "I demand death upon his head!" cried the woman, with a firmvoice--"on the head of Ali Tepelenti, from whose gehenna of a fortressI have escaped on the waters of a subterranean stream in order that Imight accuse him to thee; and if thou dost not condemn him, I will goto the judgment-seat of God and accuse him there!"

  The Sultan was horrified.

  It is a terrible thing when a woman accuses her own husband, who hasloaded her with benefits. He must, indeed, be an evil-doer whomturtle-doves, the gentlest of all God's creatures, attack!

  The Sultan listened, full of indignation, to the woman's accusations.

  After happily escaping from the fortress of Ali Pasha with the Greekgirl, she learned, during her short sojourn among the Suliotes, of allAli's cruelties, and learned also, at the same time, that in Delvinohad just died a rich Armenian lady, who had been the flame of GaskhoBey in his younger days, and had left him all the property she ownedin Albania. Of this nobody as yet knew anything. What more naturalthan that every one should immediately fancy he had found the key tothe riddle of the mysterious attempt at assassination? Why, of course,Ali wanted to slay Gaskho Bey in order that he might take possessionof his Albanian property.