C—— Pasha is a handsome man, about fifty years of age, with a very intellectual, acute face. A singularly square chin, and a closely-compressed mouth, give an expression of fierce determination, almost amounting to cruelty, to the countenance when in repose. As soon as he speaks, however, the whole face lights up with a kind of merry good-humour, which is inexpressibly winning; and though, if all tales may be believed, he is somewhat of a Bluebeard, and has committed crimes which, in other countries, would have brought him to the scaffold, it is impossible not to be pleased, almost in spite of oneself, by a manner unusually frank and earnest.
There is a story (let us hope it is only a story, and not a truth) that he put to death, with his own hand, one of his odalisks, and a young secretary to whom he had seemed much attached. It is said that the pasha, walking one day in his garden, saw a rose thrown from a window in the harem. The flower was picked up by the secretary, who put it to his lips, and kissed it passionately as he looked up at the lattice. Burning with indignation and jealousy, the pasha hastily repaired to the harem, and saw a young slave looking out of the window from which the rose had been thrown. Drawing his knife, he crept softly behind the unfortunate girl, and in an instant had plunged it into her throat. The death-cry of the unhappy victim startled the household, and the secretary, finding the intrigue had been discovered, at first fled to the hills, but subsequently took refuge with one of the foreign ministers. He remained in the latter’s household for a considerable time—so long, indeed, that he flattered himself the affair had been forgotten.
At the expiration of some months, C—— Pasha sent or wrote to the young man, requesting him to return, and assuring him that, as he had thus with his own hand punished the guilty woman, his anger had been appeased.
The secretary, therefore, resumed his post, and for some weeks all apparently went well. One day, however, the pasha, attended by his secretary, was again walking in the garden. On arriving at the spot where the rose had fallen, the pasha requested the young man to gather a flower that was growing near. Unsuspicious of danger, the secretary obeyed, and as he bent down for the purpose, was stabbed to the heart by his revengeful master.
This deliberate murder—for such, in fact, it was—made a considerable stir for a time; but the high rank and great influence of the offender prevailed against justice, and the affair was ultimately hushed up, the pasha, it is believed, having only to pay a considerable sum of money to the family of the murdered man.
It must not be supposed that there are many, if indeed any, modern Turks like our agreeable but unprincipled friend; but it is said that occasionally an erring odalisk disappears, and as it is nobody’s business to inquire about her, no troublesome questions are asked.
[1] Apartments belonging to the men. [↑]