As soon, therefore, as Kyrios Mavrogordato had left, the Wazeer ordered his mule, that he might wait upon His Majesty before the hours of business were over. His errand being stated as urgent and private, he was admitted without delay to his sovereign's presence.
"May God prolong the days of our Lord! I come to say that the way to rid ourselves of the importunity of this ambassador from Greece is plain. He has made it so himself by offering to abandon all disputed claims for a round sum down for his own use. What is the pleasure of my Lord?"
"God is great!" exclaimed the Sultan, "that is well. You may inform the Minister from me that a positive refusal is given to every demand not already allowed in writing. What he can afford to abandon, I can't afford to pay."
"The will of our Lord shall be done."
"But stay! I have had my eye upon that Greek ambassador this long while, and am getting tired of him. The abuses he commits are atrocious, and his man Drees is a devil. Háj Taïb el Ghassál writes that the number of his protégés is legion, and that by far the greater number of them are illegal. Inform him when you see him that henceforth the[page 228] provisions of our treaties shall be strictly adhered to, and moreover that no protection certificates shall be valid unless countersigned by our Foreign Commissioner El Ghassál. If I rule here, I will put an end to this man's doings."
"On my head and eyes be the words of my Lord."
"And remind him further that the permits for the free passage of goods at the customs are granted only for his personal use, for the necessities of his household, and that the way Háj Taïb writes he has been selling them is a disgrace. The man is a regular swindler, and the less we have to do with him the better. As for his pretended information about his colleagues, there may be a good deal of truth in it, but I have the word of the English minister, who is about as honest as any of them, that this Mavrogordato is a born villain, and that if his Government is not greedy for my country on its own account, it wants to sell me to some more powerful neighbour in exchange for its protection. Greece is only a miserable fag-end of Europe."
"Our Lord knows: may God give him victory," and the Wazeer bowed himself out to consider how best he might obey his instructions, not exactly liking the task. On returning home he despatched a messenger to the quarters of the Embassy, appointing an hour on the morrow for a conference, and when this came the Ambassador found himself in for a stormy interview. The Wazeer, with his snuff-box in constant use, sat cool and collected on his mattress on the floor, the Ambassador sitting uneasily on a chair before him. Though the language used was considerably modified in filtering through[page 229] the brain of the interpreter, the increasing violence of tone and gesture could not be concealed, and were all but sufficiently comprehensible in themselves. The Ambassador protested that if the remainder of the demands were to be refused, he was entitled to at least as much as the French representative had had to shut his mouth last time he came to Court, and affected overwhelming indignation at the treatment he had received.
"Besides," he added, "I have the promise of His Majesty the Sultan himself that certain of them should be paid in full, and I cannot abandon those. I have informed my Government of the Sultan's words."
"Dost suppose that my master is a dog of a Nazarene, that he should keep his word to thee? Nothing thou may'st say can alter his decision. The claims that have been allowed in writing shall be paid by the Customs Administrators on thy return to Tangier. Here are orders for the money."