‘It is all talk up there,’ replied Ibrahim; ‘but my life is a life of deeds.’
‘Words are very good things sometimes,’ I replied; ‘that is, if we keep marching at the same time.’
‘God is great!’ exclaimed Ibrahim; and looking round to his officers, ‘the Effendi speaks truth; and thus it was that Redchid beat the beys.’
Ibrahim alluded to the Albanian campaign of the preceding year, when the energy of the grand vizier crushed the rebellious beys of the ancient Epirus.
‘What do you think of Redchid?’ he inquired.
‘I think he is worthy of being your Highness’s rival.’
‘He has always been victorious,’ said Ibrahim; ‘but I think his sabre is made of gold. That will not do with me.’
‘It’s a pity,’ I observed, ‘that if your Highness find time to march into Syria, you had not acted simultaneously with the Albanians, or with the Pasha of Scutari.’
‘May I kill my mother but it is true; but up there, they will watch, and watch, and watch, till they fall asleep.’
The truth is, the Orientals have no idea of military diversions; and even if they combine, each strives to be the latest in the field, in order that he may take advantage of the other’s success or discomfiture. Mehemet Ali, at an immense expenditure, had excited two terrible revolts in European Turkey, and then waited to invade Syria until the armies of the Porte were unemployed. The result with some will justify his policy; but in the conquest of Syria, the truth is, Ibrahim himself used a golden sabre, and the year, before, the contingents of the pashas, whom he was obliged to bribe, were all busied in Europe.