“Sultan’s slippers! and time has been!” cried the pacha. “What does the old hag mean? Knock again, Mustapha.”
Mustapha reiterated his blows.
“Ay—knock—knock—my door is like my mouth; I open it when I choose, and I keep it shut when I choose, as once was well known. The time has been—the time has been.”
“We have been a long time standing here, and I am tired of waiting; so, Mustapha, I think the time is come to kick the door open. Let it be done.”
Whereupon Mustapha put his foot to the door, but it resisted his efforts. “Let me assist,” said the pacha, and retreated a few paces; he and Mustapha backed against the door with all their force. It flew open, and they rolled together on the floor of the hovel. The old woman screamed, and then, jumping on the body of the pacha, caught him by the throat, crying, “Thieves! murder!” Mustapha hastened to the assistance of his master, as did the two black slaves, when they heard the cries, and with some difficulty the talons of the old Jezebel were disengaged from the throat of the pacha, who, in his wrath, would have immediately sacrificed her. “Lahnet be Shitan! Curses on the devil!” exclaimed the pacha; “but this is pretty treatment for a pacha.”
“Knowest thou, vile wretch, that thou hast taken by the throat, and nearly strangled, the Lord of Life—the pacha himself,” said Mustapha.
“Well,” replied the old woman coolly, “the time has been—the time has been.”
“What meanest thou, cursed hag, that the time has been?”
“I mean that the time has been, when I have had more than one pacha strangled. Yes,” continued she, squatting down on the floor, and muttering, “the time has been.”
The pacha’s rage was now a little appeased. “Mustapha,” said the pacha, “let this old woman be carefully guarded; to-morrow afternoon we will understand the meaning of those strange words, ‘the time has been.’ Depend upon it, thereby hangs a good story; we will have that first—and then,” whispered the pacha, “her head off afterwards.”