[#] The ambassador.
He darted a keen, suspicious glance at me, and replied gravely enough, "The war goes on prosperously in the front. We shall yet sweep 'the Moscov' from the face of the earth!"
"I am desired to inform your Excellency," I resumed, determined to persevere at all hazards, "that the Allies have again attacked the place. The Moscov came out in great numbers to repel the assault; the French have suffered severely; the Turkish troops covered the retreat with great gallantry and steadiness; fifteen hundred Russians remained dead upon the field; many more are disabled; Sebastopol must surrender within ten days."
"Mashallah!" replied the Pasha, laying his pipe down by his side; but for the life of me I could not make out whether or not he believed a word I had been telling him.
"Have I fulfilled my duty to your Excellency?" I continued, becoming every moment more and more anxious to make my escape. "I am at your Excellency's disposal; I am the humblest of your slaves. Have I your permission to depart?"
He looked uneasily around, but there seemed no apparent excuse for delay. It was evident to me that he wished to communicate with his retainers, but that his politeness forbade him to do so in my presence, and a Turk never allows any emergency to make him forget the exigencies of etiquette. He bade me farewell with much cordiality, ordered a horse to be got ready to carry me home, and dismissed me with many expressions of affection, but with the same fierce twinkle in that cunning leaden eye that had already more than once warned me to beware.
Many and devoted were the Pasha's retainers; hundreds slept on his mats, and followed at his heels, but I question whether I, the poor nameless Interpreter, could not command a greater amount of affection, courage, and fidelity, in the breast of my one trusty four-footed slave and companion, than existed in the whole retinue, black and white, of the Oriental dignitary.
Bold had followed me through my wanderings, faced with me many of the dangers of warfare, and shared in all its privations. The old dog was getting very time-worn now, quite grizzled about the muzzle, and ludicrously solemn, both in countenance and demeanour. To the world in general his temper was anything but conciliatory, and it required little provocation to make him set his mark on man or beast that affronted him; but with me he was always the same, obedient, devoted, and affectionate. He accompanied me everywhere, and would wait for hours in the court-yards of the Seraskerât or the Embassy, till his master emerged from the long-watched portal, when he would rise, give himself a lazy shake, and stalk on gravely by my side, occasionally thrusting his wet cold nose into my hand, and scowling at all strangers, even of his own species, with a very ominous "noli me tangere" expression, that forbade the slightest approach to familiarity.
Now the dog is an unclean animal to the Mussulman, and although his life is spared, as being the authorised scavenger of the streets, the true disciple of the Prophet scrupulously shuns all contact with the brute that the Christian loves to train as a servant and cherish as a friend. There is a curious old Arabic legend, which, although not to be found in the Koran, is recognised by the faithful as a trustworthy tradition, and to believe in which is esteemed an essential point of doctrine by the devout, that accounts for this unkindly superstition. Freely translated, it runs much in the following fashion:--
"When Allah had created the land and the sea, the mountains, the forests, the flowers, and the precious stones, he looked, and behold there was beauty and silence all over the earth.