Though the rent of his government, exclusive of his pay, was one hundred and twenty purses, or about 600l. per annum, Hussein had a large garden, which he forced the soldiers of the Sultan to cultivate, and the produce of which he sold to the inhabitants at his own prices, which were always rising and never falling. By this means he nearly doubled his pay; while, by selling the powder and shot of the batteries to Levant coasters and Greek pirates, he nearly trebled it; and then, to make up the deficiency at head quarters, the returns of his garrison for 'ball-practice' were enormous.
Then he had secured a handsome sum for the head of his younger brother, which, like a good and loyal servant of the Prophet's earthly shadow, he had transmitted to the Seraglio gate in a jar of salt; for this unlucky brother, having fled from Stamboul, where he had been engaged in an intrigue with a lady of the Household, and having wounded the Kislar Aga with his handjiar, became well worth a thousand piastres, dead or alive.
Such was Hussein Ebn al Ajuz. He was a man utterly devoid of scruple or principle.
'A Greek,' said he, 'once dared to dispute with me on religion—but I soon silenced him.'
'How?' I asked.
'By running my handjiar into his heart.'
'The devil!—that was a convincing argument.'
'A sharp one, at all events,' was the cool reply.
He made his hatred of the Greeks a never-failing source of revenue. If a merchant of that humbled race gave an entertainment, and our commandant was not invited, he would send an onbashi and three soldiers, with fixed bayonets, to extinguish the lights, disperse the guests, and bring before him the master of the house, who was therefore ordered to pay down so many piastres, as a fine, for disturbing the neighbourhood—for the ponderous Turk is lord of the soil, while the lively and more intelligent Greek is but its serf and villein—being what the Englishman was to the Norman knight eight hundred years ago.
I avoided the Yuze Bashi, no difficult matter, as he spent half the day, seated on a carpet in a corner, smoking his bubbling narguillah and drinking brandy-and-water; and now having no resource but my own thoughts, or Callum Dhu, whose conversation was generally of old and regretful memories, my spirits began to sink, for I had no longer the daily good fellowship of our merry little mess, or the frank joviality of Jack Belton to bear me up. Left thus entirely to myself in that gloomy old castle of the Greeks, my mind reverted to other days and other scenes, and the face of Laura—lost to me for ever!—came frequently before me with a distinctness that made my heart ache, though I sought—but in vain—to thrust the painful thought and winning image from me.