The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan

by James Justinian Morier

But as ill luck would have it for them, a Janissary, who had mixed in the crowd and had taken a close survey of the supernumerary head, exclaimed in a mixture of doubt and amazement, "Allah, Allah, il Allah! these are no infidel's heads. One is the head of our lord and master, the Aga of the Janissaries." Upon which, seeing more of his companions, he called them to him and making known his discovery, they became violent with rage, and set off to communicate the intelligence to their Orta.

The news spread like wildfire throughout the whole of the corps of the Janissaries, and a most alarming tumult was immediately excited: for it seems that it was unknown in the capital that their chief, to whom they were devotedly attached, and one of their own selection, had been put to death.

"What!" said they, "is it not enough to deal thus treacherously with us, and deprive us of a chief to whom we are attached; but we must be treated with the greatest contempt that it is possible for men to receive? What! the head of our most noble Aga of the Janissaries to be placed upon the most ignoble part of a Jew! what are we come to? We alone are not insulted; the whole of Islam is insulted, degraded, debased! No: this is unheard-of insolence, a stain never to be wiped off, without the extermination of the whole race! And what dog has done this deed? How did the head get there? Is it that dog of a Vizier's work, or has the Reis Effendi and those traitors of Frank ambassadors been at work? Wallah, Billah, Tallah! by the holy Caaba, by the beard of Osman, and by the sword of Omar, we will be revenged!"

We must leave the tumult to rage for a short time; we must request the reader to imagine a scene, in which the Jews are flying in all directions, hiding themselves with great precaution against enraged Turks, who with expressions like those just mentioned in their mouths, are to be seen walking about in groups, armed to their teeth with pistols and scimitars, and vowing vengeance upon everything which came in their way. He must imagine a city of narrow streets and low houses, thronged with a numerous population, dresses the most various in shape and the most lively in colours, all anxious, all talking, all agog as if something extraordinary was to happen; in the midst of whom I will leave him, to take a look into the interior of the sultan's seraglio, and to inquire in what his eminency himself had been engaged since we last noticed him.

On the very same night of the tailor's attendance, the sultan had given a secret order for taking off the head of the Aga of the Janissaries (the fomenter of all the disturbances which had lately taken place among his corps, and consequently their idol); and so anxious was he about its execution, that he had ordered it to be brought to him the moment it was off. The man entrusted with the execution, upon entering the room where he had been directed to bring the head, seeing some one seated, naturally took him for the sultan, and, without daring to look up, immediately placed the burden at his feet, with the prostrations which we have ready described as having been performed before the tailor. The sultan, who not a minute before had taken away the bundle containing the dervish's dress, had done so in the intention of deceiving his slave Mansouri himself; so anxious was he of being unknown in his new disguise even to him; and intended to have substituted another in its stead; but not calculating either upon the reception of the head, or upon Mansouri's immediate return to the tailor, he was himself completely puzzled how to act when he found the tailor was gone, led off by his slave. To have sent after them would have disconcerted his schemes, and therefore he felt himself obliged to wait Mansouri's return, before he could get an explanation of what had happened; for he knew that they would not have gone away without the dress, and that dress he had then in his possession. In the meanwhile, anxious and impatient to know what had become of the expected head, he sent for the officer who was entrusted with the execution; and the astonishment of both may be imagined when an explanation took place.

"By my beard!" exclaimed the sultan, having thought awhile within himself; "by my beard, the tailor must have got the head!"

His impatience for Mansouri's return then became extreme. In vain he fretted, fumed, and cried "Allah! Allah!" It did not make the slave return a minute the sooner, who, good man, would have gone quietly to rest had he not been called upon to appear before the sultan.

As soon as he was within hearing, he called out, "Ahi! Mansouri, run immediately to the tailor—he has got the head of the Aga of the Janissaries instead of the dervish's dress—run, fetch it without loss of time, or something unfortunate will happen!" He then explained how this untoward event had occurred. Mansouri now, in his turn, felt himself greatly embarrassed; for he only knew the road to the tailor's stall, but was totally unacquainted with his dwelling-house. However, rather than excite his master's anxiety in a higher degree, he set off in quest of the tailor, and went straight to his stall, in the hopes of hearing from the neighbours where his house was. It was too early in the day for the opening of the Bezesten, and except a coffee-house that had just prepared for the reception of customers, where he applied and could gain no intelligence, he found himself completely at a standstill. By the greatest good luck, he recollected Babadul had told him that he was the muezzin to the little mosque in the fish-market, and thither he immediately bent his steps. The azan, or morning invitation to prayers, was now chanting forth from all the minarets, and he expected that he might catch the purloiner of his head in the very act of inviting the faithful to prayers.

As he approached the spot, he heard an old broken and tremulous voice, which he imagined might be Babadul's, breaking the stillness of the morning by all the energy of its lungs; and he was not mistaken, for as he stood under the minaret, he perceived the old man walking round the gallery which encircles it, with his hand applied to the back of his ear, and with his mouth wide open, pouring out his whole throat in the execution of his office. As soon as the tailor saw Mansouri making signs to him, the profession of faith stuck in his throat; and between the fright of being brought to account for the head, and the words which he had to pronounce, it is said that he made so strange a jumble, that some of the stricter Mussulmans, his neighbours, who were paying attention to the call, professed themselves quite scandalized at his performance. He descended with all haste, and locking the door after him which leads up the winding staircase, he met Mansouri in the street. He did not wait to be questioned respecting the fate of the horrid object, but at once attacked the slave concerning the trick, as he called it, which had been put upon him.

"Are you a man," said he, "to treat a poor Emir like me in the manner you have done, as if my house was a charnel-house? I suppose you will ask me the price of blood next!"