The bearing of the woman gave a temporary check to the abominable rage of the royal wretch, and recalled him to his better judgment. For it was a peculiarity of Mahomet that no passion or debauch could completely divert him from carrying out any plan he had devised pertaining to his imperial ambition. As certain musicians perform without the sacrifice of a note the most difficult pieces, when too drunk to hold a goblet steadily to their lips, and as certain noted generals have staggered through the battle without the slightest strategic mistake, so Mahomet never lost sight of a political or military purpose he had formed. While sleeping and waking, in the wildest revelry and in the privacy of his unspeakable sensuality, that project blazed before him like a strong fire-light through the haze.
"Take her away! Take her away!" said he to the eunuch, recollecting his purpose of using her in his negotiations with Scanderbeg; and covering his retreat from his original command by the remark, "She is the woman who thinks, I want none such to put her head against my heart. She might discover my thoughts; and by the secrets of Allah! if a hair of my beard knew one of my thoughts I would pluck it out and burn it."[96]
As Morsinia withdrew, a eunuch approached and whispered to the Sultan.
"Ah! it is good! good!" cried the Monarch. "My Lord, the Grand Duke Notaras, will revisit his mansion. For him we have provided a feast such as his master Palæologus never gave him. Ah! my lovely Arnaout shall sit at my right hand—for the queen of beauty has precedence to-day," said he, addressing Elissa. "And the Egyptian shall make me merry with the music of her voice, which I doubt not is sweeter than the strains of her native Memnon. And, Tamlich, you shall do me the honor of representing the king of Nubia, and lie there opposite."
The eunuch stood bewildered; for never before had a Moslem proposed to introduce into his harem the person of any man, as now the Duke of Notaras was to look upon the beauties who should be reserved solely for the feasting of the Padishah's eyes.
Mahomet, knowing his thoughts, bade him obey, and cried,
"Let the fair houris veil their faces with their blushes. Bring in Notaras!"
Three blacks entered, each bearing a great salver, on which was a covered dish of gold.
"To Tamlich I demit the honors of the board," said he, waving the foremost waiter toward the eunuch, whose face almost blanched at the strange turn affairs were taking, or perhaps with the suspicion that to-morrow his head would fall from his shoulders as the penalty of having witnessed the Padishah disgrace himself.
The attendants placed the dishes before the eunuch and the two favored beauties. The covers removed revealed the ghastly sight of three human heads, their unclosed eyes staring upward from their distorted faces and gory locks. The eunuch leaped from the divan. The women fell back shrieking and fainting. They were the heads of the Grand Duke Notaras and his two children.