"Then the prisoners' heads shall fall!" cried he, exultingly waving his sword in the air. "The hour until which I granted a respite has come; the gold has not been paid; the law cannot be broken with impunity. You pay, or the hour of vengeance is at hand!"
"We will not kneel; we will not humiliate ourselves before you, you boy!"
With his sword still threateningly raised, Mohammed gazed around him.
The tschorbadji and his son now approached the men, and pleaded with them urgently. They explained to them that Mohammed was in the right; that he could not act differently. As he had sworn by his honor to force them to pay the double tax, he must therefore keep to his word.
"Do as he tells you," said the tschorbadji, in an entreating tone; "pay the tax he demands. Do it, ye men! I will reward you well, if you do as I say. He who goes to Mohammed to pay the money, he can ask at my hands a favor."
The men's anger became subdued by the soft, kind words of their master. With bowed heads and gloomy aspect, they approached Mohammed Ali, who still stood with threatening sword before the cage.
"We kneel before you in the dust; we have returned to our duty," said one of the men. "Here are the two sequins that I have to pay."
"Here are mine," "And mine," cried they all, with one accord. They knelt and offered Mohammed the gold.
He did not take it; but, gazing steadfastly and bitterly at the pacha, he thrust them aside with a movement of impatience. "Lay your gold upon the block. What, through your obstinacy, has occurred, cannot be obliterated by your gold. Lay your gold upon the block, for to it you offer your gold."
Laughing wildly, he turned and bowed before the veiled maiden. "But you pay for it with your honor, with your shame."