Mahommed struck the table violently, and his eyes glittered. "That ever one should think I loved a coward! Yet more intolerable, that he whom I have called brother should know me so little! Can it be, O Mirza, can it be, you tell me these things imagining them new to me? ... Let me have done. What we are saying would have become us ten years ago, not now. It is unmanly. I had a purpose in sending for you.... Your mission in Constantinople ends in the morning at four o'clock. In other words, O Mirza, the condition passes from preparation for war with the Gabour to war. Observe now. You are a fighting man—a knight of skill and courage. In the rencounters to which I am going—the sorties, the assaults, the duels single and in force, the exchanges with all arms, bow, arbalist, guns small and great, the mines and countermines—you cannot stay out. You must fight. Is it not so?"
Corti's head arose, his countenance brightened.
"My Lord, I fear I run forward of your words—forgive me."
"Yes, give ear.... The question now is, whom will you fight—me or the Gabour?"
"O my Lord"—
"Be quiet, I say. The issue is not whether you love me less. I prefer you give him your best service."
"How, my Lord?"
"I am not speaking in contempt, but with full knowledge of your superiority with weapons—of the many of mine who must go down before you. And that you may not be under restraint of conscience or arm-tied in the melee, I not only conclude your mission, but release you from every obligation to me."
"Every obligation!"
"I know my words, Emir, yet I will leave nothing uncertain.... You will go back to the city free of every obligation to me—arm-free, mind-free. Be a Christian, if you like. Send me no more despatches advisory of the Emperor"—