Chapuis and some others officiated as priests of the mysteries, and they knelt before the altar, while one made a passionate invocation to liberty, which another tried in vain to explain to the Sultaun. It was finished: they arose, and Chapuis advanced toward him. ‘Hast thou the emblems?’ he said.
The Sultaun took them from an attendant, the feather of gold tinsel he always wore in his turban, and an ornament of trifling value for the head.
‘These are all,’ he said; ‘be quick.’
‘They will be nothing without your Highness’s own turban,’ replied Chapuis; ‘placed in that, your people will understand the ceremony; otherwise it is vain. Your Highness remembers your promise and mine. I have performed mine; see that thou, O Sultaun, dost not fail!’
The others echoed his words, and urged the Sultaun to obey.
Hesitating and almost trembling, he did so.
‘They will not understand,’ he said to himself, ‘they cannot comprehend this mummery; they cannot hear what the Frenchmen say, much less understand their broken language.’
He took the turban from his brows, and gave it into Chapuis’ hand. The officer placed in it the tinsel feather, and threw it contemptuously into the fire. An attendant raised and unfurled a scarlet chuttree, or umbrella, over the monarch’s head: that too was remarked.
‘It must follow,’ said Chapuis to him; ‘that is a regal emblem,—there must be none left of the abomination.’ He caught it from the attendant and flung it on the fire.
There arose a deep murmur of indignation from the multitude to see their monarch’s turban taken from his head and burned; to see his chuttree forcibly taken and destroyed was more than they could bear without an expression of excitement, and cries of indignation rent the air.