Saïd Pasha is a handsome man of three or four and thirty, with an expression of benevolence and amiability strikingly in his favour. He commenced his career at Court as Page to the Sultan, where he lost the favour of his master by refusing to obey a command which would have rendered him for a time the companion of grooms and serving-men; an instance of self-respect and self-appreciation so rare in Turkey, that it excited quite as much astonishment as indignation. Dismissed from the Court in disgrace, the young adventurer became a member of the sect of the Mevlavies, or Turning Dervishes; but, after the expiration of a year, he was recalled by the Sultan, and received a post in the army. Subsequently to this period, his rise to the Pashalik was rapid, as is generally the case in the East; and, on the last page of existence which he has turned, the characters may indeed be said to have been traced in gold.
After this hasty sketch of his history, it is scarcely necessary for me to add that Saïd Pasha left the Dardanelles a poor man; nor to remind my readers that a titled Lackland was no meet match for a Sultan’s daughter. The evil cried aloud for remedy, and the cure came as speedily as its necessity had arisen.
The Seraskier had adopted Halil Pasha as his son, on the occasion of his marriage with the Princess Salihè, two years ago; and had been to him a most munificent father; in the present difficulty he again stepped forward, and the portionless Saïd Pasha beheld himself at once a rich man.
Upon the Seraskier it then devolved, in his double capacity of High Minister and Parent, to introduce the fortunate bridegroom to his Imperial father-in-law; and the recollection of all that the wily old courtier had done for the object of his first adoption, produced very different feelings in the breasts of the two individuals, more immediately interested in the financial arrangements of the marriage.
“I present to your Sublime Highness,” said the minister, “the son-in-law whom Allah has destined to the high honour of becoming the husband of your Imperial daughter—Saïd Pasha, my adopted son—and I do so with the greater delight that I know him to be as brave in the field, as he is wise in the cabinet—as mild in temper, as he is courageous in spirit—learned, gentle, submissive, and enthusiastic, in his attachment to your Sublime Highness (May your end be glorious!) He has every virtue under heaven, and but one defect.”
“And what may that be?” inquired the Sultan, arching his dark eyebrows in astonishment. “It must be weighty indeed if it can counteract the effect of so bright a list of qualities.”
“Alas! your Sublime Highness—” replied the Seraskier, “Saïd Pasha is poor!”
The point was pathetic enough; and the politic minister, who would gladly have secured the honour of being the adopted father of the Sultan’s second son-in-law, without paying quite so high a price for it as he had done on the marriage of his first, flattered himself that a recollection of the enormous outlay which he had made on that occasion would exonerate him from a similar expence on the present. But the Sultan had doubtlessly learnt that the diamond can be cut only with its own dust; and he acted upon that principle, as he blandly answered, if not in the words, at least in the feeling, of our immortal bard:—
’Tis true, ’tis pity, and pity ’tis, ’tis true;
“But, while he has the wealthy and munificent Seraskier of the Sublime Empire for his adopted father, he must remain unconscious of the fact.”