"Damad Ibrahim's," cried sundry voices from among the crowd.
"Whose is that palace, I say?" inquired Halil once more, angrily shaking his head.
Then many of them understood the force of the question and exclaimed:
"Thine, O Halil Patrona!"
"Thine, thine, Halil!" thundered the obsequious crowd, and with that they rushed upon the palace, burst open the doors, and Patrona, with his wife still clasped in his arms, forced his way in, and seeking out the harem of the Grand Vizier, commanded the odalisks of Ibrahim to bow their faces in the dust before their new mistress, and fulfil all her demands. And before the door he placed a guard of honour.
Outside there was the din of battle, the roll of drums, and the blast of trumpets; and the whole of this tempest was fanned by the faint breathing of a sick and broken woman.
CHAPTER VII.
TULIP-BULBS AND HUMAN HEADS.
It is not every day that one can see budding tulips in the middle of September, yet the Kapudan Pasha had succeeded in hitting upon a dodge which the most famous gardeners in the world had for ages been racking their brains to discover, and all in vain.