The Sultan thought the counsel of the Kiaja the best.
At that very moment, the Kapudan Pasha, Abdi, entered the council-chamber.
Everybody regarded him with astonishment. According to the account of the Kiaja he had already been cut into a thousand pieces.
He came in with just as much sangfroid as he displayed when he had ridden through the rebellious city. He inquired of the doorkeepers as he passed through whether his messengers had arrived yet with the tulips. "No," was the reply. "Then where have they got to, I wonder," he muttered; "since I quitted them I have been from one end of Stambul to the other?"
Then he saluted the Sultan, and in obedience to a gesture from the Padishah, took his place among the viziers, and they regarded him with as much amazement as if it was his ghost that had come among them.
"You have been in Stambul, I understand?" inquired the Grand Vizier at last.
"I have just come from thence within the last hour."
"What do the people want?" asked the Padishah.
"They want to eat and drink."
"It is blood they would drink then," murmured the Chief Mufti in his beard.