Ali Hojia, meanwhile, was attired in a purple robe, with a golden turban on his head, and a bespangled girdle round his body, and so they cast him into the mortar. Then four Bostanjis seized the pounding beetle, and raising it by its four handles, rammed it with all their might into the mortar at a sign from the Aga of the Bostanjis. A frightful yell arose from the mortar, tapering off into an unspeakable, indescribable whistling shriek. The Bostanjis raised the pounding beetle a second time, and a second time they rammed it home. But now only a muffled groan responded to the impact. The third stroke was followed by a ghastly whimper, and after the fourth stroke there was no response but the crunching of bones.
And so they went pounding away with their pestle till they were tired out, and by that time all that remained in the mortar was a shapeless mash of blood and bones and silk and gold filigree.
Thus did Sultan Soliman punish the deceiver.
Eighty years ago the French traveller Tavernier saw this very mortar, so terrible a memorial of Ottoman justice, standing in the door of the Hall of the Divan.
V
LOVE AND THE LITTLE DOG
What can there be in common between love and a little dog? Well, listen! and I'll tell you.
My dear friend Toni was head over ears in love with a pretty little girl whom I did not love at all. This was not because I prefer falling in love with ugly little girls, or because I consider it superfluous to love a girl who is already loved by another fellow, but simply because one eye of this particular girl was black and the other blue.
"Toni," I said, "look out for yourself! This double sort of eye bodes no good. With one of them she'll ogle you, and with the other some one else. The blue eye may be faithful to you, the black one may deceive."