"So long as thou art at their head," said Kara Makan, somewhat disturbed. "The Janissaries are only bound to fight under the direct command of the Sultan."
"And all these other demands are equally reasonable, eh?" said the Sultan, just glancing at one or two of them.
He took up the last one, but when he had unfolded it his face darkened, and he suddenly leaped to his feet, his good-natured apathy changed into wrath and fierceness, and, striking the open document with his fist, he exclaimed, with an access of emotion:
"What's this? Are ye so bold as to expect me to sign this paper?"
Kara Makan was so well prepared for this outburst of anger on the Sultan's part that he was not in the least taken aback. With rustic stolidity he replied:
"We wish it, and we demand it."
"Do you know what is written in this document?"
"Yes; that thou must free the realm from foreigners; that thou must put the Russian ambassador Stroganov on board ship and send him home; refuse to admit French and English ships into the Bejkoz; send the Sultana Valideh far away to Damascus; and slay the Grand Vizier, the Kizlar-Aga, the Berber Pasha, and the Kapudan Pasha, and give their bodies to the people."
The Grand Signior contemptuously threw the document to the floor and trampled it beneath his feet.
"Shameless filibusterers," he cried; "not blood but money is what you want. Ye want permission not to deliver the realm, but to plunder it. And you expect the Padishah to sanction it! Did not you yourselves raise the Viziers to power? Were not you the cause of their not being able to make any use of that power? Whenever the arms of the Giaours were triumphant, were you not always the first to fly from the field of battle? And when the realm was sinking, were you not always the last to hasten to its assistance? You are no descendants, but the mere shadows of those glorious Janissaries whose names are written with letters of blood in the annals of foreign nations; but ye make but a poor and wretched figure therein. Kill me, then! I shall not be the first Sultan whom the Janissaries have murdered, but, in Allah's name I say it, I shall be the last. After me, either nobody will sit on the throne of Omar, or, if any one sits there, he will be your ruin."