The mob tore the dervish to pieces and distributed his bleeding limbs as trophies, and then, like wild beasts who have scented blood, they attacked the castles of the great men. Whom should they fall upon first? That was the only question.
Suddenly one of the priests of Begtash tore down from the corner of the street a copy of the fetva which proclaimed the reform and showed it to the mob. "Behold!" cried he, "here, foremost amongst the names of the destroyers of the Faith stands the name of the Janissary Aga! The leader of the Janissaries has himself betrayed his own children. Death to him!"
"Death to him!" howled the mob, and, seizing their torches, they rushed towards the palace of the Janissary Aga.
The Janissary Aga heard the tumult, and, quickly dressing a slave in his robes, mingled with the crowd, and, without being noticed, reached the palace of the Grand Vizier in safety.
The Grand Vizier was sitting down to supper when the Janissary Aga rushed in and informed him of his danger. He lost no time in barricading the gates, and, slipping through his garden with his servants and his family, escaped across the Bosphorus to the Jali Kiosk, on the other side of the water. The besieging mob, therefore, only found empty walls upon which to wreak their fury, and these they levelled with the ground.
But the Janissary Aga had left his wives and children in his palace, and these the rioters seized and murdered with the most excruciating tortures. In the evening twilight the Aga, from his place of safety on the other side of the water, could see the flames of his palace shooting up towards the sky, and heard perchance the agonized death-cries of those he loved best.
A few moments later they were joined by Nedjib Effendi, the representative of the Viceroy of Egypt, who also took refuge with them and brought the tidings that the insurgents were in possession of the whole of Stambul, and had wreaked their savage fury on the families of the refugee magnates.
The Sultan was standing on the roof of his palace, whence he could view far away the spreading scarlet glow of the conflagration which lit up the night with a terrifying glare, whose fiery columns were reflected in the black Bosphorus.
Panic-stricken fugitives spread the report that the Seraglio itself was in flames, and indeed it looked in the distance as if the fiery waves had reached its cupolaed towers.
Mahmoud spent the whole night in prayer. Two hours after midnight a horseman arrived who had forced his way through Stambul, his good steed collapsing as it reached the cypress grove of Bekshishtash. The horseman himself demanded an audience of the Sultan, and was instantly admitted.