"Look!" whispered Azrael to Hassan from behind the curtain; "look how proud they are, the son on the right, the father on the left. They seem to be encouraging each other with their glances."
Hassan nodded his head as if thanking his favourite for assisting his weak eyes, and as both figures came within the obscurity of the tent, where the light was not very good at the best of times, acting on the hint given, he turned towards the aged Kucsuk Pasha and cried:
"Thou immature youth, step back till I speak to thee."
Then, turning to young Feriz Beg, he said:
"Step forward, thou hardened old traitor! Wherefore didst thou leave the armies of the Sublime Sultan in the lurch?"
Feriz Beg, as if a weapon against his persecutors had suddenly been put into his hand, stepped boldly right up to Hassan Pasha, and exclaimed in a bold voice, which rang though the tent:
"Thou art the traitor, not I; for thou darest to hold the office of general when thou art blind and canst not distinguish two paces off father from son, or an enemy from a friend."
Hassan sprang in terror from his carpet when he heard Kucsuk's son speak instead of Kucsuk.
"That is not true," he stammered, changing colour.
"Not true!" replied Feriz stiffly; "then, if thine eyes be good, wilt thou tell me what regiment is now passing thy tent with martial music?"