Feriz looked up, and his face had grown quite round.
"I?—I feel very well. Take your drugs from my table, and bring me wine and costly meats dear to the eyes and mouth. I would rejoice my soul and my palate. Call hither musicians, and open wide my gate. Pile flowers upon my windows, I would be drunk with the fragrance of the flowers that the breeze brings to me."
Panajot fancied that the invalid had gone out of his mind, and yet full of the joy of life he rose from his couch, laid aside his warm woollen garment, put on instead a light silk robe, wound round his head a turban of the finest linen instead of the warm shaggy shawl, and he who had hitherto been brooding and fretting apathetically, had suddenly become as light as a bird, paced the room with rapid steps, with proudly erected face, from which the livid yellow of sickness had suddenly disappeared, and his eyes sparkled like fire.
Panajot could not account for the change, and really believed that the patient had fallen into some dangerous paroxysm and in this persuasion bawled for all the members of the negro family. The old Egyptian door-keeper, a young Nubian huntsman, a Chinese cook, trampling upon each other in their haste, all rushed into the room at his cry.
Feriz Beg, with boyish mirth, stopped them all before the doctor could say a word.
"Thou, Ali," he said to the old door-keeper, "go to the mosque and cast this silver among the poor that they may give thanks to Allah for my recovery. And thou, O cook! prepare a dinner for twelve persons, looking to it that there is wine and flowers and music; and thou, my huntsman, bring forth the fieriest steed and put upon him the most costly wrappings; and ye others, take this worthy doctor and lock him up among his drugs that he may not get away, and call hither all my friends and acquaintances, and tell them we will celebrate the festival of my recovery."
The servants with shouts of joy fulfilled the commands of Feriz. First of all they shoved good Panajot into his drug-brewing kitchen, and then they dispersed to do their master's bidding.
Feriz then took the hand of the Szekler who had brought the message and shook it violently, saying to him in a loud firm voice:
"Thou must remain with me till I have accomplished thy mistress's commands. For she has laid a command upon me which I must needs obey."
Meanwhile, the ostlers had brought forward the good charger. It was a fiery white Arab, ten times as restless as usual because of its long rest; not an instant were its feet still. Two men caught it by the head and were scarce able to hold it, its pink, wide open nostrils blew forth jets of steam, and through its smooth white mane could be seen the ruddy hue of the full blood.