"Go, my friends, God will arrange everything," replied he in a bantering tone, "and I shall have at some not distant day the pleasure of thanking you for your prudent counsels!"
Understanding the part which morale plays even in the best organised army, he spread, by the aid of emissaries and spies cleverly instructed, ideas of defeat in the enemy's camp.
By cunning speeches he gained over to his cause some inhabitants of Acre who were fit to bear arms, and mingled them with the workmen constantly employed on the public works. He collected thus a little force which surprised and overthrew the assailants. The Mamelukes fled beyond the seas. Djezzar completed the glutting of his wrath by causing the women who had escaped the massacres to be flogged. They were then thrown naked into the bottom of the hold of a ship and sold in the slave markets of Constantinople. The trees of the garden were cut down, and even the cats of the harem were not spared in the general slaughter. Never had Djezzar better deserved his name. Then tranquillity returned to the town.
And then one day one of those famous Mamelukes had the audacity to return to the palace. His name was Soliman. Djezzar recognised him immediately, and his features assumed such an expression of rage that all the officers present turned pale and instinctively closed their eyes.
The pacha brandished his axe.
"Wretch!" cried he. "What have you come to do here?"
"To die at thy feet, for I prefer that fate to that of living at a distance from thee."
The axe flashed in the light.
"You know well, however, that Djezzar has never pardoned?"
Soliman repeated his answer.