“I bid you not to fail in the performance of your duty, but I counsel you to lay on lightly,” returned the jester, with a grim smile.
“And how if the Dey should expect to hear thy cries, and afterwards to see thee limp into his presence?” asked the man in a tone of indecision.
“Depend on’t he shall both see and hear,” exclaimed Baba, with a laugh. “Thinkest thou that my head is not equal to the saving of my feet? Lay on lightly, so that there may be somewhat to show; but see thou dost not over-do it. I will engage to let the tyrant hear on the deafest side of his head, and will limp into his presence with most unfeigned sincerity.”
“Well, then, I begin,” said the man, applying a few strokes with a lithe rod to the soles of the jester’s feet.
Baba was true to his word. He suddenly gave vent to a yell so appalling that the very executioner, accustomed though he was to such sounds, quailed for a moment, and said anxiously—
“Did I hit you too hard?”
“Hard!” echoed Baba, mingling a roar of laughter with his next yell. “Fear not, good comrade; go on, do thy duty—ha! ha!—ho–o–o! Stop! Why, it is worse than I had imagined,” he added, as the man delivered a cut that was rather sharp. “But go on,” cried Hadji Baba, with another yell; “I must have something to show, and he shall smart for it.”
He followed up this remark with a series of amateur shrieks and howls so terrible that the hardened chaouses, being accustomed only to the genuine display of suffering, were overcome, and entreated him to desist.
The excitement of the exercise, the conflict of varied feelings, the smarting of his soles, the indignation of his soul, and the absurdity of the deception, had such an effect on Hadji Baba’s spirit, that he experienced no difficulty whatever in limping like a confirmed cripple, and trembling like an aspen leaf when led into the presence of the tyrant.
“Ha!” exclaimed the Dey, “I think I have cured thee. Thou wilt talk no more nonsense, I warrant.”