At the sound of that name the blood rushed to Hassan’s temples. He dared not testify his rapturous delight before so many witnesses. Mohammed Ali read it in his eyes, while the lips only said—
“Your Highness has loaded me with benefits that the gratitude and service of a life cannot repay.”
“How obedient he became at once as soon as he heard the name,” said Mohammed Ali in an undertone to Delì Pasha, who stood near him.
“Your Highness knew their attachment,” said the old soldier gratefully; “to see them united under the shadow of your protection was my fondest wish.”
The Viceroy now retired into the palace, and on entering his private apartment said to his Hakim-bashi—
“There is one thing yet I forgot to learn from Hassan; send him here immediately, and send my seal-bearer into Ali Bey’s house with a guard, and tell him to seal every door, box, and cupboard till Hassan goes in to take possession, otherwise the thoughtless boy will find nothing but empty walls.”
Our hero was just receiving the congratulations of his father and Delì Pasha when he was directed to reappear immediately in Mohammed Ali’s presence. On entering the room the Viceroy said to him—
“When you captured the conspirators, did you learn anything certain of their numbers or associates without? Wallah! I forgot myself, or I would have ordered the scoundrels to be tortured to make them tell before their heads were cut off.”
“Men under torture,” said Hassan, “often tell falsehoods to gratify spite and revenge; but I took from Ali Bey’s vest a paper supposed to contain the seals of all those who had joined his plot. I have not shown it either to the Kiahia or to my own father, for I thought it might contain names which, for various reasons, had better be known to none but yourself.”
“Mashallah!” said Mohammed Ali, “though you are sometimes a delikànloo, you have a head fitted for older shoulders than yours; but I have long known that you could keep a secret. Do you remember the night that you passed in a certain palace near the Nile?”