“What, Hadji Ismael, our good Arab merchant?” said the Viceroy.
“The same,” replied Mr Thorpe.
Here the Viceroy spoke apart to the interpreter, by whose order an attendant brought a small box, containing letters, which he placed on the divan at his Highness’s side. The interpreter, by the Viceroy’s desire, ran his eye over two or three letters from Alexandria, till he found the one of which he was in search. He read a passage from it, at which Mohammed Ali laughed and chuckled immoderately, repeating over and over again, “Aferin! aferin!” (bravo! bravo!) He then turned to Mr Thorpe, saying—
“I wonder whether this can be the same youth as the one mentioned in this letter, who threw the famous Moghrebi wrestler, Ebn-el-Ghaizi? It is here written that he was in the employment of Hadji Ismael.”
“There can be little doubt it is the same youth,” replied Mr Thorpe. “I have heard the whole story from our English servant. Indeed, it was in protecting him that Hassan got into a quarrel with the wrestler.”
“Mashallah!” said the Viceroy, “the youth deserves a reward, for that vagabond Moghrebi had beaten all the Egyptian wrestlers, and laughed at our beards.”
At this moment Hassan reached the door of the apartment, and the Viceroy having given orders that he should be admitted, he came forward, and having made the usual obeisance and touched his forehead with the skirt of the Viceroy’s pelisse, retired a few steps, and drawing himself up to his full height, awaited his prince’s commands in silence.
Mohammed Ali had been accustomed from his youth to study the characters of men from their countenance and bearing, and he now fixed upon Hassan an eye whose piercing gaze few cared to encounter; but Hassan met it with a calm and untroubled look. “Mashallah! a noble-looking youth,” muttered he to himself, after scanning the athletic yet graceful proportions of the figure before him. He then turned to his dragoman, saying—
“That youth is surely not an Arab. Of what race think you he may be?”
Before the dragoman could reply, Hassan, addressing the Viceroy, said—