And yet this ferocious man, who made a profession of the trade of an executioner, who laughed only when heads were cut off, who, according to public rumor, tossed human flesh to his lion, Haïder, felt the power of love, doubtless not gallant and perfumed love—the love of the boudoir; but, endowed with an energetic and voluptuous temperament, he passed in the midst of his harem the time spared from business; and in the East, whatever may be the complexity of affairs, the administration, especially under such a mastery, is reduced to such simplicity, that leisure is never wanting.
Djezzar could say with Orasmanus,
I will give an hour to the cares of my empire,
The rest of the day shall be devoted to Zaïre.
Zaïre, that is, Baïla, awaited him on his quitting the Council. Especially in his summer palace of Kizil-Ermak did he spend the greater part of the day, extended on cushions at the feet of his beautiful slave, smoking the roses of Taif or Adrianople, mingled with the tobacco of Malatia or Latakia, sometimes chewing a leaf of haschich, or a grain of opium, or even of arsenic to exalt his imagination.
Baïla sometimes smoked the hooka; and as they reclined there together, plunged into a dreamy state, full of reveries, caused by the juice of the yucca or the poppy of Aboutig, the one opening for himself in advance a sojourn among the celestial houris, the other thinking, perchance, of the audacious stranger, Haïder, the lion, drawing in his claws, would stretch, himself familiarly beside them.
Baïla would then lean carelessly on her elbow against this terrible creature, whilst the pacha would listlessly permit his head to recline on the lap of the odalisk. It was a sight to behold this beautiful young female, robed in light draperies, reposing thus quietly between these two ferocious beasts. She feared neither of them; the lion was tamed as well as the man; both obeyed her voice, her look.
At first, notwithstanding the violent passion of Djezzar, Baïla had doubts as to the duration of her power, especially when she thought of the favorite who had preceded her.
This favorite, after a reign of three years, having dared to persist in soliciting pardon for a bostangi, who was condemned to lose his hand for having fished fraudulently, during the night, in the fish-ponds of the pacha, the latter, in a moment of rage, had cut off the nose of his beautiful Aysche, and then not desiring to keep her in that state, he had completed the punishment of the trustless bostangi and the refractory slave by uniting them in marriage. A piece of ground, situated on the confines of the city, had been given them as a dowry. Aysche now sold vegetables in the market, where she was known by the name of Bournouses (the noseless.)
This example of the instability of the power of favorites had ceased to disturb Baïla, since the Christian had revealed to her the secret of her power. Besides, at the time of the events Aysche was no longer young, which might give rise to the thought, that her decreasing beauty, rather than any other cause, had excited the wrath of her master.