Djezzar sent thither, but was unwilling to go himself. When they hastened to the assistance of the Mingrelian, they found her shut up alone with Haïder. The rich carpet of Khorassan, which adorned the floor of her chamber, was in places rent to pieces, and all strewed over with bits of switches of the cherry. These shreds and fragments pointed out the places where the strife had taken place between the lion and the odalisk.
After having drawn him into her pavilion, Baïla had shut him off from all retreat, and careless of the result to herself, armed with a light bunch of rods, she had struck him redoubled blows, resolutely renewing every stick which was broken on the body of her terrible antagonist. The latter, accustomed to obey the voice that scolded him, and the arm that struck him, without thinking of defending himself, bounded from one side of the chamber to the other, tearing up a strip of carpet with his curled talons at each bound; but finally his patience and long endurance exhausted, irritated by grief, groaning and palpitating, lying half on his croupe and his back, raising up one of his monstrous paws, he extended his glittering talons, and became in his turn threatening, when suddenly the bostangis and footmen of the pacha entered, armed with boar-spears. The door being opened, the lion fled through it in disgrace, not before the new comers, but from the Mingrelian, who still pursued him with her last cherry-stick.
On the evening of the day in which Baïla had excited the royal anger of the lion against herself, that terrible animal, broken and degraded by his domestic habits, came, like a well-trained dog, confused and repentant, to couch at the feet of his mistress, imploring pardon.
On the following day Djezzar did the same. The favorite saw him approach her, humble, and laden with presents. The contest of Baïla with Haïder, of which a full account had been given to him, filled him with a singular admiration for the former. Baïla received the two conquered with a cold dignity, which might pass for some remains of rigor.
This double victory found her indifferent; she had exhausted all the emotions she could experience; she had so far distanced her rivals, that triumph over them no longer excited her vanity; the slaves around her were so submissive that she no longer took pleasure in commanding them. The pacha was tamed, tamed even to weakness, to cowardice; every one, even the lion, submitted to the power of the favorite, and with such unanimous accord, that in this harem, where every thing prostrates itself before her, and every thing is done in accordance with her will or her caprice, she has but a single enemy whom she cannot conquer; it is ennui. That threatened to increase daily, and to strengthen itself by the weakness of the others.
The pacha went on the same day to the city; Baïla consented to accompany him; and after having remained a short time at Shivas, they had scarcely returned to Kizil-Ermak, when she appeared entirely different from what she had been at her departure. Gayety and vivacity had returned to her; the smile to her lips, joy to her eyes; she had refound her sweetest songs, her most graceful dances. She was charming in the eyes of Djezzar and even of Haïder. It was said she had been spontaneously metamorphosed by the way.
The good humor of the favorite communicating itself to the pacha, and spreading from him far and near, all was joy in the palace that night.
Baïla alone possessed the secret of this general joy.
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