The Pacha of Many Tales. Фредерик Марриет
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replied the pacha, “why, if every body were to go to Mecca what then, Mustapha?”
“Your highness—it is the opinion of your slave, if such were to take place, that all the fools would have left the country.”
“Very true, Mustapha; but my mouth is parched up with the sand of that simoom—sherbet I cannot drink, rakee I must not, the hakim has forbid it; what must it be then, Mustapha?”
“Hath the holy Prophet forbidden wine to true believers in case of sickness; is not your highness sick; was the wine of Shiraz given by Allah to be thrown away? Allah karim! God is most merciful; and the wine was sent that true believers might, in this world, have a foretaste of the pleasures awaiting them in the next.”
“Mustapha,” replied the pacha taking his pipe out of his mouth, “by the beard of the holy Prophet, your words are those of wisdom. Is a pacha to be fed on water-melons? Staffir Allah! do we believe the less, because we drink the wine? Slave, bring the pitcher. There is but one God, and Mahomet is his prophet.”
“The words of the Prophet, your highness, are plain he says. ‘True believers drink no wine,’ which means, that his followers are not to go about the streets, drunken like the Giaours of Franguistan, who come here in their ships. Why is wine forbidden? because it makes men drunk. If then we are not drunk, we keep within the law. Why was the law made? Laws cannot be made for all; they must therefore be made for the control of the majority—Is it not so? Who are the majority? Why the poor. If laws were made for the rich and powerful, such laws would not suit the community at large. Mashallah! there are no laws for pachas, who have only to believe that there is one God and Mahomet is his prophet. Does your slave say well?”
“Excellently well, Mustapha,” replied the pacha, lifting the pitcher to his mouth for a minute, and then passing it to Mustapha. “Allah karim! God is most merciful! your slave must drink; is it not the pleasure of your highness? As the wine poured down the throat of your highness, pervades through your whole frame to the extremities, so does your slave participate in your bounty. Do I not sit in your sublime presence? Can the sun shine without throwing out heat; therefore if your highness drink, must not I drink? Allah acbar! who shall presume not to follow the steps of the pacha?” So saying, Mustapha lifted up the pitcher, and for a minute, it was glued to his lips.
“I think that story should be written down,” observed the pacha, after a pause of a few moments.
“I have already given directions, your highness, and the Greek slave is now employed about it, improving the language to render it more pleasing to the ears of your sublime highness, should it be your pleasure to have it read to you on some future day.”
“That is right, Mustapha; if I recollect well, the caliph Haroun used to command them to be written in letters of gold, and be deposited in the archives: we must do the same.”
“The art no longer exists, your highness.”
“Then we must be content with Indian-ink,” replied the pacha, lifting the pitcher to his mouth, and emptying it. “The sun will soon be down, Mustapha, and we must set off.”
Volume One–Chapter Two
The pacha called for coffee, and in a few minutes, accompanied, as before, by Mustapha and the armed slaves, was prowling through the city in search of a story-teller. He was again fortunate, as, after a walk of half an hour, he overheard two men loudly disputing at the door of a small wine-shop, frequented by the Greeks and Franks living in the city, and into which many a slave might be observed to glide, returning with a full pitcher for the evening’s amusement of his Turkish master, who, as well as his betters, clandestinely violated the precepts of the Koran.
As usual he stopped to listen, when one of the disputants exclaimed—“I tell thee, Anselmo, it is the vilest composition that was ever drunk: and I think I ought to know, after having distilled the essence of an Ethiopian, a Jew, and a Turk.”
“I care nothing for your distillations, Charis,” replied the other, “I consider that I am a better judge than you: I was not a monk of the Dominican order for fifteen years, without having ascertained the merit of every description of wine.”
“I should like to know what that fellow means by distilling people,” observed the pacha, “and also why a Dominican monk should know wine better than others, Mustapha, I must see those two men.”
The next morning the men were in attendance, and introduced; when the pacha requested an explanation from the first who had spoken. The man threw himself down before the pacha, with his head on the floor of the divan, and said,—“First promise me, your highness, by the sword of the Prophet, that no harm shall result to me from complying with your request; and then I shall obey you with pleasure.”
“Mashallah! what is the kafir afraid of? What crimes hath he committed, that he would have his pardon granted before he tells his story?” said the pacha to Mustapha.
“No crime toward your state, your sublime highness; but when in another country, I was unfortunate,” continued the man; “I cannot tell my story, unless your highness will condescend to give your promise.”
“May it please your highness,” observed Mustapha, “he asserts his crime to have been committed in another state. It may be heavy, and I suspect ’tis murder;—but although we watch the flowers which ornament our gardens, and would punish those who cull them, yet we care not who intrudes and robs our neighbour—and thus, it appears to me, your highness, that it is with states, and sufficient for the ruler of each to watch over the lives of his own subjects.”
“Very true, Mustapha,” rejoined the pacha; “besides, we might lose the story. Kafir, you have our promise, and may proceed.”
The Greek slave (for such he was) then rose up, and narrated his story in the following words:—
I am a Greek by birth; my parents were poor people residing at Smyrna. I was an only son, and brought up to my father’s profession,—that of a cooper. When I was twenty years old, I had buried both my parents, and was left to shift for myself. I had been for some time in the employ of a Jewish wine-merchant, and I continued there for three years after my father’s death, when a circumstance occurred which led to my subsequent prosperity and present degradation.
At the time that I am speaking of, I had, by strict diligence and sobriety, so pleased my employer, that I had risen to be his foreman; and although I still superintended and occasionally worked at the cooperage, I was intrusted with the drawing off and fining of the wines, to prepare them for market. There was an Ethiopian slave, who worked under my orders, a powerful, broad-shouldered, and most malignant wretch, whom my master found it almost impossible to manage; the bastinado, or any other punishment, he derided, and after the application only became more sullen and discontented than before. The fire that flashed from his eyes, upon any fault being found by me on account of his negligence, was so threatening, that I every day expected I should be murdered. I repeatedly requested my master to part with him; but the Ethiopian being a very powerful man, and able, when he chose, to move a pipe of wine without assistance, the avarice of the Jew would not permit him to accede to my repeated solicitations.
One morning I entered the cooperage, and found the Ethiopian fast asleep by the side of a cask which I had been wanting for some time, and expected to have found ready. Afraid to punish him myself, I brought my master to witness his conduct. The Jew, enraged at his idleness, struck him on the head with one of the staves. The Ethiopian sprung up in a rage, but on seeing his master with the stave in his hand, contented himself with muttering, “That he would not remain to be beaten in that manner,” and reapplied himself to his labour. As soon as my master had left the cooperage, the Ethiopian vented his anger upon me for having informed against him, and seizing the stave, flew at me with the intention of beating out my brains. I stepped behind the cask; he followed me, and just as I had seized an adze to defend myself, he fell over the stool which lay in his way; he was springing up to renew the attack, when I struck him a blow with the adze which entered his skull, and laid him dead at my feet.
I was very much alarmed at what had occurred; for although I felt justified in self-defence, I was aware that my master would