,
and I narrowly escaped a corps of janissaries, who would have recognised
me. As it was, two of them followed me as I made for the gate of the
fortress; and, encumbered as I was, I was forced to turn at bay. No man
fights better than, and even a man who otherwise would not fight at all,
will fight well, when he can't help it. I never was so brave in my life.
I cut down one, and the other ran away, and this in the presence of the
pacha, who was seated on the embrasure at the top of the wall; and thus
I gained my entrance into the fort. I hastened to the pacha's presence,
and laid at his feet the four heads. The pacha was so pleased at my
extraordinary valour, that he threw me a purse of five hundred pieces of
gold, and ordered me to be promoted, asking me to what division of his
troops I belonged. I replied, that I was a volunteer. I was made an
officer, and thus did I find myself a rich man and a man of consequence
by merely changing sides.

* * * * *

"That's not quite so uncommon a method of getting on in the world as you
may imagine," observed Mustapha, drily.

"Mustapha," said the pacha, almost gasping, "all these are words,
wind--bosh. By the fountains that play round the throne of Mahomet, but
my throat feels as hot and as dry with this fellow's doubts, as if it
were paved with live cinders. I doubt whether we shall be able ever to
moisten it again."

"That doubt, your sublimity ought to resolve immediately. Hudusi,
murakhas--my friend, you are dismissed."

Hardly had the doubter gathered up his slippers, and backed out from the
presence, when the pacha and his minister were, with an honest rivalry,
endeavouring to remove at once their doubts and their thirst, and were
so successful in their attempts, that they, in a short time, exchanged
their state of dubiety into a very happy one of ebriety.

Chapter XVI

The next morning the pacha and his minister, after the business of the
divan, with their heads aching from the doubts of Hudusi, or the means
that they had taken to refute them, in not the best humour in the world
listened to the continuation of them as follows:--

* * * * *

I have heard it observed, continued Hudusi, that the sudden possession
of gold will make a brave man cautious, and he who is not brave, still
more dastardly than he was before. It certainly was the case with me; my
five hundred pieces of gold had such an eff