Are ye so bold as to expect me to sign this paper?"

Kara Makan was so well prepared for this outburst of anger on the
Sultan's part that he was not in the least taken aback. With rustic
stolidity he replied:

"We wish it, and we demand it."

"Do you know what is written in this document?"

"Yes; that thou must free the realm from foreigners; that thou must
put the Russian ambassador Stroganov on board ship and send him home;
refuse to admit French and English ships into the Bejkoz; send the
Sultana Valideh far away to Damascus; and slay the Grand Vizier, the
Kizlar-Aga, the Berber Pasha, and the Kapudan Pasha, and give their
bodies to the people."

The Grand Signior contemptuously threw the document to the floor and
trampled it beneath his feet.

"Shameless filibusterers," he cried; "not blood but money is what you
want. Ye want permission not to deliver the realm, but to plunder it.
And you expect the Padishah to sanction it! Did not you yourselves
raise the Viziers to power? Were not you the cause of their not being
able to make any use of that power? Whenever the arms of the Giaours
were triumphant, were you not always the first to fly from the field
of battle? And when the realm was sinking, were you not always the
last to hasten to its assistance? You are no descendants, but the mere
shadows of those glorious Janissaries whose names are written with
letters of blood in the annals of foreign nations; but ye make but a
poor and wretched figure therein. Kill me, then! I shall not be the
first Sultan whom the Janissaries have murdered, but, in Allah's name
I say it, I shall be the last. After me, either nobody will sit on the
throne of Omar, or, if any one sits there, he will be your ruin."

The opposition of his august captive only restored the Janissary
leader to his proper element. He felt much more at home with those
wrathful eyes than with the previous contemptuous nonchalance. He
could now give back like for like.

He picked up the crumpled document, in which were written the
death-sentences of the Viziers, and, brushing off the dust, again
presented it to the Sultan.

"Either sign this document or descend from the throne of the family of
Omar, and we will seek us out from among the descendants of the
Prophet another who shall reign in thy stead."

"Most abject of slaves! In thy pride thou knowest not what thou
sayest! Death comes from Allah and none can avoid it; but who amongst
the descendants of