son why Eminah feared the wine.

They brought the bottles, and the liberated corks popped merrily. At
first Mehemet Pasha hesitated, but they filled his glass with fizz
and, to prevent the sparkling foam from running over, he sipped a
little of it, and quickly drained the glass, maintaining afterwards,
with a smile, that it was a similar drink to wine, but much more
pleasant.

Ali filled once more the glass of the seraskier, while Eminah
tremulously watched his features, which gradually grew darker as he
drank. Drink has this effect on some men.

Suddenly the sub-seraskier dashed his glass upon the table and
exclaimed, with a furious expression of countenance:

"I'll drink no more! I'll drink no more! Thou art a villain, Ali! Thou
hast made me drink wine and hast lied to me, saying it was not wine;
but it is wine, a frightful, burning drink, which has made my head
whirl."

"Come, come, Mehemet," said Ali, in the coaxing tone one uses to
drunken men, "be not so wrathful."

"Speak not to me, thou dog!" thundered the other, striking the table
with his fist. "I might have known when I dismounted at thy door with
whom I had to do, thou sly, treacherous fox, thou godless renegade!"

Ali leaped from his seat with flashing eyes, and clapped his hand on
the hilt of his sword at these words; but Eminah seized his hand, and
said to him, in a terrified whisper:

"Draw not thy sword, Ali; show no weapons here! Dost thou not perceive
that he only came hither to fasten a quarrel upon thee?"

Ali instantly recovered himself at these words. He saw now the snare
that had been laid for him, and calmly sat down in his place again,
crossing his legs beneath him, and, quietly taking up his chibook,
began to smoke with an air of unconcern.

Meanwhile, Mehemet played his drunken _role_ still further.

"I might have known beforehand, when I sat down at table with thee,
that I was sitting down with an accursed wretch, thou blood-thirsty
dog, who hath lapped up the blood of thy kinsfolk; but I never
ventured to imagine that thou wouldst be audacious enough to make me
drink that abominable liquid--may its sinfulness fall back again on
thine accursed head!"

With these words Mehemet caught up the half full glass and pitched all
the wine that was in it straight between Ali's eyes, so that it
trickled down the full length of his long white beard.

Ali, with the utmost _sang-froid_, beckoned to the attendant odalisks
to place before h