, muttering to himself that any carrion
was good enough for a Turk's stomach. He surveyed his half sheep from
top to bottom; felt it, and said, "No, this will keep"; but as he turned
up its fat tail, the eye of the dead man's head caught his eye, and made
him start, and step back some paces. "As ye love your eyes," exclaimed
he, "who is there?" Receiving no answer, he looked again, and again;
then nearer, then, thrusting his hand among sheep's heads and trotters,
old remnants of meat, and the like, he pulled out the head--the horrid
head--which he held extended at arm's length, as if he were afraid it
would do him mischief. "Anathemas attend your beard!" exclaimed Yanaki,
as soon as he discovered, by the tuft of hair on the top, that it had
belonged to a Mussulman, "Och! if I had but every one of your heads in
this manner, ye cursed race of Omar! I would make kabobs of them, and
every cur in Constantinople should get fat for nothing. May ye all come
to this end! May the vultures feed on your carcasses! and may every
Greek have the good fortune which has befallen me this day, of having
one of your worthless skulls for his football!" Upon which, in his rage,
he threw it down and kicked it from him; but recollecting himself he
said, "But, after all, what shall I do with it? If it is seen here, I am
lost for ever: nobody will believe but what I have killed a Turk."

[Illustration: 'To where the dead body of a Jew lay extended.' 25.jpg]

All of a sudden he cried out, in a sort of malicious ecstasy, "'Tis well
I remembered,--the Jew! the Jew!--a properer place for such a head was
never thought or heard of; and there you shall go, thou vile remnant of
a Mahomedan!"

Upon which he seized it, and hiding it under his coat, ran with it down
the street to where the dead body of a Jew lay extended, with its head
placed immediately between its legs.

In Turkey, you must know, when a Mahomedan is beheaded, his head is
placed under his arm, by way of an honourable distinction from the
Christian or Jew, who, when a similar misfortune befalls them, have
theirs inserted between their legs, as close to the seat of dishonour as
possible.

It was in that situation then that Yanaki placed the Turk's head,
putting it as near, cheek by jowl, with the Jew's, as the hurry of the
case would allow. He had been able to effect this without being seen,
because the day was still but little advanced, and no one stirring;
and he returned to his shop