There is treachery--treachery against Allah and His
Prophet! Therefore, let every true believer forsake immediately his
handiwork, cast his awl, his hammer, and his plane aside, and seize his
sword instead; let him close his booth and rally beneath our standard!"
The mob greeted these words with a savage yell, raised Patrona on its
shoulders, and carried him away through the arcades of Bezesztan piazza.
Everyone hastened away to close his booth, and the whole city seemed to
be turned upside down. It was just as if a still standing lake had been
stirred violently to its lowest depths, and all the slimy monsters and
hideous refuse reposing at the bottom had come to the surface; for the
streets were suddenly flooded by the unrecognised riff-raff which
vegetates in every great town, though they are out of the ken of the
regular and orderly inhabitants, and only appear in the light of day
when a sudden concussion drives them to the surface.
Yelling and howling, they accompanied Halil everywhere, only listening
to him when his escort raised him aloft on their shoulders in order that
he might address the mob.
Just at this moment they stopped in front of the house of the Janissary
Aga.
"Hassan!" cried Halil curtly, disdaining to give him his official title,
and thundering on the door with his fists, "Hassan, you imprisoned our
comrades because they dared to murmur, and now you can hear roars
instead of murmurs. Give them up, Hassan! Give them up, I say!"
Hassan, however, was no great lover of such spectacles, so he hastily
exchanged his garments for a suit of rags, and bolted through the gate
of the back garden to the shores of the Bosphorus, where he huddled into
an old tub of a boat which carried him across to the camp.
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