The poor thing could not escape from the
clamorous enthusiasm of the sturdy muscular fish-wives and bathing women
who, in their turn also, raised her upon their shoulders and carried her
about, finally resolving to carry her all the way home for the honour
of the thing. So for Halil Patrona's palace they set off with Guel-Bejaze
on their shoulders, she all the time vainly imploring them to put her
down that she might hide away among the crowd and disappear, for she
feared, she trembled at, the honour they did her. From street to street
they carried her, whirling along with them in a torrent of drunken
enthusiasm everyone they chanced to fall in with on the way; and before
them went the cry that the woman whom the others were carrying on their
shoulders was the wife of Halil Patrona, the feted leader of the people,
and ever denser and more violent grew the crowd. Any smaller groups they
might happen to meet were swept along with them. Now and then they
encountered the harems of the greatest dignitaries, such as pashas and
beglerbegs. It was all one, the august and exalted ladies had also to
follow in the suite of the wife of Halil Patrona, the most powerful man
in the realm, whose wife was the gentlest lady under Heaven.
Suddenly, just as they were about to turn into the great square in front
of the fortress of the Seven Towers, another imposing crowd encountered
them coming from the opposite direction. It was the escort of the
Sultana. The half a thousand odalisks and the four hundred eunuchs
occupied the whole width of the road, but face to face with them were
advancing ten thousand intoxicated viragoes led by the frantic
bayaderes.
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