The whole square was thronged with angry women who, with faces
flushed and sparkling eyes, were rushing upon the odalisks. Any single
eunuch they could lay hold of was pretty certain to meet with a martyr's
death in a few seconds. They tore him to pieces, and pelted each other
with the bloody fragments before scattering them to the winds. Elhaj
Beshir, therefore, earnestly implored the Sultana to turn back and try
to regain the Seraglio.
Adsalis cast a contemptuous look on the Aga.
"One can see that thou art neither man nor woman," cried she, "for if
thou wert one or the other, thou wouldst know how to be courageous."
Then she buried the point of her golden spurs in the flank of her steed,
and urged it towards the spot where the most frantic of the maenads stood
fighting with the mounted odalisks, tearing some from their horses,
rending their clothes, and then by way of mockery remounting them with
their faces to the horses' tails.
Suddenly the Sultana stood amongst them with a haughty, commanding look,
like a demi-goddess.
"Who is the presumptuous wretch who would bar the way before me?" she
cried in her clear, penetrating voice.
One of the odalisks planted herself in front of the Sultana and, resting
one hand upon her hip, pointed with the other at Guel-Bejaze!
"Look!" she cried, "there is Guel-Bejaze, and she it is who bars thy way
and compels thee to make room for her."
Guel-Bejaze, whom the women had brought to the spot on their shoulders,
wrung her hands in her desperation, and begged and prayed the Sultana
for forgiveness.
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