Janizaries -- Fiction; Turkey -- History -- Mahmud I, 1730-1754 -- Fiction
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. Then only did
he feel safe.
Meanwhile the Janissaries battered in the door of his house and released
their comrades. Then they put Halil on Hassan's horse and proceeded in
great triumph to the Etmeidan. The next instant the whole square was
alive with armed men, and they hauled the Kulkiaja caldron out of the
barracks and set it up in the midst of the mob. This was the usual
signal for the outburst of the war of fiercely contending passions too
long enchained.
"And now open the prisons!" thundered Halil, "and set free all the
captives! Put daggers in the hands of the murderers and flaming torches
in the hands of the incendiaries, and let us go forth burning and
slaying, for to-day is a day of death and lamentation."
And the mob rushed upon the prisons, tore down the railings, broke
through bolts and bars, and whole hordes of murderers and malefactors
rushed forth into the piazza and all the adjoining streets, and the last
of all to quit the dungeon was Janaki, Halil's father-in-law. There he
remained standing in the doorway as if he were afraid or ashamed, till
Musli rushed towards him and tore him away by force.
"Be not cast down, muzafir, but snatch up a sword and stand alongside of
me. No harm can come to you here. It is the turn of the Gaolers now."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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