The Sultan had just been thrust into the dungeon of the Seven Towers, that place of dismal memories for the Sultans and their families in general. In that octagonal chamber, whose round windows overlooked the sea, more than one mortal sigh had escaped from the lips of the descendants of Omar, whom a powerful faction or a triumphant rival had, sooner or later, condemned to death. It was now morning, the uproar of the rebellion had died away outside, the Seraglio was no longer besieged. It was now that Kara Makan appeared before the Sultan. The Padishah was sitting on the ground--on the bare ground. His royal robes were still upon him, a diamond aigrette sparkled in the turban of the Caliph, and there he sat upon the ground, and never took his eyes off it. "Your majesty!" cried Kara Makan, addressing him. The Padishah, as if he had not heard, looked apathetically in front of him, and not a muscle of his face changed. "Sire, I stand before thee to speak to thee in the name of the Moslem people." He might just as well have been speaking to a marble statue. "Every storm proceeds from Allah, sire, and nothing which Allah does is done without cause. When the lightnings are scattered abroad from the hands of the angel Adramelech, is not the air beneath them heavy with curses? and when the living earth quakes beneath the towns that are upon it, shall not innocently spilled blood shake it still more? So also the Moslem people rising in rebellion is the instrument of Allah, and Allah knoweth the causes thereof. I will guard my tongue against telling these causes to thee; thou knowest them right well already, nor is it for me to reprove the anointed successor of the Prophet. But I beg thee, sire, to promise me and the people, in the name of Allah, that thou wilt do what it beseemeth the ruler of the Ottoman nation to do--promise to remedy our wrongs, and we will set thee again upon thy throne." At these words Mahmoud fixed his eyes upon the speaker, and gazed long upon those dark features, as sinister as an eclipse of the sun. Then he arose, turned away, and replied in a low voice, hissing with contempt: "The Sultan owes no reply to his servants." Kara Makan's face was convulsed at these words. Scarce was he able to stifle his wrath, and he replied, in broken sentences: "Sire, the lion is the king of the desert--but if he is in a cage--he listens to the voice of his keeper--thou knowest this hand, which hath fought for thee in many engagements--and thou knowest that whatever this hand seizeth it seizeth with a grasp of iron." The Sultan pondered long. Then all at once he seemed to bethink him of something, for his face seemed to lose its severity, and he turned towards the Janissary leader with a mild, indulgent look. "What, then, dost thou require?" This softened look concealed the genesis of the thought--the Janissaries must be wiped off the face of the earth. "What dost thou require?" said the Padishah, softly.