At that gate where the head of Ali was exhibited the throng was so great that many people were crushed to death by the gaping sight-seers, who had all come hither to stare at the gray-bearded face, before whose wrathful look a whole realm had trembled. At last, on the evening of the third day, when the well-feasted mob had stared their fill and begun to disperse, there drew nigh to the gate of the Seraglio an old yellow-faced fakir who, from the appearance of his eyes, was evidently blind. His clothing consisted of a simple sackcloth mantle, girded lightly round the waist by a cotton girdle, from which hung a long roll of manuscript; on his head he wore a high mortar-shaped hat, the distinguishing mark of the Omarites. All the people standing about respectfully made way for him as, with downcast eyes and hands stretched forth, he groped his way along, and, without any one guiding him, made his way straight up to Tepelenti's head. There he stood and laid his right hand on the severed head, none preventing him. And lo! it seemed to those who stood round as if the severed head slowly opened its eyes and looked upon the new-comer with cold, stony, stiff, dim eyeballs. This only lasted for a moment, and then the Omarite took his hand off the head and the eyes closed again. Perhaps it was but an illusion, after all! Then the dervish spoke. His deep, grave voice sank into the hearts of all who heard him: "Go to Mahmoud, and tell him that I have bought from him the head of Ali Pasha and the heads of his three sons, Sulaiman, Vely, and Mukhtar, and a whole empire is the price I pay him therefor." "What empire art thou able to give?" inquired the captain of the ciauses who were guarding the head. "That which is the fairest of all, that which is nearest to his heart, that which he had the least hope of--his own empire." These bold words were reported to the Sultan, and the Grand Signior summoned the Omarite dervish to the palace, and shut himself up alone with him till late at night. When the muezzin intoned the fifth namazat, towards midnight, Mahmoud dismissed the dervish. What they said to each other remained a secret known only to themselves. The fakir, on emerging from the Sultan's dressing-room, plucked a piece of coal from a censer, and wrote on the white alabaster wall this sentence, "Rather be a head without a hand than a hand without a head," and nobody but the Sultan understood that saying. Mahmoud commanded that nine purses of gold should be given to the dervish; he gave him also the heads of Ali and of Ali's three sons.