Behind the throne shone the spoils of war--silken and velvet pavilions, wrested from the Persians, the Arabs, the Egyptian memluks; costly tapestries, heavy with gold embroidery. At his feet were heaped the gifts and tributes of subject and allied princes. There were vests of Venetian velvet, golden goblets crusted with jewels from the courts of the Grand Moghul, ermine-lined kaftans from Erzeroum, carven jade from Cathay, silver Persian helmets with horse-hair plumes, turban-cloths, cunningly sewn with gems, from Egypt, curved Damascus blades of watered steel, matchlocks from Kabul worked richly in chased silver, breastplates and shields of Indian steel, rare furs from Mongolia. The throne was flanked on either hand by a long rank of youthful slaves, made fast by golden collars to a single, long silver chain. One file was composed of young Greek and Hungarian boys, the other of girls; all clad only in plumed head-pieces and jeweled ornaments intended to emphasize their nudity.
Eunuchs in flowing robes, their rotund bellies banded by cloth-of-gold sashes, knelt and offered the royal guests sherbets in gemmed goblets, cooled with snow from the mountains of Asia Minor. The torches danced and flickered to the roars of the multitudes. Around the courses swept the horses, foam flying from their bits; wooden castles reeled and went up in flames as the Janizaries clashed in mock warfare. Officers passed among the shouting people, tossing showers of copper and silver coins amongst them. None hungered or thirsted in Stamboul that night except the miserable Caphar captives. The minds of the foreign envoys were numbed by the bursting sea of splendor, the thunder of imperial magnificence. About the vast arena stalked trained elephants, almost covered with housings of gold-worked leather, and from the jeweled towers on their backs, fanfares of trumpets vied with the roar of the throngs and the bellowing of lions. The tiers of the Hippodrome were a sea of faces, all turning toward the jeweled figure on the shining throne, while thousands of tongues wildly thundered his acclaim.
As he impressed the Venetian envoys, Suleyman knew he impressed the world. In the blaze of his magnificence, men would forget that a handful of desperate Caphars behind rotting walls had closed his road to empire. Suleyman accepted a goblet of the forbidden wine, and spoke aside to the Grand Vizier, who stepped forth and lifted his arms.
--h, guests of my master, the Padishah forgets not the humblest in the hour of rejoicing. To the officers who led his hosts against the infidels, he has made rare gifts. Now he gives two hundred and forty thousand ducats to be distributed among the common soldiers, and likewise to each Janizary he gives a thousand aspers.-- In the midst of the roar that went up, a eunuch knelt before the Grand Vizier, holding up a large round package, carefully bound and sealed. A folded piece of parchment, held shut by a red seal, accompanied it. The attention of the Sultan was attracted.
--h, friend, what has thou there?-- Ibrahim salaamed.--he rider of the Adrianople post delivered it, oh Lion of Islam. Apparently it is a gift of some sort from the Austrian dogs. Infidel riders, I understand, gave it into the hands of the border guard, with instructions to send it straightway to Stamboul.----pen it,--directed Suleyman, his interest roused. The eunuch salaamed to the floor, then began breaking the seals of the package. A scholarly slave opened the accompanying note and read the contents, written in a bold yet feminine hand:
To the Soldan Suleyman and his Wezir Ibrahim and to the hussy Roxelana we who sign our names below send a gift in token of our immeasurable fondness and kind affection.
Sonya of Rogatino, and Gottfried von Kalmbach
Suleyman, who had started up at the name of his favorite, his features suddenly darkening with wrath, gave a choking cry, which was echoed by Ibrahim. The eunuch had torn the seals of the bale, disclosing what lay within. A pungent scent of herbs and preservative spices filled the air, and the object, slipping from the horrified eunuch-- hands, tumbled among the heaps of presents at Suleyman'ts feet, offering a ghastly contrast to the gems, gold and velvet bales. The Sultan stared down at it and in that instant his shimmering pretense of triumph slipped from him; his glory turned to tinsel and dust. Ibrahim tore at his beard with a gurgling, strangling sound, purple with rage.
At the Sultan'ts feet, the features frozen in a death-mask of horror, lay the severed head of Mikhal Oglu, Vulture of the Grand Turk.
Echoes from an Anvil
I leave to paltry poets
The tabor and the lute;
I sing in drums and tom-toms
The black abysmal brute--My voice is of the people,
That giant wild and mute.
(With blood of all the ages
His broken nails are black,
The whole world weights and burdens
His hairy bestial back;
He shambles down forever
A blind and tangled track.)
I bring no polished diamonds,
No gems from London town;
No cultured whim or fancy
My rugged verses crown;
You find here naught but power
That breaks a city down.
I spill no words of beauty,
Coins from a silver purse,
My hands are built of iron,
And iron is in my verse.
I bring no love but fury,
No blessing but a curse.
My low pitched brow is slanting,
My eyes are burning red,
With fierce black primal visions
That thunder in my head;
Behind my heart the rivers
And all the jungles spread.
I slaved in star-girt Babel
And labored at the wall;
I watched the birth of pavements
Beneath my slugging maul--And in a frenzied dawning
I saw her towers fall.
I toiled in Tuscan vineyards,
I broke the beaten loam,
I strained against the mallet
That drove the chisel home;
I sweated in the galleys
That broke the road to Rome.
Oh, Khan and king and pharaoh!
In cold and drouth and heat
I bled to build your glory,
An ant beneath your feet--But always rose a morning
When blood ran in the street.
The world upon my shoulders
Knee deep in muck and silt,
My hand beneath my tatters
Still grips the hidden hilt--Who fed the ancient rivers
With blood rebellions spilt?
The Bull Dog Breed
--nd so,--concluded the Old Man,--his big bully ducked the seltzer bottle and the next thing I knowed I knowed nothin't I come to with the general idee that the Sea-Girl was sinkin'twith all hands and I was drownin't--but it was only some chump pourin'twater all over me to bring me to. Oh, yeah, the big French cluck I had the row with was nobody much, I learned--just only merely nobody but Tiger Valois, the heavyweight champion of the French navy--
Me and the crew winked at each other. Until the captain decided to unburden to Penrhyn, the first mate, in our hearing, we-- wondered about the black eye he's sported following his night ashore in Manila. He-- been in an unusual bad temper ever since, which means he's been acting like a sore-tailed hyena. The Old Man was a Welshman, and he hated a Frenchman like he hated a snake. He now turned on me.
--f you was any part of a man, you big mick ham,--he said bitterly,--ou wouldn't stand around and let a blankety-blank French so-on and so-forth lay out your captain. Oh, yeah, I know you wasn't there, then, but if you--l fight him--
--ragh!--I said with sarcasm,--eavin'tout the fact that I-- stand a great chance of gettin'tmatched with Valois--why not pick me somethin'teasy, like Dempsey? Do you realize you--e askin'tme, a ordinary ham-an'tegger, to climb the original and only Tiger Valois that-- whipped everything in European and the Asian waters and looks like a sure bet for the world-- title?----erahh!--snarled the Old Man.--e that-- boasted in every port of the Seven Seas that I shipped the toughest crew since the days of Harry Morgan--He turned his back in disgust and immediately fell over my white bulldog, Mike, who was taking a snooze by the hatch. The Old Man give a howl as he come up and booted the innocent pup most severe. Mike instantly attached hisself to the Old Man't leg, from which I at last succeeded in prying him with a loss of some meat and the pants leg.