Pasha

“ The retort which we might have given to him was crushed under a silent fuming, for he was still the Pasha! We might have said, “Aye; but, Pasha, you know, you find more interest in insects than in men. You are interested in the anatomy of a man, we in the soul. You know something of his skull, but we can feel the pulse, and we are certain that your faith in these men is misplaced, and that in the excess of this faith lies folly.” ”

“ I couldn't help noticing, as far as good taste in personal appearance was concerned, that Pasha's choice of a favourite; her yashmack, much more gauzy than the rest, revealing most charming features, while her figure, judging from the folds of her voluminous draperies, was of perfect contour.
Fate, apparently, had no horrors for this much-married magnate: perhaps, when he looked around, and his wives, with one accord, said, or seemed to suggest: "We are seven, to say nothing of our retainers, together with our dogs, cats, and parrots," he felt that he was beyond its reach. ”

“ I discover that there is a plot to break away completely from the Pasha’s authority. The number of those actually faithful to-day in camp is nine. I am told that they know the Pasha is so unsuspecting that they have but to kiss his hand, and plead forgiveness, and he becomes pliant to any schemer.
When a man becomes the jest of such rogues authority is weak indeed. ”

“ Never did I see a lovelier face!" exclaimed the Pasha, as with sparkling eyes he gazed at the fair girlish features. "Speak, dog of a Wallachian, whose portrait is this?"
The elder of the two prisoners looked at his son, and shrugged his shoulders. The younger alternately glanced at Hussein and at the Pasha, undecided what course to take.
"Speak, Wallachian dog!" again shouted the Pasha. "Who is this woman?"
"As you value your father's life and your own," said the elder prisoner, "speak, Petru; it may, perhaps, be of some use to us." ”

“ Pasha, passive in everything save her impersonal sensuality, would go with anybody who might call her, but the administration of the house vigilantly guards its interests in her. A near insanity already flits over her lovely face, in her half-closed eyes, always smiling with some heady, blissful, meek, bashful and unseemly smile, in her languorous, softened, moist lips, which she is constantly licking ”

“ Most of all she was beloved by the Prince of all Orient Land, Selim Pasha the Proud (a Pasha is a very mighty kind of Prince, who wears a turban of heavenly blue and carries a curved sword in his golden belt) . Selim Pasha rode through the gates of the Palace every morning at sunrise, on a snow-white horse, followed by a hundred soldiers on foot; on his shoulder he always carried a bird of paradise, who made sweet music for Princess Zarashne, and in his pocket he brought his pet white mouse to dance for her. ”

“ But the quite phenomenal Pasha who now flits across their astonished vision is a lean, yellow-faced little man, clad in the gorgeous but dusty and travel-stained uniform of a Marshal of Turkey, mounted on a swift dromedary which out-distances every other animal of the desert save the beast ridden by the Arab sheikh who accompanies him. ”

“ The Pasha did so, and after a second’s hesitation, during which it was clear that she was measuring the strength of two wills, she walked out, taking the sweet fragrance and loveliness of her presence with her.
“After her, Mohammed! but if you strike her with even a feather, she shall become as a stranger to you until you reach Cairo. Let her scold on, man, even until she faints with weariness. Does a man like you fear wind? Be considerate with her for three or four days. She will come round, never fear.” ”

“ Tell the Pasha I am greatly obliged to him for his hospitality, and still more for his kindness in furnishing me with horses, and say that now I must be off.
Pasha (after hearing the dragoman, and standing up on his divan) . [13] —Proud are the sires, and blessed are the dams of the horses that shall carry his Excellency to the end of his prosperous journey. May the saddle beneath him glide down to the gates of the happy city, like a boat swimming on the third river of Paradise. May he sleep the sleep of a child, when his friends are around him ”

“ The door of the kiosque was open, but his wife was not visible. The Pasha stopped a moment, as he had done a thousand times before, and looked back. He was not the man to be insensible to what he saw between the columnar trunks of the pines, where European hills traced a dark curve against the fading sky, and where the sinuous waterway far below still reflected a last glamour of the day. The beauty of it, and the sharp sweetness of the April air, and the infinitesimal sounds of the wood, and the half-conscious memories involved with it all, made him sigh. ”

“ Last night they brought part of a harem of the Pasha of Aleppo captive hither. This may lead to events.’
‘I have already ventured to observe to the lordly Keferinis,’ said Fakredeen, ‘that every lance in the Lebanon is at your command, gracious Queen.’
‘We have lances,’ said Astarte; ‘it is not of that I was thinking. Nor indeed do I care to prolong a quarrel for this capture. If the Pasha will renounce the tribute of the villages, I am for peace; if he will not, we will speak of those things of which there has been counsel between us. ”

“ Shiftless housewives lolled with unkempt hair on the housetops; women of the harem looked out of the little mushrabieh panels in the clattering, narrow bazaars.
Just at their feet was a mosque—one of the thousand nameless mosques of Cairo. It was the season of Ramadan, and a Friday, the Sunday of the Mahommedan—the Ghimah.
The “Two” were Donovan Pasha, then English Secretary to the Khedive, generally known as “Little Dicky Donovan,” and Captain Renshaw, of the American Consulate. There was no man in Egypt of so much importance as Donovan Pasha. ”

“ Goodnight, effendi. If you, effendi, are poor, it is well; no man will desire your life. Then you can be a slave, and have quiet nights. If you are rich, effendi, remember my brother. Good-night, effendi. May sacrifices be yours . . . and My Lady says good-night." Kingsley gave her a gold-piece and went down to Foulik Pasha.
As they steamed away Kingsley looked in vain to the house on the shore.
There was no face at window or door, no sign of life about the place.
"Well, my bold bey," said Donovan Pasha to him at last, "what do you think of Egypt now?"
"I'm not thinking of Egypt now." ”

“ He stopped talking, and spoke in a low voice to his kavass, who presently brought a bottle of champagne—a final proof that Shelek Pasha was not an ascetic or a Turk. As the bottle was being opened the Pasha took up his string of beads and began to finger them, for the blue eyes in the poke bonnet were disconcerting. He was about to speak when Hope said, in a clear voice:
“Thee has a strange people beneath thee. Thee rules by the sword, or the word of peace, friend?” The fat, smooth hands fingered the beads swiftly. ”

“ The wheel goes round, my dear Pasha. Every dog has his day. Forgive me, I am naturally elated. I meant to tell you at breakfast to-morrow, but since you surprised our tender meeting, why, I’ll tell you now. Congratulate me. That charming girl has owned that her avowal of love for me was nothing but bare truth, and has consented to make me happy.’
‘To marry you?’
‘My dear Pasha! What else could I mean?’ I took my hands out of my pockets, lit a cigarette and puffed the smoke luxuriously. Mouraki sat motionless in his chair, his eyes cold and sharp on me, his brow puckered. ”

“ Some people had come down to meet us with an invitation from the Pasha, and we wound our way up to the castle. At the gates there were groups of soldiers, some smoking, and some lying flat like corpses upon the cool stones. We went through courts, ascended steps, passed along a corridor, and walked into an airy, whitewashed room, with an European clock at one end of it, and Moostapha Pasha at the other; the fine, old, bearded potentate looked very like Jove—like Jove, too, in the midst of his clouds, for the silvery fumes of the narghile [6] hung lightly circling round him. ”

“ The two fly from point to point with incredible rapidity; the words of the Pasha are sometimes stern and sometimes mild, but always just and always dead against slavery. There is no talk of what he wants for himself, but only of what he wants done or left undone, because this or that is right or wrong—and what he wants he gets. ”

“ In a paroxysm of passion Selamlik Pasha called two Abyssinian slaves standing behind. “This brother of a toad to prison!” he said.
The Lost One’s eyes sought Dicky like a flash. Without a word, and as quick as the tick of a clock, Dicky tossed over his pistol to the Lost One, who caught it smoothly, turned it in his hand, and levelled it at the Abyssinians.
“No more of this damned nonsense, Pasha,” said Fielding suddenly. “He doesn’t put a high price on his life, and you do on yours. ”

“ The Pasha, looking at you with a vicious sneer, turned up his nose, ejaculated "'Ajami," and prescribed the bastinado. You observed that the mere fact of being a Persian did not give mankind a right to capture, imprison, and punish you; you declared moreover that you were no Persian, but an Indian under British protection. The Pasha, a man accustomed to obedience, then stared at you, to frighten you, and you, we will suppose, stared at him, till, with an oath, he turned to the patrol, and asked them your offence. ”

“ He has been very just, and good to them all, but the more he allows them to do as they please the further their hearts are from him. They say, ‘Oh, let him go on collecting beetles and birds. We don’t want him.’ The Pasha is very happy when he travels, and is able to collect things, and does not trouble himself about the men. ”

“ Back in the amber apartment once more, with the two Scimitars at the door and Harûn Pasha reclining upon the cushions, I found speech.
"What are you going to do with me?" I demanded.
"My son," replied the Pasha with benignity, "I pardon all! Your great courage and address, together with the modesty of your deportment, and the spirit of adventure which has brought you to your present unfortunate case, plead for you in a manner which my clemency cannot resist. It is my unhappy lot often to be called upon to punish. ”

“ The complexities, and the apparent contradictions, of the Oriental are always baffling to the West; while, though far superior to vanity, the Pasha knows his own value and takes himself, as it were, too much for granted, to encourage or assist others in the dissection of his character. I can but rest on the tolerance all great men extend to our judgments, if prompted by sincerity and justice and a love of truth. ”

“ Or the Nile hath covered him with its flood;
Else would he come when our voices call.
His word was honey in the prince's ear
Will he return no more?"
And now the sheikh-el-beled spoke. "It hath been so since Nahoum Pasha passed this way four months agone. He hath changed all. War will not avail. David Pasha, he will come again. His word is as the centre of the world. Ye have no hope, because ye see the hawks among the starving sheep. But the shepherd will return from behind the hill, and the hawks will flee away.
". . . Behold, once was I in the desert. ”

“ So I came. Is this a place for a woman to be alone in—a young woman, with men working all about and I don't know who, and a thousand ways of getting in and out from the hills, and ten thousand hiding places in the woods?"
The Pasha made a gesture of impatience, and turned away. But after all, what could one do with old Zümbül? He had been brought up in his tradition. The Pasha lighted another cigarette to help himself think.
"Well, I came up here," continued the eunuch, "and as I came I heard Madama singing. You know how she sings the songs of the Franks." ”

“ The Pasha wondered if he would hear anything else. But first one and then another nightingale began to fill the night air with their April madness.
"Ah, there are two of them," remarked Shaban. "She will take the one that says the sweetest things to her."
The Pasha's reply was to throw a spadeful of earth on the chest. Shaban joined him with such vigour that the hole was very soon full.
"We are old, my Pasha, but we are good for something yet," said Shaban. ”

“ No Pasha was ever more absolute than my Lord in the little village beside him; his will was a sort of firman that none dreamed of disputing; and, indeed, the place men occupied in the esteem of their fellows there, was little else than a reflex of how they were regarded at the Hermitage. We never scruple to bestow a sort of derisive pity upon the savage who, having carved his deity out of a piece of wood, sits down to worship him; and yet, what an unconscious imitation of the red man is all our adulation of great folks! ”

“ I said.
"I am aiming at never doing another hand's stroke in my life," he replied, with an odd glint in his blue eyes. "My idea of life—life, mind you, not mere existence—is to be a pasha—one of the old school, with gate porters, orange trees, fountains, slaves, mosaic pavements, a marble bath." ”

“ Ishmael Pasha, whom I have already described to you in my Rhodian letters, is rather a remarkable man. If he could only speak French, he might be ambassador at London or Paris, or hold even a higher position in his own country. He is a very smart little man, dressed like a petit maître, with very shiny boots, trousers studiously strapped down, his beard and hair trimmed with the most scrupulous care. He is in every way a trimmer. ”