第100章

"Egypt is to be blessed with peace, and they who have so long contended with each other in bitter hostility are to extend their hands to each other. Let recognition be accorded to the Mameluke beys, and favorable conditions of peace offered them, and they will submit." This Lord Balan had announced to the grand-sultan, and his first servant, the grand-vizier, at Stamboul. And he had gone to and fro, from Cairo to Stamboul, from Stamboul to Cairo, until peace was at last, as it seemed, secured.

"The Mameluke beys," so read the last decision of the grand-sultan, Selim II., "are to leave Cairo and to go to Upper Egypt, where large tracts of land are to be assigned them, with their wives, their treasures, and their servants, to rule there in freedom and magnificence."The Mamelukes took these propositions into favorable consideration;they were weary of bloodshed and longed for the peaceful desert plains and for the sunny tents, where they could rest from their long struggles in quiet comfort, listen to the songs of the female slaves, and gaze at the voluptuous dances of the almehs. Yes, they will return home to the beloved south, to the cataracts of the Nile, to the sunny shores where the temple ruins of by-gone magnificence stand out against the deep blue sky.

Yes, they longed for peace, and for the sublime stillness of the desert; they consented to Lord Balan's proposition, and declared themselves ready to meet the servants of the sultan, and arrange with them the boundaries of the tracts of land that were to be assigned to them, and to conclude peace. They had, therefore, in response to the invitation of the Turks, come out to the peninsula of Aboukir. There, on the wide plain that had three years before been drenched with the blood of the French and the Egyptians, now stood the stately tents of the Turks and the Mamelukes.

It was a splendid spectacle, the wide plain with its array of gayly-decorated tents, with its great squares, on which the Mamelukes mounted on their proud steeds, displayed their skill with the spear and the gun, exciting the admiration of the Turks by their skill and agility.

All was festivity, and life was enjoyed as though it were an uninterrupted chain of pleasures. Yet there were some who felt less contented than these Mameluke beys, some who had learned from the French that promises and assurances of friendship were not always to be relied on.

Many of the beys had brought their wives with them, for the wives of the beys enjoyed greater liberty than those of the Turks, and they could move about among the tents, with as little constraint as in the streets of Cairo. The Mameluke honors his bey's wife, and bows down in the dust before her, when she passes by with head erect and veiled countenance, followed by her slaves.

On this, the fourteenth day of their sojourn at Aboukir, the Mamelukes also bow profoundly before a woman who, followed by two servants, is passing down between the double row of tents, and whisper to each other: "This is the wife of our greatest chieftain, the deceased Mourad Bey! How does it happen that she has left her beautiful palace in Cairo? For what purpose has Sitta Nefysseh come to Aboukir?"And when she had passed, the Mamelukes raised their heads and followed with their eyes the white form as it swept on between the tents, and observed with astonishment that Mourad Bey's widow had stopped at the tent of the bey who was now their first chief, at the tent of Osman Bey Bardissi. Mourad's widow, and those who accompanied her, entered this tent.

He lay on the divan, smoking his chibouque. But upon her appearance at the entrance to the tent, he sprang to his feet.

"You here, Sitta-you in the camp at Aboukir?""I have come to speak with you," she replied, earnestly.--"Let the rest leave the tent. Mourad's widow can be alone with the man whom her deceased husband called his dear friend."He waved his hand imperiously, and all the servants with drew from the tent, closing the gold-embroidered curtains behind them.

"Speak!" said the bey, in deferential tones. "Your servant hears, and is ready to obey your commands.""I have not come to command," replied she; "I have come to warn you, Osman.""To warn me, Sitta?"