ver seen, and a hard, stern
face--"

"But what did you do with your treasures?" asked farmer Leger.

"Ha! that's it! you may well ask that! Those fellows down there haven't
any Grand Livre nor any Bank of France. So I was forced to carry off my
windfalls in a felucca, which was captured by the Turkish High-Admiral
himself. Such as you see me here to-day, I came very near being impaled
at Smyrna. Indeed, if it hadn't been for Monsieur de Riviere, our
ambassador, who was there, they'd have taken me for an accomplice of Ali
pacha. I saved my head, but, to tell the honest truth, all the rest,
the ten thousand talari, the thousand gold pieces, and the fine weapons,
were all, yes all, drunk up by the thirsty treasury of the Turkish
admiral. My position was the more perilous because that very admiral
happened to be Chosrew pacha. After I routed him, the fellow had managed
to obtain a position which is equal to that of our Admiral of the
Fleet--"

"But I thought he was in the cavalry?" said Pere Leger, who had followed
the narrative with the deepest attention.

"Dear me! how little the East is understood in the French provinces!"
cried Georges. "Monsieur, I'll explain the Turks to you. You are a
farmer; the Padishah (that's the Sultan) makes you a marshal; if you
don't fulfil your functions to his satisfaction, so much the worse
for you, he cuts your head off; that's his way of dismissing his
functionaries. A gardener is made a prefect; and the prime minister
comes down to be a foot-boy. The Ottomans have no system of promotion
and no hierarchy. From a cavalry officer Chosrew simply became a naval
officer. Sultan Mahmoud ordered him to capture Ali by sea; and he did
get hold of him, assisted by those beggarly English--who put their
paw on most of the treasure. This Chosrew, who had not forgotten the
riding-lesson I gave him, recognized me. You understand, my goose
was cooked, oh, brown! when it suddenly came into my head to claim
protection as a Frenchman and a troubadour from Monsieur de Riviere. The
ambassador, enchanted to find something to show him off, demanded that I
should be set at liberty. The Turks have one good trait in their nature;
they are as willing to let you go as they are to cut your head off;
they are indifferent to everything. The French consul, charming fellow,
friend of Chosrew, made him give back two thousand of the talari, and,
consequently, his name is, as I may say, graven on my heart--"

"What w