ast and from the west, from
the north and from the south--four empire-subverting tempests, which
shook the strong trunk of Osman to its very roots, and scattered its
leaves afar.

Ali Pasha of Janina was the first to kindle the blood-red flames of
war in the west, and soon they spread from the Morea to Smyrna. In the
north the crusading banners of Yprilanti raised up a fresh foe
against Mahmoud, and the cries of "the sacred army" re-echoed from the
walls of Athens and the banks of the Danube and the summits of
Olympus. In Stambul the unbridled hosts of the Janissaries shed
torrents of blood among the Greeks of the city on the tidings of every
defeat from outside. And when the peril from every quarter had reached
its height, the Shah of Persia fell upon the crumbling realm from the
east, and captured the rich city of Bagdad.

And still Mahmoud had the desire to live--to live and rule. A pettier
spirit would have fled from the Imperial palace and taken refuge among
the palm-trees of Arabia Felix when it recognized that an endless war
encompassed it on every side, that to conquer was impossible, and that
the nearest enemy was the most dangerous. A mine of gunpowder had been
dug beneath the throne, and around the throne a mob of madmen were
hurrying aimlessly to and fro with lighted torches. And yet it was
Mahmoud's pleasure to remain sitting on that throne.

Frequently he would steal furtively at night from his harem. Alone,
unattended, he would contemplate the flight of the stars from the roof
of the Seraglio, and would listen to the nocturnal massacres and the
shrieks of the dying in the streets of Stambul. He would watch how the
conflagrations burned forth in two or three places at once, both in
Pera and Galata their lordships the Janissaries were working their
will. And he felt that cruelly cold piercing wind which began to blow
from the north, so that in the rooms of the Seraglio the shivering
odalisks began to draw rugs and other warm coverings over their
tender limbs. Never had any one in Stambul felt that cold wind before.
Whence came it, and what did it signify?

Mahmoud knew whence it came and what it signified, and he had the
courage to look steadily in the face of the future, in which he
discerned not a single ray of hope.

CHAPTER IX

THE CIRCASSIAN AND HIS FAMILY

In those days Kasi Mollah did not go by the name of Murstud--_i.e._, a
pillar of the faith. He was a simple sheik at Himri, in the