riendship are sacred to me. Castor and
Pollux, Theseus and Pirithous are to me majestic examples of that
excellent brotherhood of kindred spirits which I constantly set before
me. Wherever I have gone people have always blessed me; nay, did I but
let them, they would kiss my feet. The daughter of a Georgian peasant
whose father trusted me is now the first waiting-woman of the wife of
the Governor of Egypt. Is that glory enough for you! The daughter of a
poor goatherd, whom I picked up from the mire, is now the premier
pipe-filler of the Pasha of Salonica. A high office that, if you like!
What Ganymede was to Jove in those classical ages-- Ah! the tears gush
from my eyes at the sound of that word. O Hellas!"

The Circassian allowed his good friend to weep on, considering it a
sufficient answer to let his dark bushy eyebrows frown still more
fiercely, if possible, over his downcast eyes. Then he caught up a
hammer and hammered away with great fury at the handle he had prepared
for the whip, riveting the wire with copper studs.

"Kasi Mollah, hitherto I have only been joking, but now I am going to
speak in earnest," resumed Leonidas Argyrocantharides, raising his
voice that he might be heard through the hammering. "You should
bethink you seriously of your children's destiny. I am your old
friend, your old acquaintance; my sole wish is for your welfare. I
love your children as much as if they were my own, and the tears gush
from my eyes whenever I part from them. What will become of them when
they grow up? I know that while you are alive it will be well with
them, but how about afterwards? You may die to-morrow, or the next
day; who can tell? We are all in the hands of God. Now I'll tell you
something. Mind. I'm not joking or making it all up. I know for
certain that Topal Pasha has been informed that you have two lovely
children. Some flighty traders of Erzeroum revealed the fact to him.
They are wont to trade with you here, and he has paid them half the
stipulated sum down on condition that they bring the children to him.
Now this pasha is a filthy, brutal, rake-hell sort of fellow, the
pressure of whose foot is no laughing matter, I can tell you; a
horrible, hideous, cruel man. I can give you proofs of it. And these
merchants have made a contract with him, and have engaged, under the
penalty of losing their heads, to deliver your children to him within
a twelvemonth. What do you say? You'll throw them down into the abys