ne-year-old son. The child was brought
up by his grandmother, the Sultana Valideh, herself scarce forty years
of age. This dowager Sultana had civilized, European tastes. She had
been educated in France; the young prince was passionately attached to
her and she inspired him with all those desires and noble instincts
under whose influence, thirty years later, new life was to be poured
into the decrepit Turkish Empire.

The Sultana Valideh wished to so educate her grandson that one day he
might occupy a worthy position among the other rulers of Europe. She
sowed betimes in his heart the seeds of high principles and
enlightened tastes, and the Sultan would frequently listen to the wise
sentences of his little lad, and, while rocking him on his knee, with
a smile upon his face, his heart would beat in an agony of fear, "What
if anybody got word of this?"

For the old Turkish party lay in wait for every word that fell from
the Sultan's mouth, and the pointing of the little finger of one of
Begtash's fakirs was more to be feared than the armed hand of the most
valiant of the Greek heroes. If any one of the Ulemas should chance to
discover that the young heir to the throne listened to any other
bookish lore than what was contained within the covers of the Kuran,
which comprised within itself (so they taught) all the wisdom of the
world, they were capable of hounding on the Janissaries against the
Seraglio, and slaying both sovereign and child.

The recollection of Achmed Sidi was still fresh in the memory of men.
Sidi had been one of the Chief Ulemas, and the Imam of the Mosque of
Sophia; and when, a few years ago, the warriors and the diplomatists
of the Tsaritsa Catherine had won victory after victory over the
Ottomans, not only on every battle-field, but also in every political
arena, the unfortunate imam advised the Divan that, in view of the
indisputable superiority of the Christians, it was necessary to teach
the Turkish diplomatists the Bible, the inference being that just as
the Moslem sages derived all their military science and all their
administrative wisdom from the Kuran, so also the Christians must
needs learn all these things from their Bible, thereby tacitly
acknowledging the capacity of the Christians for appropriating all
knowledge. But the well-meaning Ulema paid dearly for this good
counsel. They banished him to the Isle of Chios, and there, for a very
trivial offence, he was first degraded from his offi