ce (for it is not
lawful to kill a Ulema with weapons), and then handed over to the
pasha of the place, who pounded him to death in a stone mortar--a
deterrent example for future reformers. Let them beware, therefore, of
moving a single stone in the ancient fabric of the Ottoman
constitution!

CHAPTER XII

THE SHIPWRECK OF LEONIDAS

Now, one fine day, when the worthy Leonidas Argyrocantharides set out
from Smyrna on one of his prettiest ships, a vexatious little accident
befell him by the way. The ship, which had taken in a cargo of tanned
hides at Stambul, was overtaken, _en route_, by a tempest which drove
her upon the coast of Seleucia. There, in the darkness of the night,
she was thrown upon a sand-bank, from which she was unable to
extricate herself till morning; and it was only when the land became
visible in the early light of dawn that the merchant began to realize
the awkward position into which his ship had got, despite Saint
Procopius and Saint Demetrius, who were very beautifully painted on
both sides of her prow. The vessel had heeled over on one side, and
that side of her which lay above the waves was threatened every moment
with destruction by the onset of the foaming surf which broke from
time to time over the deck, making a pretty havoc of the masts and
spars. The joints of the ship's timbers began to be loosened, creaking
and shivering at each fresh shock of the waves. And if the fate of the
ship on the sand-bank was sad enough, still sadder would it have been
if she had broken loose therefrom; for right in front of her lay the
rocks of the Seleucian coast, whose steep crags were lashed so
furiously by the raging sea that the crashing waves leaped fully a
hundred fathoms up their sides. A nice place this would have been for
any ship to play pitch-and-toss in!

The worthy merchant sorely lamented his fate, sorely lamented, also,
his fine ship, which was painted in elaborate patterns with all the
colors of the rainbow. He lamented his many beautiful goat-skins, not
a single bundle of which he would allow to be cast into the sea for
the purpose of lightening the ship; rather let them all go to the
bottom together! He mourned over himself, too, condemned at the
beginning of the best years of his life to be suffocated in the sea;
but what he lamented far more than ship, goat-skins, or even life
itself, were the two Circassian children, the precious, beautiful boy
and girl, Thomar and Milieva,