; no, 'tis the
clashing of swords, the thundering of cannons, the tumult of a siege,
and that light is not the light of bonfires but of blazing rafters!

Up, up, Mahmoud, from thy sofa! Away with thy glass and out with thy
sword! This is no night for revelry; death is abroad; insurrection is
at thy very gate! They are besieging the Seraglio!

Twelve thousand Janissaries, joined with the rabble of Stambul, are
attacking the gates at the very time when the orchestra is playing its
liveliest airs in the illuminated hall.

"Do ye hear that?" exclaimed Kara Makan, the most famous orator of the
Janissaries, who with his own hand had hung up the Metropolitan of
Constantinople on the very threshold of the palace. "Do ye hear that
music? Here they are rejoicing when the whole empire around them is in
mourning. Do ye know what are the latest tidings this night? The
Suliotes have captured Gaskho Bey, and annihilated our army before
Janina. A woman has blown up the ship of the Kapudan Pasha, and the
Shah has fallen upon Kermandzhan with an army! Destruction is drawing
near to us, and treachery dwells in the Seraglio. Hearken! They dance,
they sing, they bathe their lips in wine, and their blasphemies bring
upon us the scourge of Allah! We shed our tears and our blood, and
they make merry and mock at us! Shall not they also weep? Shall not
their blood also be shed? So fare it with them as it has fared with
our brethren whom they sent to the shambles!"

The furious mob answered these seditious words with an indescribable
bellowing.

"If we traversed the whole empire we should not find a worse spot than
this place."

"Set fire to the Seraglio!" cried one voice suddenly, and the others
took up the cry.

"And if you escape from all other enemies, would you fall into the
claws of the worst enemies of all?"

"Death to the Viziers! Death to the lords of the palace!" thundered
the people; and one voice close to Kara Makan, rising above the
others, exclaimed, "Death to the Sultan!"

Kara Makan turned in that direction and defended his master. "Hurt not
the Sultan! The life of the Sultan is sacred. He and his children are
the last survivors of the blood of Omar; and although he be not worthy
to sit on the throne which the heroic Muhammad erected for his
descendants, yet he is the last of his race, and, therefore, the head
of the Sultan is sacred. But death upon the head of the Reis-Effendi,
death to the Kizlar-Agasi and the Kapuda