Suddenly, just as they were about to turn into the great square in front of the fortress of the Seven Towers, another imposing crowd encountered them coming from the opposite direction.  It was the escort of the Sultana.  The half a thousand odalisks and the four hundred eunuchs occupied the whole width of the road, but face to face with them were advancing ten thousand intoxicated viragoes led by the frantic bayaderes.

“Make way for the Sultana!” cried the running eunuchs to the approaching crowd, “make way for the Sultana and her suite!”

The execution of this command bordered on the impossible.  The whole space of the square was filled with women—­a perfect sea of heads—­and visible above them all was a quivering, tremulous white figure which they had raised on high.

“Make way for the Sultana!” screamed the Kadun-Kiet-Khuda, who led the procession; a warty old woman she was, who had had charge of the harem for years and grown grey in it.

At this one of the boldest of the bayaderes thrust herself forward.

“Make way thyself, thou bearded old witch,” she cried; “make way, I say, before the wife of Halil Patrona.  Why, thou art not worthy to kiss the dust off her feet.  Stand aside if thou wilt not come along with us.”

And with these words she banged her tambourine right under the nose of the Kadun-Kiet-Khuda.

And then the bad idea occurred to some of the eunuchs to lift their broadswords against the boisterous viragoes, possibly with a view of cutting a path through them for the Sultana.

Ah! before they had time to whirl their swords above their heads, in the twinkling of an eye, their weapons were torn from their hands, and their backs were well-belaboured with the broad blades.  The furious maenads fell upon their assailants, flung them to the ground, and the next instant had seized the bridles of the steeds of the odalisks.

The Kizlar-Aga was fully alive to the danger which threatened the Sultana.  The whole square was thronged with angry women who, with faces flushed and sparkling eyes, were rushing upon the odalisks.  Any single eunuch they could lay hold of was pretty certain to meet with a martyr’s death in a few seconds.  They tore him to pieces, and pelted each other with the bloody fragments before scattering them to the winds.  Elhaj Beshir, therefore, earnestly implored the Sultana to turn back and try to regain the Seraglio.

Adsalis cast a contemptuous look on the Aga.

“One can see that thou art neither man nor woman,” cried she, “for if thou wert one or the other, thou wouldst know how to be courageous.”

Then she buried the point of her golden spurs in the flank of her steed, and urged it towards the spot where the most frantic of the maenads stood fighting with the mounted odalisks, tearing some from their horses, rending their clothes, and then by way of mockery remounting them with their faces to the horses’ tails.