An impatient group of Janissaries was standing round their kettle, which was placed on the top of a lofty iron tripod, and amongst them we notice Halil Patrona and Musli.  Both were wearing the Janissary dress, with round turbans in which a black heron’s plume was fastened (only the officers wore white feathers), with naked calves only half-concealed by the short, bulgy pantaloons which scarce covered the knee.  There was very little of the huckster of the day before yesterday in Halil’s appearance now.  His bold and gallant bearing, his resolute mode of speech, and the bountiful way in which he scattered the piastres which he had received from Janaki, had made him a prime favourite among his new comrades.  Musli, on the other hand, was still drunk.  With desperate self-forgetfulness he had been drinking the health of his friend all night long, and never ceased bawling out before his old cronies in front of the tent of the Janissary Aga that if the Aga, whose name was Hassan, was indeed as valiant a man as they tried to make out, let him come forth from beneath his tent and not think so much of his soft bearskin bed, or else let him give his white heron plume to Halil Patrona and let him lead them against the enemy.

The Janissary Aga could hear this bellowing quite plainly, but he also could hear the Janissary guard in front of the tent laughing loudly at the fellow and making all he said unintelligible.

Meanwhile a troop of mounted ciauses was approaching the kettle of the first Janissary regiment in whose leader we recognise Halil Pelivan.  Allah had been with him—­he was now raised to the rank of a ciaus-officer.

The giant stood among the Janissaries and inquired in a voice of thunder: 

“Which of you common Janissary fellows goes by the name of Halil Patrona?”

Patrona stepped forth.

“Methinks, Halil Pelivan,” said he, “it does not require much brain-splitting on your part to recognise me.”

“Where is your comrade Musli?”

“Can you not give me a handle to my name, you dog of a ciaus?” roared Musli.  “I am a gentleman I tell you.  So long as you were a Janissary, you were a gentleman too.  But now you are only a dog of a ciaus.  What business have you, I should like to know, in Begta’s flower-garden?”

“To root out weeds.  The pair of you, bound tightly together, must follow me.”

“Look ye, my friends!” cried Musli, turning to his comrades, “that man is drunk, dead drunk.  He can scarce stand upon his feet.  How dare you say,” continued he, turning towards Pelivan—­“how dare you say that two Janissaries, two of the flowers from Begta’s garden, are to follow you when the banners of warfare are already waving before us?”

“I am commanded by the Kapu-Kiaja to bring you before him.”

“Say not so, you mangy dog you!  Let him come for us himself if he has anything to say to us!  What, my friends! am I not right in saying that the Kapu-Kiaja, if he did his duty, ought to be here with us, in the camp and on the battlefield? and that it is no business of ours to dance attendance upon him?  Am I not right?  Let him come hither!”