plainly, dressed in the military frockcoats of Europe; they stood in mass and so as to present a hollow semicircular front towards the upper end of the hall at which the Pasha sat; they opened a narrow lane for us when we entered, and as soon as we had passed they again closed up their ranks.  An attempt was made to induce us to remain at a respectful distance from his mightiness.  To have yielded in this point would have have been fatal to our success, perhaps to our lives; but the General and I had already determined upon the place which we should take, and we rudely pushed on towards the upper end of the hall.

Upon the divan, and close up against the right hand corner of the room, there sat the Pasha, his limbs gathered in, the whole creature coiled up like an adder.  His cheeks were deadly pale, and his lips perhaps had turned white, for without moving a muscle the man impressed me with an immense idea of the wrath within him.  He kept his eyes inexorably fixed as if upon vacancy, and with the look of a man accustomed to refuse the prayers of those who sue for life.  We soon discomposed him, however, from this studied fixity of feature, for we marched straight up to the divan and sat down, the Russian close to the Pasha, and I by the side of the Russian.  This act astonished the attendants, and plainly disconcerted the Pasha.  He could no longer maintain the glassy stillness of the eyes which he had affected, and evidently became much agitated.  At the feet of the satrap there stood a trembling Italian.

This man was a sort of medico in the potentate’s service, and now in the absence of our attendants he was to act as interpreter.  The Pasha caused him to tell us that we had openly defied his authority, and had forced our way on shore in the teeth of his own officers.

Up to this time I had been the planner of the enterprise, but now that the moment had come when all would depend upon able and earnest speechifying, I felt at once the immense superiority of my gallant friend, and gladly left to him the whole conduct of this discussion.  Indeed he had vast advantages over me, not only by his superior command of language and his far more spirited style of address, but also in his consciousness of a good cause; for whilst I felt myself completely in the wrong, his Excellency had really worked himself up to believe that the Pasha’s refusal to permit our landing was a gross outrage and insult.  Therefore, without deigning to defend our conduct he at once commenced a spirited attack upon the Pasha.  The poor Italian doctor translated one or two sentences to the Pasha, but he evidently mitigated their import.  The Russian, growing warm, insisted upon his attack with redoubled energy and spirit; but the medico, instead of translating, began to shake violently with terror, and at last he came out with his non ardisco, and fairly confessed that he dared not interpret fierce words to his master.

Now then, at a time when everything seemed to depend upon the effect of speech, we were left without an interpreter.