But Osman held his
hand, and begged him in a low voice to be composed.
Mohammed struggled to compose himself. His face was pale, his lips
trembled, and his eyes gleamed with wrath and hatred, as he glanced
at the pacha; then his countenance became firm and composed. He
beckoned to a slave who stood at a distance, to approach, and threw
him the gold-piece. "The slave gives the slave his reward. Take it,
thou slave!"
A moment of silence and anxious suspense intervened, and then
Mohammed's and the pacha's eyes met again in a fierce, piercing
glance. The pacha then turned, and addressed the tschorbadji:
"If he were my servant," said he, "I should have him taken out to
the court-yard for his insolence. If he there received, as he richly
deserves, the bastinado, I think he would soon become humble and
quiet. The viper bites no longer when its fangs are extracted.--I
tell you, tschorbadji, if he were my servant, he should now receive
the bastinado."
"And if you were my servant," exclaimed Mohammed, haughtily, "I
should treat you in precisely the same manner, sir. The bastinado is
very painful, I am told, and you probably know it by personal
experience. But this you should know, too, sir, that here on the
peninsula of Contessa, slaves only are chastised, and slaves only
receive the bastinado. I, however, have never been a slave, but
always a free man; and what I am and shall be, I am, I am proud to
say, through myself alone.
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