Let recognition be accorded to the Mameluke
beys, and favorable conditions of peace offered them, and they will
submit." This Lord Balan had announced to the grand-sultan, and his
first servant, the grand-vizier, at Stamboul. And he had gone to and
fro, from Cairo to Stamboul, from Stamboul to Cairo, until peace was
at last, as it seemed, secured.
"The Mameluke beys," so read the last decision of the grand-sultan,
Selim II., "are to leave Cairo and to go to Upper Egypt, where large
tracts of land are to be assigned them, with their wives, their
treasures, and their servants, to rule there in freedom and
magnificence."
The Mamelukes took these propositions into favorable consideration;
they were weary of bloodshed and longed for the peaceful desert
plains and for the sunny tents, where they could rest from their
long struggles in quiet comfort, listen to the songs of the female
slaves, and gaze at the voluptuous dances of the almehs. Yes, they
will return home to the beloved south, to the cataracts of the Nile,
to the sunny shores where the temple ruins of by-gone magnificence
stand out against the deep blue sky.
Yes, they longed for peace, and for the sublime stillness of the
desert; they consented to Lord Balan's proposition, and declared
themselves ready to meet the servants of the sultan, and arrange
with them the boundaries of the tracts of land that were to be
assigned to them, and to conclude peace.
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