Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/170

142 shall forget the savage expression with which this declaration was made.

The widow stepped forward into the middle of the court, and said, raising her fiendish arms, "I wish to lick his blood from the executioner's knife." A little boy, not fourteen years old, glared at me with eyes gleaming like those of a tiger's cub. We had entertained some hopes that the old mother would have relented; and a humane Turk, one of the members of the Mejlis, asked her whether she would not forgive, as she hoped God would forgive her; but it was all in vain. It is said that the widow carried a brace of pistols in her bosom, and threatened to shoot any of the family who showed symptoms of relenting. I saw there was no more to be done, so I turned to the Caimakam, and said, "If this man is executed to-day, and there afterwards comes a counter-order from Constantinople, I regard you as responsible for all the consequences; on your head be it." I had no very distinct idea what consequences there could be, but felt it necessary, in a case of life and death like this, to say something.

A mysterious threat always tells with the Turks more than a definite one, and the Caimakam trembled like Felix. I got up and left the Mejlis, and then arose an old grey-bearded Mussulman, the Capouji Bashi of Rhodes, whose position is, to a certain extent, independent of that of the Governor, and said, "Caimakam, I wash my hands of this matter; if you choose to disobey the firman, take the consequences yourself." So the poor Caimakam, finding himself deserted by the Mejlis, gave way,