With these words Abdi gave his horse the spur and galloped through the thickest part of the mob, which dispersed in terror before him, and with proud self-satisfaction the Kapudan Pasha saw how the people hid away from him in their houses and vanished, as if by magic, from the streets and house-tops.
He galloped into the town without opposition. At every street corner he blew a long blast in the captured horn, and addressed some well-chosen remarks to the people assembled there, which scattered them in every direction.
At last he reached the Bezesztan, where every shop was closed.
"Open your shops, ye dogs!" thundered Abdi to the assembled merchants and tradesmen. "I suppose your heels are itching?--or perhaps you are tired of having ears and noses? Open all your shop-doors this instant, I say! for whoever keeps them closed after this command shall be hanged up in front of his own shop-door!"
The shopkeepers, full of terror, began to take down their shutters forthwith.
From thence he galloped off towards the Etmeidan.
The great fishmarket, which he passed on his way, was filled with people from end to end. Not a word could be heard for the fearful din, which completely drowned the voices of a few stump-orators who here and there had climbed up the pillars near the drinking-fountains to address the mob.
Nevertheless the resonant, penetrating voice of the horn blown by the Kapudan Pasha dominated the tumult, and turned every face in his direction.
Rising in his stirrups, Abdi addressed them with a terrible voice:
"Ye fools, whose mad hands rise against your own heads! Do ye want to make the earth quake beneath you that so many of you stand in a heap in one place? What fool among you is it would drag the whole lot of you down to perdition? Would that the heavens might fall upon you!--would that these houses might bury you!--would that ye might turn into four-footed beasts who can do nothing but bark! Lower your heads, ye wretched creatures, and go and hide yourselves behind your mud-walls! And let not a single cry be heard in your streets, for if you dare to come out of your holes, I swear by the shadow of Allah that I'll make a rubbish-heap of Stambul with my guns, and none shall live in it henceforth but serpents and bats and your accursed souls, ye dogs!"