encourage the soldiers; for he had remained during the whole time shut up in a vault under-ground with his women and boys, and had never once appeared. Well, the first thing he did was to sit down amidst the fire, quite bewildered. He then asked for an umbrella: then he called for some water; and, when they presented to him an ibryk,[1] as being the only thing they had near at hand, not supposing that at such a moment he would mind what it was he drank from, he would not drink out of it."
They fetched him a goblet, and he made them take it back, because it was a glass he drank sherbet out of, and not water. The very man who handed it to him told me the story. At last they placed him in one corner of the battery, and covered him with a cloak. All this time the bullets were flying about.[2]
- ↑ An ibryk is a common earthenware jug with a spout to it, the usual drinking-vessel of the lower classes.
- ↑ This Pasha was so afraid, in the midst of all his power, of being isoned, that he had the dishes brought to his table tinder padlock. When he travelled, a horseman in his suite had the office assigned him of carrying the implement that makes such a distinguished figure in the farce of Pourcignac. When he was shaved, he always had some of his guards standing round the barber with their pistols cocked, and he himself had a drawn sabre lying across his lap. Fancy the situation of a man who, in the midst of these formidable preparations, is obliged to keep his hand steady.
