Mustapha followed the example of the pacha. “May it please your highness,” said Mustapha, “I have without a man, who they say hath stories to recount more delightful than those of Menouni. Hearing that he passed through this city, I have detained him, that he might afford amusement to your highness, whose slave I am. Is it your pleasure that he be admitted?”

“Let it be so,” replied the pacha.

Mustapha gave the sign, and to the surprise of the pacha, in came the renegade, commander of the fleet, accompanied by guards and the well-known officer of the caliph, the Capidji Bachi, who held up a firman to his forehead.

The pacha turned pale, for he knew that his hour was come. “Bismillah! In the name of the Most High, O officer, whom seekest thou?” exclaimed the pacha with emotion.

“The sultan, the Lord of Life, has sent this to you, O pacha! as a proof of his indulgence and great mercy.” And the capidji bachi produced a silken bowstring, and at the same time he handed the fatal scroll to the pacha.

“Mustapha,” whispered the pacha, “while I read this, collect my guards; I will resist. I fear not the sultan at this distance, and I can soften him by presents.”

But Mustapha had no such fellow feeling. “O pacha!” replied he, “who can dispute the will of heaven’s vice-gerent? There is but one God and Mahomet is his Prophet.”

“I will dispute it,” exclaimed the pacha. “Go out, and call my trustiest guards.”

Mustapha left the divan, and returned with the mutes and some of the guards, who had been suborned by himself.

“Traitor,” exclaimed the pacha.

“La Allah, il Allah; there is but one God,” said Mustapha.

The pacha saw that he was sacrificed. He read the firman, pressed it to his forehead, in token of obedience, and prepared for death. The capidji bachi produced another firman, and presented it to Mustapha. It was to raise him to the pachalik.

“Barik Allah, praise be to God for all things,” humbly observed Mustapha. “What am I but the sultan’s slave, and to execute his orders? On my head be it!”

Mustapha gave the sign, and the mutes seized the unfortunate pacha.

“There is but one God, and Mahomet is his Prophet,” said the pacha. “Mustapha,” continued he, turning round to him with a sardonic smile, “may your shadow never he less—but you have swallowed the coffee.”

The mutes tightened the string. In a minute a cloak was thrown over the body of the pacha.

“The coffee,” muttered Mustapha, as he heard the pacha’s last words. “I thought it had a taste. Now he’s sent to Jehanum for his treachery.” And all the visions of power and grandeur, which had filled the mind of the new pacha, were absorbed by fear and dismay.

The capidji bachi, having performed his duty, withdrew. “And now,” exclaimed the renegade, “let me have my promised reward.”

“Your reward—true. I had forgotten,” replied Mustapha, as the pain occasioned by the working of the poison distorted his face. “Yes, I had forgotten,” continued Mustapha, who, certain that his own end was approaching, was furious as a wild beast, with pain and baffled ambition. “Yes, I had forgotten. Guards, seize the renegade!”

“They must be quicker than you think for,” replied Huckaback, darting from the guards and drawing his scimitar, while, with his fingers in his mouth, he gave a shrill whistle. In rushed a large body of the soldiers and sailors of the fleet, and the guards were disarmed. “Now, pacha of one hour old, what sayest thou.”

“It is my destiny,” replied Mustapha, rolling on the floor in agony. “There is but one God, and Mahomet is his Prophet.” And Mustapha expired.

“The old fool has saved me some trouble,” observed the renegade. “Take away these carcases, and proclaim Ali, as the new pacha.”

Thus perished the two barbers, and thus did Huckaback, under the name of Ali, reign in their stead. But his reign, and how long it lasted, is one of the many tales not handed down to posterity.