He offered me coffee and sweatmeats, promised me his protection, bade me fear nothing, but, if any body wronged me, to acquaint him by Risk.
Two or three nights afterwards the Bey sent for me again. It was near eleven o'clock before I got admittance to him.
I met the janissary Aga going out from him, and a number of soldiers at the door. As I did not know him, I passed him without ceremony, which is not usual for any person to do. Whenever he mounts on horseback, as he was then just going to do, he has absolute power of life and death, without appeal, all over Cairo and its neighbourhood.
He stopt me just at the threshold, and asked one of the Bey's people who I was? and was answered, "It is Hakim Englese," the English philosopher, or physician.
He asked me in Turkish, in a very polite manner, if I would come and see him, for he was not well? I answered him in Arabic, "Yes, whenever he pleased, but could not then stay, as I had received a message that the Bey was waiting." He replied in Arabic, "No, no; go, for God's sake go; any time will do for me."
The Bey was sitting, leaning forward, with a wax taper in one hand, and reading a small slip of paper, which he held close to his face. He seemed to have little light or weak eyes; nobody was near him: his people had been all dismissed, or were following the janissary Aga out.
He
