Read "The Slaves of the Padishah" by Mór Jókai online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
In the middle of the sixteenth century, Haji Baba, the most celebrated slave-dealer of Stambul, having been secretly informed beforehand, by acquaintances in the Seraglio, that a great host would assemble that summer beneath Pest, hastily filled his ship with wares before his business colleagues had got an inkling of what was going to happen; and, steering his bark with its precious load through the Black Sea and up the Danube, reached Pest some time before the army had concentrated there.
Casting anchor in the Danube, he adorned his vessel with oriental carpets and flowers, and placing a band of black eunuchs in the prow of the vessel with all sorts of tinkling musical instruments, he set about beating drums till the sound reechoed from the hills of Buda.