Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/94

52 OKIGIX OF THE WAR OF 1803 chap, and its ornaments should remain undisturbed. ' ' No sooner,' says the official account, ' were these ' words uttered, than the Latins, who had come to ' receive their triumph over the Orientals, broke ' out into loud exclamations of the impossibility of ' celebrating mass upon a schismatic slab of mar- ' blc, with a covering of silk and gold instead of ' plain linen, among schismatic vases, and before ' a crucifix which has the feet separated instead of ' one nailed over the other.' Under cover of the storm thus raised, Afif Bey perhaps thought for a moment that he had secured his escape, and for a while he seems to have actually disentangled himself from the Churches, and to have succeeded in gaining his quarters. But when the delight of witnessing the discom- fiture of the Latins had in some degree subsided, the Greeks perceived that, after all, the main promise had been evaded. The firman had not been read. M. Basily, the Linssian Consul-Gen- eral, called on Afif Bey, and required that the reading of the firman should take place. At first the Bey affected not to know what firman was meant, but afterwards he said he had no copy of it ; and at length, being then at the end of his stratagems, he acknowledged that he had no in- structions to read it. Thereupon M. Basily sent off Prince Gagarin to Jaffa to convey these tidings to Constantinople in any Arab vessel that could be found ; and then, hurrying to the Pasha of Jerusalem, he demanded to have a special council assembled, with himself and the Greek Patriarch