The Hawaiian gazette., 1881-07-27

he had bled to death in his place on the sofa.
They accomplished their object without noise,
without inhicting COMMISSIONS upon the limbs
or the body Of their victim, and without any
bespattering of blood about the room. When
Abdul Aziz was dead, with great pool Of
blood saturating the sofa and streaming off
upon the floor, the place was fully ready for
the inquest to declare the murder q suicide.
OF course snch party could not enter the
palace without attracting attention. Some Of
the women Of the palace knew that the death
of the ex-Sultan must have been brought about
by this visit. The Pachas therefore proceeded
closely to conine the wives and the mother Of
Abdul Aziz. As to the younger women, they
were divided out among the consplrators, and
paragraph was inserted in the papers which
praised the simple tastes Of the new Sultan,
shown in this disposal of the harem of his
predecessors. The tell-tale lips were thus
thought to be sealed; the hired murderers
were enormously rewarded; AID the whole
crime was covered up by the unanimous YER
dict of the nineteen surgeons.
So far there seems to be little doubt that
some of the principal Pachas of the Empire
were accessories, at least to the extent Of
making no objection to the deed of Hussein
Avni. Nouri Pacha and Mahmoud Damad
Pacha, at least, received quantities Of jewels
from the Sultan's private treasury just after
the murder. Whether all the conspirators
seized upon similar riches is not certainly
known. An attempt has been made to con-
meet Midhat Pacha and Mehemet Rushdi Pacha
Chen Grand Vizier) with all the details of
the plot. But, as will be seen, there is pos
sibility of doubt of this part of the story.
THE AvENeER OF BLOOD.
The murder was most thoroughly covered
up. But one of the Circassian girls who had
been taken from the palace at the time of
the division Of spoils, had been warmly at
tached to the dead Sultan. This girl had a
brother who was an officer of the personal es-
cort of Abdul Aziz. In her new home the girl
readily found means of communicating with
her brother, told him of Hussein Avni Pacha' s
mysterious visit to the palace on the fatal
night, and urged him to take revenge upon
the Pacha for the murder of her master. So
it came about that just as the conspirators
thought that they had concealed their crime,
it was revealed to an angry victim Of the
revolution; and while, at the palace of Midhat
Pacha, they were actually discussing with the
Sheriff of Mecca the propriety of executing the
plan for the extinction of the house of 0s-
man, they were attacked by the aveDger. The
Circassian Major, urged by his own wrongs
as we'll as by his sisters abiuration, burst into
the room and shot, as has already been said,
Hussein Ayni Pacha and two other Ministers
The assassination of Hussein Avni Pacha
dislocated all plans and filled the survivors
with dire dismay. The Circassian was killed
on the spot, and it was only his lifeless body
which was taken out and hung the next morn
| ing. All investigation was carefully sup
pressed, and the Servian war was gladly well
coined as q means of distracting popular at
tention from these tragic events. Fear of the
consequences of discovery led to the dethrone-
ment of Murad "; the Pachas hoping that in
placing on the throne younger brother, who
would owe his elevation more to their favor
than to the right, they would secure them
selves against punishment, even if the story
should be revealed. But they did not gain
the hoped-for ascendancy over Abdul Hamid
as Snltan. They were forced to rejoice in the
Russian war and its engrossing cares, as q
diversion of the mind of the Sultan. 1t is even
said that they wifully sacrificed the last
fragments of the Turkish army of the Balkans
in the hope that popular Indignation against
the unlucky Sultan would give them the pro-
lection which the Sultan himself was not in
clined to grant Be this as it may, Suleiman
Pacla, the banished ex-commander Of the
ruined army, made some hint of such charge
in his defence before the court martial, and
has been summoned from Bagdad to tell what
he knows.
The outlines of this history are, in the
main, undoubtedly true. But the question OF
the number of men associated with Hussein
AvD Pacha in the murder of Abdul Aziz, and
the conspiracy against the house OF Osman,
| is less easily settled.