[1]The Arabians, Egyptians, and Turks still believe this.
[1]
The Arabians, Egyptians, and Turks still believe this.
——
On the following morning, Baïla, followed by Mariam, again traversed the garden, under the pretext of erasing the tracks of the unknown, should he have left any. The wind and the night had caused them to disappear from the walks which were covered with fine sand. Returning, however, from the neighborhood of the river, she found the recent mark of a boot impressed on a flower border. The foot-mark was small, straight, and graceful.
Baïla hesitated to efface it. Why? Was the stranger speaking decidedly to her heart? No; it was a woman’s caprice, and among women the odalisks are perhaps the most enigmatical. After having undertaken this expedition for the very purpose of effacing all traces of the Frank, she was now tempted to retain the only one that remained.
This print, which the bostangis, with their large sandals with wooden soles could not have left, and which the foot of the pacha would have over-lapped with a large margin, and which consequently might reveal the adventure of the evening, she was desirous of preserving. Why? Perhaps her imagination, over-excited by her ideas of gratitude, had, at the sight of this elegant impress, given the lie to her eyes, by clothing the stranger with a charm, which, in his first movement of alarm she was unable to recognize. Perhaps, blinded by passion, Baïla was desirous that Djezzar might see this denunciatory mark, so that his jealousy might be alarmed, and he might suffer in his pride and his love as she had done.
The old negress pointed out to her, that in case the unknown should be rash enough to return again, the pacha, his suspicions once excited, would certainly have him seized, and thus both might be compromised.
The Mingrelian then yielded; but she was unwilling, from a new caprice, that Mariam should remove the earth from this place. She contented herself with placing her own delicate foot upon it several times, and with trampling with her imprint in that of the stranger, and this double mark remained for a long time, protected as it was from inspection by the superabundant foliage of a Pontic Azalea.
This shrub grew in great abundance on the slopesof the Caucasus, and Baïla, when a child, had seen them flower in her native country. She conceived an affection for this spot, which spoke to her of her country, and of her second and mysterious lover. Her country she had left without regret; this young Frank, this giaour, he had been to her at first but a surprise, an apparition, a dream, and now, her wounded heart demands an aliment for this double recollection. During a whole month she took her walks in this direction; thither she came to dream of her country and the stranger, especially of the latter.
Did she then at length love him? Who can tell? Who would dare to give the name of love to those deceitful illuminations produced in the brain of a young girl, by a fermentation of ideas, like wills-of-the-wisp on earth; to those phantoms of a moment, with which solitudes are peopled by those who abandon themselves to a life of contemplation.
In Europe,the religious, though living under a very different rule, refer all the passionate tenderness of their soul to God; each of them finds, however, some mode of husbanding a part of it for some holy image of her choice, some concealed relic, which belongs to her alone; she addresses secret prayers to it, she perfumes it with incense which she carries away from the high altar; it is her aside worship. In the East, those other inhabitants of cloisters, the odalisks, have no worship but love, and in the endearments of that love they can prostrate themselves but before one alone; but there, as everywhere else, the idol is concealed in the shadow of the temple; they have their fetishes, their dreams, their fraudulent loves, their loves of the head, if we may so designate them. It is perhaps necessary for human nature thus to give the most decided counterpoise to its thoughts, in order to preserve the equilibrium of the soul, to protest in a low tone against that which we loudly adore, to oppose a shadow to a reality.
It is true that where lovers are concerned, the shadow sometimes assumes a form and the reality evaporates.
Be this as it may, Djezzar had returned to Baïla, and the latter, more assured than ever of her power, made him expiate his late infidelity by her caprices and her extravagances. They wondered in the Harem to see the Pacha of Shivas, before whom every thing trembled, bow before this handsome slave, so frail, so white, so delicate, whom he might have broken by a gesture or a word. The rumor of it spread even to the city, where it was whispered that Djezzar would turn Jew if Baïla wished it.
This Ali-ben-Ali, surnamed Djezzar, or the Butcher, was, however, a terrible man. Originally a page in the palace of the Sultan, and brought up by Mahmoud, he had not participated at all in the civilizing ameliorations the latter had endeavored to introduce into his empire. The decree of Gulhana had found him the opponent of all reform. Assured of a protection in the divan, which he knew how to preserve, he sustained himself as the type of the old pachas, of whom his predecessors, Ali of Janina and Djezzar of Acre, were the paragons. He especially redoubled his barbarism when a philosophical breeze from Europe endeavored to breathe tolerance over his country.
Adjudging to himself the double part of judge and executioner, thanks to his expeditious justice, decrees emanating from his tribunal were executed as soon as rendered; sometimes the punishment preceded the judgment. A thousand examples were cited, tending to prove clearly that in Turkey, Djezzar was a relique of the old regime. An aga had prevaricated. The pacha unable to inflict punishment upon the culprit in person, as the friend of prompt and good justice, had ordered a young effendi, his secretary, to go at once to the residence of the prevaricator and deprive him of an eye. The young man hesitating and excusing himself on the plea of his inexperience, “Come nearer,” said Djezzar to him; and when the poor effendi approached him, the pacha, with marvelous dexterity, plunging quickly one of his fingers into the corner of an eye, drew out the globe from its socket, then with a quick twist and the assistance of his nail, the operation was performed.
“Slave, thou knowest now how to do it; obey at once,” he said to him; and the poor victim, with his wound undressed and bleeding, was constrained, on peril of his life, to inflict on the aga the punishment he had just undergone.
No one excelled as he did in cutting off a head at a blow of the yataghan. It is true, no one else had so much practice. There was a story told at Shivas, of a feat of this kind which did him the highest credit.
Two Arabian peasants, feulahs, were brought before him, on a charge of murder, and each of them accusing the other of the crime. Djezzar was perplexed for a moment. It was possible that one of them was innocent. Wanting proof of this, and not being in the humor to wait for it, he thought of an ingenious and prompt means of referring the judgment to God. By his orders the accused were fastened back to back by their bodies and shoulders; he draws his sabre—the head which falls is to be that of the guilty man.
Seeing death so near, the two wretched men struggle to avoid falling beneath the hand of the executioner; they turn—they shift—each endeavoring to place his companion on the side where the blow is to fall. Djezzar regarded this manœuvering for some time with pleasure; at length, after having pronounced the name of Allah three times, he made his Damascene blade describe a large circle, and both heads fell off at a blow.
Notwithstanding his habitual gravity, the pacha could not avoid laughing at this unexpected result; he laughed immoderately, which he had probably never before done in his life, and his noisy bursts mingled with the hoarse roars and panting of a lion, which, confined in a neighboring apartment, inhaled the odor of the blood.
This lion was his master’s favorite. Custom had for a long time prescribed to the pachas of Shivas, as to other pachas of the East, that they should beaccompanied by a lion on all solemn occasions. Galib, the predecessor of Djezzar, and a great partisan of reform, had a monstrous one which he fed particularly with Janizaries; the story ran, that the fanatical Djezzar appeased the appetite of his occasionally with Christian flesh.
And yet this ferocious man, who made a profession of the trade of an executioner, who laughed only when heads were cut off, who, according to public rumor, tossed human flesh to his lion, Haïder, felt the power of love, doubtless not gallant and perfumed love—the love of the boudoir; but, endowed with an energetic and voluptuous temperament, he passed in the midst of his harem the time spared from business; and in the East, whatever may be the complexity of affairs, the administration, especially under such a mastery, is reduced to such simplicity, that leisure is never wanting.
Djezzar could say with Orasmanus,
I will give an hour to the cares of my empire,The rest of the day shall be devoted to Zaïre.
I will give an hour to the cares of my empire,The rest of the day shall be devoted to Zaïre.
I will give an hour to the cares of my empire,The rest of the day shall be devoted to Zaïre.
I will give an hour to the cares of my empire,
The rest of the day shall be devoted to Zaïre.
Zaïre, that is, Baïla, awaited him on his quitting the Council. Especially in his summer palace of Kizil-Ermak did he spend the greater part of the day, extended on cushions at the feet of his beautiful slave, smoking the roses of Taif or Adrianople, mingled with the tobacco of Malatia or Latakia, sometimes chewing a leaf of haschich, or a grain of opium, or even of arsenic to exalt his imagination.
Baïla sometimes smoked the hooka; and as they reclined there together, plunged into a dreamy state, full of reveries, caused by the juice of the yucca or the poppy of Aboutig, the one opening for himself in advance a sojourn among the celestial houris, the other thinking, perchance, of the audacious stranger, Haïder, the lion, drawing in his claws, would stretch, himself familiarly beside them.
Baïla would then lean carelessly on her elbow against this terrible creature, whilst the pacha would listlessly permit his head to recline on the lap of the odalisk. It was a sight to behold this beautiful young female, robed in light draperies, reposing thus quietly between these two ferocious beasts. She feared neither of them; the lion was tamed as well as the man; both obeyed her voice, her look.
At first, notwithstanding the violent passion of Djezzar, Baïla had doubts as to the duration of her power, especially when she thought of the favorite who had preceded her.
This favorite, after a reign of three years, having dared to persist in soliciting pardon for a bostangi, who was condemned to lose his hand for having fished fraudulently, during the night, in the fish-ponds of the pacha, the latter, in a moment of rage, had cut off the nose of his beautiful Aysche, and then not desiring to keep her in that state, he had completed the punishment of the trustless bostangi and the refractory slave by uniting them in marriage. A piece of ground, situated on the confines of the city, had been given them as a dowry. Aysche now sold vegetables in the market, where she was known by the name ofBournouses(the noseless.)
This example of the instability of the power of favorites had ceased to disturb Baïla, since the Christian had revealed to her the secret of her power. Besides, at the time of the events Aysche was no longer young, which might give rise to the thought, that her decreasing beauty, rather than any other cause, had excited the wrath of her master.
Baïla was seventeen years old, with a Georgian head on a Circassian body, the voice of a syren, and the tread of a nymph—what had she to fear? Her will had become that of the pacha. Entirely cemented by habit to her love, he appeared never to think of his other odalisks, except when the Mingrelian, from caprice or petulance, revolted openly against his desires. Then, in the presence of the rebellious beauty, Djezzar would order a slave to carry to an odalisk, whom he designated, a piece of goods, which, according to the Oriental custom, announced the approach of the master, and which in accordance with our method of translating Turkish manners, we have naturalized among us by the phrase of “throwing the handkerchief.”
Formerly, at the idea of the infidelity which was to be practiced toward her, Baïla fretted and pouted in a corner with a bereaved air. Her small mouth drawn down at the corners, muttered unintelligible complaints and threats; her beautiful black eyes, with their long, vibrating lashes, were half closed, and with her head bent, and the pupils drawn back to the angle of the eyelids, she cast upon the slave, the master, and the brilliant piece of goods, a look full of anger and jealousy. There her audacity ceased.
But now, when Djezzar, to avenge himself on her, takes a fancy to be inconstant, she falls upon the stuff and the slave, tears the one and cuffs the other; and if the omnipotent pacha carries out his plan of vengeance, it frequently happens on the next day that as the price of submission, the slave is, on some pretext, bastinadoed, and the favorite of a day driven away in disgrace, too happy to escape, without, like Aysche, leaving her nose within the palace, is sent to the bazaar to become the property of the highest bidder.
Such had lately been the fate of the beautiful daughter of Amasia.
Proud in the empire she exercised over her master, Baïla became intoxicated in the triumph of her vanity. In the midst of its smoke, the remembrance of the stranger, the giaour, no longer reached her but at distant intervals.
She had remained shut up for a whole week without descending into the gardens, when one day that Djezzar had gone to raise some taxes, resuming her old promenades, she found herself unconsciously near the Azalea of Pontus.
What had become of that young Frank? Was he still in the pachalick of Shivas? Did he still entertain the plan of a second attempt, as Mariam had thought he would? He had doubtless gone, returned to his country, that singular country called France, where they say the women rule the men; she should see him no more. So much the better for both him and her.
Whilst she was in this train of reflection a roar of Haïder was heard without; it announced the return of the pacha. The latter had taken him with him, for the pleasure of letting him loose at some jackall by the way. She was preparing to return to her apartments to await there the arrival of Djezzar, when a report of fire-arms, followed by a low noise, was heard by the side of Red River.
Baïla trembled without being able to explain the cause of her emotion.
“Have you been successful in hunting?” she said to Djezzar, when they were alone.
“So, so,” he replied; “my falcon struck three pheasants, and I killed adog.”
Baïla dared not interrogate him as to the doubtful sense which this word might have in the mouth of so orthodox a Mussulman as Ali-ben-Ali.
That evening, when Mariam came to her mistress, after hesitating as to the information she was about to give her, and after ten preparatory exclamations, she informed her of the event of the day.
As the pacha was returning to his palace, and his hunting train was straggling along by the woods of Kizil-Ermak, near the place where they entered the second enclosure, Haïder, whom a slave held by a leash, stopped obstinately before a copse, growling in low tones, which attracted the attention of Djezzar. The copse having been beaten by the train, a man sprung out from it, flying rapidly toward the river, across which he endeavored to swim, but before he could reach the opposite bank, the pacha, snatching a gun from the hand of one of his delhis, had drawn on the flyer with such certainty of eye and hand, that, struck in the head, he had disappeared immediately, carried down by the current. This man was a Christian, but an Asiatic Christian, as his head-dress of blue muslin proved. Besides, the pacha said that the roar of Haïder of itself showed what his religion was.
“Be his country or religion what they may,” said Mariam, finishing her story, “he is dead, dead without any one being enabled to divine what motive could have induced him to secrete himself on this side of the river by the very verge of the palace.”
“At the verge of the gardens,” then interrupted Baïla, who had listened to the recital of her old negress without interrupting her for a moment, or even without appearing to be greatly moved by it. “It was into the gardens that he wished to penetrate, as he had done before.”
Mariam looked at her with surprise.
“Yes,” pursued the Mingrelian, “the man whom they have killed is the young Frank, who had doubtless changed his dress, so as not to attract too much attention to himself by his European costume.”
Mariam remained silent.
“Do you not think so also?”
After some inarticulate words the negress said, “Who can tell?”
“Thyself,” replied Baïla, “thou knowest more than thou hast told me.”
“I avow,” added Mariam, after a little hesitation, “that one of the delhis, who witnessed the affair, said in my presence, that the fugitive appeared to have a very white complexion for an Asiatic.”
“Thou seest it all well, Mariam,” said Baïla, carelessly, still playing with the fan she held in her hand.
“If it is so,” replied the negress, “I am sorry for the fate of the poor young Christian; but we at least are out of the reach of danger in consequence of it, and I can now sleep, for, since his double apparition in the garden, I have but half closed my eyes. I feared constantly some imprudence on your part or his.”
“Faint-hearted;” and Mariam assisted Baïla in arranging her toilet for the night.
Soon after daylight the Mingrelian left her solitary couch, for Djezzar fatigued by the chase had also slept alone, woke her old negress, and both descended into the gardens. Baïla gave as a pretext for her walk, her desire to breathe the fresh air of the gardens.
She went first to the kiosk, then to the plateau, on which she had formerly seated herself; she cast a glance around her on the masses of flowers and shrubs, upon the small marble basin, and fixed for some time an attentive look upon the two palm-trees, as if some one was about to appear between their columns, under their green canopy. She went then to the spot where the Azalea covered with its shade and its flowers the last trace of the stranger; she broke off one of the branches, stripped it of its foliage, broke it into two, fastened together the pieces in the form of a cross, by means of a cord taken from a pelisse which she wore; she then set up this cross upon the foot-print, which was almost effaced. All this was done without any affectation of sentiment, and with a calm and almost listless air.
At the sight of the cross, Mariam, who was born a Christian in Abyssinia, signed herself, after having first cast a cautious glance around her. Baïla contented herself with breathing a sigh, the sigh of a child who sees a game on which it has been for some time engaged, finished. She then returned to the isolated pavilion, in which her suite of apartments was situated, with her head bent down and pensive, but thinking, perhaps, of any thing else than the stranger.
From that moment, however, cross and fantastic with Djezzar, she had no longer for him those soft caresses, nor those melodious songs, nor those intoxicating dances which accompanied the clicking noise of her castinets, and appeared to open the gates of the seventh heaven. She finished by irritating him so much by her redoubled whims, caprices, and refusals, that he left her in a fury, and remained for three whole days without wishing to speak to her. On the third day, the attendants came to him to inform him that a terrible noise was heard in the apartments of the favorite, the cries of a woman mingled with the roarings of the lion.
Djezzar sent thither, but was unwilling to go himself. When they hastened to the assistance of the Mingrelian, they found her shut up alone with Haïder. The rich carpet of Khorassan, whichadorned the floor of her chamber, was in places rent to pieces, and all strewed over with bits of switches of the cherry. These shreds and fragments pointed out the places where the strife had taken place between the lion and the odalisk.
After having drawn him into her pavilion, Baïla had shut him off from all retreat, and careless of the result to herself, armed with a light bunch of rods, she had struck him redoubled blows, resolutely renewing every stick which was broken on the body of her terrible antagonist. The latter, accustomed to obey the voice that scolded him, and the arm that struck him, without thinking of defending himself, bounded from one side of the chamber to the other, tearing up a strip of carpet with his curled talons at each bound; but finally his patience and long endurance exhausted, irritated by grief, groaning and palpitating, lying half on his croupe and his back, raising up one of his monstrous paws, he extended his glittering talons, and became in his turn threatening, when suddenly the bostangis and footmen of the pacha entered, armed with boar-spears. The door being opened, the lion fled through it in disgrace, not before the new comers, but from the Mingrelian, who still pursued him with her last cherry-stick.
On the evening of the day in which Baïla had excited the royal anger of the lion against herself, that terrible animal, broken and degraded by his domestic habits, came, like a well-trained dog, confused and repentant, to couch at the feet of his mistress, imploring pardon.
On the following day Djezzar did the same. The favorite saw him approach her, humble, and laden with presents. The contest of Baïla with Haïder, of which a full account had been given to him, filled him with a singular admiration for the former. Baïla received the two conquered with a cold dignity, which might pass for some remains of rigor.
This double victory found her indifferent; she had exhausted all the emotions she could experience; she had so far distanced her rivals, that triumph over them no longer excited her vanity; the slaves around her were so submissive that she no longer took pleasure in commanding them. The pacha was tamed, tamed even to weakness, to cowardice; every one, even the lion, submitted to the power of the favorite, and with such unanimous accord, that in this harem, where every thing prostrates itself before her, and every thing is done in accordance with her will or her caprice, she has but a single enemy whom she cannot conquer; it is ennui. That threatened to increase daily, and to strengthen itself by the weakness of the others.
The pacha went on the same day to the city; Baïla consented to accompany him; and after having remained a short time at Shivas, they had scarcely returned to Kizil-Ermak, when she appeared entirely different from what she had been at her departure. Gayety and vivacity had returned to her; the smile to her lips, joy to her eyes; she had refound her sweetest songs, her most graceful dances. She was charming in the eyes of Djezzar and even of Haïder. It was said she had been spontaneously metamorphosed by the way.
The good humor of the favorite communicating itself to the pacha, and spreading from him far and near, all was joy in the palace that night.
Baïla alone possessed the secret of this general joy.
——
Shut up in her palanquin, in the suite of the master, as she was passing with the escort through one of suburbs of Shivas, on their return to the Red River, and was amusing herself with looking at the inhabitants, Turks and Christians, fly, pell-mell, in disorder, so as to hide or prostrate themselves at the sight of the pacha, she remarked one, who, remaining erect and motionless, did not appear to participate in the emotions of the crowd.
Baïla was at first astonished that the guards, thecawas, did not force him to assume a more humble posture; she examines him with more attention and starts. He wears the dress of a Frank, and as far as she can judge through her double veil, and the muslin curtains of the palanquin, which were spangled with gold, his features are those of the unknown.
By a movement quicker than thought, veil, curtains, all are at once thrown aside. It is he—their looks meet. The stranger is troubled. He is doubtless again overcome by the resplendent lustre of so much beauty; then, with an expression full of love, he raises his eyes to heaven, and places one hand upon his heart; he moves quickly in this hand a small brilliant, gilded object which Baïla could not distinguish, for the curtains had already fallen.
This imprudent, daring scene, which occurred in the midst of a crowd, had no witnesses, all were flying or were prostrate on the ground.
During the remainder of the route Baïla believed she had dreamed. What, this stranger, then, was not dead; he had not been denounced by Haïder, and slain by Djezzar. Had she then been unjust and cruel toward these? She owed them a reparation. Perhaps the Frank had been only wounded. This was very light, then, for it had not prevented him from encountering her. Why light? Was not he who feared not to brave every thing to reach her, capable of enduring pain, in order to see her? But what object had he held before her, with his hand on his heart, and his eyes turned toward heaven? Doubtless a present which he wished to make her, which he desired to throw into her palanquin as a souvenir. She had let her spangled curtains fall too quickly. Or rather, is it not some jewel of her own, something which had fallen from her dress, and been found by him at the foot of the plantain, or in the alleys of the garden? Yes, he preserves it as a precious relic, as his guardian amulet which he wears above his heart; for it was from thence he drew it—it was there she saw him replace it in his transport of love.
She then asked, what could this young man be among the Franks, who had remained erect and standing with so bold a look during the passage of thepacha, and whom thecawashad, notwithstanding, appeared to respect? Yes, there were secrets connected with him yet to be discovered. No matter! Whatever the rank or power of this mysterious unknown might be, she is to him an object of frenzied love. Could she doubt it? Her vanity is gratified by it, and in her revery, remembering Egypt and Napoleon a second time, she came to the conclusion that should the unknown ever command an army in the country of the Franks, they might on some fine day invade the pachalick of Shivas.
Until now, in order to rid herself of the narcotic influence of the monotonous life of the harem, Baïla had had recourse to fantasies of all kinds, to her thousand and one caprices, her strifes, her poutings, her revolts, her tyrannies over her master, his lion, and the slaves; now, however, her character appeared to change; she resumed the indolent and equal humor of early days with Djezzar; she tormented her good Mariam and her other serving women less; her taste for dress appeared to be modified; instead of four toilets a-day, she now only made three; she became grave; she reflected; she thought; she thought of the giaour; she reflected on the singular chain of circumstance, which, in despite of her, had mixed up this young man with all her pre-occupations, and all the events of her recluse life.
Without recurring to the dangerous practice of a leaf of haschich bruised in her hookah, or a grain of arsenic dissolved in treacle, her imagination could now create a new and charming world for her. She foolishly pursued her vain reveries about the conquestof Shivas. She saw herself transported to another country—to Paris—where every one could freely admire her beauty, now the property of one only, where she could receive the homage of all, conquering a thousand hearts at once, whilst still reserving her own for the beloved object. Is not that the greatest joy and happiness known on earth to woman?
But could not this revery be realized without the intervention of any army? Baïla waited for some time for some realization of her chimera; then, when she had ceased to think of it, ennui, terrible ennui again took possession of her. Sickly languor succeeded. She sought a cause for her suffering, and that cause she found in the walls of the harem, which oppressed and stifled her.
The Sultan Mahmoud, during the latter part of his life, had permitted his women to leave the seraglio, well escorted and supervised. The younger dignitaries of the Sublime Porte, the avowed partisans of the new order of things, following his example, had in their turn essayed this usage. Baïla knew it, and she determined to conquer this pleasant liberty for herself.
At the very mention of it to the pacha, he regarded her with fierce and flashing eyes, and swore by Mahomet and the four caliphs, it was his dreaded oath, that if any other of his women had made such a proposal to him, her head would have already leaped off at a blow from his yatagan.
Baïla desisted, but the refusal increased the intensity of the desire which she felt. She also swore, not by the four caliphs, but by her woman’s will, to attain her end, whatever road she must travel, or whatever peril she must brave. The mere idea of this new struggle in which she was engaged, cured her of half her languor.
What was this end? She must first examine herself in order to define it.
From the summit of the terraces of the winter palace she had already seen a part of the monuments of the city; she had visited the citadel, the caravansery, the mosque in the train of the pacha. It was not, therefore, for this that she aspired to this phantom of freedom.
The bazaars remained; but had not the pacha caused to be conveyed to the harem whatever they contained precious and rare in brocades, velvets, precious stones, and sculptured gold, that she might see and choose from them? The privation could not then be felt on this account.
Magicians, jugglers, the musicians of Persia and Kurdistan, every pigmy deformity, every curious object which traversed the pachalick, was, at a word from her, admitted into the palace. She arrived at this logical conclusion, that if she desired to visit and traverse Shivas, it was in the hope of finding there again the unknown, of finding the key of the mysteries which surrounded her; and this unknown was certainly the only one of the curiosities of the city, to which Djezzar would refuse permission to enter his harem for the diversion of the favorite.
But could not another make the discovery for Baïla? She thought at once of Mariam.
The latter, who was a partial purchaser of provisions for the harem; freed by her employment, her age, and her color, from the ordinary ceremonial, she traversed the streets and market-places at pleasure. Baïla knew her devotion to her person, and should she refuse to serve her in her researches, she knew that the old negress would not betray her. She spoke to her then about it.
The Abyssinian seized with a sudden trembling, exclaimed,
“By the Holy Christ! do not repeat those words, my dear mistress; resist the temptation, stifle it in your heart; it is an inspiration of the Evil Spirit, or, perhaps, a purpose of Providence, perhaps an inspiration from on high,” she murmured in a low voice, as if apostrophizing herself.
“You will have nothing to fear, Mariam; of what crime will you be guilty, for endeavoring to make some inquiries about this stranger? It is well known that old women are curious.”
“Young ones are no less so,” she replied, casting a reproachful glance at her, “and their curiosity draws more perils after it. Our holy mother, Eve, was young when—”
“Then you refuse to serve me?”
“This time I do; do not exact it, do not insist upon it. I have already had so much to struggle against on the other side.”
“How?”
“This young Frank. He is born to be your destruction and mine. But no; if you knew—”
“You know him then? Are you dreaming?”
“Have I spoken of that? By the black angel I hope it is nothing.”
“Thou wert about to betray thyself; hast thou seen him?”
“Ah! my dear mistress do not destroy me,” exclaimed the old slave, trembling with fright. “Yes, I have seen him to my misfortune.”
“Well, who is he? What keeps him at Shivas? What does he want? What does he hope for? What are his plans?”
“Is it for me to inform you? In the name of the God of the Christians, who has been yours and is still mine, cease to question me. If our master should only discover that this young man has penetrated here into the gardens, I know that I should be put to death. I should be cut to pieces and thrown to feed the fish in the ponds.”
“But he shall not know it. Thou hast nothing to fear, I tell thee; am not I here to protect thee?”
“But thee? Who will protect thee?”
“What matters it? Then you know this stranger? Thou hast met him, and hast told me nothing of it?”
“Doubtless it has so happened, though he would have preferred meeting another.”
“And who is that other?”
“Thyself.”
“Me!” exclaimed Baïla, with her face suffused with blushes, as if she did not expect this reply, which she had skillfully extracted in order to force Mariam into her confidence. “And what does he want with me?”
“What does he want?” replied the old negress, again a prey to her first emotion. “What does he want? God keep me from saying?! He alone can tell you. But it will be death perhaps for us three.”
Baïla was silent for a moment. “He has hoped to see me again?” she then asked.
“If one may believe him, he would give his life a thousand times to realize this hope; and moreover—”
“What else does he wish?”
“It is his secret, not mine, I have already said too much.”
They were interrupted; Mariam retired abruptly and Baïla remained alone with the serpent of curiosity which was gnawing into her heart.
Shortly afterward, during the night, whilst the pacha was at the city of Tocata, where the cares of government detained him, a man was brought furtively into the gardens of the Red River. A bostangi had found means to introduce him in a flower vase. This bostangi, gained by rich presents, conducted him by then deserted paths to the pavilion of the favorite.
Baïla was in the bath, when the Abyssinian negress appeared and made her a signal. The beautiful odalisk, under a pretext of a desire to repose, then dismissed her serving-women, after they had bound up her hair and carefully perfumed her person.
Her slaves dismissed, she dressed herself with the assistance of Mariam, but in such haste that her cashmere girdle, tied negligently, kept her robe scarcely half closed, and her long veil thrown around her, alone concealed the richness of her shoulders and bust.
She stopped on her way to the saloon in which the mysterious visiter awaited her. Her respiration failed, a nervous tremor agitated her beautiful limbs, and made her skin, still moist with rose-water and the essence of sandal-wood, to shiver—placing her hand on her heart to restrain, as it were, its tumultuous beatings, she murmured, “I am afraid!”
“What do you fear now?” said Mariam, sustaining her by her arms, and whose courage, like a game of see-saw, appeared to be exalted and strengthened in proportion as that of her mistress failed. “The pacha is far off—every thing around us sleeps; this Frank, whom you desired to see and whom you are about to see, has crossed the portals of the palace without awakening suspicion. He awaits you; he has not trembled in coming to you; time is precious, he counts it impatiently, let us join him.”
“I am afraid,” said Baïla, resisting the impulse which the old slave wished to give her, and trembling all over, with her body bent, her eyes half closed, she appeared to drink in with delight the alarm she experienced; as the sick, saturated with tasteless and sugared beverages, rejoice in the bitter draughts of abscynthe. It was an emotion, and every emotion is precious to a recluse of the harem.
She entered finally the saloon in which the unknown awaited her, but not without casting another glance on theabandonof her toilet. By the feeble light of two candles placed in a bracket, she saw the stranger standing in a meditative posture.
At the rustling of her robe, at the light sound of her step, he raised his head, crossed his hands with a kind of ecstatic transport, and his eyes, raised to the gilded ceiling, sparkled so brightly, that it appeared to the Mingrelian as if the light about her was doubled.
When Mariam had disappeared, the better to watch over them, when Baïla found herself alone with her unknown, with the lover of her day dreams, casting her veil suddenly aside, she revealed herself to him in all the glory of her Georgian beauty.
She enjoyed his pleasure, his surprise, for a moment, then seating herself on a corner of the sofa, motioned him to a seat by her side. But the stranger remained immovable; his only motion was to cover his eyes as if the light had suddenly blinded him. After having sweetly gratified her pride by the stupefying effect produced by her resplendent beauty, she repeated her gesture.
The Frank, still embarrassed and hesitating, went now toward the sofa, and bending with downcast eyes almost to the earth before her, took hold of the end of her long veil and re-covered her entirely, turning away his head. This movement surprised Baïla strangely; but she said to herself, “perhaps it is one of the preliminaries of love among the Franks.”
“Listen to me,” said the young man, then, with a voice full of emotion, and seating himself besideher; “listen to me with attention; the present moment may become for you as well as for myself the commencement of a new era of glory and safety.”
She did not understand him, she drew nearer to him.
“You are born a Christian,” he continued, “Mingrelia is your country.”
Baïla thought for an instant that he had himself come from the ancient Colchis; that he had seen her family; and in the rapid flight of her fancy she saw the love of this young man remount not only to a recent period, but also to that time in which she was still the property of her father. The recollections of her natal country beaming pleasanter to her by uniting themselves with the idea of a love from childhood, she came yet nearer to him and looked at him carefully, hoping to find in his face features impressed of old upon her memory.
“You are then a friend of my brothers?” she said to him. At this moment of expansion the Mingrelian placed her hand on that of the stranger. The latter trembled, rose at once and making the sign of the cross, said with a voice full of unction and solemnity—
“Yes, I am the friend of your brothers, your brothers the Christians, now trampled under foot by a cruel despot, but one whom you can soften. The terrible Daker, the master of a part of Syria and Palestine, after he took for his minister a Christian, Ibrahim Sabbar, became the protector of the disciples of Jesus Christ. Do you not exercise over your master a power greater than Ibrahim did over his? A power that they say the very lions do not resist. God made use of Esther to touch the heart of Ahasuerus; he has marked you like her with his seal, to concur in the deliverance of his people. Faith has revealed it to me. Thanks to you, Ali-ben-Ali, the Pacha of Shivas, the butcher, the executioner, shall no longer turn his rage but against the enemies of the church. The divine light descending from the cross of Calvary shall penetrate the most hardened hearts—”
“Wretch!” exclaimed Baïla, awakening at last from the stupor into which this unexpected discourse had thrown her, “what has brought you here?”
“To teach you to mourn over your past life, to assist you in washing yourself from your sins, to save you, and with you, and by you, our brethren the Christians of Shivas.”
“Go then, apostle of the demon—retire, insolent,” repeats the beautiful odalisk, enveloping herself in her veil, the better to conceal herself from the looks of the profane; “go then, and be accursed.”
“No, you shall not drive me away thus,” replied the young enthusiast; “you shall hear me. God, who inspired me with the idea of this holy mission which I am now discharging, is about to change your heart; he can, he will.”
“Thy God is not mine, impious; depart.”
“Ah! do not blaspheme the God of your fathers; do not deny the holy belief which even without your knowledge has perhaps remained in your heart. Was it not you who, in a retired part of your garden, reared the humblest of crosses, doubtless to go thither to pray in private?”
This word, this remembrance of the branch of the azalea, brought suddenly to the memory of the young odalisk all the chimeras of her fantastic loves, all the hopes, all the illusions which were grouped by her around a single idea; the disgust at finding all her reveries effaced; the frightful thought of the peril she had sought, had braved, and which still threatens her at that very moment, and all to arrive at such a deception—to find an apostle when she expected a lover—so troubled her mind, that her voice, gradually rising, appeared to reach beyond the pavilion, and reach the sleeping slaves. To endeavor to calm her, the stranger, with a suppliant gesture, advanced a step.
“Do not approach me,” she exclaimed, and rising with a groan, she called Mariam. She was about to leave the room, still uttering imprecations, when the door was thrown quickly open and the pacha appeared suddenly, surrounded by soldiers, and carrying a complete arsenal of arms of all kinds at his girdle.
Whether the wrath of the Mingrelian had reached its height, or whether the sentiment of self preservation awakened imperiously in her, rendered her pitiless, she exclaimed—
“Kill him—kill him!” and with her finger designated the unfortunate Frank to the vengeance of the pacha.
The young man cast a momentary sad and pitying look upon her, which made her start; he then held out his head, a soldier raised his sabre, but Djezzar turned the blow aside.
“No,” said he, “he must not die so quickly;” and casting a suspicious glance by turns upon the two, he murmured in a low voice this frightfully poetic phrase, “his blood should not leap suddenly like water from the fountain, but flow gently like that of the spring which falls drop by drop from the rock.”
In the East, poetry is found every where.
He then said something in the ear of a Mangrebian slave near him, and the Christian was led away.
——
Djezzar, left alone with Baïla, gave vent at first to all his jealous passions; but with him the favorite had nothing to dread but an explanation, commencing with a blow from his dagger. As soon as she found him confine himself simply to threats and reproaches, she ceased to fear for her life. Assuming an attitude of surprise, a look of disgust, whilst still endeavoring to appear as handsome as possible, she sought to make use of all her advantages and to employ in her favor with the Turk that toilette of carelessness prepared coquettishly for the Christian.
Djezzar, who had on that day returned from Tocata to Shivas, had been informed in the latter city of the intention of the Frank to penetrate into the interior of his harem; but he had no proof of the complicity of his beautiful slave. Baïla perceived it. He who could have given those proofs was, doubtless,expiring at that very moment. Were there not also to assist her, her imprecations against the giaour and her movement of terror and flight, of which the pacha himself was a witness. Thus, the latter was soon convinced and the tables turned; it was now the master who, humble and suppliant, lowly implored her pardon.
He was, however, preparing a terrible proof for the influence of the Mingrelian. Baïla, irritated at having been suspected, was already raising her voice higher.
“Listen,” said the pacha, imposing silence by a gesture, and appearing himself to hearken to a certain movement which was manifested without. She listened, but heard nothing but a low, confused, monotonous and regular sound, like that of threshing.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Nothing—nothing at all,” he replied.
Both remained thus, for a time, attentive; the noise was repeated, but did not increase. Djezzar became impatient, and, yielding to the feeling, struck his hands.
“Have not my orders been executed?” he demanded of the Mangrebian slave who appeared.
“They have, son of Ali; but in vain have we used on this Christian cords armed with lead and thongs of the skin of the hippopotamus; in vain have we moistened and sprinkled his gaping wounds with pimento and lemon juice; he has not uttered a cry or a groan.”
“What does he, then?” asked the Pasha.
“He prays,” replied the slave.
“Has he revealed nothing!”
“Nothing, son of Ali.”
“If my chastisements cannot loose his tongue, my clemency may,” said Djezzar, with a sinister smile. “Let him be brought before me, and let Haïder come also. By Allah, I will myself teach him to speak.”
When the Mangrebian had departed, Djezzar, alone with Baïla, became at once the man of the harem—the effeminate, the voluptuous pacha; he caused her to resume her seat on the divan, and he himself stretched at her feet, smoking his hooka, engaged, apparently alone, in watching the smoke from his Persian pipe escape on one side in massive clouds to remount from the other, purifying itself in a crystal flask full of perfumed water. He awaited, in this indolent posture, the arrival of his captive.
This captive was named Ferdinand Laperre. Born at Paris, of a good family of the middle classes, of a character addicted to exaltation and revery, an orphan from his cradle, he had been unable to give a natural course to his sensibilities. Notwithstanding his university education, the religious sentiment had germinated and developed itself in him. In the want of those tender affections of which he was ignorant, holy and ardent belief had filled the void in his soul. He held a small employment in the office of the minister of foreign affairs, when one day at the close of a sermon, by the Abbé La Ardaire, he determined to become a priest.
His only remaining relative, an uncle, recently appointed to a consulate in one of the important cities of Asia Minor, thought it best to take him with him in the capacity of a cadet. He hoped to divert him from his pious abstractions, to induce him to renounce his plans, and to lead him even to doubting, by the sight of those numerous sects of schismatic Christians who inhabit the east. The uncle was a philosopher.
But faith was more brightly kindled in the heart of the neophyte as he approached those holy places in which evangelical truths had borne their first branches and produced their most savory fruits. The summits of Taurus were for him illuminated by the lightnings of Tabor and Sinai. More than ever strengthened in his first calling, he wore hair-cloth beneath his diplomatic dress, and promised himself, should the occasion offer, to accomplish, in despite of his relative, a novitiate signalized by apostolic labors.
After having perfected himself in the Turkish and common Arabian languages, he went to Shivas and its environs, on a visit to the followers of the different dissenting churches—Armenians, Greeks, Maronites, Nestorians, Eutycheans and even Latin Catholics, separated from Rome only by the marriage of their priests. He went among them to effect conversions; he was more alarmed at their misery than their ignorance, and, like a true apostle, he returned among them less to preach to them than to succor them.
He was passing down the Red River one day, on a small skiff, which he had learned to manage in the eastern style, dreaming of the desert and of an hermitage in some Thebais, and was creating in the future an ascetic happiness, tempered with clear water, when the oar broke. Hisbarque stranding, cast him upon a small spot, a delta, located as an island, between Kizil-Ermak and a regular ditch. Ferdinand was not a skillful swimmer, but, notwithstanding the usual sedateness of his thoughts, he was a good jumper. He measured with his eye the river and the ditch by turns, and the question being decided in favor of the latter, he crossed it at a bound. The ditch passed, he perceived a low wall, which had been hidden from his view by a thick copse of nopals and wild apricot trees. Had he jumped back, to regain his delta, it would have been at the risk of his neck, for he had now no room to take a start; and should he succeed, he would still have an impassable river before him.
Whilst in this position, very much embarrassed what to do, and not doubting that he was in the neighborhood of the summer gardens of the pacha, he perceived a low door in the wall; he tried it, and to his great joy it opened.
There are about Shivas, and especially on the banks of the river, enclosures in which the cultivators, chiefly Christians, from the great abundance of water, raise vegetables for the market, and enormous citrons, savory water-melons, dates, and pistachios which rival those of Aleppo and Damascus. Ferdinand thought he had reached one of those Christian enclosures; the carelessness evinced inclosing the gate strengthened the idea. He entered. Then, for the first time, he found himself face to face with Baïla, who was seated carelessly beneath the plantain tree. More surprised than charmed at the sight of the graceful odalisk, bedaubed with red and black, he could only stammer forth a few words, expressive of his eager desire to escape, safeand sound, from this perilous adventure, which he had not sought. Entrapped in the windings of the garden, he had again found himself in the presence of Baïla and the negress. Regaining at last, with difficulty, the little gate, which was still open, he was again alarmed at the double obstacle of the ditch and the river, when, in the midst of the shades of the evening, he saw a man advance, mysteriously, toward the delta, traversing the Kizil-Ermak by a ford, of which Ferdinand was quite ignorant.
This man, one of the bostangis of the pacha, stole his master’s fruit to sell in the city. It was he who had left open the little gate, which was only used when the ditch was repairing. After having, on that day, pointed out to Ferdinand a mode of escaping from his embarrassment, it was he afterward, who, held by Baïla between the fear of denunciation and the hopes of reward, had introduced the Frank into the gardens, and even into the pavilion of the favorite.
Having reached the delta, the bostangi drew from beneath a mass of overhanging rock, a long plank, which he used to cross the ditch; he then deposited it beneath the mass of nopals and wild apricots, in which Ferdinand was concealed.
He saw a miracle from heaven in this concourse of unhoped for circumstances, co-operating in his deliverance. This plank became an ark of safety for him; he used it in his turn, and, thanks to the ford which the bostangi had revealed to him, after having wandered for some time in its unknown paths, after having struggled anew with the Kizil-Ermak, which, like a serpent in pursuit of its prey, he found everywhere on his path, and which appeared to wish to envelop him in its twistings and windings, he escaped finally all the dangers of his eventful walk.
Having returned to the consulate in Shivas he had double cause to congratulate himself on having arrived there safe and sound, when he learned that the gardens into which he had so foolishly adventured were none other than those of Djezzar.
But this woman whom he had seen—who could she be? When he thought of his meeting with her, he thought he had dreamed or had seen a vision.
She reappeared before him in a multitude of forms; he saw her resembling a Bacchante, her cup in her hand, reclining indolently on a tiger’s skin; then, like a Peri or an Undine, when appearing to him through the gilded reflection of the sun and the rainbows of the small marble basin; and, finally, in her third transformation, erect, severe, irritated, ordering him to fly and threatening him with a dagger.
His calm and chaste imagination lent, however, no charm to this triplicity of forms. He asked himself, on the contrary, if this vision did not present to him an emblem of all the vices united—intoxication, licentiousness, idleness, anger? He found means to complete the seven cardinal sins. In those accursed gardens, which were inhabited by the persecutor of the Christians, was it not the demon himself that had appeared to him?
Thus, whilst Baïla was making of him a being apart—a marvelous being—whose traces she was honoring, an idol to which she was rendering the homage of love, he was piously entertaining a holy horror of her remembrance.
This demon, however—this frightful assemblage of the seven cardinal sins, was essaying every means to approach him.
Ferdinand, whilst sojourning with his uncle in this province of Anti-Taurus, was but little concerned about what was taking place in the harem of Djezzar. His thoughts were elsewhere. But after his involuntary visit to the gardens, he lent a more attentive ear to what was said about the pacha. He learned that the latter, abandoned entirely to voluptuousness, submitted to the control of a favorite Mingrelian. Soon, without knowing his own share in increasing the sway of the beautiful slave, he heard it repeated every where around him that, did she will it firmly, Baïla could make a Jew of her master, Ali-ben-Ali.
“Why not a Christian?” he said to himself.
All his thoughts were, from that day, concentrated on this single one—“She is a Christian, and can do any thing with Djezzar.”
Oh, how did his divine mission aggrandize in his eyes that toy, which was a small golden cross, which his mother had worn and which never left him.
We know the result of the execution of this holy and bold enterprise, the first terrible consequences of which Ferdinand was now undergoing, and the conclusion of which he foresaw, when, after his preparatory punishment, he was led before the pacha, with his hands bound tightly behind his back. The latter was still extended upon his cushion; his head and the arm which held his pipe reposed on the knees of the Mingrelian and his lion Haïder, crouched upon his paws, with his muzzle to the floor and his eyes half closed, was by his side.
The slaves retired at a gesture from their master; the scene which was to follow needed no witnesses. The pacha, the Mingrelian, the Christian and the lion alone remained.
——
Baïla felt her confidence vanish; a single revelation from the prisoner would be a decree of death to her, and concealing her paleness beneath the redoubled folds of her veil, she awaited the examination with a palpitating heart, fixing her curious gaze upon the prisoner.
“Why did I risk my life to listen to a sermon from this mournful preacher?” she said to herself. “Why did they not kill him when I commanded? Why did he not fall beneath the blow of the guard?”
Seeing him, however, with his body furrowed bybluish stripes, his flesh swollen and bloody, standing in that saloon as if he had never left it to be handed over to executioners, as he did before the arrival of the pacha, with the same air, the same timid look, which he dared not raise toward her, she felt an emotion of pity.
“Christian,” said the pacha, “what motive brought thee hither?”
“Her salvation,” replied the captive, turning his eyes for a moment to the sofa on which the odalisk was seated, and then letting them fall on Djezzar, he added, “and thine, perhaps.”
“What, dog, and son of a dog, as thou art, didst thou think to make a vile Nazarene of me, and to convert me to the sect of the accursed, by taking advantage of my absence?”
“I have said the truth,” replied the young man, “as true as that Jesus Christ is the redeemer of the world.”
“Thou liest,” replied the pacha, “as true that there is no God but God, and that Mahomet is his prophet.”
After this outbreak he appeared to endeavor to restrain his anger. He replaced himself more at his ease upon the knees of his favorite, passed his hand, as a motion of caress, through the mane of his lion, and when he had taken two or three whiffs of his batakie, resumed.
“See that thou art sincere, and do not aggravate thy crime. Thou knowest well that a Mussulman cannot become a Christian, as a Christian cannot become a Jew. The law of Moses paved the way for that of Jesus; that of Jesus was but the precursor to that of Mahomet. On this ladder men never descend—they mount upward.”
“I had hoped, at least,” said the captive, “to render thee more favorable to my brethren.”
“Are, then, all those bands of rascals who gnaw each other—all those races of infidels, who are forgetful of their own law, thy brethren? Of what do they complain? Of some I have made good Christians by martyrdom; of others, good Musselmen by persuasion. Besides, art thou one of their priests? No, far from that. Thou art but one of those frivolous Europeans, who seek to propagate their impious usages among us. Lay aside trick and falsehood. Thou hast heard of the beauty of this slave, (turning his head toward Baïla,) and thou hast desired to satiate thy eyes at the price of thy life. Is it not so?”
The young man made a sign of negation; the pacha heeded it not, and proceeded.
“Well, art thou satisfied? Thou shouldst be, for thou hast seen her. Are your women of Europe so to be disdained, that you must come among us to carry off ours? Until now you have coveted our horses only. How didst thou find means to correspond with her? Who was thy guide? How did she first see thee?”
Like a tiger, which with eye and ear watches for the least cry, the least motion of the prey it is about to seize, Djezzar watched for a word of avowal—a denunciatory sign on the part of him whom he interrogated. He obtained none from him, but he felt the knees of Baïla tremble.
“Christian,” he resumed, “I repeat to thee, be sincere. Tell me what hope thou hast conceived; tell me who introduced thee into this place; name thy accomplice, and whatever may be thy fault I will place in the other scale thy youth and thy consular title, although thy presence in the midst of my harem at night gives me a right to forget it. But I will consider what thou hast already endured, and, like Allah, I will be merciful. Speak; I listen.”
He inhaled again the odorous smoke of his pipe, and appeared to await a reply; but the captive remained silent and motionless.
“Speak, Christian, speak! There is yet time. At this price alone canst thou purchase thy life—by abjuring thy idolatry, of course.”
At this last sentence the young man raised his head—a noble blush mounted to his face.
“To denounce and apostatize,” said he; “is such thy clemency, pacha? Have thy executioners forgotten to tell thee who I am? Art thou, who hast thyself honored me with the title of Christian, ignorant of the duties which this title enjoins? Dost thou think that the disciples of Christ care so much for this mortal life, as to plunge their souls twice into ineffaceable pollution?” and his eye sparkled, and his whole countenance assumed an expression of sublime beauty.
“It is said,” said Djezzar, forming, from his apparent imperturbability, a fine contrast with the exaltation of the young Frank. “Thou wishest to die, and thou shalt die. But dost thou know for what an end I reserve thee?”
“Be it what it may, I am ready,” replied the captive.
“Then thou regrettest nothing of this mortal life?” and the pacha followed his look attentively, which he thought he would fix on Baïla.
“Nothing,” said the young man, with his eyes cast down, “but the not being assisted at my last moments by a priest of my religion.”
Djezzar appeared to reflect; a slight smile then contracted his lips.
“If thy wishes go no farther,” he said, “they shall be gratified.”
The Mangrebian reappeared at his call. A few moments afterward an old man, with a bald head, a long white beard, and a severe countenance, entered. He trembled violently at the sight of the pacha, as if he thought his last hour was come.
He was a poor Maronite monk, sent recently by the patriarch of Mount Libanus to replace the superior of the convent of Perkinik, who was dead. The pacha had, whilst passing on that day through this Catholic village, in the environs of Shivas, wished to make an exaction on this miserable convent, in which a few monks, covered with rags, lived by the labor of their hands, in the midst of a population as miserable as themselves. Djezzar, unable to extort the money which they had not, had carried off their superior with him, to detain him as a hostage until the sum demanded was paid.
“Kaffer,” he said to him, “thou hast refused to pay the taxes ofMiriandKaradj.”
“The Christians of Libanus are exempt from them since the capitulation of the holy King Louis,” replied the unfortunate man, whose voice betrayed a violent emotion. “The Vice Roy Mehemet Ali regarded us as exempt.”
“To hell with the old rascal!”
“But the sultans themselves have recognized this law, your highness.”
“There is no law here but my will,” replied the pacha.
“What can I do to disarm thy severity,” blubbered out the old man, fixing his terrified look upon the lion crouched beside Djezzar, and of which he already considered himself the prey. “I have nothing in the world which thou canst take from me, but my life.”
“Which I will do if thou dost not obey me at once.”
“But, to acquit this impost—”
“By the koran, who is now speaking to thee of imposts? OfKaradjandMiriI hold thee acquitted, thou and thine, forever, and thou art free, and shalt leave here carrying with thee more piastres than I demanded of thee; but before we separate thou must call down the curses of thy God on that dog there.” Then, turning to his other captive, he continued: “Yes, thou art about to die, and die accursed by a priest of thy religion. Inch Allah, wilt thou speak now?”
With an heroic resignation Ferdinand, as his only reply, kneels and bows his head, devoted at once to the sabre and anathema, when he hears the old Cenobite of Libanus, raising his trembling hands above his head, say to him, in a soft voice,
“If thou art a Christian, I bless thee, my son.”
These holy words were scarcely pronounced when the old man fell, shot dead. Baïla fell backward with a movement of horror, and the pacha, with unbounded impassibility, replaced his pistol in his belt. He interrupted this movement suddenly to restrain his lion by the mane, which, animated by the sight of blood, was about to spring with a roar on the body of the Maronite.
“Carry off that corpse,” said Djezzar to the Mangrebian, “and leave us.”
The dead body carried off, the Mangrebian gone, turning to the lion, which, with open mouth and thirsty and trembling lips, was uttering low growls and darting his brilliant glance toward the prey which was carried from him, Djezzar, restraining him by voice and gesture, said:
“Be patient, Haïder; thy part shalt soon come—thou shalt not lose by the exchange.”
He then resumed his first position, and whilst the lion, restrained by him, continued its low roaring, with its eyes fixed on a large spot of blood on the carpet, and addressing Baïla, without appearing to notice the emotions of terror by which she was agitated, said:
“Yes, the giaour is for us three—for each a part. For me, his head; for the lion, his body; and for thee, my beautiful rose of Incour—my faithful, for thee, his heart. Has he not given thee that heart? Well, go take it.”
Baïla, undecided, troubled with horror, knew not what meaning to attach to his words.
“Go, take it,” repeated Djezzar. “look, behold! powerless to defend himself, does he not appear himself to offer it to thee? Go, my soul, and if thy dagger is not enough for the work, use mine.”
The odalisk bent toward him—“Thou art sporting with me, Ali—is it not so?” she murmured in his ear.
“Dost thou not hear me, or art thou unwilling to understand me?” he replied, in a formidable tone. “This man dies—dies at once, by thy hand, or I shall believe thee to be his accomplice, and thy head shall fall before his. I swear it, by Mahomet and the four caliphs.”
Baïla, having to choose between inflicting or receiving death, felt an icy coldness in her veins; her forehead became lividly pale.
“Thou hesitatest!” said the pacha.
She carried a trembling hand to her dagger.
“Take mine,” he said.
The hand of Baïla fell on the shoulder of Djezzar, and remained there as if paralyzed; her troubled eyes were raised furtively toward the young Frank, even on that very evening the object of her reveries of love; toward that young martyr, who by a word could destroy her, and who was about to die—to die for her, for being unwilling to pronounce that word.
“Wilt thou obey?” said the executioner, with a gesture of impatient rage.