CHAPTER II.
The Mogul was left chained to one of the statues on the side-wall, when the fakeers betook themselves to their night’s repose: the chain by which he was fastened only enabled him to seat himself upon the floor. He could not lay his body at full length, and was therefore obliged to lean his back against the figure to which he was attached. In that position he tried for some time to sleep, but without effect; feverish and distracting thoughts obtruded. His reflections were of the most melancholy character. He was surrounded by a body of enthusiasts, into whose power he had fallen, and who would very probably doom him to some cruel death, by way of celebrating the orgies of their sanguinary superstition. Fanatics are the worst of tyrants; who, alas! too often do the work of the devil, whilst they fancy themselves working in the service of their God. In proportion as the infatuation takes possession of their minds, they become cruel towards all such as they imagine seceders from the worship of that deity of whom they claim to be vicegerents, and see no virtue but in those who, like themselves, have been inoculated with the rabies of spiritual enthusiasm. In every age of the world, in every country, and among all communities, that sort of enthusiasm which claims exclusive spiritual endowment, and pretends to supernatural communications, is the greatest bane against whichpure Religion has ever had to contend. It invests her in a factitious garb that conceals while it arrays her. False zeal has driven more from the true fold than have fallen victims to the slaughter of war, the inroads of pestilence, or the devastations of famine. No one is driven into the paths of peace, or scourged into the embrace of virtue. All men are won to good by its own sweet suggestions, by gentle implorations, by the light and fragrant blessings which it offers to those who properly seek to possess them; not by those terrible denunciations which scare the timid, offend the proud, and provoke the contempt of the reckless.
The prisoner was pursuing these reflections with a melancholy sense of his present condition. He gazed round the apartment to see if he might encourage any hopes of escape. The embers yet glowing upon the stone floor, threw a sickly light around, which only rendered the remote gloom of the chamber still more murky. The fakeers, who were stretched at length near the smouldering fire, looked like so many semi-monsters under the power of enchantment. Their hard breathing, the only symptom of life which they exhibited, sufficiently indicated the intensity of their slumber, that seemed to have been rendered more profound by the horrible meal of which they had partaken just before they gave themselves up to the enjoyments of “nature’s sweet restorer.”
The prisoner, closing his eyes, tried to conjure up images before the speculum of his mind more agreeable than those realities upon which it was an agony to gaze;—finally overcome by bodily fatigue and mental exhaustion, he fell into an unquiet sleep.
His slumber was at length disturbed by the pressure of a gentle grasp upon his arm. He opened his eyes and perceived that there was an object standing between him and the light, which had already begun to dispel the gloom of the capacious apartment in which he lay. Unable to guess what such a visit could portend, he remained motionless, though not entirely without some painful apprehensions of mischief. After an interval of a few moments, the hand was removed from his arm and placed upon his brow. The tender pressure, the smoothness of the palm, the femininetexture and delicate movement of the fingers, convinced him in an instant that it was the hand of woman, but not of her whom he had looked upon the previous evening with a loathing so absolute that his very blood curdled, and whose fingers would have rather pressed upon his forehead like the hard-pointed talons of a harpy, than with the soft and thrilling impress of an angel’s touch.
That touch made every nerve thrill with emotion. The stranger leaned over him as if to hear from his breathing whether he slept profoundly or not. Her breath was as the air of Paradise. He could not be mistaken. There was an inexplicable but infallible sympathy which assured him,—with that mysterious power of conviction communicated how we know not, but still more powerful than any arising from positive testimony,—that the being before him was something far above the ordinary level of human nature. He listened instinctively to catch the music of her voice; his breath was for the moment suspended lest the least sound from her lips should escape his ear. He was in a waking trance, the more delicious from its succeeding to reflections which had so painfully harassed him.
“Stranger!” at length said a soft voice in a tone that seemed to come from the throat of a Peri.
“Who is it that calls me?” asked the prisoner, in a scarcely audible whisper.
“One who has compassion upon your condition, and would give you the means of freedom if you are disposed to embrace them.”
“Shall we not be overheard by those holy sleepers who are lying round yonder embers?”
“No; they are lapped in too profound a slumber to be easily roused.”
“To whom do I address myself?”
“To the granddaughter of Bistamia, who would escape with you the most odious of all slaveries. You will, no doubt, be surprised that I speak thus freely to a stranger, but mine is a desperate position, and I seek its alleviation under any circumstances.To-morrow, when the fakeers shall have quitted these walls, which they will do to engage the Emperor’s troops, I may see you again. I have sought you now to apprise you that a friend is at hand, bent upon your release. To-morrow we meet—farewell!” And her aërial figure glided through the gloom, without leaving the faintest echo of her footsteps, like a bright mist in a summer eve over the surface of a calm lake, upon which the mountains have projected their gigantic shadows.
Shortly after the morning had cast its fresh light into the gloomy hall the fakeers awoke, and rising from their hard bed, each with a sudden motion of the different limbs, caused the joints to snap with a sound like the cracking of nuts in rapid succession; after which they seated themselves, crossed their legs, and began to smoke, passing the tube from mouth to mouth, every one inhaling the luxurious narcotic from the same instrument. After a while Bistamia entered.
“Come,” said she, “’tis time you were on your way. The Emperor’s troops were encamped last night beyond the country over which we have passed with the scourge of our power. They will be on their march by this time. You must all fight, and wrap the souls of your foes in the black veil of terror. Who undergoes the penance this morning?”
Without uttering a word, one of the fakeers who had accompanied the Mogul on the day of his capture, and rendered himself conspicuous by passing needles through his flesh, rose from his recumbent position, and, with an expression of callous indifference, advanced towards the spot where the flame had brightly blazed on the preceding evening. Rubbing two smooth pieces of a black-grained wood rapidly together, he kindled a tuft of dry grass on which some brushwood had been placed, and upon this several dry logs. A strong fire was soon burning, into which the devotee placed a long cylindrical rod of iron. In the course of a few moments it became red hot. When in this state he placed the point of the rod against his cheek, and deliberately pressed it until it had passed through his tongue, and was visible on the other side. It was then bent down on either cheek, towards the shoulder,forming three sides of a square, to prevent the possibility of its being withdrawn. The stern composure of his countenance did not relax a single instant during the revolting infliction. His companions looked upon him with fatuitous admiration, making him the most solemn obeisance after the odious penance had been concluded.
The man next deliberately opened the wounds which he had made on the previous day, and passed different coloured strings through them. Thus adorned, he declared himself ready to go forth in his own invincible might, and crush the enemies of his venerable patron. Bistamia placed a golden boon within his half-closed hand, upon which he grinned as well as his locked jaws would permit, and was about to quit the place accompanied by his companions, when the hag said with a savage laugh: “On your return you shall enjoy a rare pastime with yonder son of a scurvy dog: I will reserve him for your merriment. A little easy blood-spilling without labour will be a relaxation, after the fatigue of making carrion in the gross. Go and prosper—slay and spare not!” They made their salaam, departed, and the prisoner was once more left to his own solitary reflections.
About noon, his visitor of the night approached him. As she advanced, the lightness of her step, and the buoyant elasticity of every motion of her frame, proclaimed the beauty which he had already anticipated. In a few moments, a lovely girl, in the very birth and freshness of womanhood, stood before him. She was young and beautiful as the morning stars when they sang together at the birth of creation. Her breath seemed impregnated with spicy perfume wafted on gentlest airs from the shores of Arabia the Happy. It invested her in an atmosphere of its own.
Her eyes were dark—of the deepest hue, but brilliant as gems, and soft as the soul of which they were eloquent interpreters. Her hair was raised in a cone on the top of her head, and confined by a long silver pin, giving increased altitude to her majestic figure, and exposing the whole of her finely-arched forehead to the rapturous gaze of the Mogul.
“I would not have escaped this captivity for worlds!” he cried,as she stood beside him in the plenitude of her almost unearthly beauty.
“Stranger,” she replied, “have you the courage to bear me from the house of bondage, if I free you from your chains?”
“Try me; and if I fail to realise your wishes, cast me back again to my prison, and gall my limbs with the fetters from which I should no longer deserve to be free.”
She bent over him, and released his hands from the manacles that confined them, and he stood before her disencumbered of his bonds.
“Listen,” cried the beautiful girl, “while I unfold to you the miserable position in which I stand. My grandmother has given me as a concubine to the fakeer who this morning underwent the penance which you witnessed. On his return from the battle he will claim me. I need scarcely tell you that I entertain towards him a disgust so intrinsical and unconquerable, that I am determined to die by my own hands rather than become the instrument of that man’s pleasures. Upon you my hopes are fixed to release me from this horrible alternative. To-night, when the fakeers shall be hushed in sleep after their debauch, in which they are sure to indulge, we may fly from these detested walls. Meanwhile, you must resume your chains. You will now have the power of casting them off when you please. At midnight I will again visit you, prepared to fly with you from the most odious persecution to that freedom which I shall rely upon your honour for securing to me.”
The sound of footsteps induced her to depart; and Bistamia entered, followed by several fakeers, who announced another defeat of the imperial troops by the naked army of an old woman.
“’Tis well,” she cried; “to-morrow I shall place myself at the head of my brave followers for a final victory, and the imperial sceptre shall shortly be swayed by a wiser head than ever surmounted the shoulders of an Emperor.”
In the course of that evening, the abode of Bistamia was filled with her victorious enthusiasts, who encouraged her absurd pretensions to the Mogul throne.