CHAPTER IV.
Eiz-ood-Deen was made prisoner with the rest or the robbers, who were severally put in irons, and finally marched to Ghizny, where they were cast into separate dungeons. The merchant’s son now looked upon his doom as sealed. Taken up as a robber and murderer, he saw little chance of escape, and began to look forward with dreadful apprehensions to undergoing an ignominous death. How was he to prove his innocence when he had been taken in the very den of those criminals who had committed the murder, and was declared by them to be one of their party? He could bring forward no proof of his innocence to countervail such strong presumptive evidence of his guilt. His mere declaration would scarcely be listened to, it being well known that the guilty almost invariably declare themselves innocent. He paced his prison with a restless and impatient step. It seemed as if the doom of destiny were upon him. Since the death of that guiltless girl, whom he had hoped to make his wife, he had known nothing but misfortune. The conviction smote upon his heart that he had been saved from destruction, when the hurricane stirred the elements into frightful combination, and threatened every moment to engulf him amid the raging billows, only to meet a more dreadful doom upon land. He now regretted that he had not perished amid the turbulent waters which bore his father to the abode of spirits, or that the tiger had not struck him dead when it raised its paw against him in the jungle. What was to be done? There was no evading the doom which awaited him. He must die a degraded criminal, his body would be thrown to the vultures and to the jackals. It was a fearful thought! To have his bones whiten in the sun, and his flesh furnish a banquet for beasts of prey!
The robbers were severally tried, all found guilty, and executed. Their heads were placed upon the walls of Ghizny. His trial came last. The day preceding he endeavoured to prepare himself for the fate from which he concluded there could be no escape;but he could not brace his spirit to that pitch of resolution which defies the terrors of death, and renders the condemned man capable of going through the awful details of a public execution, not only without dread, but with perfect tranquillity of spirit. Every one of the robbers—for he had been taken from his dungeon to witness their execution—had met death with that sullen resolution peculiar to fatalists, for such were they; but Eiz-ood-Deen, entertaining a different faith, felt that he was not likely to meet it with equal resolution. The night which preceded his trial was one of dreadful mental excitation. He had no rest; the fever of anxiety was on his brow, and the phantoms of terror flitted round him as he courted a transient oblivion of his woes.
The morning dawned upon his disturbed slumbers, and the dim light which reached his dungeon through a narrow aperture in the wall roused him from the damp earth upon which he had cast himself for the last time. He arose feverish and unrefreshed. His hands were cold as the stones by which he was surrounded, but his temples were painfully hot, and throbbed almost audibly. He tried to summon resolution to appear before the court with composure, but nature mastered all his energies, and he gave way at length to a violent burst of emotion. The remarkable manner of his escape from destruction during the storm and its accompanying circumstances had endeared life to him, and he felt unconquerably loth to relinquish it, although at one time he had really persuaded himself that death would be a boon.
The summons at length came, and he prepared to follow the messenger into the presence of a fallible judge, who, he was persuaded, would pronounce upon him, though innocent, the dreaded penalty of the law. He entered the court with a tottering step, a drooping eye, and a bloodless cheek. The trial was summary, and the sentence speedily passed. He was adjudged to have his head struck from his body and placed upon the city walls, the trunk to be cast to the vultures. The execution was ordered instantly to take place, and, as little sympathy is shown for criminals in countries where despotism renders public executions occurrences of mere daily routine, Eiz-ood-Deen was bound without theslightest compassion being shown by those who had heard his trial and condemnation. His turban was rudely stripped from his head, and while the heartless official was binding it round his brow to cover his eyes, in order that he might not witness the descending stroke of death, he raised a piteous lamentation, calling upon the Deity to attest that he was innocent, and accompanying his cries with such strong appeals to the humanity of his judge, that even the executioner was at length moved, and paused for a moment in his work of preparation.
The prisoner was desired to state what he had to urge in his defence, and say how it happened that he had been found associated with robbers who had committed a murder upon one of the subjects of Sultan Ibrahim. Eiz-ood-Deen commenced his defence by stating the principal events of his life, which he did in a manner so simple and circumstantial, that the magistrate, who had condemned him unheard, at length believing him innocent, suspended his execution, and immediately petitioned the sovereign in his favour.
On being brought before the Sultan, the merchant’s son acquitted himself with such modesty and eloquence that he was pardoned, and taken into the sovereign’s service. This was, in truth, an unexpected issue to the dilemma in which he had so unwittingly fallen, and his prospects thus suddenly brightening, he felt more than ever impressed with the idea that he had been spared for a better destiny. He rose rapidly in the royal favour, and was finally advanced to one of the highest offices in the state.
One day as he was following the chase with several of the nobles, a boar charged the horse of a prince of the royal house of Ghizny, and having inflicted a frightful wound in its flank, the wounded beast fell, and the foot of its rider being under its body, he could not extricate himself. The enraged boar dashed towards him, and in a few seconds more would have placed him in the same condition as his horse, when Eiz-ood-Deen spurred forward, met the hog in its impetuous career, received it upon his spear, which entered the heart of the furious animal, and it fell dead beside its intended victim. The victor immediately dismounted, and goingto the prince’s rescue, released him from his jeopardy. This little incident naturally produced an intimacy, and Eiz-ood-Deen soon became a welcome visitor at the prince’s palace.
The latter had three daughters, one of whom was reputed to be a girl of great beauty and accomplishments; nor did she belie the character which report had given her. Her father was justly proud of her. She was already betrothed to one of the wealthiest nobles in the Sultan Ibrahim’s dominions. It had been an arrangement of interest, not of affection, and one in which the princess had acquiesced rather in obedience to the wishes of her father, whom she tenderly loved, than to the suggestions of her own choice. When she met the preserver of her parent’s life immediately after the event just related, the natural impulses of her heart drew from her expressions of gratitude so ardent and earnest, that Eiz-ood-Deen was deeply moved at the eloquent declaration of her feelings. He listened to her with breathless delight. There was no resisting the earnestness which was so much enhanced by the corresponding influence of her beauty. But she was betrothed, and therefore to admire her was dangerous—to love her criminal; and yet to see her, under such a provocative both to admiration and love, and not give way to those strong tendencies of our nature roused into vigorous action, when that pure passion is awakened by which alone the fruits of our earthly paradise are matured, was all but morally impossible. The merchant’s son, now raised to the dignity of a noble, and whose ambition therefore led him to think that he might aspire to the highest alliance, could not behold the beauty of this high-born maiden with insensibility. He soon felt that his heart had received an impression which had completely effaced the scar left upon it by the sad disappointment of a former love; yet he dared not avow it.
The two elder sisters were neither handsome nor agreeable, and had passed that period of rich and vivid freshness which imparts to the beauty of woman its best charm. They were rapidly advancing to the staid season of existence when the buoyancy of youth begins to decline, and you are continually reminded that its beautiful bright star has culminated. It happened that they hadbeen both struck with the fine person of Eiz-ood-Deen, and manifested their partiality in a manner too obvious to be longer equivocal. The object of their mutual affection treated their advances with provoking disregard; but they, imagining that he was withheld by their rank from declaring his passion, each resolved in secret to take the earliest opportunity of letting him know that he was beloved by a princess of the house of Ghizny. Before, however, they could put their determination into practice, Eiz-ood-Deen had declared his admiration for the younger sister, who had answered his declaration by avowing a reciprocal attachment. This almost immediately came to the ears of the two elder sisters, who were outrageous at the discovery of his entertaining what they deemed so degrading a preference.
This discovery, however, did not abate the passion of these two tender maidens, and each resolved personally to declare her sentiments to the object of her affections. One evening, Eiz-ood-Deen received a message, through one of the attendants of the palace, from the youngest of the three princesses, as was represented, to meet her in the palace gardens an hour after sunset, as she had some special communication to make. Delighted at the idea of encountering the object towards whom his heart bounded with unceasing emotion, he repaired to the place appointed, expecting to see one whose presence was rapture. He entered the gardens and sprang towards a female already there awaiting his arrival, when to his surprise and mortification he stood before the eldest daughter of the prince whom he had rescued from death. The interview, however, was short. She began by declaring her passion; but he soon silenced her unwelcome avowal by telling her that his heart was fixed upon her youngest sister. Having made this declaration, he quitted the garden, and the princess sought her apartment, burning with rage and disappointment.
Both the elder princesses meditated revenge; and in order to effect this, they took an opportunity of rousing the jealousy of the Omrah to whom their younger sister had been betrothed, by telling him that his affianced bride had bestowed her affections upon Eiz-ood-Deen, at the same time rousing his hostility by thevilest insinuations. The fiercest passions of the noble were roused, and he determined to take speedy and signal revenge. Shortly after this disclosure, while they were enjoying the pleasures of the chase, the jealous lover resolved to avail himself of the opportunity to destroy his rival, at a moment when he was separated from the hunters. Eiz-ood-Deen had paused, to give his steed breath after a severe run. On one side of him was a precipice, and on the other the jungle from which the quarry had been roused. The enraged noble, armed with a strong spear, urged his steed forward; but the animal springing at the goad of its rider’s spur, suddenly turned to the right, and bounded towards the precipice. There was no arresting its career. It reached the brink—snorted, reared, and plunged into the abyss. Both rider and horse were killed upon the spot.
The two elder daughters of the prince were grievously vexed at this mischance; and their jealousy of the younger sister was carried at length to such a height that Eiz-ood-Deen determined to declare himself without further delay. The object of his attachment had received and approved of his addresses; nothing therefore remained but to obtain the father’s consent. The suit of the merchant’s son, who had been raised by the Sultan to an appointment of high dignity in his court, was backed by his royal master. Knowing that he was of the blood royal, Ibrahim urged that the princess should be united to him. Eiz-ood-Deen was consequently married to this beautiful scion of the house of Ghizny, and shortly after put in possession of the principality of Ghoor, over which his ancestors had reigned until the flight of his father into India. By the princess of Ghizny Eiz-ood-Deen had seven sons. These, when the father died, separated into two divisions. They were, by way of distinction, called the seven stars. One of these divisions gave its origin to the dynasty of kings at Bamyan, called also Tokharistan and Mohatila; and the other to the Ghoory dynasty at Ghizny. Of the latter race was Kootb-ood-Deen Mahomed, called King of the Mountains. He married the daughter of Sultan Beiram, king of Ghizny, and having foundedthe city of Feroozkooh, made it his capital. In the vicinity of this place, having enclosed with a wall a spot of ground about two parasangs[10]in circumference as a hunting park, he assumed all the dignities of a sovereign. At length he was induced to attack Ghizny. Sultan Beiram, obtaining intimation of his intentions, contrived to get him into his power, and eventually poisoned him. This was the origin of the feuds between the houses of Ghoor and Ghizny.[11]
FOOTNOTES:[10]The parasang varies from three to four miles.[11]See Brigg’s Translation of Ferishta, vol. i. p. 167.
[10]The parasang varies from three to four miles.
[10]The parasang varies from three to four miles.
[11]See Brigg’s Translation of Ferishta, vol. i. p. 167.
[11]See Brigg’s Translation of Ferishta, vol. i. p. 167.