CHAPTER V.
Prince Dawir Buxsh was received with loud acclamation by the troops. His late exploit gave them hopes of an emperor that would lead them on to conquest. He was borne in triumph to the imperial camp, and next day the army proceeded to Agra. Sultan Shariar’s daughter had fallen into the victor’s hands. The youthful sovereign desired that she might be brought into his presence; she accordingly appeared before him, her bosom agitated by conflicting emotions. She was at once elated by joy at her lover’s release, and depressed by sorrow at her father’s captivity. Her beauty was heightened by the singular variety of feeling which her countenance expressed. She fell at the prince’s feet: he affectionately raised her, and said, with earnest but tender passion,
“Let not my preserver kneel to one who is indebted to her for his liberty—perhaps his life; for the dungeon soon puts an end to earthly captivities. The star of our destinies has risen—may it ascend in glory to its meridian! As soon as I am placed upon the musnud, our marriage shall be solemnized, and we will enjoy the consummation of our happiness, which adverse chances have so long delayed.”
“But my father!” exclaimed the princess with a suffused eye and quivering lip.
“He will, for the present, remain a prisoner. He has sought to usurp the crown. The sovereign of the Moguls must perform his duty to his people as well as to himself.”
This was said with a tone of grave determination, which strikingly contrasted with the warm glow of tenderness that had preceded it. There was an expression of almost stern resolution in the calm but brilliant gleam of the speaker’s eye. The princess burst into tears.
“Be composed, lady,” said the prince, resuming his former tenderness, “and confide in my justice, which I trust will never neutralize my clemency. Your father has erred; and if he may not be forgiven, for your sake his life is sacred.”
The daughter gave an hysteric sob, threw herself upon the prince’s neck, and yielded to an irrepressible burst of emotion. She was relieved by the promise: a smile dilated her brow; her dark full eye expanded with a strong impulse of gratitude; and a single tear trickled slowly down her cheek, upon which a delicate smile quivered, like sunshine following the shower. The attendants were moved at the scene; the prince was subdued, still his determination relative to the prisoner, which had not yet transpired, remained unaltered. His attachment towards his daughter was strong and fervent, but he could not forget that he had been grossly wronged. The indignities so wantonly heaped upon him during his march to Shariar’s camp, when suffering from the pain of his wound, did not pass from his mind, and it is not the character of despotic princes to suffer injury to escape retribution.
The princess retired from the royal tent with a joyous satisfaction arising from the assurance that her father’s life should be spared. She could not for a moment suppose that the man by whom she was evidently beloved, would allow himself long to entertain feelings of hostility towards her parent, however great the provocation. But she knew not the heart of him upon whose clemency she relied. Revenge is the most difficult passion of our nature to subdue; and its indulgence, among absolute princes, is one of the greatest evils of despotism.
Dawir Buxsh proceeded to Agra, accompanied by the Vizier and Mohabet Chan, and was hailed as their Emperor by the universal acclamation of the citizens. He was immediately seated upon the musnud, and a proclamation issued for the celebration of the royal nuptials with the daughter of Sultan Shariar.
On the following day the prisoner was summoned into the presence of his imperial nephew. He appeared with an emaciated countenance and a dejected mien. He had been long suffering from a dreadful malady, which had almost reduced him to a shadow. His daughter was present when her parent entered, and seeing his bitter dejection, she threw herself upon his bosom in a paroxysm of filial grief. She was gently removed by the attendants.
“What does the man deserve,” asked Dawir Buxsh sternly, turning towards the disconsolate prisoner, “who has rebelled against his lawful sovereign, cast him into prison, treated him with indignity, and exposed his life to jeopardy?”
Shariar was silent.
“Silence is the most eloquent confession of guilt,” continued the Emperor; “dost thou not deserve that death, which, had your ambitious arms succeeded, you had no doubt in reserve for me?”
“I am in your power,” replied Shariar firmly; “you can exercise that power as your discretion may prompt. I may be your victim, but nothing shall force me to disclose my intentions. I acted as I felt justified in acting; it has ended in failure, and I am prepared to pay the penalty.”
The indignation of the young Emperor was kindled, and he said fiercely, “Hoary traitors must not escape punishment, however nearly allied to the throne. I have promised to spare your life,” said he, “but the light of heaven shall never more beam upon those eyes.”
Saying this he rose, and gave the signal to a soldier, who advanced and seized the unhappy Shariar. His daughter, with a wild scream of agony, threw herself between the ruffian and his victim; but she was instantly torn from the embraces of herparent, who stood with patient resignation, awaiting the execution of his dreadful sentence. The soldier advanced, and plunged the point of his crease into both eyes of the unfortunate Sultan. With the blood trickling down his cheeks, mingled with tears, he implored to be once more permitted to embrace his child. She rushed into his arms.
“Tyrant!” said she, addressing the young Emperor, “this heart shall never be united with that of one whose hand is stained with my parent’s blood. I have no longer anything to render this world desirable, and quit it imprecating the malediction of a dying woman upon thy head!”
Saying this, she seized a crease which was stuck in the girdle of one of the guards, drew it suddenly before he was aware of her purpose, and plunging it into her bosom, fell dead at the soldier’s feet. The prince was staggered at the dreadful but unexpected issue of his own severity. He had never for a moment contemplated such a consummation. His attachment to the princess had been ardent, but he could not forget the wrongs received at the hands of her father.
From this moment a cloud of gloom hung upon his brow. He saw no one; and his seclusion gave umbrage to his subjects, who began to murmur at the want of enterprise in their new Sovereign. Rumours were daily spreading of Shah Jehan’s approach to avenge the indignity offered to his brother Shariar, and the death of that prince’s daughter; but the Emperor disregarded these rumours, fancying himself secure in the affections of his people, and in the support of the Vizier and Mohabet Chan.
Shortly after the decease of his affianced bride, the venerable fakeer stood before Dawir Buxsh, and with undaunted severity upbraided him with his cruel rigour towards his uncle.
“Your throne totters,” he said solemnly; “the sceptre which a tyrant sways is ever held in a feeble grasp, and by a precarious tenure. Justice can never sanction cruelty; and you should have remembered that you were indebted for liberty, most probably for life, to the daughter of that prince whom you have so wantonlymutilated. The blood of that daughter will cry from the earth against you. Heaven has its punishment for guilty sovereigns, and your doom has gone forth.”
The youthful monarch was subdued by the solemn earnestness of the holy man, and quailed before him.
“Father,” he said, “I have but visited a rebel with merited retribution. His cruelties towards me have been repaid with cruelty, which the laws of justice sanction.”
“But which,” fervently exclaimed the fakeer, “the laws of religion forbid. The justice of tyrants is not the justice of the great and good God, who so tempers it with mercy that repentance converts it into a blessing both to the receiver and the giver. Justice becomes a bane where mercy is defied and scorned. Retribution is an attribute which belongs alone to Omnipotence; man knows not how to exercise it. You have attempted to grasp the thunder; beware that it does not recoil upon your own head with that terrible energy which leaves behind the fearful impress of destruction.”
Bold as was the rebuke of this venerable man, and even insolent as was his intrusion and bearing, yet such was his character for sanctity, and so universal the awe in which he was held, that no one attempted to resent the indignity offered to their sovereign, and the fakeer quitted the imperial presence with a smile of calm defiance, as he tottered out of the palace. The Emperor called to mind his visit while he was a captive, and remembered that to him he was chiefly indebted for the success of the princess’s plan for his escape, which had been eventually crowned with such complete success; he therefore permitted him to pass from the palace without molestation. The old man’s words, however, had sunk deep into the heart of Dawir Buxsh, and harrowed him to the quick. There was a fearful import in them which troubled him sorely; they sounded like the dark presage of doom.
The rumours of his uncle Shah Jehan’s approach daily strengthened, and he already began to fancy that he saw his own speedy downfall. Those nobles who were more immediately about hisperson, whispered doubts of the Vizier’s sincerity, and these doubts were but too soon confirmed. The report of Shah Jehan’s march towards the capital was shortly verified. He reached Lahore at the head of a numerous army, and encamped a few miles from the city. The young Emperor had taken no measures to interrupt his passage, relying upon the fidelity of the Vizier and Mohabet Chan, both of whom, as he found out, too late, had favoured his uncle’s designs upon the throne. He received a summons, which was communicated by the Vizier, to resign the sceptre into older and abler hands. When the unhappy sovereign upbraided his minister with treachery, the latter did not hesitate to confess that he had simply favoured his accession, in order to give time for Shah Jehan to collect an army and put himself in a condition to dispute his rights. “The Moguls,” continued the Vizier, “do not like to be governed either by boys or by women, both of whom ought to yield to the natural supremacy of men.”
This was not the time to dispute a doctrine subversive of all legitimate rights, with one who had the power to illustrate it in his own hands. Dawir Buxsh, without a moment’s hesitation, seeing that opposition would be mere fatuity, consented to relinquish the imperial sceptre provided his life were spared, and a competent maintenance assured to him. No answer was returned to these stipulations, but on the following day the deposed Emperor was confined to one of the lower apartments of the Seraglio, and Shah Jehan proclaimed Emperor, with almost universal consent; such is human tergiversation! The people have no lasting affection for sovereigns. The favourite of to-day is an object of hatred to-morrow—
Within the hollow crownThat rounds the mortal temples of a king,Death keeps his court.
Dawir Buxsh, who had been lately raised to a throne amid popular acclamation, was now hurled from his elevation, and more an object of pity than the meanest among those whom he had so lately governed. His cruelty to the unhappy Shariar too late filledhim with remorse. The death of that Sultan’s daughter tortured his memory with a thousand bitter pangs. He saw that his fate was determined on, and the lingering desire of life made him look forward to death with horror.
On the morning after his uncle’s accession to the throne of the Moguls, two eunuchs entered the prison of Dawir Buxsh; he immediately knew that he was to die, and throwing himself upon his knees, was strangled whilst in the act of putting up a prayer to Heaven. The aspiration was cut short by the bow-string, and Multan Shariar and his daughter were both fully avenged.