“ENGLAND’S FAR, AND HONOUR A NAME.”
His arrival at the Mirza’s house was the beginning of what appeared,
in contrast with the days that had gone before it, a period of perfect
bliss to Ferrers. The extreme peril of his position, and the danger
which would face him if he wished to leave the city, occurred to him
only as considerations that enhanced the comfort of the present
moment. He had nothing to do but to enjoy life within somewhat
circumscribed limits, and to feel his strength returning day by day
under the care of the Mirza and his household of obsequious slaves.
From time to time the Mirza would appear perturbed, and a question
would elicit the admission that a rigorous search was being made, now
in one part of the city and now in another, for the escaped prisoner.
But Ferrers thought this an excellent joke; and under its influence
the gloomy brow of his host would also relax, for was not the Mirza
the keeper of the prison, and was not his house the last place where
the fugitive would be sought? Still, there were certain precautions to
be taken, and for gratitude’s sake Ferrers was careful to observe
them. He found that the Mirza was far more strict in the performance
of his religious duties than he had ever known him--in fact, the man
who had posed at Shah Nawaz as a freethinker was here the most
orthodox of Moslems, and Ferrers, as became a disciple, also reformed
his earlier heterodox behaviour. In the course of his adventures in
disguise at Bab-us-Sahel he had gained a fair working knowledge of the
points of Mohammedan ritual; now he became acquainted with its
extremest minutiæ, even to the incessant use of the Fattha, or first
verse of the Koran, with which, in the contracted form of “Allahu!”
the devout Gamaris were wont to preface most of the actions of life.
Even had any of the slaves been ill-disposed, they could have alleged
nothing against the orthodoxy of their master and his disciple; but
they seemed to vie with one another in showing a deference to Ferrers
only second to the veneration with which they regarded the Mirza.
It was but to be expected that as Ferrers grew strong again he would
begin to chafe against the close confinement which his host assured
him was necessary, and even to hint that it was time he made some
attempt to escape from the city. These hints were always turned aside
by the Mirza, however, and it was impossible to know whether he had
understood them or not; but he was more accommodating in the direction
of providing for his guest a certain amount of recreation. At the
beginning, when visitors appeared, Ferrers was always smuggled out of
the way in good time; but by degrees he was allowed to remain, at one
time only hovering on the outskirts of the circle, ready to do the
Mirza’s commands like a dutiful disciple, then, keeping in the shadow,
to lean against a pillar and listen to the words of wisdom that fell
from his teacher, and at last to make one of the group. He had grown a
beard by that time, and this, with the aid of various skilful touches
from the Mirza, altered his appearance completely, while his earlier
practice in behaving as an Oriental stood him in good stead. At length
the Mirza considered that it was safe to take him out of doors, and
they entered afresh on their old course of adventures, the zest of
which was heightened now to Ferrers by the imminent presence of
extreme peril. The scenes which they passed through were many and
various, showing under-currents of life in the sacred city which it
would be by no means profitable to describe. Ferrers was wont at first
to salve his conscience by assuring himself that this all formed part
of an exhaustive inquiry which would have important results when he
returned to civilisation; but he soon began to feel a fascination in
the life he was leading,--to feel that he was being gripped by
something to which one side of his nature, and that not the highest,
responded with fatal facility.
It was one night that this idea came to him, bringing with it the
unpleasant conviction that he was a great deal happier in Gamara than
he had any business to be; and in the morning he was moody and
troubled, almost making up his mind to speak plainly to the Mirza and
demand the means of escape, then deciding that it was better not to
touch on a subject which his host so pointedly avoided. They were
bidden to an entertainment that day at the house of Ghulam Nabi, one
of the Mirza’s friends, an old and trusted servant of the Khan, and
renowned even in Gamara for the strictness of his orthodoxy. The
company was a very small one, for only a few could be trusted with the
secret that besides the invariable tea and sherbets, fruit and
sweetmeats, Ghulam Nabi was wont to amuse his confidential friends
with entertainments of a more questionable character; but among them
was a nephew of the old man’s who was a student at a neighbouring
mosque, and who threatened to be a disturbing element. Ferrers had
become by this time so used to his assumed character that he no longer
took the precaution of seating himself with his back to the light
under the pretence that his eyes were weak, as he had done at first,
and he found the student’s gaze fastened on him almost continuously.
Aware that to show agitation would be the worst possible policy, he
nerved himself to maintain his usual calmness, and succeeded, as he
believed, in dispelling the youth’s suspicions. But presently, as the
guests rose to accompany their host to a pavilion in the garden, the
student flung himself forward with a shout.
“That man is a Kafir!” he cried, pointing at Ferrers. “I have been to
India, and seen the Sahibs, and he is one. He does not eat like us, he
rises from his seat differently. He is here in the holy city to spy
upon us!”
There was a stir among the guests, and they fell away from Ferrers as
if he had been denounced as plague-stricken. He himself, as if by a
sudden inspiration, attempted no defence. He looked at the Mirza, then
bowed his head, and stood in a submissive attitude. The Mirza came to
his rescue at once.
“The man is my disciple, and no Sahib,” he said. “Is this the way that
the Sahibs receive an accusation, O far-travelled one? Nay, but I have
been training this disciple of mine in patience and submission, until
I verily believe he thinks I have devised this scene to test him.
Truly he has learnt his lesson, and when I go hence, my mantle shall
be his. Is he not a worthy successor, brethren?”
“He is no true believer,” protested the student, but less confidently
than before. The rest of the company were evidently coming over to
Ferrers’ side, and Ghulam Nabi clinched the matter.
“It can easily be proved,” he said. “I am not wont to put tests to
those who come under my roof; but in order to quiet the foolish tongue
of this low-born nephew of mine, let the Mirza’s disciple repeat the
_Kalima_, that the ill-spoken boy may bow down in the dust before
him.”
Much relieved by so easy a solution of the difficulty, Ferrers
repeated promptly the Moslem creed, without hurry and with the proper
intonation. The confusion of the student was complete, and his uncle
and the other elders heaped reproaches upon him, while the Mirza’s
face beamed. No further incident disturbed the harmony of the evening,
and Ferrers returned home with his host in good spirits. His nerve, at
any rate, must be untouched by the trials through which he had passed,
since he could confront such an emergency without a single tremor. He
had forgotten all about the remonstrance he had intended to address to
the Mirza, and was going straight to his own room, when he was called
back.
“A load has been removed from my mind to-day,” said the Mirza. “I had
not looked to hear Firoz Sahib confess himself of his own free will a
follower of Islam, and it has often grieved me to think of his
returning to the dungeons whence I took him.”
“It was merely a joke, of course,” said Ferrers lightly, “but it
served its purpose. Good thing I remembered the words all right!”
“There can be no jest in repeating the _Kalima_ in the presence of
witnesses,” was the reply. “It saved Firoz Sahib’s life to-day.”
“And will save it a good many times yet, I daresay; but of course it’s
nothing but a joke. Hang it, Mirza! you don’t expect me to go on
pretending to be a Mussulman when I get back to India?”
“You will never get back to India, sahib. Those that have seen the
things that have been shown to you do not leave Gamara.”
“What in the world do you mean? I shall leave Gamara as soon as I
can--in a few days, I suppose.”
“When you leave this house you will either leave it as a Mussulman, in
which case honour and riches await you, or as a Christian, when you
will return to the dungeon from which I brought you. Or rather, as one
who has once professed the faith of Islam and afterwards denied it,
you will pass to such tortures as are reserved for renegades. But you
will never leave Gamara.”
Ferrers stood gazing at him, unable to utter a word, and the Mirza
went on, speaking in a meditative tone--
“Yet is there no cause for sorrow in this, for there is greater honour
for you here than you would ever have attained in India. And when the
alternative is death---- Nay, is it not better to command the Khan’s
bodyguard, and to receive at his Highness’s hand houses, and riches,
and fair women, and all marks of favour, than to be roasted alive, or
flung headlong from the minaret of the Great Mosque, only to fall upon
the sharp hooks set midway in the wall, there to hang in torture until
you die?”
“You don’t seem to think it worth while to enter upon the religious
side of the question,” sneered Ferrers savagely.
“Nay, Firoz Sahib and I have lived and talked together too long for
that. He knows that among unbelievers I am even as they, among Sufis I
am a Sufi, among the Brotherhood of the Mountains I am one of
themselves. To Rāss Sahib I have even presented myself as an inquirer
into Christianity. In Persia I should be a Shiah, here in Gamara I am
the most orthodox of Sunnis. To the wise man all creeds are the same,
and he adopts that one which is most expedient for the moment. And as
it is with me, so is it with Firoz Sahib, my disciple. To no man is it
pleasant to change the customs in which he has grown up. When Firoz
Sahib came to Gamara he put on the garments of this land; when he came
into this house he shaved his head, according to the custom of the
people, and these things he did of his own free will for a protection.
But had any man ordered him to do them with threats, he would have
stiffened his neck and refused with curses. So is it with this matter
of creeds. Christianity is to Firoz Sahib as the garments of his own
land, which he will lay aside of his own free will, for the sake of
his own safety. He is too wise a man to see in the change anything but
a matter of expediency.”
“And faith? and honour? and my friends?” demanded Ferrers fiercely,
with bloodless lips.
“To your friends you died the day you entered Gamara. Nothing that now
happens to you can reach their ears. Whether you live long and enjoy
his Highness’s favour, or brave his wrath and die the deaths of a
hundred men, they will know nothing of it. The matter is one for
yourself; they can have no part in it.”
“This is your doing!” burst from Ferrers.
“And why not? When you destroyed in a moment all my labours, refusing
me the means of justifying myself to those that had employed me in
Nalapur, so that having failed to slay the Sheikh-ul-Jabal, the
accursed, it was needful for me to flee from their wrath also, I said
to you that we should meet again. I thought to journey at some future
time to Khemistan, and finding you in high place and established with
a wife, trouble your tranquillity by whispers of what I might tell if
I chose. I did not expect you to come to me here, where all was at
hand for a vengeance of which I had not dreamt. But when I heard you
were coming to Gamara, I knew that destiny had delivered you into my
hand. You are here, and being such as you are, you will choose life
and happiness, having only lately been very close to Death, and gladly
turned your back on him. So that my vengeance has nothing in it that
is cruel, but the truest kindness, for your life will be saved in this
world, and your soul in the world to come, if there be such a thing.”
“I won’t do it!” cried Ferrers. “Call in your slaves and denounce me.
Then you will have your precious vengeance after all.”
“Nay,” said the Mirza musingly, “it would be long in coming. Death is
not all that is in store for the renegade, nor is it swift. Moreover,
his Highness desires a Farangi to train his guard in the manner of
Europe, and I would not willingly disappoint a second master. You are
young, and life is sweet, and before you are war and wealth and the
love of women on the one side. On the other--nay, but I will show you
what is on the other. Come with me, but utter no word, for your own
sake.”
The Mirza took up a lantern and a long cord, and led the way towards
the door by which he had first brought Ferrers into his house.
“To the prison?” asked Ferrers, with a shudder which he could not
repress at the thought of entering again the place where he had
suffered so much.
“To the prison. But fear not, you shall return hither. After that, it
will be for you to do as you choose.”
Once more they passed through the low doorway, crossed the filthy
courtyard, received the salutations of the sleepy watchers in the
guardroom, and entered the dark passage, Ferrers trembling from head
to foot as the full recollection of what he had suffered there
returned to him. But instead of opening the door of his cell, the
Mirza turned aside into a second passage, and led the way through a
labyrinth of narrow corridors and winding staircases, the trend of the
route being always downwards. The air grew thick and damp, and the
lantern burned dimly. There was a smell of mould, and where the light
fell on the walls, they seemed to move. Ferrers stumbled on after the
Mirza, who appeared to know his way perfectly. At last their nostrils
were assailed by a horrible stench, and the Mirza, moving the lantern
from side to side, showed that they were in a cave or room of some
size, hollowed in the rock. In the middle of the floor was a hole or
well, from which the stench seemed to come, and above it in the roof
was another hole.
“Not a word!” whispered the Mirza, leading the way to what looked like
a doorway on the farther side of the place. He lifted the lantern and
threw the light inside. Horrible things wriggled and ran along the
floor and crept upon the walls as he did so. He put one foot inside
the doorway, and there was a kind of stampede. Small bright eyes and
sharp teeth shone in every corner. But Ferrers’ gaze was fixed upon a
crouching heap, which might have been a wild animal, at the very back
of the cell. It moved, and disclosed the face of a man, gaunt, wasted,
fever-stricken, with bleached unkempt hair and beard.
“Be off! I won’t do it!” The words were uttered with difficulty, but
they were in English. Ferrers started violently, and the Mirza threw
him a menacing look. The captive, seeming to recollect himself,
repeated the words in Persian, but the Mirza made no reply. After
turning the light of the lantern once more on the man and his
surroundings, he motioned Ferrers back. Ferrers obeyed. The moment
before, it had been in his mind to say some word of cheer to the
prisoner, at whatever risk to himself, if only to let him know that
there was another Englishman--another Christian--within those terrible
walls. But the words remained unspoken, and with a clank of chains the
prisoner sank back into his former position, his chin supported on his
knees.
Meanwhile the Mirza had been fastening to the lantern the cord he had
brought with him, and now he let it down into the well, ordering
Ferrers to look over the edge, but not to go too near. Once more he
obeyed, to behold a sickening chaos of human bones and dead bodies in
all stages of decomposition, among which moved and scampered obscene
creatures such as he had seen on the walls and floor of the cell.
“All that die in the prison are cast here,” said the Mirza, and
Ferrers realised that the hole in the roof must communicate with the
courtyard above-ground.
“And who was--that?” he asked fearfully, as they began to retrace
their steps. The Mirza gave him a glance full of satisfied malignity.
“That,” he said slowly, and as if enjoying each word, “is Whybrow
Sahib.”
“Whybrow, whom I came here to----?”
“Whom you came to save. He is not a wise man, like Firoz Sahib. He
will neither embrace the faith of Islam nor enter his Highness’s army.
Therefore he lives here, with the rats and the scorpions.”
“And what--what will become of him?”
“Who can say? Perhaps he will die--the rats are often hungry--or he
might be forgotten. Or it may be his cell will be needed for some
other prisoner,--then he will be thrown into the well and left there.
But that may not be for years.”
Years--years of such captivity as that! Ferrers laughed harshly. “You
should have brought him up into your house and made life mean as much
to him as you have done to me,” he said.
“We have,” was the answer; “and even into the very palace of his
Highness, where one of the dancing-girls, pitying him, pleaded for his
life with her lord and with him, but he would not yield. He returned
hither, and she died, as a warning to her companions.”
Again they made their way through the passages and up the stairs,
again crossed the courtyard and entered the Mirza’s house. Ferrers
turned aside to the steps which led up to the roof.
“Take counsel with yourself,” the Mirza called after him. “To-morrow
you must decide.”
Take counsel! Ferrers had meant to do it; but even as he began to pace
to and fro, with the sleeping city outspread all around him, he knew
that the matter was decided already--had been decided from the moment
when he withheld the words he had tried to utter to Whybrow. The test
was more than flesh and blood could stand. In open day, Ferrers could
have charged alone into an overwhelming host of enemies, and died
gloriously. Had he lived in earlier days, he could have faced the
lions in the amphitheatre, unarmed, and not have flinched, or have
fought as a gladiator and received his death-blow by command of the
audience without a sign of fear. But die slowly by inches underground,
submit to be eaten alive by vermin, perish unknown, unhonoured, this
he could not do. If only he had had companions in misfortune, if even
Whybrow and he could have stood shoulder to shoulder from the first,
and encouraged one another, it would have been different, but there
was not a creature within hundreds of miles to whom steadfastness on
his part would seem anything but foolishness. As the Mirza had said,
no one in the world he had left would ever know whether he had died a
hero or lived a craven; and if they did, what good would it do him?
Penelope, who ought to care, would expect him to hold out. He felt
angrily that if Penelope had loved him better he might have been a
better man, even able to hold out, perhaps. It would have been
something, on the other hand, to be able to assure himself that she
would wish him to yield, but he could not take this comfort. And,
after all, what was he giving up? To trample on the cross, to curse
the claims of Christ--these were disagreeable things to do, but, as
the Mirza had said, they had no particular poignancy for him. With
Colin it would have been different, of course. Christ was more than a
name to him, Christianity other than a mere set of formulæ. But how
could it be expected of Ferrers--could any one in his senses ask
it--that he should die for Colin’s faith?