THE LOVER'S STRATAGEM.
It was morning in the East, and all things partook of the dewy
freshness of early days.--The busy din of the city was momentarily
increasing, and as the hours advanced, the broad sunlight gilded all
things far and near. It was at this bright and exhilarating hour
that two persons sat together on the silky grass that caps the
summit of Bulgarlu. They had wandered hither, seemingly, to view the
splendid scenery together, and were regarding it with earnest eyes.
How beautiful looked the Turkish capital below them! From Seraglio
Point, seven miles down the coast of Roumelia, the eye followed a
continued wall, and from the same point twenty miles up the
Bosphorus on either shore, stretched one crowded and unbroken city,
with its star-shaped bay in the midst, floating a thousand maritime
crafts, prominent among which were the Turkish men-of-war flaunting
their blood-red flags in the breeze. Far away over the Sea of
Mannora their eyes rested on a snow-white cloud at the edge of the
horizon. It was Mount Olympus, the fabulous residence of the gods.
In this far-off scene, too, lay Bithynia, Cappadocia, Paphlagonia,
and the entire scene of the apostle Paul's travels in Asia Minor.
Then their eyes wandered back once more and rested now on the old
Fortress of the Seven Towers, where fell the emperor Constantine,
and where Othman the second was strangled.
Between the Seven Towers and the Golden Horn, were the seven hills
of ancient Stamboul, the towering arches of the aqueduct of Valens
crossing from one to another, and the swelling domes and gold-tipped
minarets of a hundred imperial mosques crowning their summits. And
there too was Seraglio Point, a spot of enchanting loveliness,
forming a tiny cape as it projects towards the opposite continent
and separates the bay from the Sea of Marmora; its palaces buried in
soft foliage, out of which gleam gilded cupolas and gay balconies
and a myriad of brilliant and glittering domes. And then their eyes
ran down the silvery link between the two seas, where lay fifty
valleys and thirty rivers, while an imperial palace rests on each of
the loveliest spots, the entire length, from the Black Sea to
Marmora.
Such was the beautiful and classic scenery that lay outspread before
the two young persons who had seated themselves on the summit of
Bulgarlu, and if its charms had power over the casual observer, how
much more beautiful did it appear to these two who saw it through
each other's eyes. A closer observation would have shown that one of
the couple was a female, for some purpose seeking to disguise her
sex; he by her side was evidently her lover, to meet whom, she had
hazarded this exposure beyond the city walls at so early an hour.
"Ah, dearest Zillah'," said he who sat by the maiden's side, "I
would that we lived beyond the sea from whence, come those ships
that bear the stars and stripes, for I am told that in America,
religious belief is no bar to the union of heart, as it is in the
Sultan's domains."
"Nor should it be so here, Capt. Selim," she answered, "did our
noble Sultan understand the best good of his people. May the Prophet
open his eyes."
"Though I love thee far better than all else on the earth, Zillah,
still I cannot abjure my Christian faith, and, like a hypocrite,
pretend to be a true follower of Mahomet. At best, we can be but a
short time here on earth, and if I was unfaithful in my holy creed,
how could I hope at last to meet thee, dearest, in paradise?"
"I do love thee but the more dearly," she replied, "for thy
constancy to the Christian faith, and though my father has reared me
in the Mussulman belief, still I am no bigot, as thou knowest."
Zillah was a child in years--scarcely sixteen summers had developed
their power in her slight but beautiful form, and yet it was rounded
so nearly to perfection, so slightly and gracefully full, as to
captivate the most fastidious eye. Like every child of these Turkish
harems, she was beautiful, with feature of faultless regularity, and
eyes that were almost too large and brilliant.
He who was her companion, and whom she had called Capt. Selim, was
the same young officer whom the reader met in an early chapter at
the slave bazaar, and who bid to the extent of his means for Komel,
who was at last borne away by the Sultan's agent. He was well formed
and handsome, his undress uniform showing him to be attached to the
naval service of the Sultan. He might be four or five years her
senior, but though he appeared thus young, he seemed to have many
years of experience, with an unflinching steadiness of purpose
denoted in his countenance, showing him fitted for stern emergencies
calling for promptness and daring in the hour of danger. The story
of their love was easily told. While young Selim was yet a
lieutenant in the Sultan's navy, a caique containing Zillah and the
rich of Bey, her father, had met with an accident in the Bosphorus
while close by a boat which he commanded, and by which accident
Zillah was thrown into the water, and but for the officer's prompt
delivery would doubtless have been drowned. But with a stout
purpose, and being a daring swimmer, he bore her safely to the
shore.
With the suddenness of oriental passion they loved at once, but
their after intercourse was necessarily kept a secret, since they
knew full well that the Bey would at once punish them both if he
should discover them, for how could a Musselman tolerate a
Christian, and to this sect the young officer was known to belong.
They had met often thus, and by the ingenious device adopted in
Zillah's dress had avoided detection. But these stolen meetings, so
sweet, were fearfully dangerous to the young officer, the punishment
of his offence, if discovered, being death.
Finally, on one of these stolen excursions, Zillah was detained so
long as to cause notice and surprise in the harem, and when she
returned she was reprimanded by the Bey, who gave orders, that for
the future she should not be permitted to leave the garden walks of
the palace, and the poor girl pined like a caged wild bird. The
latticed balcony of Zillah's apartment, like many of the Turkish
houses, overhung the Bosphorus, so that a boat might lie beneath it
within a distance to afford easy means of communication, and thus
Selim still was able at times, though with the utmost caution, to
hold converse with her he loved so well.
But Zillah's susceptible and gentle disposition could not sustain
her present treatment. She loved the young officer so earnestly and
truly that it was misery to be deprived of his society as was now
the case, for even their partial intercourse had been suspended
since the Bey had discovered his daughter talking to some one, and
he had forbidden her to ever enter the apartment again that overhung
the water.
Thus confined and crossed in her feelings, Zillah grew sick, and
paler and paler each day, until the old Bey, now thoroughly aroused,
was extremely anxious lest she should be taken to the Prophet's
house. The best sages and doctors to be found were summoned, and
constantly attended the drooping flower, but alas! to no effect.
Their art was not cunning enough to discover the true cause of her
malady, and they could only shake their heads, and strike their
beards ominously to the inquiries of the anxious old Bey, her
father.
The cold-hearted Bey never dreamed of the real cause of her illness.
True, he had suspected her of being too unguarded in her habits,
and had laid restrictions upon her liberty, but as to disappointment
in love being the cause of her malady, indeed it did not seem to his
heartless disposition that love could produce such a result. She was
perhaps the only being in the world who had ever caused him to
realize that he had a heart. After thinking long and much upon the
illness of his child, he resolved to seek her confidence, and
turning his steps toward the harem, he found his drooping and fading
flower reclining upon a velvet couch. Seating himself by her side,
he parted the hair from her fair, young brow, and told his child how
dearly he loved her, and if aught weighed upon her mind he besought
her to open her lips and speak to him. Zillah loved her father,
though she was not blind to his many faults.
"Dear father, what shall I say to thee?"
"Speak thy whole heart, my child."
"Nay, but it would only displease thee, my father, for me to do so."
"Tell me, Zillah, if thou knowest what it is that sickens thee, and
robs thy cheek of its bloom?"
"Father," she answered, with a sigh, "my heart is breaking with
unhappy love."
"Love!"
"Ay, I love Selim, he who saved me from drowning in the Bosphorus."
"The Sultan's officer?"
"Yes, father, Capt. Selim."
"Why, child, that young rascal is a notorious dog of a Christian. Do
you know it?"
"I know he believes not in the faith of our fathers," she answered,
modestly.
The old Turk bit his lips with vexation, but dared not vent the
passion he felt in the delicate ear of his sick child. Indeed he had
only to look into her pale face to turn the whole current of his
anger into pity at the danger he read there.
The old Bey knew the spirit that Zillah had inherited both from
himself and from her mother, and that she was fixed in her purpose.
She frankly told him that she could never be happy unless Selim was
her husband. The father was most sadly annoyed. He referred to the
best physicians in the city to know if a malady such as his daughter
suffered under, could prove fatal, and they assured him that this
had frequently been the case. One, however, to whom he applied,
informed the Bey that he knew of a Jewish leech who was famed for
curing all maladies arising from depression, physical or mental, and
if he desired it, he would send the Jew to his house on the
subsequent day, when he would say if he could do her any good as it
regarded her illness.
Much as the Mussulman despised the race, still, in the hope of
benefiting his child by the man's medical skill, he desired the
Armenian physician to send the Jew, as he proposed, on the following
day, and paying the heavy fee that these leeches know so well how to
charge the rich old Turks, the Bey departed once more to his palace.
At the hour appointed, the Armenian physician despatched the Jewish
doctor to the Bey's gates, where he was admitted, and received with
as much respect as the Turk could bring his mind to show towards
unbelievers, and the business being properly premised, the father
told the Jew how his daughter was affected, and asked if he might
hope for her recovery.
"With great care and cunning skill, perhaps so," said the Jew, from
out his overgrown beard.
"If this can be accomplished through thy means, I make thee rich for
life," said the Bey.
"We can but try," said the Jew, "and hope for the best. Lead me to
thy daughter."
The Bey conducted the leech to his daughter's apartment, and bidding
her tell freely all her pains and ills, left the Jew to study her
case, while he retired once more to silent converse with himself.
"You are ill," said the Jew, addressing Zillah, while he seated
himself and rested his head upon his staff.
"Yes, I am indeed."
"And yet methinks no physical harm is visible in thy person. The
pain is in the heart?"
"You speak truly," said Zillah, with a sigh--"I am very unhappy."
"You love?"
"I do."
"And art loved again?"
"Truly, I believe so."
"Then, whencefore art thou unhappy; reciprocal love begets not
unhappiness?"
"True, good leech; but he whom I love so well is a Christian, and I
can hold no communication with him, much less even hope to be his
wife."
"Do you love him so well that you would leave home, father,
everything, for him?" asked the Jew.
"Alas! it would be hard to leave my father but still am I so wholly
his, I would do even so."
"Then may you be happy yet," said he, who spoke to her, as he tossed
back the hood of his gaberdine, and removed the false hair that he
wore, presenting the features of young Selim, whom she loved!
"How is this possible?" she said, between her sobs and smiles of
joy; "my father told me that the Armenian recommended you for your
skill in the healing art."
"He is my friend, the man who taught me my religion, my everything,
and the only confidant I have in all Constantinople. To him I told
the grief of my heart at our separation; by chance your father
called on him for counsel; he knew the Bey, and his mind suggested
that I was the true physician whom you needed, and fabricating the
story of my profession, he sent me hither."
The fair young girl gazed at him she loved, and wept with joy, and
with her hands held tremblingly in his own, Selim told her of a plan
he had formed for their escape from the city to some distant land
where they might live together unmolested and happy in each other's
society. He explained to her that he should tell her father that it
was necessary for him to administer certain medicines to her beneath
the rays of the moon, and that while she was strolling with him thus
the water's edge, he would have a boat ready and at a favorable
moment jumping into this, they would speed away.
The moments flew with fearful speed, and pressing her tenderly to
his heart, the pretended Jew had only time to resume his disguise
when the Bey entered. He saw in the face of his child a color and
spirit that had not been there for months before, and delighted, he
turned to the Jew to know if he had administered any of his cunning
medicines, and being told that a small portion of the necessary
article had been given, was overjoyed at the effect.
Being of a naturally superstitious race, the Turk heard the Jew's
proposition as it regarded the administering of his next dose of
medicine beneath the calm rays of the moon in the open air, with
satisfaction; for had he not already worked a miracle upon his
child? He was told that by administering the medicine once or twice
at the proper moment beneath the midnight rays of the moon, he
should doubtless be able to effect a perfect cure.
Satisfied fully of what he had seen and heard, he dismissed the
pretended Jew with a heavy purse of gold, and bade him choose his
own time, telling him also that his palace gates should ever be open
to him.