Beneath that tattered robe you’ll find
A woman’s heart--a hero’s mind.
NIZAMI.
Suleiman, keenly marking the quarter whence the voices had come, now
proceeded towards it with the greatest anxiety, holding the lamp
before him so as to shew its light along the floor. Upon reaching the
extreme end of that part of the caravanserai, he discovered his two
friends sitting side by side against the wall, to which he perceived
they were both fastened by strong cords passed through an iron ring.
Commanding them in a low tone to preserve the strictest silence, he
took off his cap and shawl, and raising the lamp to his face, bade them
be of good cheer, for that Allah had sent him to their deliverance.
They immediately recognised the chieftain in his lowly garb, and
uttered a fervent prayer of gratitude to Providence, while they both
instinctively attempted to rise. But they could scarcely move. In
addition to the ligatures by which they were made fast to the wall,
iron chains were passed several times round their bodies, which kept
them linked together, the ends of the chains being riveted to an iron
plate, which defied even the muscular strength of Suleiman.
Of the fetters by which they were made fast to the wall he easily
disencumbered them, by setting fire to the ropes; but to remove the
captives from the caravanserai, without being able to separate them
from each other, was a matter of more difficulty. Suleiman’s ingenuity,
however, had been long exercised in the school of war. Drawing his
friends gently towards the edge of the floor, he showed them the two
robbers still suspended, who had prepared to strip them of every thing
they possessed. Seirami could hardly suppress a smile of pleasure at
beholding this instance of summary justice. Kazim gazed upon them with
a feeling of terror, wondering that men could be found so lost to every
sense of humanity as to meditate the plunder of two unhappy prisoners,
already doomed to the most excruciating species of death.
Suleiman, feeling the moments gliding rapidly towards day, lost none
of them in meditation. He cut the two robbers down, and deposited them
near the place where his friends had been confined. Then removing the
ropes which had been the instruments of his prompt administration of
the law, he twisted them together, and fastening one end of the double
rope to that of the iron chain which bound Seirami and Kazim together,
he pushed them downwards, and permitted them to descend until they
were about the height of a steed from the ground below. Fastening the
other end of the rope firmly to the top of the notched pole, he rapidly
lowered himself to the ground, and leading one of the horses beneath
his friends, he cut the rope with the sabre of the still sleeping
sentinel. Seirami and Kazim thus found themselves, like a pair of
panniers, on each side of the horse; and the only difficulty that now
remained to be achieved, was the escape of the animal from the stable
with its burthen.
But the preparations of Suleiman were not yet concluded. His mind
extended its precautions to every point, that was connected with an
adventure hitherto so propitiously conducted. The dervish, who had
risked his life for the preservation of a person on whom, so far as
Suleiman remembered, no obligation of service was imposed by any former
acts of kindness on his part, would most probably be compelled by
torture to disclose the circumstance of lending his ragged garments to
the foe of Mirtas. If they could be found on the decapitated robber,
whose head might be removed to prevent any doubts as to identity; if
the loft should be ignited, as he took good care it should be, by the
burning cordage which he left on the boards; the cindered remains of
the two thieves above would doubtless be considered those of the two
condemned captives, while that of the third would be hewed into a
thousand pieces, under the persuasion that it had once held the soul of
Suleiman.
Stripping off his tattered robes, he clothed himself in the attire
of the headless robber, to whom he quickly transferred his cast-off
garments: he then put the culprit’s head into a bag, which he slung
over his shoulders. His next objects were to place the robber outside
the door, to open the gate of the stable, to lead out the horse upon
which Seirami and Kazim were balanced, to appropriate another steed
to his own use, and to effect his departure without disturbing the
sentinels, whom, though his inveterate enemies, he disdained to slay in
their sleep.
The grey of morning was just beginning to shew the domes and minarets
of the town, defined against the still lingering darkness of the
night, when Suleiman moved forward, mounted on an excellent charger,
and leading by the rein the other horse, with its double burthen,
over which he had thrown one of the sentinel’s large cloaks. After
wandering through a labyrinth of narrow streets, not one of which
he recognised as having passed through the evening before, he found
himself in a large square, where preparations were already going on
for the execution that was decreed to be consummated at sun-rise. Some
wild looking figures were collected round a fire in the middle of the
square, and near them were fixed strong posts, to which eight horses
were tied, whose violent pawing of the earth, incessant neighing and
plunging, showed that they must have been recently brought in from
the desert, and peculiarly adapted to be the ministers of the cruel
punishment decreed by Mirtas. Groups of men were already gathering in
from the different streets that led to the square, curious, no doubt,
to behold the tragic scene which rumour had taught them to expect.
Suleiman, without advancing farther, turned shortly into the nearest
lane he could find, but proceeded at no unusual pace, lest he might
give rise to suspicion.
The increasing freshness of the air soon inspired him with the hope,
that he had already reached the suburbs. Passing over a wooden bridge,
he looked backwards at the town, which still appeared a dense mass of
gloom, although the skies were beginning to be dappled with streaks,
that, becoming every moment of a brighter hue, announced the near
approach of the sun. Suddenly he beheld the blush of morning surpassed
by a column of flame, which rose high in the air from a distant part
of the town. Now it sunk, and now it burst forth again with fresh
fury, flinging fiery sparkles around, that threatened to involve the
whole town in conflagration. Drums were heard beating, and trumpets
sounding, and shouts of innumerable voices blended together in
frightful confusion. One immense burst of flame then shot up into the
heavens, after which little more was seen than a pale reflection, that
showed itself for a while fitfully, and then appeared no more.
While the attention of the people in the town was thus absorbed by one
all-engrossing object, Suleiman pushed forward rapidly through the
suburbs, until he reached a blacksmith’s forge, where he found a man
and a boy already hard at work, unconscious of the alarm that prevailed
around them. Stopping at the door of the forge, he called out to the
man, telling him that he had a small job, which he wished to be done
immediately. The chains, he said, by which his merchandise, consisting
of bars of silver and pieces of broad-cloth, was tied together on his
second horse, seemed already to gall the back of the animal. He wished
the rivets to be filed off at the heads, and driven through the plate,
where they were fastened, in order that he might adjust the burthen
in a manner by which his valuable horse might not be injured. The
smith, much envying the apparent magnitude of the rich merchandise,
and expecting, of course, to be munificently rewarded, professed
his readiness to serve his kind employer, and ascending the horse by
the tail, was preparing, with his implements, to execute the task
assigned him, when Suleiman put both horses to their speed, telling
the blacksmith to hold on by the mane as well as he could, for that
the animals, frightened by the fire of the forge, were running away.
Notwithstanding the additional burthen under which one of the steeds
laboured, both flew over the open plains with the speed of lightning,
the blacksmith thrown now on one side, now on another, as if he were
the sport of the winds. Terror and the want of breath prevented him
from crying out, fearing that every moment he would be flung over the
merchandise and killed on the spot.
For a full hour Suleiman thus continued to scour the country; but at
length perceiving a wood suitable to his purpose, he turned into it,
allowing the panting animals to slacken their pace gradually, until
they penetrated beneath the shade of some trees, which effectually
excluded the light of morning. Here he compelled the trembling artizan
to remove the rivets, when, the chain being loosened, the packages
on each side fell suddenly on the grass, with a groan which nearly
frightened the blacksmith out of his senses. Finding his way to the
earth as well as he could, the mechanic scampered off without waiting
to receive his expected reward, convinced that he was a very fortunate
man in having escaped with so little injury from the evil spirits,
which were always sure to be present wherever gold or silver treasure
required their protection. Suleiman, loosening the chain, set his
friends at liberty; then depositing it in the bag which contained the
robber’s head, he committed both to the bosom of a pond of stagnant
water which he found hard by.
Seirami and Kazim leaped with joy at being able once more to give full
play to their limbs, fettered as they had been in one position during a
period of more than thirty hours. Suleiman invited Kazim to ride behind
himself, while Seirami mounted the other horse. They soon emerged from
the wood, and as they had no longer any fear of pursuit, they rode
onward at an equable pace, relating to each other the adventures that
had occurred to them since they had last been separated.
Meanwhile Mirtas, who had fought Suleiman hand to hand in the battle,
could not have been deceived for a moment by the substitute whom he
found in the garden hut. He charged his men, who had solemnly promised
to deliver up his foe alive into his power, with a deliberate design
to deceive him, and ordered them forthwith to be decapitated. But the
dervish frankly confessed that he alone was the guilty person, that
they were innocent of any participation in his crime, if such it was;
that in his estimation, however, he had only performed an act of duty
in preserving the life of a chieftain, to whom he had pledged his
allegiance, and that he was now prepared to suffer any penalty which
Mirtas might think proper to inflict.
The Mogul, struck by the heroic conduct of the dervish, promised to
pardon him if he would acknowledge the contrivance by which he enabled
Suleiman to escape. To this he frankly answered, that they had only
exchanged raiment, upon which the soldiers, who had recently seen the
disguised chieftain limping through the gardens, led the pursuit after
him in all directions, anxious to vindicate themselves by extraordinary
zeal, in the good opinion of their master. By their active inquiries
they succeeded in tracing Suleiman to Karaman, where, however, they
soon lost all further clue to his footsteps through the streets of the
town.
The fire which broke out in the early part of the morning, drew Mirtas
to the caravanserai, where, however, he did not arrive until the
conflagration was over. The horses, which had been confined in the
stable, were the first to give warning to the neighbourhood by their
wild cries, urged by a sense of suffocation. The sentinels were with
difficulty extricated from the danger to which they were exposed;
and when the burning loft fell with a crash upon the interior of the
stable, the remains of two half-burnt robbers convinced Mirtas that
he was defrauded of the vengeance which he had meditated against the
two captives, one of whom he suspected to be Suleiman’s adviser in all
measures, whether of peace or war, while he looked upon the other, as
a willing instrument in the execution of the stratagem to which he and
his followers had very nearly fallen victims. But the discovery of
the third body found outside the door, compensated Mirtas for every
disappointment. The tattered clothes in which it was arrayed were
distinctly recognised by the soldiers, as those which the dervish had
exchanged with Suleiman; the dervish himself bore testimony to the
truth of their evidence, lamenting with many genuine tears that he had
not perished himself, rather than behold his chieftain slain in this
ignominious manner. One of the sentinels claimed to himself the merit
of having cut off the head of Suleiman; in proof of which he produced
his naked sabre, which was found on the floor of the stable stained
with blood. Of the head, indeed, he could give no account; it must have
been burnt to a cinder; but he reported a violent altercation in which
he was engaged with Suleiman, who came to offer him large sums of money
if he would assist him in effecting the escape of the two prisoners
who had been committed to his care, and to that of his companions. The
altercation, as well as the temptation, were terminated in the manner
now evident to every body, for there the alleged Suleiman lay without
his head; upon which the sentinel claimed and received a suitable
reward from Mirtas, and the body itself was ordered to be torn limb
from limb by the wild horses, already prepared for the purpose in the
public square. Thus the multitude assembled to see the execution,
were not wholly deprived of the spectacle which they were so desirous
to behold. The death of Suleiman was publicly proclaimed; such of his
soldiers as had been taken prisoners cheerfully transferred their
allegiance to the conqueror, who was acknowledged sovereign of Karaman.
For a whole week the town resounded with dance, dulcimer, drum and
song, and with the clamour of the troops intoxicated by wine and humiz,
who boasted every where of the great victory which they had achieved
over the treacherous foe of Mirtas.