Now the battle’s fought with the iron-spiked club, and as
they close, with the clenched fist, and the din of war
ascendeth to the heavens! They cry, “Pursue! strike! fell
to the ground!” so that a horrid and tumultuous noise is
heard on all sides.
MAHABHARAT.
As evening approached, the warriors, already accoutred for the journey,
might be seen here and there in the retired glens near the encampment,
engaged in soothing the alarm of the maidens, to whom many of them
had been betrothed from infancy. But this scene of affection, and of
renewed vows of constancy, the shrill trumpet speedily disturbed, and
as the shades began to rise in the east, the troop was assembled before
the hut of the prince. He gave them the banner of the tribe, whose
glory in war he bade them to remember; they answered his command by
a hurra! and then, with Suleiman, who was accompanied by Seirami, at
their head, they set out for Karaman. For a few moments the paces of
the horses, as they bounded over the green turf, and the clatter of the
arms of the riders were heard; but the sounds grew fainter and fainter
in the distance, and the moving mass soon ceased altogether to be
discernible through the misty night.
The grief of Kazim, which had been respected by the special desire of
Suleiman, and which had kept him confined to his hut with Mangeli,
prevented both from becoming acquainted with the event which had just
taken place. Nor was it until the next morning, when Kazim went to
return thanks to the prince for the honourable attentions that had been
paid to the remains of his father, that he learned the intelligence.
He was in some degree hurt, that he had not received from Seirami, at
least, some intimation of the plan which had been adopted, but as he
entertained no doubt that Mirtas would be taken by surprise, and that
the affair would be terminated within a few days, he turned all his
thoughts again to Mangeli, who stood in need of his best care.
Day after day passed on, and still no tidings came from Karaman. The
matrons of the tribe began to feel apprehensive of the results of the
expedition, but they still hesitated to give way to any general sense
of alarm, hoping that news would momentarily arrive which might shew
it to be without foundation. A vague rumour on the sixth day found its
way through the encampment, that a most sanguinary engagement had taken
place in the streets of Karaman between the hostile forces, and that
not only Suleiman, but every one of his followers had been slaughtered,
without the exception of even a solitary trooper to bring away the
melancholy tale. The report spread from hut to hut with a thousand
aggravations, but none of those who were questioned about it, not even
of those who related it with the most minute particulars, could say
how or whence it had originated, as no stranger had been seen at the
encampment since the departure of the expedition.
Calamity sometimes casts its shadow before, which, like a supernatural
messenger, carries to the mind unerring intelligence of events that
have either happened at a distance, or are already on the march towards
their fatal accomplishment. The seventh sun had scarcely risen on the
horizon, after the funeral day of Gulbeg, when a horse, fully accoutred
as for the field of battle, without a rider, and with broken rein,
entered the precincts of the camp, running here and there, snorting
and pawing the ground, as if he had some dreadful tale to tell. He
easily permitted himself to be caught, when it was discovered that the
animal had been much gashed on the shoulders by sabre-cuts, that the
saddle was stained with blood, with which his mane was also clotted,
and that, moreover, it was the steed on which Suleiman had been
mounted. The ominous forebodings of the elders thus received a degree
of confirmation that filled the whole tribe with terror. Some were
for sending messengers instantly, in order to ascertain the results,
however dreadful they might be.
The proposition was no sooner made than it was acted upon by three
spirited youths, who had not yet been permitted to try their strength
in battle. Kazim offered to be their guide to Karaman, and horses being
prepared in a few moments, they were already mounting, in the midst of
the crowds that had assembled round them, when an old man, to whom the
wounded steed belonged, rushed into the circle holding up a letter,
which he found under the pommel of the saddle, on removing it from the
heated back of the animal. It was immediately opened by Kazim, but
from being worn away in many places by the friction of the saddle, he
could read it aloud only in fragments. It was in the hand-writing of
Seirami:--
“If this brave steed find his way back to the encampment, he will
indeed be the messenger of woe... never were such days of strife
known before... they were a host, for the three chieftains had joined
their forces, and believing that Suleiman was no more, they were
marching to seize his dominions, when we met them near the gates of
Karaman... in the streets, which ran with torrents of blood... we...
The re-appearance of Suleiman threw the enemy at the onset into
affright... evil spirits they said, flying back to the town, were
come to attack them,... every where the houses were closed: as we
hastened after the fugitives it looked like a city of the dead...
Mirtas slain at his feet... recovering from their terror the second
day, burst forth... from street to street the battle raged for three
days... those valiant youths of the tribe, their deeds are beyond all
praise... not one remains to”--
Kazim’s faltering voice was here interrupted by a general burst of
anguish, which not even the breathless desire of the listening crowd
to hear every particular, could repress. “Oh, my son! my son!” were
the only words to which the matrons could give utterance, as, tearing
their hair, they threw themselves prostrate on the earth, overwhelmed
with grief. Kazim, looking still at the fragments of the letter, could
not resume, though he perceived that it was of the utmost importance
that they should hear the remainder of the communication. Again and
again he motioned to the multitude that he would go on, but the agony
that swelled his heart, when he beheld the mothers of the slaughtered
warriors demanding their surviving children to be brought before
them, that they might count them, and ascertain whether _he_, the
bravest of them all, had indeed gone to the battle, never, never to
return,--appalled his senses, and stifled the language to which he in
vain endeavoured to give articulate sound.
The voice of mourning having at length in some degree subsided, Kazim
was directed to proceed.
“There can be no doubt that in the first instance the enemy will
direct their march towards the encampment.”
“Let them come,” answered the veterans; “we may yet revenge the
butchery of our children!”
“And that from their numbers, all being well armed, flushed with
conquest, and in need of provisions, they will contend with too many
advantages against a pastoral tribe. Fly, therefore, while yet you
can.”...
The remainder of the letter was worn quite away, except a very small
fragment, on which the words “Kazim” and “Hindostan” were legible.
The prince who mixed with the crowd without any emblems of his rank,
to hear the tidings of calamity, which for a moment reduced all the
members of the tribe to the same level, retiring to his tent, called a
council, by which it was resolved, that the encampment should be broken
up, and that they should proceed across the desert.
Kazim, who feared at first that he might have been sacrificed to the
grief or indignation of the tribe, inasmuch as he was the friend of
Suleiman, to whose rashness they justly imputed the calamity which had
befallen so many of their bravest warriors, asked permission from the
prince to return to his home on the Ilamish. But that excellent person,
who was an epitome of all the virtues of the tribe, taking him by the
hand, assured him that he need have no apprehension for his safety.
Nobody thought of blaming the husband of Mangeli, who was a favourite
in every quarter; and as to returning to his defenceless cottage, at
a period when the exasperated troops of Mirtas would probably leave
no part of the country unexplored, and would visit no cultivated
spot without laying it waste, such an idea would be the extreme of
imprudence. “No,” said the good prince; “we have adopted you and yours
for our own; with us you shall remain; of our wealth you shall freely
partake; and our home, wherever we may find it from season to season,
shall be your home too. Put up your hut, my son, like the rest; you
will find a camel of burthen at your door, and a horse of my own for
yourself and Mangeli. Your goats form part already of the common stock.”
The huts having been all speedily taken down, the materials of them
were carefully packed up, together with all the utensils and furniture
which they contained; and in three hours after the command was given,
the tribe was on the march towards the vast desert, which spreads
many days’ journey to the west as well as to the south of Arjun. The
enemy, it was thought, would hardly venture in pursuit of them into the
waste, if in want of provisions; and at all events, in those immense
solitudes upon whose arid surface the hoof of the horse or the camel
made no impression, it would be difficult to trace the footsteps of the
fugitives.
Very different was now the appearance of the cavalcade from what it was
when the pastoral nation first met the eyes of Kazim. They moved on
necessarily at a slow pace, as their herds of sheep and other animals,
which brought up the rear, were of essential importance for the supply
of food. But the brave warriors, lately the pride of the people to
whom they belonged, were missed from a scene usually remarkable for
splendour and gaiety. The tones of mirth were changed into lamentation,
and the procession seemed like a funeral train, engaged in performing
the last obsequies of some departed chieftain.
After journeying over the desert for three weeks, without perceiving
any token of pursuit on the part of the enemy, the fugitives had at
length the consolation to observe the weather setting in with more than
ordinary severity. The snow began to fall by the time they crossed the
mountains on the borders of Astracan, when finding an extensive and
well-watered valley, completely sheltered from the cold winds of the
north, they resolved on sojourning there at least until the winter was
over.
For several days the snow continued to descend so thickly, that it
darkened the air, wrapping the mountains and the plains in one general
mantle, and investing the trunks and branches of the trees that were
scattered here and there, with its fleecy covering. In the early part
of the morning the huts were not to be distinguished from the hillocks,
which the snow, drifted by the winds, had raised in different parts of
the valley. But after the fires were kindled, and the smoke had curled
from the tops of the huts to mingle with the clouds on the mountains,
the black roofs and sides of those pastoral habitations became quickly
discernible. The weather necessarily prevented their inmates for some
time from all out-door amusements; but their days, nevertheless, seldom
appeared to hang heavily upon their hands. When the usual meals were
over, chess and cards and dice, the song and the dance were resumed.
When the mountain torrents were at length suspended in their course
by the frost, and the trees were ornamented as if by genii, in the
beautiful filagree icicles, which afforded an assurance that the red
deer might be followed over the ridges of the mountains without any
danger of sinking in the snow, the hunters were out with their poles
bounding from height to height, with an agility that rivalled the
fleetness of the animal of which they were in pursuit.
For Kazim, however, none of these amusements possessed any great
attraction. Though he could not well avoid joining the many social
circles formed in the camp throughout the long winter nights,
nevertheless his thoughts were far away from those scenes, communing
with higher spirits. The game of chess, which he now learned for the
first time, had more charms for his mind than any other pastime; it
engrossed his attention, and set the intellect at work. But when the
excitement of the hour was over, he reverted to his recollections of
the books he had read, and even sometimes prevailed upon his associates
to listen to the verses of Asefi, which he recited with the most
engaging gracefulness.
From poetry Kazim sometimes changed the theme to history, especially
to that of the empires of Persia and Hindostan, of which he appeared
to have made himself complete master. He related how Timur, setting
out from Samarcand with a million of troops, advanced along the vast
plains of Bactria, and climbed the Himalas, though opposed by the
native tribes of those rugged and lofty mountains at every step. The
difficulties of the ascent were often less than those that opposed his
downward progress, for the steep precipices, or rather mural ramparts,
which lay in the line of his march, offered no means of descent.
Under these circumstances, that brave commander ordered himself to be
let down by ropes; and in this manner he and his followers, together
with their horses, were enabled, after incredible toils, to behold at
length, stretching at their feet, the fertile fields of Hindostan.
Kazim shuddered while he described the sanguinary battles, by means
of which Timur established his throne at Delhi, with a degree of
imperial splendour unknown before his time. The adventures of his
grandson, Baber, the knight-errant of the East, had peculiar charms
for the youths of the tribe. One day, in the possession of absolute
power, and clothed in all the sumptuousness of unbounded luxury,
the next he was rendered an outcast and a mendicant by the changing
fortunes of war. After tasting for a season of adversity in all its
most painful forms, he was again raised to sovereign power, which
he graced by his intellectual accomplishments. The feeble reign
of Humaioon that followed, was, in a great measure, redeemed from
oblivion by the patronage which that prince, though somewhat fantastic
in his taste, bestowed on letters and the sciences, especially the
science of astronomy. But his son Acbar, who had ascended the throne
of India at the age of thirteen,[1] and who was now the reigning
prince, seemed, from all that Kazim had heard of him at Samarcand,
to have already acquired a fame, both in the field and the council,
which promised to outshine all his predecessors. From the exploits he
had already performed, having reduced nearly the whole of India under
his power, it was conjectured that he would soon add even Persia to
his already magnificent empire. Rumour had spoken much of his wise
minister Abul Fazeel, to whose councils, it was said, he was indebted
for the retention of the conquests he had made. It was the province of
that distinguished person, to heal the wounds inflicted on the mass
of the people by war. Wherever the arms of Acbar had carried terror
and devastation, Fazeel followed in the bloody footsteps of his
imperial master, like a benevolent genius, redressing, as far as it was
possible, the complaints of the injured, and substituting for disorder
and contention the blessings of organization and peace.
[1] In the year 1556.
Sometimes, if the night were favourable for his purpose, Kazim induced
the young men, who often crowded to his hut, to ascend the nearest
height, whence he bade them watch the countless orbs of fire which
glowed in the azure firmament. They expected that he would read in that
splendid page the destinies of their nation, and importuned him to
impart to them that species of knowledge which the stars can teach. He
told them of the difference that existed between the planets, which,
like the earth, moved round the sun, and the spheres which apparently
had no motion. So far they understood his explanations. But they began
to look upon him as a magician, when he added, that the congregation of
lights which they beheld crowded together in the sky, were absolutely
as nothing compared with the multitudes hidden from their gaze in the
remoter oceans of space, and that, nevertheless, each of these orbs was
a sun in itself, attended by worlds of its own peopled by every order
of created being; and that the whole, instead of being stationary, as
they seemed, were moving, together with our sun and its system, round
the centre of the universe, where the Great Spirit reigned in a region
of glory, that knew not beginning or end, day or night, winter or
summer.