WHAT DO THE STARS SAY?
The sun which relieved the bay of Therapia from the thraldom of night
did the same service for the Golden Horn; only, with a more potential
voice, it seemed to say to the cities which were the pride of the
latter, Awake! Arise! And presently they were astir indoor and out.
Of all the souls who, obedient to the early summons, poured into the
street, and by the south window of the study of the Prince of India,
some going this direction, some that, yet each intent upon a particular
purpose, not one gave a thought to the Prince, or so much as wondered
if he were awake. And the indifference of the many was well for him; it
gave him immunity to pursue his specialty. But as we, the writer and
the reader, are not of the many, and have an interest in the man from
knowing more about him than they, what would have been intrusion in
them may be excused in us.
Exactly at midnight the Prince, aroused by Syama, had gone to the roof,
where there was a table, with a lamp upon it which he could shade at
pleasure, an hour-glass, and writing materials. An easy chair was also
set for him.
The view of the city offered for his inspection was circumscribed by
the night. The famous places conspicuous in daytime might as well have
been folded up and put away in a closet; he could not see so much as a
glimmer of light from any of them. Pleased thereby, and arguing that
even the wicked are good when asleep, he swept the heavens with a
glance so long and searching there could be no doubt of the purpose
which had brought him forth.
Next, according to the habit of astrologers, he proceeded to divide the
firmament into Angles and Houses, and taking seat by the table,
arranged the lamp to suit him, started the hour-glass running, and drew
a diagram familiar to every adept in divinatory science--a diagram of
the heavens with the Houses numbered from one to twelve inclusive.
In the Houses he then set the mystic symbols of the visible planets as
they were at the moment in position, mindful not merely of the
parallels, but of the degrees as well. Verifying the correctness of the
diagram by a second survey of the mighty overarch more careful even
than the first, he settled himself in the chair, saying complacently:
"Now, O Saturn, thou, the coldest and highest! Thy Houses are
ready--come, and at least behold them. I wait the configurations."
Thereupon, perfectly at ease, he watched the stellar hosts while, to
their own music, they marched past the Thrones of the Most High Planets
unchallenged except by him.
Occasionally he sat up to reverse the hour-glass, though more
frequently he made new diagrams, showing the changes in position of the
several influential bodies relatively to each other and to the benefic
or malific signs upon which so much of result depended; nor did his
eyes once weary or his zeal flag.
Finally when the sun, yet under the horizon behind the heights of
Scutari, began to flood the sky with a brilliance exceeding that of the
bravest of the stars, he collected the drawings, extinguished the lamp,
and descended to his study, but not to rest.
Immediately that the daylight was sufficient, he addressed himself to
mathematical calculations which appeared exhaustive of every rule and
branch of the disciplinary science. Hours flew by, and still he worked.
He received Syama's call to breakfast; returning from the meal, always
the simplest of the day with him, he resumed the problem. Either he was
prodigiously intent on a scheme in mind, or he was occupying himself
diligently in order to forget himself.
About noon he was interrupted.
"My father."
Recognizing the voice, he pushed the proofs of labor from him almost to
the other side of the table, turned in his seat, and replied, his face
suffused with pleasure:
"Thou enemy to labor! Did not some one tell thee of what I have on
hand, and how I am working to finish it in time to take the water with
thee this afternoon? Answer, O my Gul-Bahar, more beautiful growing as
the days multiply!"
The Lael of the son of Jahdai, the Gul-Bahar of the mysterious Prince,
was much grown, and otherwise greatly changed since we saw her last.
Each intervening year had in passing left her a benediction. She was
now about sixteen, slight, and Jewish in eyes, hair, and complexion.
The blood enriched her olive cheeks; the lips took a double freshness
from health; the smile resting habitually on the oval face had a tale
it was always telling of a nature confiding, happy, satisfied with its
conditions, hopeful of the future, and unaware from any sad experience
that life ever admitted of changes. Her beauty bore the marks of
intelligence; her manner was not enough self-contained to be called
courtly; yet it was easy, and carried its own certificate of culture;
it yielded too much to natural affection to deserve the term dignified.
One listening to her, and noticing the variableness of her mood, which
in almost the same instant could pass from gay to serious without ever
reaching an extreme, would pronounce her too timid for achievement
outside the purely domestic; at the same time he would think she
appeared lovable to the last degree, and might be capable of loving in
equal measure.
She was dressed in Byzantine fashion. In crossing the street from her
father's house, she had thrown a veil over her head, but it was now
lying carelessly about her neck. The wooden sandals with blocks under
them, like those yet worn by women in Levantine countries to raise them
out of the dust and mud when abroad, had been shaken lightly from her
feet at the top of the stairs. Perfectly at home, she advanced to the
table, and put one of her bare arms around the old man's neck,
regardless of the white locks it crushed close down, and replied:
"Thou flatterer! Do I not know beauty is altogether in the eye of the
beholder, and that all persons do not see alike? Tell me why, knowing
the work was to be done, you did not send for me to help you? Was it
for nothing you made me acquainted with figures until--I have your
authority for the saying--I might have stood for professor of
mathematics in the best of the Alexandrian schools? Do not shake your
head at me--or"--
With the new idea all alight in her face, she ran around the table, and
caught up one of the diagrams.
"Ah, it is as I thought, father! The work I love best, and can do best!
Whose is the nativity? Not mine, I know; for I was born in the glad
time when Venus ruled the year. Anael, her angel, held his wings over
me against this very wry-faced, snow-chilled Saturn, whom I am so glad
to see in the Seventh House, which is the House of Woe. Whose the
nativity, I say?"
"Nay, child--pretty child, and wilful--you have a trick of getting my
secrets from me. I sometimes think I am in thy hands no more than
tawdry lace just washed and being wrung preparatory to hanging in the
air from thy lattice. It is well for you to know there are some things
out of your reach--for the time at least."
"That is saying you will tell me."
"Yes--some day."
"Then I will be patient."
Seeing him become thoughtful, and look abstractedly out of the window,
she laid the diagram down, went back, and again put her arm around his
neck.
"I did not come to interrupt you, father, but to learn two things, and
run away."
"You begin like a rhetorician. What subdivisions lie under those two
things? Speak!"
"Thank you," she replied, quickly. "First, Syama told me you were at
some particular task, and I wanted to know if I could help you."
"Dear heart!" he said, tenderly.
"Next--and this is all--I did not want you to forget we are to go up
the Bosphorus this afternoon--up to Therapia, and possibly to the sea."
"You wish to go?" he asked.
"I dreamt of it all night."
"Then we will; and to prove I did not forget, the boatmen have their
orders already. We go to the landing directly after noon."
"Not too soon," she answered, laughing. "I have to dress, and make
myself gorgeous as an empress. The day is soft and kind, and there will
be many people on the water, where I am already known quite as well as
here in the city as the daughter of the Prince of India."
He replied with an air of pride:
"Thou art good enough for an emperor."
"Then I may go and get ready."
She withdrew her arm, kissed him, and started to the door, but
returned, with a troubled look.
"One thing more, father."
He was recovering his work, but stopped, and gave her ear.
"What is it?"
"You have said, good father, that as my studies were too confining, it
would be well if I took the air every day in my sedan. So, sometimes
with Syama, sometimes with Nilo, I had the men carry me along the wall
in front of the Bucoleon. The view over the sea toward Mt. Ida is there
very beautiful; and if I look to the landward side, right at my feet
are the terraced gardens of the palace. Nowhere do the winds seem
sweeter to me. For their more perfect enjoyment I have at moments
alighted from the chair, and walked; always avoiding acquaintances new
and old. The people appear to understand my preference, and respect it.
Of late, however, one person--hardly a man--has followed me, and
stopped near by when I stopped; he has even persisted in attempts to
speak to me. To avoid him, I went to the Hippodrome yesterday, and
taking seat in front of the small obelisks in that quarter, was
delighted with the exhibition of the horsemen. Just when the
entertainment was at its height, and most interesting, the person of
whom I am speaking came and sat on the same bench with me. I arose at
once. It is very annoying, father. What shall I do?"
The Prince did not answer immediately, and when he did, it was to ask,
suggestively:
"You say he is young?"
"Yes."
"His dress?"
"He seems to be fond of high colors."
"You asked no question concerning him?"
"No. Whom could I ask?"
Again the Prince reflected. Outwardly he was unconcerned; yet his blood
was more than warm--the blood of pride which, as every one knows, is
easily started, and can go hissing hot. He did not wish her to think of
the affair too much; therefore his air of indifference; nevertheless it
awoke a new train of thought in him.
If one were to insult this second Lael of his love, what could he do?
The idea of appeal to a magistrate was irritating. Were he to assume
punishment of the insolence, from whom could he hope justice or
sympathy--he, a stranger living a mysterious life?
He ran hastily over the resorts at first sight open to him. Nilo was an
instrument always ready. A word would arouse the forces in that loyal
but savage nature, and they were forces subject to cunning which never
slept, never wearied, and was never in a hurry--a passionless cunning,
like that of the Fedavies of the Old Man of the Mountain.
It may be thought the Prince was magnifying a fancied trouble; but the
certainty that sorrow _must_ overtake him for every indulgence of
affection was a haunting shadow always attending the most trifling
circumstance to set his imagination conjuring calamities. That at such
times his first impulse was toward revenge is explicable; the old law,
an eye for an eye, was part of his religion; and coupling it with
personal pride which a thought could turn into consuming heat, how
natural if, while the anticipation was doing its work, his study should
be to make the revenge memorable!
Feeling he was not entirely helpless in the affair, he thought best to
be patient awhile, and learn who was the offender; a conclusion
followed by a resolution to send Uel with the girl next time she went
to take the air.
"The young men of the city are uncontrolled by respect or veneration,"
he said, quietly. "The follies they commit are sometimes ludicrous.
Better things are not to be looked for in a generation given to dress
as a chief ambition. And then it may be, O my Gul-Bahar"--he kissed her
as he uttered the endearment--"it may be he of whom you complain does
not know who you are. A word may cure him of his bad manners. Do not
appear to notice him. Have eyes for everything in the world but him;
that is the virtuous woman's defence against vulgarity and insult under
every circumstance. Go now, and make ready for the boat. Put on your
gayest; forget not the last necklace I gave you--and the bracelets--and
the girdle with the rubies. The water from the flying oars shall not
outflash my little girl. There now--Of course we will go to the landing
in our chairs."
When she disappeared down the stairs, he went back to his work.