How slowly and wearily night passes when a sense of impending evil
overpowers sleep, and renders every faculty sharply sensible to sounds
and impressions otherwise of ordinary occurrence,--when a thousand
vague phantasies flit before the imagination hardly more definite than
the keenly-painful thoughts they awaken! How difficult thus to endure
delay or uncertainty, and to account for causes of either, so as to
gain consolation or assurance to one's self, far less to impart comfort
to others whose fears and apprehensions are perhaps greater than our
own.
Thus heavily was hour after hour counted by Afzool Khan and his fair
daughter in the apartment we have already described. The Khan busied
himself, or seemed to do so, with a pile of Persian papers, on some
of which, from time to time, he made notes: but it was easy for his
daughter to see that his eye often followed vacantly the lines of the
writing, and that his thoughts wandered far from the subjects before
him.
The Khan's wife, Lurlee, had come, and been dismissed with an
injunction not to interrupt him, and that he should be late. Zyna
did not disturb her father, and found a partial occupation in some
embroidery, which helped to dispel for a time her fears for her
brother; gradually, however, as the night wore on, it was easy for her
to see that her father's anxiety increased. It was true that Fazil's
return was not expected till after midnight; but that, under the
thought of his perilous errand, brought no consolation with it, and she
sat watching the expression of her father's countenance, yet not so
as to be observed, and withdrawing her eyes when he looked up. A few
careless words fell from time to time from both, and a few entreaties
by the Khan to his daughter that she would take rest, were met by
requests that she might be allowed to share his watch, for that she had
promised her brother to await his return.
Thus midnight came, and with it sleep to the young girl, that would
not be denied. She had folded her scarf about her person, and lay down
where she was; and her father now watched his sleeping child, almost
wondering at her beauty, as the light fell upon her, and projected a
shadow from the long eyelashes upon her soft downy cheek. So, with the
image of the dead before him--for he remembered her mother even such
an one as her child--Afzool Khan's thoughts wandered far back into
the past,--far back to the time when, with life before him and easy
competence, the servant of a noble and united kingdom, the future had
not concerned him, save only to wish that the happiness he possessed
might endure.
But that bright future was long past. The present was dark, uncertain,
menacing. Had there been any one to listen, the bitter sob of the old
Khan--a sob of exquisite pain as his thoughts alternated between the
happy past and a gloomy future--might have been heard,--such pain as
those alone can know whose affections and memories of the past arise
most vividly to augment any new suffering that may be present. The
years of happiness in his home, which might have been his lot had his
wife been spared to him, rose to the mind of Afzool Khan as a sad
mockery; for though the grave had long held her whose fair form seemed
renewed before him, it appeared almost as if she were again present to
him in all her beauty.
"Thou art a fair blossom. May God love thee! May the holy saints keep
thee! May thy mother watch thee, my child!" murmured the Khan, as he
bent over his sleeping daughter. "Even such was thy mother in those
first days, as guileless and as beautiful. Nay, thou art but the copy,
Zyna. And had she but lived to see thee and thy brother as ye are it
would have been well. Yet why not well as it is?" he resumed after a
pause; "surely Fate is good whatever it be. If my heart warns me of
coming ill--nay, if he too be gone from me, well; he is with her, and
the old man will soon follow, and there will be peace, peace, peace!
Yet I would live still a little for thee, my child--only for thee! else
the first shot or keen sword-cut were welcome to Afzool Khan."
So he thought and watched, and at times gently fanned his child with
the papers in his hand that her sleep might be the lighter, and again
resumed his occupation of reading. All was silent, but the night wind
sighed mournfully through the open trelliswork of the window, and
seemed rising; and as he listened, there were mutterings of a coming
storm.
Opening one of the small casements, he looked out. The city was dark
beneath him, and still; even the dogs seemed to have gone to sleep.
Far distant, the wailing howls of a pack of jackals came upon his ear
fitfully, and again ceased as the sound was blown away by the wind.
Over the face of the sky the wild dark clouds were now hurrying ragidly
along, disclosing here and there a star, which was again as instantly
hidden. In the west, the horizon was black and threatening, and the
edges of a heavy bank of cloud, now fast rising, pile over pile, were
illumined like burnished silver, as lightning flashed rapidly through
them, lighting up the city, and the bold domes and tall minarets of
the mosques and mausoleums, with a sickly glare for an instant, to
disappear as rapidly as a thought. One of the night-storms of the
season was evidently approaching, and the cool fresh wind was grateful
to the Khan, as he leaned forth and looked into the void of darkness
abstractedly.
The papers he had been perusing had been the subject of consultation
that day at the court between the King, his Secretary, and himself.
They were reports from the governors of the west and north-west
provinces--a country which Afzool Khan had governed some years before,
and knew perfectly--and related to a growing disaffection and a rising
spirit among the people of the mountain valleys, which could not be
accounted for save by the intrigues and machinations of Sivaji Bhóslay
and his adherents. Sivaji, as a restless youth, had before risen in
petty insurrection, and had resisted small forces sent against him,
but had renewed his fidelity to the State, and had been pardoned.
Notwithstanding, however, he was believed to be active in evil designs;
and report assigned to him constant communication and intrigue with the
Moghul emperor Aurungzeeb, as well as endeavours, on his own account,
to excite the people.
Afzool Khan was no indifferent spectator of these events. He was one
of those who, with others of his rank, had received profuse promises
from the Emperor during his first invasion of the kingdom; and though
Aurungzeeb's intentions had not been finally declared, yet Afzool Khan
knew that if he favoured his cause, even secretly, for the present, he
was certain hereafter, should the Emperor prevail, of high rank and
rewards far beyond those which he now possessed, and also that the
weight and influence of a few men like himself would at once turn the
scale against Beejapoor, which already trembled in the balance.
The Moghul party, he well knew, was strong in the city. Many who had
been disappointed of court influence almost openly professed it:
they had nothing to lose and everything to hope for. But there were
others--like the prime-minister, Khan Mahomed, for instance--who, in
the enjoyment of large estates, high commands, and immense wealth,
still desired more; nay, even the partition of the kingdom, that they
might hold what they possessed as independent princes.
Again, Aurungzeeb's zeal for the cause of his faith was a well-known
element of his character. He was a strict Soonnee, who held the
heretical belief of the Sheeas in hereditary hatred; and the sight of
the noble domes of the mosques at Beejapoor filled him with a fervour
of bigotry even stronger than the lust of territorial dominion, to
subvert the royal house which held those detested tenets.
Afzool Khan was also an orthodox Soonnee. He looked with abomination
upon the Sheea ceremonies at the great mosque. He could not join in
prayer there, nor could he enter save with the certainty of being
offended and insulted by the religious ceremonies of his King. It was
equally certain that the doctrines he professed belonged to a strong
party in the city, who on all possible occasions urged amalgamation of
the country with the empire of Delhi, in order to insure the supremacy
of their own creed. Yet he was true.
Like him, the minister Khan Mahomed had been faithful through many
temptations; but of late, though he still preserved a fair and honest
appearance with the young King, rumour had become busy with his name,
and, intimate as was their friendship, the old Khan's trust in him
was much shaken under an accumulated mass of suspicion, though, as
yet, nothing definite had transpired. Hitherto also the minister's
apparently unflinching adherence to what was feared to be a falling
dynasty, and to a government which, under foreign invasion, and
internal disunion and distraction, had become weakened, had retained
Afzool Khan's respect and affection; for this, combined with Khan
Mahomed's professed devotion to the young King, who, with excellent
dispositions and a fair promise of ability, was yet without experience,
formed a strong bond of union between them.
Private friendship, and the free intercourse of camps and
battle-fields, had existed for many years; and as their children grew
up together, and the beauty of Zyna became notorious, the minister's
son, whom we have already mentioned, pressed upon his father, very
importunately, the necessity of formally asking her in marriage. But
under his own secret hopes of the eventual ascendancy of the Moghuls,
and his convictions that the obstinate fidelity of Afzool Khan would
sooner or later lead to a serious breach between them, the minister had
as yet refrained from taking any steps in the matter; and on his own
part Afzool Khan had been equally guarded.
The events of the night, however, would disclose the real tendency
of the Wuzeer's conduct; and the thought that there were grounds of
more than ordinary suspicion, could not fail to increase the feeling
that he was actually guilty, which for some time past had lain at
Afzool Khan's heart. He had fancied, too, a growing coldness on the
part of the Wuzeer towards him, unlike the spirit of their former
free and unrestrained intercourse; and he could not fail to observe,
in his visits to his court, that men to whom rumour attached the same
suspicions as to the Wuzeer, were preferred as counsellors to himself.
All this, however, had as yet produced no personal disagreement: it was
only mistrust, arising from suspicion on both sides; but the Wuzeer
well knew that, if his designs were discovered for certain in any
degree, he should find in Afzool Khan a powerful and bitter enemy,
whose fiery temper and habit of prompt action would make him a far
more dangerous enemy than the young King himself. No one, also, knew
better than the Wuzeer the temptations to which Afzool Khan had been
exposed, and through which he had come as yet unsullied. He knew that
in the Moghul army many ties of clanship and acquaintance existed for
the Afghan, which the service of Beejapoor did not afford, and that the
Emperor, desiring to gain one so faithful, brave, and skilled in the
field, who was also a Soonnee, had offered rank, titles, and estates,
with his personal friendship and confidence, as yet in vain.
There had been times when Afzool Khan, wearied by petty slights,
uncertain as to the future existence of Beejapoor as a kingdom, and
comparing the wide field of honour in the imperial service with the
narrow circle of Beejapoor, had felt tempted to accept these offers.
But the thought had been as often repelled, and had led to a more
steadfast and more healthy attachment to the young King; and when Ali
Adil Shah, who had but recently succeeded his father Mahmood, displayed
the possession of vigour and manly thought, and his disposition and
talent appeared really equal to the maintenance of his dignity,--Afzool
Khan's fidelity was no longer doubtful, and his openly-evinced
confidence in his King had rallied the wavering attachment of many.
A more than ordinary proof of this had been that day given by the King
in public Durbar. The Wuzeer was then absent from Beejapoor on service,
watching the frontier, with a force to oppose Moghul incursions;
and the King had, as an unusual act, invited Afzool Khan into his
private chamber, to discuss the contents of the letters of which we
have already seen the Khan in possession. They were many, and on many
subjects; and the King's trust in the old noble could not have been
more heartily evinced than by permitting him to take them home for
perusal alone.
They were a tangled skein of intrigue, alarm, and disaffection, of
exaggerated rumour and detail of actual occurrences, which were
not without signification in the aggregate. If, in reliance on the
gradually increasing ability of the King, Afzool Khan had no longer
hesitated, but, with the sincerity of an open and faithful heart,
showed that he for one no longer doubted, and that his allegiance
would be true--others as high in rank, and holding equal or greater
territorial possessions, were not so; and, as we have already stated,
there was much disaffection, not only in the city, but in the army, and
also in the provinces.
So long as the Moghuls had beleagured Beejapoor, men of all parties,
and, we may add, creeds also, had united in the common bond of
self-preservation; well knowing the plunder and devastation which
would ensue if the city were taken by storm or in the course of actual
war. This also had been foreseen by the Emperor; and his advices from
the traitors within, at the head of whom was the Wuzeer, led him to
the conclusion that nothing was to be gained by open force at present.
Enough that the seed of disaffection had been sown, which he trusted
would, in a comparatively short period, bear the fruit he desired.
On these considerations, Aurungzeeb had raised the siege, and lay at
a distance in seeming inaction; nevertheless watching the course of
events not only with eagerness, but with astute foresight and untiring
intrigue. Emissaries were busy in the city, and among the wavering
and discontented gained many converts. Money, promises and assurances
of protection were freely lavished, not only among the courtiers, but
among the frontier chieftains, powerful tributaries, feudatories, and
zemindars, who possessed influence over the people, and wherever else
it was possible. Village authorities were also canvassed; hereditary
rights and immunities guaranteed, with confirmation of former grants
from the Beejapoor princes.
All such were openly encouraged to revolt, to withhold payment of
revenue, and to harass the government of the State by every means in
their power. During the confusion attendant upon the Moghul invasion,
many districts had been wrested from the State which could not be
regained except at great cost and by the employment of separate
forces, which weakened the general efficiency of the army. In some
instances, those who had recovered and held such districts, had
themselves retained possession of them, fortifying the village ghurrees
or castles, occupying and repairing hill-forts, under pretence of
assisting the King's cause, but in reality to strengthen their own
positions. Of such, was the Mahratta prince, Sivaji Bhóslay.
The letters which Afzool Khan was perusing were of the tenor consequent
upon such events. They were chiefly from governors of provinces,
forwarding reports from their subordinates to make their own views
more intelligible. Most applied for the assistance of fresh troops,
permission to raise local levies, and funds to pay them; while they
gave accounts of opposition and imperial intrigue, which were only
too certain and progressive. Others detailed plots and rumours, or
preparations for revolt which should be checked.
Around Beejapoor itself there was perhaps no apprehension; but
everywhere at a distance the same confusion existed, and it seemed
to Afzool Khan as though it were impossible to provide against the
spread of growing disaffection which, if he had before only partially
guessed, was here developed in all its hideous and most perplexing
detail. Letter after letter was thus read and thrown aside, till, weary
of the subject, and sick at heart with apprehension, unable also to
determine upon any definite course of state policy, he had put aside
the correspondence, and was reviewing the detail in his own mind as he
looked out on the city from the window.
The question to be determined in particular was as regarded the
condition of the country to the west and north-west, which heretofore
had given no cause for alarm. When Afzool Khan himself had governed it,
he found the people, if ruder in manner than those nearer the capital,
yet peaceable and industrious farmers; and beyond checking local feuds,
there was little need for exertion or apprehension of any kind. Now
the governor wrote of large assemblages of armed men, of habitual
indifference to the authority of the officers of the State, and of the
growing influence of Sivaji Bhóslay, before which he felt it next to
impossible to maintain his own position or collect the revenue, much
less to bring him to subjection.
The latest letters, too, described emissaries from the imperial camp
having been traced in disguise to Sivaji's strongholds among the
mountains, and an increasing belief among the people that he was
destined to become a great prince for the subversion of all Mahomedans;
while it was very evident that, by some secret means, they were being
organized either to revolt for Sivaji himself, or in the cause of the
Emperor.
The writer was a personal friend of Afzool Khan's--one whom he had no
reason to believe would write either from fear or from an incorrect
view of existing circumstances; and on this account his recent letters
had not only become more important, but in a higher degree more
interesting. He had forces at his disposal sufficient to repress any
outbreak, but his knowledge of the people and the country, and the use
they might be put to by the Emperor against the State at any critical
moment, had confirmed apprehensions under which he had written,
temperately but firmly, to the King, not to neglect or underrate
those signs of the times; and to seek among the counsellors and
nobles at Beejapoor such advice in respect to the prevention of local
disaffection as might be practicable.
"If Fazil is right," murmured the Khan to himself, as he revolved these
questions in his mind, "we may obtain confirmation of the designs of
the Mahrattas and the Emperor, which will assist the comprehension
of these letters. But it is strange that they have any common cause,
or that such discordant elements should unite, even with the hope of
mutual assistance."
A low cry from his daughter aroused him from his reverie. As he drew
himself within the lattice, Zyna had raised herself, and was looking
about scared and half awake. "Fazil!" she said. "O father, I dreamed I
saw him laying before me, looking as though he were dead, and then he
seemed to change to you; and I was terrified and screamed out."
"Be calm, Zyna," he replied, supporting her tenderly; "thou hast been
much excited, and needest rest, and no wonder that an evil dream came
to thee. Fear not; he is safe, and I am beside thee."
"Safe, father? then he is returned, and I have been sleeping
carelessly."
"No, daughter, he is not come yet. He has most likely taken refuge from
the storm, which was severe."
"In my dream I heard the thunder, father, but it seemed as though it
were cannon. I marvel that I slept through all."
"And soundly too, Zyna; but look, the morning will be fair for their
return," and he opened the casement.
The black pall of clouds which had hung over the city had passed away,
and the wind had fallen, except a cool gentle breeze which blew freshly
in at the window, and rustled among the foliage of the garden. Here
and there the silence was broken by a gentle and distant murmur in the
city, for, early as it was, some were already astir.
"I will watch now, father," said Zyna; "surely you have not slept at
all. I am quite rested, and will wait for Fazil."
"It is near the third watch of the night, Zyna; thou art not afraid to
be alone if I sleep? If Fazil come not before dawn, I will mount the
Paigah, and we will soon bring him to thee; but I have no fear now,
and say this only to content thee. I will try and rest my head for
a while, daughter; for it is weary, and these papers have caused me
much thought." So saying, he lay down on the divan where he had been
sitting, covered his face with a shawl which Zyna gently cast over him,
and at once fell into a deep slumber.