THE ADVENTURES OF PEKUAH CONTINUED
"We wandered about in this manner for some weeks, whether, as our chief
pretended, for my gratification, or, as I rather suspected, for some
convenience of his own. I endeavoured to appear contented, where
sullenness and resentment would have been of no use, and that endeavour
conduced much to the calmness of my mind; but my heart was always with
Nekayah, and the troubles of the night much overbalanced the amusements
of the day. My women, who threw all their cares upon their mistress, set
their minds at ease from the time when they saw me treated with respect,
and gave themselves up to the incidental alleviations of our fatigue
without solicitude or sorrow. I was pleased with their pleasure, and
animated with their confidence. My condition had lost much of its
terror, since I found that the Arab ranged the country merely to get
riches. Avarice is an uniform and tractable vice: other intellectual
distempers are different in different constitutions of mind; that which
soothes the pride of one will offend the pride of another; but to the
favour of the covetous there is a ready way; bring money, and nothing is
denied.
"At last we came to the dwelling of our chief, a strong and spacious
house built with stone in an island of the Nile, which lies, as I was
told, under the tropic. 'Lady,' said the Arab, 'you shall rest after
your journey a few weeks in this place, where you are to consider
yourself as sovereign. My occupation is war: I have therefore chosen
this obscure residence, from which I can issue unexpected, and to which
I can retire unpursued. You may now repose in security; here are few
pleasures, but here is no danger.' He then led me into the inner
apartments, and seating me on the richest couch, bowed to the ground.
His women, who considered me as a rival, looked on me with malignity;
but being soon informed that I was a great lady detained only for my
ransom, they began to vie with each other in obsequiousness and
reverence.
"Being again comforted with new assurances of speedy liberty, I was for
some days diverted from impatience by the novelty of the place. The
turrets overlooked the country to a great distance, and afforded a view
of many windings of the stream. In the day I wandered from one place to
another as the course of the sun varied the splendour of the prospect,
and saw many things which I had never seen before. The crocodiles and
river-horses are common in this unpeopled region, and I often looked
upon them with terror, though I knew that they could not hurt me. For
some time I expected to see mermaids and tritons, which, as Imlac has
told me, the European travellers have stationed in the Nile; but no such
beings ever appeared, and the Arab, when I inquired after them, laughed
at my credulity.
"At night the Arab always attended me to a tower set apart for celestial
observations, where he endeavoured to teach me the names and courses of
the stars. I had no great inclination to this study, but an appearance
of attention was necessary to please my instructor, who valued himself
for his skill; and, in a little while, I found some employment requisite
to beguile the tediousness of time, which was to be passed always amidst
the same objects. I was weary of looking in the morning on things from
which I had turned away weary in the evening; I therefore was at last
willing to observe the stars rather than do nothing, but could not
always compose my thoughts, and was very often thinking on Nekayah, when
others imagined me contemplating the sky. Soon after, the Arab went upon
another expedition, and then my only pleasure was to talk with my maids
about the accident by which we were carried away, and the happiness that
we should all enjoy at the end of our captivity."
"There were women in your Arab's fortress," said the princess: "why did
you not make them your companions, enjoy their conversation, and partake
their diversions? In a place where they found business or amusement, why
should you alone sit corroded with idle melancholy? or why could not you
bear for a few months that condition to which they were condemned for
life?"
"The diversions of the women," answered Pekuah, "were only childish
play, by which the mind accustomed to stronger operations could not be
kept busy. I could do all which they delighted in doing, by powers
merely sensitive, while my intellectual faculties were flown to Cairo.
They ran from room to room, as a bird hops from wire to wire in his
cage. They danced for the sake of motion, as lambs frisk in a meadow.
One sometimes pretended to be hurt, that the rest might be alarmed; or
hid herself, that another might seek her. Part of their time passed in
watching the progress of light bodies that floated on the river, and
part in marking the various forms into which clouds broke in the sky.
"Their business was only needlework, in which I and my maids sometimes
helped them; but you know that the mind will easily straggle from the
fingers, nor will you suspect that captivity and absence from Nekayah
could receive solace from silken flowers.
"Nor was much satisfaction to be hoped from their conversation: for of
what could they be expected to talk? They had seen nothing, for they had
lived from early youth in that narrow spot; of what they had not seen
they could have no knowledge, for they could not read. They had no ideas
but of the few things that were within their view, and had hardly names
for anything but their clothes and their food. As I bore a superior
character, I was often called to terminate their quarrels, which I
decided as equitably as I could. If it could have amused me to hear the
complaints of each against the rest, I might have been often detained by
long stories; but the motives of their animosity were so small, that I
could not listen without intercepting the tale."
"How," said Rasselas, "can the Arab, whom you represented as a man of
more than common accomplishments, take any pleasure in his seraglio,
when it is filled only with women like these? Are they exquisitely
beautiful?"
"They do not," said Pekuah, "want that unaffecting and ignoble beauty
which may subsist without sprightliness or sublimity, without energy of
thought or dignity of virtue. But to a man like the Arab such beauty was
only a flower casually plucked and carelessly thrown away. Whatever
pleasures he might find among them, they were not those of friendship or
society. When they were playing about him, he looked on them with
inattentive superiority; when they vied for his regard, he sometimes
turned away disgusted. As they had no knowledge, their talk could take
nothing from the tediousness of life; as they had no choice, their
fondness, or appearance of fondness, excited in him neither pride nor
gratitude; he was not exalted in his own esteem by the smiles of a woman
who saw no other man, nor was much obliged by that regard, of which he
could never know the sincerity, and which he might often perceive to be
exerted, not so much to delight him as to pain a rival. That which he
gave and they received as love, was only a careless distribution of
superfluous time, such love as man can bestow upon that which he
despises, such as has neither hope nor fear, neither joy nor sorrow."
"You have reason, lady, to think yourself happy," said Imlac, "that you
have been thus easily dismissed. How could a mind, hungry for knowledge,
be willing, in an intellectual famine, to lose such a banquet as
Pekuah's conversation?"
"I am inclined to believe," answered Pekuah, "that he was for some time
in suspense; for, notwithstanding his promise, whenever I proposed to
dispatch a messenger to Cairo, he found some excuse for delay. While I
was detained in his house, he made many incursions into the neighbouring
countries; and perhaps he would have refused to discharge me, had his
plunder been equal to his wishes. He returned always courteous, related
his adventures, delighted to hear my observations, and endeavoured to
advance my acquaintance with the stars. When I importuned him to send
away my letters, he soothed me with professions of honour and sincerity;
and, when I could be no longer decently denied, put his troop again in
motion, and left me to govern in his absence. I was much afflicted by
this studied procrastination, and was sometimes afraid that I should be
forgotten; that you would leave Cairo, and I must end my days in an
island of the Nile.
"I grew at last hopeless and dejected, and cared so little to entertain
him, that he for a while more frequently talked with my maids. That he
should fall in love with them or with me might have been equally fatal,
and I was not much pleased with the growing friendship. My anxiety was
not long; for, as I recovered some degree of cheerfulness, he returned
to me, and I could not forbear to despise my former uneasiness.
"He still delayed to send for my ransom, and would, perhaps, never have
determined, had not your agent found his way to him. The gold, which he
would not fetch, he could not reject when it was offered. He hastened to
prepare for our journey hither, like a man delivered from the pain of an
intestine conflict. I took leave of my companions in the house, who
dismissed me with cold indifference."
Nekayah, having heard her favourite's relation, rose and embraced her,
and Rasselas gave her an hundred ounces of gold, which she presented to
the Arab for the fifty that were promised.