"THE WOLF AND THE LAMB."
Papoosh Pasha is taking his _kief_[#] in his harem. Two softly shaded
lamps, burning perfumed oil, shed a voluptuous light over the apartment.
Rich carpets from the looms of Persia are spread upon the floor; costly
shawls from Northern India fall in graceful folds over the low divan on
which he reclines. Jewel-hilted sabres, silver-sheathed daggers, and
firearms inlaid with gold, glitter above his head, disposed tastefully
against the walls, and marking the warlike character of the owner; for
Papoosh Pasha, cruel, sensual, and corrupt to the very marrow, is
nevertheless as brave as a lion.
[#] Repose.
Two _nautch-girls_ belonging to his seraglio have been dancing their
voluptuous measure for his gratification. As they stand now unveiled,
panting and glowing with their exertions, the rich Eastern blood
crimsoning their soft cheeks, and coursing wildly through their shapely,
pliant limbs, the old man's face assumes a placid expression of content
only belied by the gleam in that wicked eye, and he is good enough to
wave his amber-tipped pipe-stick in token of dismissal, and to express
his approbation by the single word "_Peki_" (very well). The girls
prostrate themselves before their lord, their silver armlets and anklets
ringing as they touch the floor, and bounding away like two young
antelopes, flit from the presence, apparently not unwilling to escape so
easily. Papoosh Pasha is left alone with the favourite; but the
favourite looks restless and preoccupied, and glances ever and anon
towards the casement which opens out into the garden of the seraglio,
now beginning to glisten in the light of the rising moon, and breathing
the odours of a thousand flowers, heavy and fragrant with the dews of
night. This part of the harem is on the ground floor, and is a retreat
much affected by his Highness for the facility with which the breeze
steals into it from the Bosphorus.
Zuleika is dressed in all the magnificence of her richest Oriental
costume. Her tiny feet, arched in true Arabian symmetry, are bare to
the ankle, where her voluminous muslin trousers are gathered in by a
bracelet, or more correctly an anklet, set with rubies and emeralds. A
string of beads of the purest lemon-coloured amber marks the outlines of
her slender waist, and terminates a short, close-fitting jacket of pink
satin, embroidered with seed-pearls, open at the bosom, and with long
sleeves fringed by lace of European manufacture. This again is covered
by a large loose mantle of _green_ silk, carelessly thrown over the
whole figure. Zuleika has not forgotten that she is lineally descended
from the Prophet, and wears his colour accordingly. Her hands, in
compliance with Eastern custom, are dyed with _henna_, but even this
horrid practice cannot disguise the symmetry of her tapered fingers; and
although the hair is cut short on her left temple, the long raven locks
from the other side are gathered and plaited into a lustrous diadem
around her brows. She has pencilled her lower eyelashes with some dark
substance that enhances their natural beauty, but even this effort of
the toilette has not succeeded in imparting the languishing expression
which a Turkish beauty deems so irresistible. No; the gleam in
Zuleika's eye is more that of some wild animal, caught but not tamed
glancing eagerly around for a chance of escape, and ready to tear the
hand that would caress it and endeavour to reconcile it to its fetters.
She does not look as if she loved you, Papoosh Pasha, when you order her
to your feet, and stroke her hair with your fat hand, and gloat on that
mournful, eager face with your little twinkling eye. Better be a
bachelor, Papoosh Pasha, and confine yourself to the solace of coffee
and pipes, and busy your cunning intellect with those puzzling European
politics, and look after the interests of your dissipated master the
Sultan, than take a wild bird to your bosom that will never know you or
care for you, or cease to pine and fret, and beat her breast against the
bars of the cage in which you have shut her up.
The old man sinks back upon his cushions with a sigh of corporeal
contentment. His fat person is enveloped in a flowing shawl-gown, which
admits of his breathing far more freely than does that miserable tight
frock-coat he wore all day. He has gorged himself with an enormous
meal, chiefly composed of fat substances, vegetables, and sweetmeats.
He has had his tiny measure of hot strong coffee, and is puffing forth
volumes of smoke from a long cherry-stick pipe. He bids Zuleika kneel
at his feet and sing him to his rest. The girl glances eagerly towards
the window, and seems to listen; she dare not move at once to the
casement and look out, for her lord is mistrustful and suspicious, and
woe to her if she excites his jealousy to such a pitch that she cannot
lull it to sleep again. She would give him an opiate if she dared, or
something stronger still, that should settle all accounts; but there is
a dark story in the harem of a former favourite--a Circassian--who tried
to strike the same path for freedom, and failed in the attempt. She has
long slept peacefully some forty fathom deep in the sparkling Bosphorus,
and the caiques that take her former comrades to the Sweet-Waters glide
along over her head without disturbing her repose. Since then, whenever
Papoosh Pasha drinks in the women's apartment, he has the gallantry to
insist on a lady pledging him first before he puts his own fat lips to
the bowl.
"Come hither, Zuleika, little dove," says the old man, drawing her
towards him; "light of my eyes and pearl of my heart, come hither that I
may lay my head on thy bosom, and sleep to the soft murmurings of thy
gentle voice."
The girl obeys, but glances once more uneasily towards the window, and
takes her place with compressed lips, and cheeks as pale as death. A
long Albanian dagger, the spoil of some lawless chief, hangs temptingly
within arm's length. Another such caress as that, Papoosh Pasha, and
who shall ensure you that she does not bury it in your heart!
But a more feminine weapon is in her hand--a three-stringed lute or
gittern, incapable of producing much harmony, but nevertheless affording
a plaintive and not inappropriate accompaniment to the measured chant
with which the reigning Odalisque lulls her master to his rest. The
tones of her voice are very wild and sad. Ever and anon she stops in
her music and listens to the breathing of the Pasha; so surely he opens
his eyes, and raising his head from her lap bids her go on,--not angrily
nor petulantly, but with a quiet overbearing malice that irritates the
free spirit of the girl to the quick. She strikes the gittern with no
unskilful hand; and although her voice is mournful, it is sweet and
musical as she sings; but the glance of her eye denotes mischief, and I
had rather be sleeping over a powder magazine with my lighted chibouque
in my mouth, than pillow my head, as you are doing, Papoosh Pasha, on
the lap of a woman maddened by tyranny and imprisonment,--her whole
being filled with but two feelings--Love stronger than death; Hatred
fiercer than hell. And this is the caged bird's song:--
Down in the valley where the Sweet-Waters meet--where the Sweet-Waters
meet under the chestnut trees,--
There Hamed had a garden; and the wild bird sang to the Rose.
In the garden were many flowers, and the pomegranate grew in the midst.
Fair and stately she grew, and the fruit from her branches dropped like
dew upon the sward.
And Hamed watered the tree and pruned her, and lay down in the cool
freshness of her shade.
Beautiful was the pomegranate, yet the wild bird sang to the Rose.
The Lily bent lowly to the earth, and drooped for very shame, because
the breeze courted the Lily and kissed her as he swept by to meet the
Sweet-Waters under the chestnut trees.
For the Lily was the fairest of flowers; yet the wild bird sang to the
Rose.
Then there came a blast from the desert, and the garden of Hamed was
scorched and withered up;
And the pomegranate sickened and died; and Hamed cut her down by the
roots, and sowed corn over the place of her shade.
And the breeze swept on, and stayed not, though the Lily lay trampled
into the earth.
Every flower sickened and died; yet the wild bird sang to the Rose.
In the dawn of early morning, when the sky is green with longing, and
the day is at hand,
When the winds are hushed, and the waters sleep smiling, and the stars
are dim in the sky:
When she pines for his coming, and spreads her petals to meet him, and
droops to hear his note;
When the garden gate is open, and the watchers are asleep, and the last,
_last_ hope is dying,--will the wild bird come to the Rose?
The concluding lines she sang in a marked voice there was no mistaking,
and I doubt if they did not thrill to the heart's core of more than one
listener.
The moon had now fairly risen, and silvered the trees and shrubs in the
harem garden with her light, leaving, however, dense masses of shade
athwart the smooth lawn and under the walls of the building. Cypress
and cedar quivered in her beams. Not a breath of air stirred the
feathery leaves of the tall acacia, with its glistening stem; and the
swelling ripple of the Bosphorus plashed drowsily against the marble
steps. All was peace and silence and repose. Far enough off to elude
observation, yet within hail, lay our caique, poised buoyantly on the
waters, and cutting with its dark outline right athwart a glittering
pathway as of molten gold. Close under the harem window, concealed by
the thick foliage of a broad-leaved creeper, Ali Mesrour and myself
crouched, silent and anxious, scarce daring to breathe, counting with
sickening eagerness the precious moments that were fleeting by, so
tedious yet so soon past. Twenty paces farther off, under a dark group
of cypresses, lay Ropsley and Manners ready for action, the latter with
his hand in his bosom caressing the trusty revolver by which he set such
store.
Everything had as yet gone off prosperously. We had landed noiseless
and unobserved. The garden gate, thanks to woman's foresight and
woman's cunning, had been left open. The sentry on guard, like all
other Turkish sentries when not before an enemy, had lain down,
enveloped in his great-coat, with his musket by his side, and was
snoring as only a true son of Osman can snore after a bellyful of
_pilaff_. If his lord would but follow his example, it might be done;
yet never was old man so restless, so ill at ease, so wakefully disposed
as seemed Papoosh Pasha.
We could see right into the apartment, and the rich soft lamplight
brought out in full relief the faces and figures of its two occupants.
Zuleika sat with her feet gathered under her on the divan: one hand
still held the lute; the other was unwillingly consigned to the caresses
of her lord. The old man's head reclined against her bosom; his parted
lips betokened rest and enjoyment; his eyes were half closed, yet there
was a gleam of vigilant malice upon his features that denoted anything
but sleep. The poor girl's face alternated from a scowl of withering
hatred to a plaintive expression of heart-broken disappointment.
Doubtless she was thinking "the last, _last_ hope is dying, and the wild
bird is not coming to the rose."
Ali Mesrour gazed on her he loved. If ever there was a trying
situation, it was his--to see her even now in the very embrace of his
enemy--so near, yet so apart. Few men could have enough preserved their
self-command not to betray even by the workings of the countenance what
a storm of feelings must be wasting the heart; yet the Beloochee moved
not a muscle; his profile, turned towards me, was calm and grim as that
of a statue. Once only the right hand crept stealthily towards his
dagger, but the next moment he was again as still as death. The Pasha
whispered something in the girl's ear, and a gleam of wild delight
sparkled on her face as she listened. She rose cheerfully, left the
room with a rapid, springing step, and returned almost immediately with
a flask under her arm, and a huge goblet set with precious stones in her
hand. Papoosh Pasha, true believer and faithful servant of the Prophet,
it needs not the aid of a metal-covered cork, secured with wire, to
enable us to guess at the contents of that Frankish flask. No sherbet
of roses is poured into your brimming goblet--no harmless, unfermented
liquor, flavoured with cinnamon or other lawful condiment; but the
creaming flood of amber-coloured champagne whirls up to the very margin,
and the Pasha's eye brightens with satisfaction as he stretches forth
his hand to grasp its taper stem. Cunning and careful though, even in
his debauches, he proffers the cup to Zuleika ere he tastes.
"Drink, my child," says the old hypocrite, "drink of the liquid such as
the houris are keeping in Paradise for the souls of the true believers;
drink and fear not--it is lawful. _Allah Kerim_!"
Zuleika wets her lips on the edge, and hands the cup to her lord, who
drains it to the dregs, and sets it down with a sigh of intense
satisfaction.
"It is lawful," he continues, wiping his moustaches. "It is not
forbidden by the blessed Prophet. Wine indeed is prohibited to the true
believer, but the Prophet knew not the flavour of champagne, and had he
tasted it, he would have enjoined his servants to drink it four times a
day. Fill again, Zuleika, oh my soul! Fill again! There is but one
Allah!"
The girl needs no second bidding; once and again she fills to the brim;
once and again the Pasha drains the tempting draught; and now the little
twinkling eye dims, the cherry-stick falls from the opening fingers, the
Pasha's head sinks upon Zuleika's bosom, and at last he is fast asleep.
Gently, tenderly, like a mother soothing a child, she hushes him to his
rest. Stealthily, slowly she transfers his head from her own breast to
the embroidered cushions. Dexterously, noiselessly, see extricates
herself from his embrace. A low whistle, scarcely perceptible, reaches
her ear from the garden, and calls the blood into her cheek; and yet, a
very woman even now, she turns to take one last look at him whom she is
leaving for ever. A cool air steals in from the window, and plays upon
the sleeper's open neck and throat. She draws a shawl carefully, nay,
caressingly, around him. Brute, tyrant, enemy though he is, yet there
have been moments when he was kindly and indulgent towards her, for she
was his favourite; and she will not leave him in anger at the last.
Fatal delay! mistaken tenderness! true woman! always influenced by her
feelings at the wrong time! What did that moment's weakness cost us
all? She had crossed the room--we were ready to receive her--her foot
was on the very window-sill; another moment and she would have been in
Ali's arms, when a footstep was heard rapidly approaching up the street,
a black figure came bounding over the garden wall, closely followed by a
large English retriever, and shouting an alarm wildly at the top of his
voice. As the confused sentry fired off his musket in the air; as the
Pasha's guards and retainers woke and sprang to their arms; as the
Beloochee glared wildly around him; as Ropsley, no longer uninterested,
swore volubly in English, and Manners drew the revolver from his bosom,
Bold, for the second time that day, pinned a tall negro slave by the
throat, and rolling him over and over on the sward, made as though he
would have worried him to death in the garden.
It was, however, too late; the alarm was given, and all was discovered.
The man I had struck in the afternoon of that very day had dogged me
ever since, in hopes of an opportunity to revenge himself. He had
followed me from place to place, overheard my conversation, and watched
all those to whom I spoke. He had crouched under the sentry-box at the
door of Messirie's hotel, had tracked us at a safe distance down to the
very water's edge, and had seen us embark on our mysterious expedition.
With the cunning of his race, he guessed at once at our object, and
determined to frustrate it. Unable, I conclude, at that late hour to
get a caique, he had hastened by land to his master's house, and, as the
event turned out, had arrived in time to overthrow all our plans. He was
followed in his turn by my faithful Bold, who, when so peremptorily
ordered to leave us, had been convinced there was something in the wind,
and accordingly transferred his attentions to the figure that had been
his object of distrust the live-long day. How he worried and tore at
him, and refused to relinquish his hold. Alas! alas! it was too
late--too late!
The Pasha sprang like a lion from his lair. At the same instant, Ali
Mesrour and myself bounded lightly through the open window into the
apartment. Zuleika flung herself with a loud shriek into her lover's
arms. Manners and Ropsley came crowding in behind us, the former's
revolver gleaming ominously in the light. The Pasha was surrounded by
his enemies, but he never faltered for an instant. Hurrying feet and
the clash of arms resounded along the passages; lights were already
twinkling in the garden; aid was at hand, and, Turk, tyrant, voluptuary
though he was, he lacked not the courage, the promptitude which aids
itself. At a glance he must have recognised Ali; or it might have been
but the instinct of his nation which bid him defend his women. Quick as
thought, he seized a pistol that hung above his couch, and discharged it
point-blank at the Beloochee's body. The bullet sped past Zuleika's head
and lodged deep in her lover's bosom. At the same instant that Ropsley,
always cool and collected in an emergency, dashed down both the lamps,
Ali's body lurched heavily into my arms, and poor Zuleika fell senseless
on the floor.
The next moment a glare of light filled the apartment. Crowds of slaves,
black and white, all armed to the teeth, rushed in to the rescue. The
Pasha, perfectly composed, ordered them to seize and make us prisoners.
Encumbered by the Beloochee's weight, and outnumbered ten to one, we
were put to it to make good our retreat, and ere we could close round
her and carry her off, two stout negroes had borne the still senseless
Zuleika through the open doorway into the inner chambers of the palace.
Placing the Beloochee between myself and Ropsley, we backed leisurely
into the garden, the poor fellow groaning heavily as we handed him
through the casement, and so made our way, still fronting the Pasha and
his myrmidons, towards our caique, which at the first signal of
disturbance had been pulled rapidly in shore. Manners covered our
retreat with great steadiness and gallantry, keeping the enemy at bay
with his revolver, a weapon with which one and all showed much
disinclination to make further acquaintance. By this time shrieks of
women pervaded the palace. The blacks, too, jabbered and gesticulated
with considerably more energy than purpose, half-a-dozen pistol shots
fired at random served to increase the general confusion, which even
their lord's presence and authority were completely powerless to quell,
and thus we were enabled to reach our boat, and shove off with our
ghastly freight into the comparative safety of the Bosphorus.
"He will never want a doctor more," said Ropsley, in answer to an
observation from Manners, as, turning down the edge of the Beloochee's
jacket, he showed us the round livid mark that, to a practised eye, told
too surely of the irremediable death-wound. "Poor fellow, poor fellow,"
he added, "he is bleeding inwardly now, he will be dead before we reach
the bridge."
Ali opened his eyes, and raising his head, looked around as though in
search of some missing face.
"Zuleika," he whispered, "Zuleika!" and sank back again with a piteous
expression of hopeless, helpless misery on his wan and ghastly features.
The end was obviously near at hand, his cheeks seemed to have fallen in
the last few minutes, dark circles gathered round his eyes, his forehead
was damp and clammy, and there was a light froth upon his ashy lips.
Yet as death approached he seemed to recover strength and consciousness;
a true Mussulman, the grave had for him but few terrors, and he had
confronted the grim monarch so often as not to wince from him at last
when really within his grasp.
He reared himself in the boat, and supported by my arm, which was wound
round his body, made shift to sit upright and look about him, wildly,
dreamily, as one who looks for the last time. "Effendi," he gasped,
pressing my hand, "Effendi, it is destiny. The good mare--she is my
brother's! Oh, Zuleika! Zuleika!"
A strong shudder convulsed his frame, his jaw dropped, I thought he was
gone, but he recovered consciousness once more, snatched wildly at his
sword, which he half drew, and whispering faintly, "Turn me to the East!
There is but one Allah!" his limbs collapsed--his head sunk upon my
shoulder--and so he died.
Row gently, brawny watermen, though your freight is indeed but the shell
which contained even now a gallant, faithful spirit. One short hour
ago, who so determined, so brave, so sagacious as the Beloochee warrior?
and where is he now? That is not Ali Mesrour whom you are wafting so
sadly, so smoothly towards the shore. Ali Mesrour is far away in space,
in the material Paradise of your own creed, with its inexhaustible
sherbets, and its cool gardens, and its dark-eyed maidens waving their
green scarfs to greet the long-expected lover; or to the unknown region,
the shadowy spirit-land of a loftier, nobler faith, the mystical world
on which Religion herself dare hardly speculate, where "the tree shall
be known by its fruits," "where the wicked cease from troubling, and the
weary are at rest."
So we carried him reverently and mournfully to the house he had
occupied; and we laid him out in his warrior dress, with his arms by his
side and his lance in his hand, and ere the morrow's sun was midway in
the heavens, the earth had closed over him in his last resting-place,
where the dark cypresses are nodding and whispering over his tomb, and
the breeze steals gently up from the golden Bosphorus, smiling and
radiant, within a hundred paces of his grave.
The good bay mare has never left my possession. For months she was
restless and uncomfortable, neighing at every strange step, and refusing
her food, as if she pined truly and faithfully for her master. He came
not, and after a time she forgot him; and another hand fed and cared for
her, and she grew sleek and fat and light-hearted. What would you? It
is a world of change. Men and women, friends and favourites, lovers and
beloved, all must forget and float with the stream and hurry on; if
there be an exception--if some pale-eyed mourner, clinging to the bank,
yearns hopelessly for the irrevocable Past, what matter, so the stream
can eddy round him, and laugh and ripple by? Let him alone! he is not
one of us. God forbid!
Of Zuleika's fate I shudder to think. Though I might well guess she
could never expect to be forgiven, it was long before surmise approached
certainty, and even now I strive to hope against hope, to persuade
myself that there may still be a chance. At least I am thankful Ali was
spared the ghastly tidings that eventually came to my ears--a tale that
escaped the lips of a drunken caigee, and in which I fear there is too
much truth.
Of course the attack on the Pasha's palace created much scandal
throughout Constantinople; and equally of course, a thousand rumours
gained credence as to the origin and object of the disturbance. The
English officers concerned received a hint that it would be advisable to
get out of the way as speedily as possible; and I was compelled to
absent myself for a time from my kind friend and patron, Omar Pasha.
One person set the whole thing down as a drunken frolic; another voted
it an attempt at burglary of the most ruffian-like description; and the
Turks themselves seemed inclined to resent it as a gratuitous insult to
their prejudices and customs. A stalwart caigee, however, being,
contrary to his religion and his practice, inebriated with strong drink,
let out in his cups that, if he dared, he could tell more than others
knew about the attack on the palace of Papoosh Pasha, and its sequel.
Influenced by a large bribe, and intimidated by threats, he at length
made the following statement:--"That the evening after the attack, about
sun-down, he was plying off the steps of Papoosh Pasha's palace; that he
was hailed by a negro guard, who bade him approach the landing-place;
that two other negroes then appeared, bearing between them a sack,
carefully secured, and obviously containing something weighty; that they
placed it carefully in the bottom of his caique, and that more than once
he distinctly saw it move; that they desired him to pull out into
mid-stream, and when there, dropped the sack overboard; that it sunk
immediately, but that he fancied he heard a faint shriek as it went
down, and saw the bubbles plainly coming up for several seconds at the
place where it disappeared; further, that the negro gave him fifty
piastres over his proper fare for the job, and that he himself had been
uncomfortable and troubled with bad dreams ever since."
Alas, poor Zuleika! there is but little hope that you survived your
lover four-and-twenty hours. The wild bird came, indeed, as he had
promised, in the early morning, to the rose, but the wild bird got his
death-wound; and the rose, I fear, lies many a fathom deep in the clear,
cold waters of the silent Bosphorus.