The Interpreter: A Tale of the War
CHAPTER XXXV.
"THE WOLF AND THE LAMB."
Papoosh Pasha is taking his _kief_[#] in his harem. Two softly shadedlamps, burning perfumed oil, shed a voluptuous light over the apartment.Rich carpets from the looms of Persia are spread upon the floor; costlyshawls from Northern India fall in graceful folds over the low divan onwhich he reclines. Jewel-hilted sabres, silver-sheathed daggers, andfirearms inlaid with gold, glitter above his head, disposed tastefullyagainst the walls, and marking the warlike character of the owner; forPapoosh Pasha, cruel, sensual, and corrupt to the very marrow, isnevertheless as brave as a lion.
[#] Repose.
Two _nautch-girls_ belonging to his seraglio have been dancing theirvoluptuous measure for his gratification. As they stand now unveiled,panting and glowing with their exertions, the rich Eastern bloodcrimsoning their soft cheeks, and coursing wildly through their shapely,pliant limbs, the old man's face assumes a placid expression of contentonly belied by the gleam in that wicked eye, and he is good enough towave his amber-tipped pipe-stick in token of dismissal, and to expresshis approbation by the single word "_Peki_" (very well). The girlsprostrate themselves before their lord, their silver armlets and ankletsringing as they touch the floor, and bounding away like two youngantelopes, flit from the presence, apparently not unwilling to escape soeasily. Papoosh Pasha is left alone with the favourite; but thefavourite looks restless and preoccupied, and glances ever and anontowards the casement which opens out into the garden of the seraglio,now beginning to glisten in the light of the rising moon, and breathingthe odours of a thousand flowers, heavy and fragrant with the dews ofnight. This part of the harem is on the ground floor, and is a retreatmuch affected by his Highness for the facility with which the breezesteals into it from the Bosphorus.
Zuleika is dressed in all the magnificence of her richest Orientalcostume. Her tiny feet, arched in true Arabian symmetry, are bare tothe ankle, where her voluminous muslin trousers are gathered in by abracelet, or more correctly an anklet, set with rubies and emeralds. Astring of beads of the purest lemon-coloured amber marks the outlines ofher slender waist, and terminates a short, close-fitting jacket of pinksatin, embroidered with seed-pearls, open at the bosom, and with longsleeves fringed by lace of European manufacture. This again is coveredby a large loose mantle of _green_ silk, carelessly thrown over thewhole figure. Zuleika has not forgotten that she is lineally descendedfrom the Prophet, and wears his colour accordingly. Her hands, incompliance with Eastern custom, are dyed with _henna_, but even thishorrid practice cannot disguise the symmetry of her tapered fingers; andalthough the hair is cut short on her left temple, the long raven locksfrom the other side are gathered and plaited into a lustrous diademaround her brows. She has pencilled her lower eyelashes with some darksubstance that enhances their natural beauty, but even this effort ofthe toilette has not succeeded in imparting the languishing expressionwhich a Turkish beauty deems so irresistible. No; the gleam inZuleika's eye is more that of some wild animal, caught but not tamedglancing eagerly around for a chance of escape, and ready to tear thehand 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 herto your feet, and stroke her hair with your fat hand, and gloat on thatmournful, eager face with your little twinkling eye. Better be abachelor, Papoosh Pasha, and confine yourself to the solace of coffeeand pipes, and busy your cunning intellect with those puzzling Europeanpolitics, and look after the interests of your dissipated master theSultan, than take a wild bird to your bosom that will never know you orcare for you, or cease to pine and fret, and beat her breast against thebars of the cage in which you have shut her up.
The old man sinks back upon his cushions with a sigh of corporealcontentment. His fat person is enveloped in a flowing shawl-gown, whichadmits of his breathing far more freely than does that miserable tightfrock-coat he wore all day. He has gorged himself with an enormousmeal, chiefly composed of fat substances, vegetables, and sweetmeats.He has had his tiny measure of hot strong coffee, and is puffing forthvolumes of smoke from a long cherry-stick pipe. He bids Zuleika kneelat his feet and sing him to his rest. The girl glances eagerly towardsthe window, and seems to listen; she dare not move at once to thecasement and look out, for her lord is mistrustful and suspicious, andwoe to her if she excites his jealousy to such a pitch that she cannotlull it to sleep again. She would give him an opiate if she dared, orsomething stronger still, that should settle all accounts; but there isa dark story in the harem of a former favourite--a Circassian--who triedto strike the same path for freedom, and failed in the attempt. She haslong slept peacefully some forty fathom deep in the sparkling Bosphorus,and the caiques that take her former comrades to the Sweet-Waters glidealong over her head without disturbing her repose. Since then, wheneverPapoosh Pasha drinks in the women's apartment, he has the gallantry toinsist on a lady pledging him first before he puts his own fat lips tothe bowl.
"Come hither, Zuleika, little dove," says the old man, drawing hertowards him; "light of my eyes and pearl of my heart, come hither that Imay lay my head on thy bosom, and sleep to the soft murmurings of thygentle voice."
The girl obeys, but glances once more uneasily towards the window, andtakes her place with compressed lips, and cheeks as pale as death. Along Albanian dagger, the spoil of some lawless chief, hangs temptinglywithin arm's length. Another such caress as that, Papoosh Pasha, andwho 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 orgittern, incapable of producing much harmony, but nevertheless affordinga plaintive and not inappropriate accompaniment to the measured chantwith which the reigning Odalisque lulls her master to his rest. Thetones of her voice are very wild and sad. Ever and anon she stops inher music and listens to the breathing of the Pasha; so surely he openshis eyes, and raising his head from her lap bids her go on,--not angrilynor petulantly, but with a quiet overbearing malice that irritates thefree spirit of the girl to the quick. She strikes the gittern with nounskilful hand; and although her voice is mournful, it is sweet andmusical as she sings; but the glance of her eye denotes mischief, and Ihad rather be sleeping over a powder magazine with my lighted chibouquein my mouth, than pillow my head, as you are doing, Papoosh Pasha, onthe lap of a woman maddened by tyranny and imprisonment,--her wholebeing filled with but two feelings--Love stronger than death; Hatredfiercer than hell. And this is the caged bird's song:--
Down in the valley where the Sweet-Waters meet--where the Sweet-Watersmeet 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 likedew upon the sward.
And Hamed watered the tree and pruned her, and lay down in the coolfreshness 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, becausethe breeze courted the Lily and kissed her as he swept by to meet theSweet-Waters under the chestnut trees.
For the Lily was the fairest of flowers; yet the wild bird sang to theRose.
Then there came a blast from the desert, and the garden of Hamed wasscorched and withered up;
And the pomegranate sickened and died; and Hamed cut her down by theroots, and sowed corn over the place of her shade.
And the breeze swept on, and stayed not, though the Lily lay trampledinto 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, andthe day is at hand,
When the winds are hushed, and the waters sleep smiling, and the starsare dim in the sky:
When she pines for his coming, and spreads her petals to meet him, anddroops 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 onelistener.
The moon had now fairly risen, and silvered the trees and shrubs in theharem garden with her light, leaving, however, dense masses of shadeathwart the smooth lawn and under the walls of the building. Cypressand cedar quivered in her beams. Not a breath of air stirred thefeathery leaves of the tall acacia, with its glistening stem; and theswelling ripple of the Bosphorus plashed drowsily against the marblesteps. All was peace and silence and repose. Far enough off to eludeobservation, yet within hail, lay our caique, poised buoyantly on thewaters, and cutting with its dark outline right athwart a glitteringpathway as of molten gold. Close under the harem window, concealed bythe thick foliage of a broad-leaved creeper, Ali Mesrour and myselfcrouched, silent and anxious, scarce daring to breathe, counting withsickening eagerness the precious moments that were fleeting by, sotedious yet so soon past. Twenty paces farther off, under a dark groupof cypresses, lay Ropsley and Manners ready for action, the latter withhis hand in his bosom caressing the trusty revolver by which he set suchstore.
Everything had as yet gone off prosperously. We had landed noiselessand unobserved. The garden gate, thanks to woman's foresight andwoman's cunning, had been left open. The sentry on guard, like allother Turkish sentries when not before an enemy, had lain down,enveloped in his great-coat, with his musket by his side, and wassnoring 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 disposedas seemed Papoosh Pasha.
We could see right into the apartment, and the rich soft lamplightbrought out in full relief the faces and figures of its two occupants.Zuleika sat with her feet gathered under her on the divan: one handstill held the lute; the other was unwillingly consigned to the caressesof her lord. The old man's head reclined against her bosom; his partedlips betokened rest and enjoyment; his eyes were half closed, yet therewas a gleam of vigilant malice upon his features that denoted anythingbut sleep. The poor girl's face alternated from a scowl of witheringhatred to a plaintive expression of heart-broken disappointment.Doubtless she was thinking "the last, _last_ hope is dying, and the wildbird is not coming to the rose."
Ali Mesrour gazed on her he loved. If ever there was a tryingsituation, it was his--to see her even now in the very embrace of hisenemy--so near, yet so apart. Few men could have enough preserved theirself-command not to betray even by the workings of the countenance whata storm of feelings must be wasting the heart; yet the Beloochee movednot a muscle; his profile, turned towards me, was calm and grim as thatof a statue. Once only the right hand crept stealthily towards hisdagger, but the next moment he was again as still as death. The Pashawhispered something in the girl's ear, and a gleam of wild delightsparkled on her face as she listened. She rose cheerfully, left theroom with a rapid, springing step, and returned almost immediately witha flask under her arm, and a huge goblet set with precious stones in herhand. Papoosh Pasha, true believer and faithful servant of the Prophet,it needs not the aid of a metal-covered cork, secured with wire, toenable us to guess at the contents of that Frankish flask. No sherbetof roses is poured into your brimming goblet--no harmless, unfermentedliquor, flavoured with cinnamon or other lawful condiment; but thecreaming flood of amber-coloured champagne whirls up to the very margin,and the Pasha's eye brightens with satisfaction as he stretches forthhis hand to grasp its taper stem. Cunning and careful though, even inhis debauches, he proffers the cup to Zuleika ere he tastes.
"Drink, my child," says the old hypocrite, "drink of the liquid such asthe 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, whodrains it to the dregs, and sets it down with a sigh of intensesatisfaction.
"It is lawful," he continues, wiping his moustaches. "It is notforbidden by the blessed Prophet. Wine indeed is prohibited to the truebeliever, but the Prophet knew not the flavour of champagne, and had hetasted it, he would have enjoined his servants to drink it four times aday. Fill again, Zuleika, oh my soul! Fill again! There is but oneAllah!"
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 littletwinkling eye dims, the cherry-stick falls from the opening fingers, thePasha'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 hisrest. Stealthily, slowly she transfers his head from her own breast tothe embroidered cushions. Dexterously, noiselessly, see extricatesherself from his embrace. A low whistle, scarcely perceptible, reachesher ear from the garden, and calls the blood into her cheek; and yet, avery woman even now, she turns to take one last look at him whom she isleaving for ever. A cool air steals in from the window, and plays uponthe sleeper's open neck and throat. She draws a shawl carefully, nay,caressingly, around him. Brute, tyrant, enemy though he is, yet therehave been moments when he was kindly and indulgent towards her, for shewas his favourite; and she will not leave him in anger at the last.Fatal delay! mistaken tenderness! true woman! always influenced by herfeelings at the wrong time! What did that moment's weakness cost usall? She had crossed the room--we were ready to receive her--her footwas on the very window-sill; another moment and she would have been inAli's arms, when a footstep was heard rapidly approaching up the street,a black figure came bounding over the garden wall, closely followed by alarge English retriever, and shouting an alarm wildly at the top of hisvoice. As the confused sentry fired off his musket in the air; as thePasha's guards and retainers woke and sprang to their arms; as theBeloochee 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 thethroat, and rolling him over and over on the sward, made as though hewould 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 meever since, in hopes of an opportunity to revenge himself. He hadfollowed me from place to place, overheard my conversation, and watchedall those to whom I spoke. He had crouched under the sentry-box at thedoor of Messirie's hotel, had tracked us at a safe distance down to thevery 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, anddetermined to frustrate it. Unable, I conclude, at that late hour toget a caique, he had hastened by land to his master's house, and, as theevent turned out, had arrived in time to overthrow all our plans. He wasfollowed in his turn by my faithful Bold, who, when so peremptorilyordered to leave us, had been convinced there was something in the wind,and accordingly transferred his attentions to the figure that had beenhis object of distrust the live-long day. How he worried and tore athim, and refused to relinquish his hold. Alas! alas! it was toolate--too late!
The Pasha sprang like a lion from his lair. At the same instant, AliMesrour and myself bounded lightly through the open window into theapartment. Zuleika flung herself with a loud shriek into her lover'sarms. Manners and Ropsley came crowding in behind us, the former'srevolver gleaming ominously in the light. The Pasha was surrounded byhis enemies, but he never faltered for an instant. Hurrying feet andthe clash of arms resounded along the passages; lights were alreadytwinkling in the garden; aid was at hand, and, Turk, tyrant, voluptuarythough he was, he lacked not the courage, the promptitude which aidsitself. At a glance he must have recognised Ali; or it might have beenbut the instinct of his nation which bid him defend his women. Quick asthought, he seized a pistol that hung abov
e his couch, and discharged itpoint-blank at the Beloochee's body. The bullet sped past Zuleika's headand 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 senselesson 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. ThePasha, perfectly composed, ordered them to seize and make us prisoners.Encumbered by the Beloochee's weight, and outnumbered ten to one, wewere put to it to make good our retreat, and ere we could close roundher and carry her off, two stout negroes had borne the still senselessZuleika through the open doorway into the inner chambers of the palace.Placing the Beloochee between myself and Ropsley, we backed leisurelyinto the garden, the poor fellow groaning heavily as we handed himthrough the casement, and so made our way, still fronting the Pasha andhis myrmidons, towards our caique, which at the first signal ofdisturbance had been pulled rapidly in shore. Manners covered ourretreat with great steadiness and gallantry, keeping the enemy at baywith his revolver, a weapon with which one and all showed muchdisinclination to make further acquaintance. By this time shrieks ofwomen pervaded the palace. The blacks, too, jabbered and gesticulatedwith considerably more energy than purpose, half-a-dozen pistol shotsfired at random served to increase the general confusion, which eventheir lord's presence and authority were completely powerless to quell,and thus we were enabled to reach our boat, and shove off with ourghastly freight into the comparative safety of the Bosphorus.
"He will never want a doctor more," said Ropsley, in answer to anobservation from Manners, as, turning down the edge of the Beloochee'sjacket, he showed us the round livid mark that, to a practised eye, toldtoo surely of the irremediable death-wound. "Poor fellow, poor fellow,"he added, "he is bleeding inwardly now, he will be dead before we reachthe bridge."
Ali opened his eyes, and raising his head, looked around as though insearch of some missing face.
"Zuleika," he whispered, "Zuleika!" and sank back again with a piteousexpression of hopeless, helpless misery on his wan and ghastly features.The end was obviously near at hand, his cheeks seemed to have fallen inthe last few minutes, dark circles gathered round his eyes, his foreheadwas 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 hadconfronted the grim monarch so often as not to wince from him at lastwhen really within his grasp.
He reared himself in the boat, and supported by my arm, which was woundround 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 mybrother's! Oh, Zuleika! Zuleika!"
A strong shudder convulsed his frame, his jaw dropped, I thought he wasgone, but he recovered consciousness once more, snatched wildly at hissword, which he half drew, and whispering faintly, "Turn me to the East!There is but one Allah!" his limbs collapsed--his head sunk upon myshoulder--and so he died.
Row gently, brawny watermen, though your freight is indeed but the shellwhich contained even now a gallant, faithful spirit. One short hourago, 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 sosadly, so smoothly towards the shore. Ali Mesrour is far away in space,in the material Paradise of your own creed, with its inexhaustiblesherbets, and its cool gardens, and its dark-eyed maidens waving theirgreen scarfs to greet the long-expected lover; or to the unknown region,the shadowy spirit-land of a loftier, nobler faith, the mystical worldon which Religion herself dare hardly speculate, where "the tree shallbe known by its fruits," "where the wicked cease from troubling, and theweary are at rest."
So we carried him reverently and mournfully to the house he hadoccupied; and we laid him out in his warrior dress, with his arms by hisside and his lance in his hand, and ere the morrow's sun was midway inthe heavens, the earth had closed over him in his last resting-place,where the dark cypresses are nodding and whispering over his tomb, andthe breeze steals gently up from the golden Bosphorus, smiling andradiant, within a hundred paces of his grave.
The good bay mare has never left my possession. For months she wasrestless and uncomfortable, neighing at every strange step, and refusingher food, as if she pined truly and faithfully for her master. He camenot, and after a time she forgot him; and another hand fed and cared forher, and she grew sleek and fat and light-hearted. What would you? Itis a world of change. Men and women, friends and favourites, lovers andbeloved, all must forget and float with the stream and hurry on; ifthere be an exception--if some pale-eyed mourner, clinging to the bank,yearns hopelessly for the irrevocable Past, what matter, so the streamcan eddy round him, and laugh and ripple by? Let him alone! he is notone of us. God forbid!
Of Zuleika's fate I shudder to think. Though I might well guess shecould never expect to be forgiven, it was long before surmise approachedcertainty, and even now I strive to hope against hope, to persuademyself that there may still be a chance. At least I am thankful Ali wasspared the ghastly tidings that eventually came to my ears--a tale thatescaped the lips of a drunken caigee, and in which I fear there is toomuch truth.
Of course the attack on the Pasha's palace created much scandalthroughout Constantinople; and equally of course, a thousand rumoursgained credence as to the origin and object of the disturbance. TheEnglish officers concerned received a hint that it would be advisable toget out of the way as speedily as possible; and I was compelled toabsent myself for a time from my kind friend and patron, Omar Pasha.One person set the whole thing down as a drunken frolic; another votedit an attempt at burglary of the most ruffian-like description; and theTurks themselves seemed inclined to resent it as a gratuitous insult totheir 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 othersknew about the attack on the palace of Papoosh Pasha, and its sequel.Influenced by a large bribe, and intimidated by threats, he at lengthmade the following statement:--"That the evening after the attack, aboutsun-down, he was plying off the steps of Papoosh Pasha's palace; that hewas 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 theyplaced it carefully in the bottom of his caique, and that more than oncehe distinctly saw it move; that they desired him to pull out intomid-stream, and when there, dropped the sack overboard; that it sunkimmediately, but that he fancied he heard a faint shriek as it wentdown, and saw the bubbles plainly coming up for several seconds at theplace where it disappeared; further, that the negro gave him fiftypiastres over his proper fare for the job, and that he himself had beenuncomfortable and troubled with bad dreams ever since."
Alas, poor Zuleika! there is but little hope that you survived yourlover four-and-twenty hours. The wild bird came, indeed, as he hadpromised, in the early morning, to the rose, but the wild bird got hisdeath-wound; and the rose, I fear, lies many a fathom deep in the clear,cold waters of the silent Bosphorus.