Shireen and her Friends Part 4

Looking back through the long vista of years, I cannot help thinking that perhaps my mother loved my brother better than me. I am sure she spent more time in licking him, but then I may be wrong, for I was restless, and would at any time rather have romped with mother's tail than submitted to her caresses when they took the shape of licking my face and ears with her tongue. Besides, brother had a black spot on his brow, which mother thought she would succeed in licking off. So she would lick and lick and lick until she fell back tired and exhausted on the cushion of crimson silk that formed our bed.

I did not know then the value that human beings attached to a cushion like this. Nor the value of anything around me.

Everything, brother and I believed, belonged to mother, the whole universe, as far as we had yet seen it, belonged to her, and the slaves that came softly stealing across the thick carpets and placed mother's food before her in dishes of solid gold and silver, were, in our opinion, if we thought about the matter at all, only creatures of common clay that lived and moved and had their beings merely to minister to mother's wants and needs.

I am much wiser now, children, and I can tell you that the splendid apartments where mother lived when we were very young, were furnished with splendour and elegance, unknown to this land of cloudy skies and misty rain.

That silk cushion, children, on which mother lay, was richly embroidered with threads of gold, and ta.s.selled with pearls and precious stones.

The room itself was lofty, and hung everywhere with curtains of rarest value. Great punkahs, moved by invisible hands, depended from the roof, and, waving to and fro, kept us cool. Costly vases and musical instruments stood here and there, and couches of pale-blue silk and silver were ranged along the walls. There was a dim religious light throughout, and from an arched window we could catch glimpses of gardens filled with lovely flowers and fruit, and watered by cool fountains that threw their snow-white spray far up against the blue of the sky. And everywhere the air was laden with the rich and rare odour of orange and citron blooms.

Then on the soft Persian carpets, I was afterwards told, my brother and I used to play with rubies as large as marbles.

"Something to eat?" said d.i.c.k, thoughtfully.

"No, d.i.c.k, a ruby is nothing to eat, but it is something held so sacred by human beings, that one such precious stone would buy all the fine things a man could use in a long, long lifetime."

Now, some weeks after brother and I opened our eyes, we learned to lap milk. It was difficult to do this at first, though we wanted to, because our eyes were not yet strong enough to judge distances, and sometimes when we thought we were licking the milk we were only lapping the air; then when we put our heads further down our noses went into the silver saucer up to the eyes, and we thought we were drowned, and sprang up and sneezed.

While trying one day to lap some milk, we noticed that mother was singing to a very pretty human being, who sat cross-legged upon a low ottoman. Mother was singing, and she was also rubbing her head backwards and forwards against this lovely human creature's bare arm.

Brother and I sat back and looked up in astonishment, although looking up made our heads so light that we nearly tumbled.

"Oh! aren't they funny, funny, funny?" cried a voice. It was that of the beautiful human being.

The words only sounded to us like rippling music then, music such as the birds in their golden cages made, and the spray of the fountain splashing down and falling into its marble basin. But mother afterwards translated the language to us.

Day after day now this human being sat there cross-legged on the ottoman, and we soon began to like her as much as mother did.

She was very young and very beautiful, her little mouth was a rosebud, her eyes were very large, but jetty black, not blue like mother's. She was dressed in robes of flowing silk of many colours, and when she walked, glittering chains of gold and precious stones jangled and rang.

Beside her often stood a tall and powerful man-human, as dark as night, with fierce red eyes, white flashing teeth, and a girdle around his waist, from which hung an ugly half-moon knife. Brother and I were much afraid of this man-human. He was an ogre, and we ran backwards, raised our hair, and spat aloud at him when he came near us. But the young and lovely lady was not at all afraid of the ogre, but used to play with his knife and tease him.

Mother told us then that we must love the beautiful girl. She was our mistress and our queen.

Well, this would not have made brother and me love the queen one little bit, for we did not want any queen but mother. But the queen was so fond and so gentle, and used to smooth us so tenderly with her white and taper fingers, which were all bedecked with rings and sparkling stones, that we came to love her as much in time as mother seemed to do.

One day we had an adventure that I shall never forget.

Far, in through the open window, sprang a splendid lion-looking cat, just like mother, only bigger and bolder. He advanced to where we all lay with a fond and loving cry; but mother sprang up in a rage. All her hair was raised from end to end, her back was arched, and her eyes flashed like glowing lights.

Brother and I got up and tried to follow her example, but we both tumbled over on the cushion and lay there in most inglorious att.i.tudes.

"Mrrrak, mrr--mrr--mrrk!" That is what father said. Yes, Warlock, I must tell you at once this lion-like cat was our father.

At first mother advanced to meet him growling like a volcano, but he threw himself on his back and behaved in a fashion altogether so ridiculous, and with so many droll att.i.tudes of blandishment, that mother finally softened, all her hair flowed backwards again, and she began to sing. Then she ran back to the cushion and picked my brother up, and, throwing herself on her back, held him high in her arms for father to admire.

"Mrr--wrr--wrr--wurruk!" cried father, and gently tapped brother on the back.

This so pleased mother that she jumped up and ran round and round the room. Then she came back and slapped father with a gloved hand. Then father slapped her and sent her flying half-way across the room. In a moment she sprang up and leapt on top of him, and the two rolled over and over on the carpet in mimic warfare, but so like a real battle was it, that for some time brother and I were very much afraid indeed.

Well, father came nearly every day after this, and he nearly always brought a little bird, warm but dead, and perhaps, with a little spot of blood on its breast. I'm afraid it was sometimes a bulbul, or nightingale, and more than once it was a canary.

But it did not matter to mother one whit. She ate it, feathers and all, except the tail and the wings, growling awfully all the time she was devouring it. Meanwhile father stood aside and seemed so pleased that he did not know what to do with himself.

When she had finished the bird, brother and I had the wings and tail to play with, and we pretended to be mother, and growled like little wild beasts. Then mother would sit down and wash her face. As soon as she had done so she jumped merrily off the cushion and slapped father, and then the fun began.

One day father came into the room looking much more like a lion than ever, and he had something in his mouth.

He was growling, too, and I think mother was half afraid of him. But he came right up to the spot where brother and I were playing with our ruby, and placed a strange and weird-looking creature down right in front of us.

We had never seen such a little animal before. It wasn't a bird, for it had no wings, only feet, and fur as soft as mother's, but dark in colour. It lay on its side, and, dreadfully frightened though we were, brother and I both put up our backs and spat and growled most bravely.

The little vision in fur, which I now know to have been a harmless mouse, lay on its side quite paralysed with fear, but father stretched out his gloved hand and pushed it. Then it jumped up and ran away.

Oh, what a fright brother and I got when we saw that the wild mouse was alive! And how brave we thought father was when he sprang after it and brought it back.

But we soon regained our courage, and father and mother stood aside to see us play with it. Whenever it escaped they brought it back.

At last the poor little morsel, all wet and bedraggled, stood up on its hind legs in front of father, and wagged its two wee naked hands in front of its nose. Mother told me afterwards what it was saying.

"Oh, kill me please," it pleaded. "Kill me quick and put me out of pain."

CHAPTER FOUR.

"YOU MUST HAVE A NAME, MY LOVELY FLOWER."

Hitherto, continued Shireen, shifting her position on the footstool to one of greater comfort, hitherto, my children, the life of brother and myself had been all indoors. We knew of no other world than that bounded by the four walls of the room around us, and it never occurred to me to wonder where our lion-like father obtained the birds which he never forgot to bring mother daily.

_A propos_ of Shireen's father bringing the mother p.u.s.s.y the birds, I have a little anecdote to tell that is not without its humorous side.

Some years ago I possessed a very large and handsome half-Persian white Tom, whom the children called Jujube. This cat, being allowed to roam the world at the freedom of his own will, formed an attachment with a neighbour's lady-cat, and married her. I was not invited to the marriage, so do not know when it took place, nor what speeches were made at the wedding-breakfast. However, in course of time, Mrs G--'s cat was about to have kittens, and, not having any knowledge of how cats should be treated under such circ.u.mstances, she rather cruelly turned her out of doors. It happened at this time that Mrs G--had also twenty-one young chickens. And now they began to disappear at the rate of one every day, and so on for nineteen days.

Her cat had also disappeared, and could not be found. But on the nineteenth day the mystery was explained, for walking in my orchard I happened to look between two tall hedges, and there, on a nest of dry leaves was the mother cat, with five beautiful kittens. Poor Ju had brought her here, had made the warm nest for her, and gone every day back to her old home and brought her a chicken. Ju had evidently reasoned that although Mrs G--had turned her out, she ought to be well-fed at the expense of her mistress. Hence, the robbery of the chicken-roost.

He did not come in through the curtained doorway that led out into the orangery with its fountains and its flowers, but leapt down from a window that was too high for us to reach.

One day, the door leading into the garden was left open, and mother, discovering this, determined to take us out.

If I should live to be as old as Chammy yonder, my children, I shall never forget that morning. We followed mother timidly, fearfully, and on rather shaky legs I must admit, for we were not yet very strong.

And every time a leaf fell, or went fluttering past us we started and trembled, nay, I am not sure we did not even start at our own shadows in the strong sunlight.

We gathered a little more confidence at last, but everything was so new and so strange and so unaccountable that it seemed like walking in a dream. I looked up for a moment at the sun, but quickly withdrew my gaze; then all was suddenly dark around me. I thought the earth had opened and swallowed us all up, and mewed in terror. But things soon became light once more, mother licked the top of my head, and on we went, now with more confidence.

There were birds singing here, and flitting to and fro through the spray of the gurgling fountains; light and colour and beauty were everywhere.

Then the air was strong and fresh and balmy, and, oh, so delightfully warm, that we soon felt perfectly at home, and bold enough even to chase the fluttering leaves.

But for all this we would not venture far away from mother. And when at last we were tired of romping, and our beautiful mother went trotting back into the room again, we were all glad enough to follow. What with the exceeding brightness of the sun out of doors, we could not see anything at all when we went inside. Night seemed to have descended and enveloped us all in its darksome folds. But mother, wiser than we, led us back to our cushion, and no sooner did we lie down than we fell into a sound and dreamless slumber.

So ended our first outing.