Shireen and her Friends Part 5

It became a regular thing now, however, this walk in the garden, and seeing we enjoyed it so much, our mistress and queen, whom the tall, black, red-eyed savage called Beebee, took us out to revel among the sunshine and the flowers every day; and every day brother and I seemed to grow stronger and bigger.

I began to love Beebee very much too, and it was she who named me Shireen.

Yes, Warlock, it is a strange name, and so would yours appear to the people of Persia.

But one day, Beebee took me on her lap, and told me why she had named me Shireen. "You must have a name, my lovely flower," she said, in her sweet child voice, "so it shall be Shireen. For know ye, that this was the name held by the wife of a very great king and lord of Persia, who lived ages and ages and ages ago, when this lovely land was even greater than it is now."

I fear, my children, that I did not pay very much heed to all Beebee was telling me, for I was very much taken up with a string of pearls and rubies that she wore around her beautiful arm just above the elbow, and all the time she was speaking, I was chewing at it. But mother listened and told me the tale of the Queen Shireen over again when we were all by ourselves.

"I remember it," said a voice which wasn't Warlock's. It was a voice that seemed to come from the clouds, and a strange, sepulchral tone it had. "Yes, I remember it. Just wait till I get down the chimney."

To say that every member of that circle of old friends round the fire was startled would be a poor way of describing the general consternation.

A strange voice coming down the chimney! A weird, sepulchral voice!

And the owner of that voice was going to follow it. He, she, or it, was coming down the chimney!

Would the lights burn blue when the ghostly thing--the dread apparition appeared?

"Eh? eh?" cried the starling. "What is it? What is it? Tse, tse, tse!" [These were favourite expressions of my starling.]

Tabby's hair stood on end from tail to crown. Vee-Vee's hair would have followed suit, only a Pomeranian's hair is always on end, and fright even couldn't fix it a bit higher. Shireen herself, being slightly imbued with superst.i.tion, confessed afterwards that she felt a trifle uneasy as she gazed at the chimney and waited.

The only really brave individual in the whole circle was Warlock. There was nothing belonging to this world, or even to a much worse world than ours, that could have frightened Warlock. So he sprang up, faced the fire, and barked.

"Don't be alarmed, any of you," said the voice in the chimney. "It's only me. I'm coming down to tell you the story of Shireen, Queen of Persia. Bless you, I remember her. It's only a matter of a thousand and a half years--"

Here the creature was seized apparently with a fit of coughing, and next moment he, she, or it, landed all in a heap close to Shireen's footstool.

It was only Chammy after all, and everybody felt so relieved.

"I daresay," he explained, "I've changed colour a bit. Nothing unusual in a chameleon changing colour, is there, Shireen, my furry dear?"

"No, Chammy, and you really have changed colour. Why, you are as black as a sweep. Whatever made you creep up the chimney?"

I may observe here, parenthetically, that Chammy was sometimes found in the queerest places. You see, he had the run of the room, and made strange use of it at times.

Once, for example, he disappeared for a whole week, and was found at last hiding behind a large cobweb in Colonel Clarkson's study. The Colonel was a humane sort of man, you must know, and this particular cobweb belonged to his pet spider, and was never touched. Oh, no, Chammy had not eaten the spider; Chammy knew better than that. The fact is, he had been studying that pet spider for weeks perhaps before he carried his scheme into execution.

I notice he must have said to himself, "That that big spider never wants plenty of flies, and that she repairs her web, after it has been broken by a blue-bottle fly, overnight, and has it nice and new and fresh next morning fit for another day's sport. Well, why should she have all the blue-bottles? The blue-bottles are as much mine as hers. Now, _I_ can't build a web and catch them, but I can sit snugly enough near hers, and when a blue-bottle comes I can just touch him off. That sort of life will suit me far better than catching my own flies, for I'm not so young as I used to be a thousand years ago."

Another time Chammy had been away a whole month, after partaking of about five-and-twenty mealworms. The Colonel felt sure he would never see his droll favourite again; but one day he told the servant to put a little fire in his study, and half an hour after that, Chammy was found sitting on the fender, holding up his fingers and palms to woo the welcome blaze.

In the sweet summer-time, Chammy was taken out of doors and allowed to crawl on a grizzled old apple tree that grew near to the study window.

This used to please Chammy very much, and he stalked flies with unerring skill, and had plenty of exercise at the same time. The strange point of the story is this: the tree was for the most part grey and gnarled, so was Chammy, and a fly would often alight right in front of him. Out would go Chammy's tongue, slowly and steadily at first, then--pop! and the fly would wonder where in all the world he had got to. But there were large patches of green moss on the apple tree, and Chammy dearly loved these because they were warm and soft for his feet; but when resting on one, he took the precaution to change colour to a beautiful sea-green, and so the flies got licked in just the same. Well, one evening, when Colonel Clarkson went to fetch Chammy in, he couldn't find him high nor low; he looked on the grey and gnarled parts of the tree, and he carefully examined the patches of moss, and he even focussed his lorgnettes and scanned the tree up and down; but no Chammy was to be seen, green or grey. So the Colonel put up his gla.s.ses with a sigh, saying to himself, "Some vagrant cat has no doubt taken my poor pet away."

Weeks flew by, and one evening while the kindly old soldier sat alone with his wife in the drawing-room, both very still, because they were reading and the children were away in the woods, lo! the cottage piano in the corner suddenly began to play.

Colonel Clarkson looked at his wife and his wife looked at the Colonel.

Both, I think, were a little frightened, for when they glanced towards the piano there was n.o.body there.

But the ghostly music continued. It was strange, it was unaccountable and wonderful! The music was all on the descending scale, and chords were struck chiefly fifths. But the keys of the piano did not move, and the notes sounded far away. Presently the performance was concluded with a series of groans emitted by the ba.s.s strings.

"I have it," the Colonel cried, "it is Chammy. Dear old Chammy."

Me jumped up and opened the instrument wide, and there sure enough was the chameleon. He had been asleep in there for three weeks or more, and had awakened hungry and lively--poor Chammy.

"Whatever made you get up the chimney, Chammy?" said Shireen again.

"Just to find a cosy corner," replied the chameleon, "for lor', bless your pretty face, Shireen, now that the days are getting shorter, my poor old toes do be that wondrous cold sometimes, you wouldn't believe."

"But you wanted to hear the story of Queen Shireen, didn't you?"

"Yes, Chammy, if you won't take long to tell it."

"Oh, not more'n a hundred years or so. Time is nothing to me, you know."

But time was a good deal to these old friends around the fire, so it ended after all in Chammy climbing up into his perch again, and apparently going to sleep there, with his droll eyes open, and Shireen herself having to tell the story.

CHAPTER FIVE.

CHOSROES AND HIS QUEEN SHIREEN.

Though Chammy talks about having been up in those days, said Shireen, when everybody was once more comfortably settled in his place, I don't really believe it, you know. For I think Chammy falls asleep and dreams things. Besides, Queen Shireen lived far longer ago than one thousand years. More nearly thirteen hundred years ago, my dear mistress Beebee told me. [Chosroes Parveez commenced his second reign Anno Domini 591.]

"You must know, dear Shireen," Beebee said as she smoothed my back and brow, "that in olden times Persia was a far grander country, and far more rich and warlike than it is now, and old King Chosroes the First, the grandfather of Shireen's husband, reigned for fifty years in Persia, his wonderful palace being at Ctesiphon."

"Tse, tse, tse!" interrupted d.i.c.k.

Yes, d.i.c.k, said Shireen, I daresay you find that a hard word to remember. Well, the acts of Chosroes during the closing years of his long life are wonderful, for he not only expelled the Turkish hordes that had deigned to cross the Persian frontiers, but led an army against the greatest fortress that the Romans had in the south-east, and after tremendous fighting, that lasted for nearly six months, he captured it, and compelled the enemy to pay an indemnity of forty thousand pieces of gold.

I relate this story with conscious pride, my children, because, remember, I am a soldier's cat.

Well, Warlock, I daresay there were no Scotch terriers in those days, for while Persia was in the height of its glory, Britain was inhabited by a race, or rather many races, who knew very little indeed of civilisation. Don't be angry, Warlock. Well, children, the old king was succeeded by his son, Hormazd, who celebrated his coronation by putting all his brothers to death. This was certainly not very humane, but it was the common practice in those days, and it probably saved the reigning king's life, for poisoned cups and daggers were much used in olden times as an easy way of securing accession to estates and thrones.

[The author begs to say that he believes Shireen may be wrong about the Scotch terriers, for in a hotel in Surrey there is a beautiful engraving of a picture by one of the old masters--he can't say which old master-- called "Noah alighting from the Ark." Well, Noah is surrounded by his family, and accompanied by two Scotch collie dogs, good enough to win a prize anywhere. Question: If there were Scotch collies, why not Scotch terriers?]

Nevertheless this new king was tolerant of Christianity, and this itself speaks in his favour. However, he committed one mistake, and this cost him his throne; for one of his greatest generals happening to lose a battle, as any general might once in a way, he degraded him by sending him the dress and the distaff of an old woman. "Wear these, general,"

was the message that accompanied the gift. "Give up war now and take to spinning."

Now this general was the hero of a hundred fights, so he now swore revenge, and marched with an army against the king's capital. This was the beginning of the end of Hormazd's reign. The end itself soon came, and a terrible one it was. The army that Hormazd sent against the general mutinied. Then the maternal uncle of Chosroes, the son of the king, arose and threw Hormazd into prison. A prison in those days was a vile and slimy dark dungeon, alive with vermin of every description. It was soon darker still for poor Hormazd, because men came at night and blinded him with red-hot wires. Death was surely a relief to him after this. And it soon came. He was murdered, and his son reigned in his stead.

It has been said that Chosroes the Second had had some hand in his father's death, but Beebee, my mistress, did not believe this, neither must we. We should be charitable. Besides, I don't think that if Chosroes had given orders for his father's execution, that he would have condemned his uncle to death as soon as he mounted the throne.

But Chosroes the Second became a very great king, or shah, though in the end, very unfortunate.

For my own part, continued Shireen after a little pause, I would rather have been a cat than a king in those days. It does seem very sad that although Chosroes the Second was a great conqueror, and expelled the fighting power of Rome from both Asia and Africa, that although he elevated his own country to perhaps the highest rank it had ever held, he should have lived to see Persia ruined. He himself was thrown into prison. Oh! the pity of it, children; and his favourite sons and daughters brought in and murdered before his face.

Shireen, his queen, was the one only wife he had ever loved.