The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan Part 16

?Ah!? said the ked khoda, ?money, money! where are we to procure money?

Our women, when they get a piece, bore a hole through it, and hang it about their necks by way of ornament; and if we, after a life of hard toil, can sc.r.a.pe up some fifty tomauns, we bury them in the earth, and they give us more anxiety than if we possessed the mountain of light.?[73] Then approaching to put his mouth to my ear, he whispered with great earnestness, ?You are a Mussulman, in fine, and no a.s.s.

You do not conceive that we will go into the lion?s mouth if it can be avoided; tell me (pointing to my companion) how much will he be contented with? Can I offer him five tomauns, and a pair of crimson _shalwars_ (trowsers)??

?What do I know,? said I, ?what will satisfy him? All I can say is, that he possesses not a grain of commiseration: make the tomauns ten, and the trowsers a coat, and I will endeavour to make him accept them.?

?Oh, that is too much,? said the old man; ?our whole village is not worth that sum. Satisfy him with the five and the trowsers, and our grat.i.tude will be shown, by a present for yourself that will astonish you.?

Upon this our conference broke off, and I was as anxious to hear what had taken up my companion, as he was impatient to learn the result of my whisperings with the ked khoda. Comparing notes, we found that both the old villagers had been endeavouring to ascertain what might be our respective prices. I a.s.sured Shir Ali that I had given him out for the veriest crucible in Persia, saying, that he could digest more gold than an ostrich could iron, and was withal so proud, that he rejected units as totally unworthy of notice, and never took less than tens.

?Well said,? answered Shir Ali; ?and I told my old negotiator, that unless you were handsomely paid, you were equal to any violence, notwithstanding your silence and quiet looks.?

At length, after some delay, the whole party came forward again, headed by the ked khoda, who, bringing an ostensible present of apples, pears, a pot of honey, and some new cheese, begged my companion to accept it, in terms usually made on such occasions. When it had been spread before us, in an undertone of voice the ked khoda made his offer of five tomauns and the trousers, and talked of his misery and that of his village in a manner which would have melted any breast but that of Shir Ali.

We agreed at once to reject the present, and ordered it to be taken from before us. This produced considerable dismay among the poor people, and they walked off with their trays of fruit, etc., on their heads, with slow and sorrowful steps.

In about half an hour they appeared again, the ked khoda having previously ascertained that if he came with the ten tomauns and a coat, the present would be accepted. When we had eaten thereof, Shir Ali Beg having pocketed his gold and secured his coat, I began to look for that something for myself which was to astonish me: nothing, however, was produced, notwithstanding certain significant winks and blinks with which the ked khoda ever and anon kept me in play.

?Where is it?? said I to him at last, quite out of patience. ?What is it? how much??

?It is coming,? said he; ?have a little patience; it is not yet quite prepared.?

At length, after some waiting, with great parade, the pair of trowsers, which had been rejected by Shir Ali, were placed before me on a tray, and offered for my acceptance, accompanied by a profusion of fine words.

?What news is this?? exclaimed I: ?do you know, ye men without shame!? addressing myself to those who stood before me, ?that I am an executioner,--one who can burn your fathers, and can give you more grief to devour than you have ever yet experienced? What mean ye by bringing me this pair of frouzy shalwars? That which has pa.s.sed through many generations of your ign.o.ble ancestors, do ye now pretend to put off upon me? Fools indeed you must be, to suppose that I will espouse your interests, and set forth your grievances, merely for the sake of this dirty rag! Away with it, or you will see what a nasakchi can do!?

Upon this they were about complying with my orders, when Shir Ali Beg stopped them, and said, ?Let me look at the trousers. Ah,? said he, holding them up at the same time between his eyes and the sun, and examining them with all the care of an old clothes broker, ?they will do; they have no defect: be it so, they are my property, and many thanks for them. May your family prosper!?

Every one looked astonished; no one dared make an objection; and thus I, who had been antic.i.p.ating such great advantages, lost even the miserable perquisite which I might have had, and only gained sufficient experience to know another time how to deal with my countrymen, and, moreover, how to trust one who called himself my friend.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

Fortune, which pretended to frown, in fact smiles upon Hajji Baba, and promotes him to be sub-lieutenant to the chief executioner.

Two fat lambs, which were tied on our baggage mule, were the only present we brought with us for our chief. As soon as we reached the camp, we immediately presented ourselves to the naib, who forthwith carried us before the executioner, who was seated in his tent, in conversation with one or two of his friends.

?Well,? said he to Shir Ali, ?what have you done? Have you brought the corn, or the ked khoda, which??

?I beg leave to state for your service,? said Shir Ali, ?neither. The ked khoda and the elders of Kadj Sawar have sent two lambs to be laid at your feet; and they have convinced us with our own eyes, that excepting them, not a thing have they left, not even their own souls, so entirely and completely have they been pillaged: on the contrary, if food be not sent to them, they will eat up one another.?

?Do you say so, indeed!? exclaimed the khan: ?if they have lambs, they must also have sheep. By what account do you reckon??

?That?s true,? said Shir Ali, ?and everything that you say is equally so; but we were talking of corn, and not of sheep.?

?But why did not you follow your orders, and bring the ked khoda and the elders?? said our chief. ?If I had been there, the rogues, I would have roasted them alive. I would have tied them with the camel tie,[74] until they confessed that they had something. Tell me, why did you not bring them??

?We wished much to bring them,? said Shir Ali, looking at me to help him out. ?Yes, we had bound them all together, and we wanted very much to bring them: we also beat and abused them. Hajji Baba knows it all; for Hajji Baba told them if they had not money to give, they would certainly meet with no mercy. Mercy was a thing totally out of our way; for if they knew anything, they must be aware that our khan, our lord and master, the Nasakchi Bashi, was a man of such invincible courage, of a resolution so great, and of bowels so immovable, that if once they got within his grasp, it was all over with them. Yes, we told them all that, and they almost sunk into the earth.?

?What does he say, Hajji Baba?? said the khan, turning round to me: ?I have not quite understood why these men were not brought to me??

I answered in great humility, ?Indeed, O khan, I also do not understand.

Shir Ali Beg, who is your deputy-lieutenant, had the whole business in his hands. I went in his service; I am n.o.body.?

Upon this the khan got into a violent rage, and branded us by every odious name of contempt and reproach that he could think of. ?It is plain,? said he to his friends, ?that these villains have been playing tricks. Tell me,? said he to Shir Ali, ?by my soul, by the king?s salt, tell me, how much have you got for yourself? And you, Aga Hajji,?

addressing himself to me, ?you, who have scarcely been a month in service, how much have you secured??

In vain we both protested our innocence; in vain we swore that there was nothing to gain; n.o.body would believe us; and the scene ended by our being driven out of the tent in custody of the naib, who was ordered to confine us until the chiefs of the village should have been actually brought to the camp, and confronted with us.

When Shir Ali and I were left to ourselves, he immediately endeavoured to make me a partaker of the spoil, and offered to give me up half of it.

?Not so, my friend,? said I; ?it is now too late. If you have drank and enjoyed the forbidden wine, and have got a headache by it, it is no reason that you should endeavour to make me sick too. I have had a lesson, in which you have acted as master, which will satisfy me for this time.?

He then endeavoured to make me promise to stand by him, when we should be confronted with the ked khoda, and to swear through thick and thin to everything that he intended to advance; but I was too much alive to the consequences to make any such promise. He said that if once he were brought to the felek to receive the bastinado, he knew that he could not survive it; for so universal a terrorist had he been when operating upon the feet of others, that now he felt he should be treated without the least mercy; and he therefore swore upon the Koran, that he would undergo every misery rather than be tied to the stake.

When the time came for being called up again before our chief, Shir Ali was nowhere to be found. He had absconded, and when I was interrogated, all that I could say amounted to this,--that I knew he dreaded the idea of being bastinadoed, and that I supposed he had made off to escape it.

As soon as I appeared before my judge, the men of Kadj Sawar, who were already standing before him, declared one and all, that I had neither exacted nor received anything from them; but, on the contrary, that I had urged them to make a considerable present to the khan. They poured out the whole of their complaints against Shir Ali, who they declared had put the finishing stroke to their misery, and had even torn off the new skin that had began to cover their old wounds.

All this was slowly working for my advantage, and paving the road to my promotion. The story had got abroad, and was in every one?s mouth. I was looked upon as a paragon of moderation.

?This comes from having been a doctor,? says one; ?wisdom is better than riches.?

?He knows the doctrine of consequences,? says another; ?his feet will never be where his head should be.?

In short, I had acquired the reputation of being a clever and a cautious fellow, merely owing to events playing fortunately into my hands; and I lost nothing from being looked upon as a man whose _taleh_ (luck) was good, and one whose star was fortunate.

The result of this part of my history was, that I was installed in the situation of the fugitive, and became the sub-lieutenant to the chief executioner of Persia--a character, whatever my readers may think of it, of no small consequence, as they will hereafter discover.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

Although by trade an executioner, he shows a feeling heart--He meets with a young man and woman in distress.

The Shah was at this time engaged in a war with the Moscovites, who had established themselves in Georgia, and were threatening the frontier provinces of Persia situated between the rivers Kur and Arras. The governor of Erivan, known by the t.i.tle of _serdar_ or general, and one of the Shah?s most favourite officers, had long ago opened the campaign by desultory attacks upon the advanced posts of the enemy, and by laying waste the villages and country in the track they were likely to keep in advancing towards Persia. An army, under the command of the heir apparent and governor of the great province of Aderbijan, had also been collected near Tabriz; and it was intended that he should immediately proceed to the seat of war, in order if possible to drive the enemy back to Teflis, and, according to the language of the court, carry its arms even to the walls of Moscow.

Intelligence was daily expected at the royal camp of Sultanieh, from the serdar, concerning an attack which he had announced it his intention to make upon the Russian post of Gavmishlu; and orders were issued for giving a suitable reception to the heads of the enemy, which it is always the etiquette to send upon announcing a victory, for such no doubt was expected to be the result of the attack. A _chapper_, or courier, was at length seen riding towards the camp in great haste. He was the conductor of five horse-loads of heads, ?tis true, and they were heaped up with great pomp and parade before the princ.i.p.al entrance of the royal tents; but it became evident that something had taken place which required a reinforcement; for on the very next morning our chief, Namerd Khan, was appointed to the command of a body of ten thousand cavalry, which were ordered to march immediately to the banks of the Arras.

The _min bashies_, the heads of thousands; the _yuz bashies_, the heads of hundreds, the _on bashies_, the heads of tens; and all the officers commanding the troops, were seen hurrying over the camp in various directions, attending upon their khans, and receiving their orders. The tent of Namerd Khan was filled with the chiefs of the expedition, to whom he distributed his directions, giving them the order of march, and allotting to each division its station in halting at the villages on the route. My duty was to precede the troops by a day, accompanied by a detachment of nasakchies, to make arrangements for billeting the men in the villages. This was a duty requiring activity and exertion; but at the same time accompanied by great advantages, which, had I chosen to avail myself of, might have increased the weight of my purse. However, the recent example of Shir Ali Beg was too strong before my eyes not to repress any desire I might have of levying contributions, so I determined for the present to keep my hands pure, and to quench the flame of covetousness by the waters of prudence.

I set off with my detachment, and reached Erivan several days before the troops could arrive. We here found the serdar, who, after his attack upon Gavmishlu, had retreated, to wait the reinforcement of the cavalry under our chief. The army under the prince royal had proceeded to another part of the frontier, with the intention of attacking the fortress of Ganja, of which the enemy had recently acquired possession, and unable to spare any of his troops, the serdar had solicited a.s.sistance from the Shah.

As soon as Namerd Khan and the serdar had met and consulted, it was determined that spies should immediately be sent forwards in order to ascertain the position, and the movements of the Russians; and I was fixed upon to head a detachment of twenty men on the part of the chief executioner, whilst a similar number was sent by the serdar, who at the same time were to be our guides through such parts of the country as were unknown to me.

We a.s.sembled at the close of day, and began our march just as the muezzins called the evening prayer. Proceeding at once to the village of Ashtarek, we pa.s.sed Etchmiazin, the seat of the Armenian patriarch, on our left. It was scarcely dawn of day when we reached the bridge of Ashtarek, still obscured by the deepest shade, owing to the very high and rocky banks of the river, forming, as it were, two abrupt walls on either side. The village itself, situated on the brink of these banks, was just sufficiently lighted up to be distinguished from the rocks among which it was built; whilst the ruins of a large structure, of heavy architecture, rose conspicuous on the darkest side, and gave a character of solemnity and grandeur to the whole scenery. This, my companions informed me, was the remains of the many Armenian churches so frequently seen in this part of Persia. The river dashed along through its dark bed, and we could perceive the foam of its waters as we began to cross the bridge. The rattle of our horses? hoofs over its pavement had alarmed the village dogs, whose bark we could just distinguish; the shrill crow of a c.o.c.k was also heard, and most of our eyes were directed towards the houses, when one of our men, stopping his horse, exclaimed, ?Ya, Ali! (oh, Ali!) what is that?? pointing with his hand to the church: ?do not you see, there, something white??