The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan Part 23

You will be seized; and then may Allah take you into his holy keeping!?

?But when I am there,? said I, ?what shall I do? how shall I live??

?Leave that to me,? said the dervish; ?I shall soon overtake you, and as I know the place and many of the people in it, _Inshallah_, please G.o.d, you will not fare so ill as you may imagine. I myself was once obliged to do the same thing, for having been the means of procuring poison for one of the Shah?s women, who used it to destroy a rival. Orders were sent to seize me, and I managed to reach the _bust_ (the refuge seat) at Shahabdul Azim just five minutes before the executioner who was to have apprehended me. I never fared better in my life: for I did nothing; I was supported by the charity of those who came to say their prayers at the shrine of the saint: and the women, who constantly travelled thus far to pray and take their pleasure, always contrived to comfort me in my confinement. The only evil you have to fear is an order from the Shah, that no one on pain of death shall give you food: if so, you will be starved into a surrender, and then the Prophet be your protector! But your case is not one of sufficient consequence to make you fear this.

The Shah cannot care so much for one slave, when he has a hundred others to fill her place. After all, men do not die so easily as we Persians imagine. Recollect what the Sheikh says, ?Clouds and wind, the moon, the sun, the firmament (and he might have added dervishes), all are busied, that thou, O man, mayest obtain thy bread: only eat it not in neglect.??

?I am not the man,? said I, ?who will forget your kindness. Perhaps my fortune may again be on the rise, and then I will put my beard into your hand. You know Hajji Baba of old, and that he is not one of those who ?exposes his virtues on the palm of his hand, and hides his vices under his armpit.? What I was at Meshed, the same I am now: the seller of adulterated smoke and the deputy lieutenant to the chief executioner, are one and the same.?

?Well, then, go,? said the dervish, as he embraced me, ?and G.o.d be with you! Take care of the ghols and gins as you cross the Salt Desert; and again, I repeat, may Allah, peace, and safety attend you!?

As the day broke I could distinguish the gilt cupola of the tomb at a considerable distance before me; and this beacon of my security inspired me with fresh vigour in my solitary march over the dreary waste. I had scarcely reached the outskirts of the town of Kom before I perceived the horseman at some distance behind, making the best of his way in search of me; and therefore I looked neither right nor left until the ma.s.sive chain that hangs across the princ.i.p.al gateway of the sanctuary was placed between myself and my pursuer. I then exclaimed, ?_Ilhamd?illah!_ Praises to Allah! O Mahomed! O Ali!? and kissing the threshold of the tomb I said my prayers with all the fervency of one who having escaped a tempest has got safe into port.

I had scarcely time to look about me before I perceived the nasakchi coming towards me. He accosted me with a cold salutation of peace, and then said, ?that he had a royal order to conduct me into the Shah?s presence wherever I might be found.?

I told him that, with all reverence for his firman, it was my intention to avail myself of the acknowledged privilege of every true believer, to seek refuge at the shrine of the saint, and that, of course, he could not violate it by dragging me from it. ?Besides, this is the favourite saint of the King of Kings,? said I, ?and he respects this shrine more than any other.?

?What shall I do then, Hajji?? said he. ?You know this is not written in the order. If I go back without you, perhaps the Shah may cut off my ears instead of yours.?

?_Inshallah!_ please G.o.d,? said I.

?Please G.o.d, do you say?? said he in a fury: ?am I come all this way that men should call me a.s.s? I am not a man if I do not make you return with me.? And forthwith we began to wrangle to such a degree that several of the priests, attached to the endowment, came from their rooms to inquire into the cause of the disturbance.

?Here is one,? exclaimed I, ?who presumes to violate the sanctuary. I have taken refuge in it, and he talks of forcing me away! You, that are men of G.o.d,? addressing myself to the mollahs, ?speak, and say whether you will allow this??

They all took my part. ?This is unheard of,? said they, ?in Persia.

If you dare to take one from the _bust_, you will not only have the vengeance of the saint on your head, but the whole corps of the Ullemah will be upon you; and be you protected by the King of Kings, or the king of demons, nothing can screen you from their fury.?

The nasakchi remained quite uncertain what to do, and at length, softening his tone, he endeavoured to make a virtue of necessity, and began to negotiate with me upon what he might get if he went away without further molesting me. I did not deny the right he had of being paid for his trouble, for it is precisely what I should have expected myself had I been in his place; but I made him recollect how little I was able to requite him; for he knew as well as I all the circ.u.mstances of my flight, and that I had brought nothing away with me from Tehran.

He suggested that I might give him what effects I had left behind me; to which I did not in the least agree, but recommended him to go whence he came, and to leave the afflicted to their miseries.

The fact is, as I afterwards found out, the rogue had already taken possession of my property, which consisted of clothes, trunks, bedding, horse-furniture, pipes, etc., having himself been the cause of denouncing me to the Shah. He had watched the effect which the murderous death of the unhappy Curd had produced upon me, and immediately had laid his plan for my destruction, and for stepping into my situation.

Finding that he could not exert the power which had been vested in him, and that his firman was so much waste paper, as long as I continued to hold fast to my refuge-place, he thought it best to return to Tehran; but in so doing he delivered his powers into the hands of the governor of the town, with strict injunctions to keep watch over my actions, and in case I stirred from the sanctuary, to seize and send me a prisoner to the seat of government.

CHAPTER XLV

He takes refuge in a sanctuary, where his melancholy thoughts are diverted by a curious story.

I had scarcely got rid of the nasakchi, when I heard the voice of my friend the dervish, who was announcing his arrival in the holy city, by all the different invocations of the Almighty and his attributes, which are frequently made by true believers.

Very soon after, I was delighted to see him coming towards me, and to hear him express his satisfaction that I had reached my resting-place before my pursuer had had time to come up with me.

He proposed to keep me company for a short time, and we took possession of one of the cells situated in the square court forming part of the buildings in the centre of which the tomb is placed. I had by good luck brought away my ready money, consisting of twenty tomauns in gold, besides some silver; and we expended some of this in articles of the first necessity, such as a mat to cover the bare floor of our room, and an earthen jug for our water.

But before we had got any further in our domestic arrangements, the dervish accosted me in the following manner: ?I must be informed of one thing before we proceed. Do you ever say your prayers? do you keep your fasts? do you make your ablutions regularly? or do you continue to live in that fit state for eternal perdition which we were wont to do at Meshed??

?Why do you speak thus to me?? said I. ?What can it be to you whether I pray or not??

?It is not much to me,? answered the dervish, ?but it is a great deal to yourself. This Kom is a place that, excepting on the subject of religion, and settling who are worthy of salvation and who to be d.a.m.ned, no one opens his lips. Every man you meet is either a descendant of the Prophet or a man of the law. All wear long and mortified faces, and seem to look upon that man as an appointed subject for the eternal fires, who happens to have a rosy cheek and a laughing eye. Therefore, as soon as I approach the place, I always change the atmosphere of my countenance from fair to haze, and from haze to downright clouds and darkness, according as circ.u.mstances may require. My knees, which scarcely ever touch the praying carpet, now perform their functions five good times per day; and I, who in any other place never consult any Kebleh[78] but that of my own pleasure and inclinations, now know the direction of the true one, as well as I know the way to my mouth.?

?All this is very well,? said I; ?but what may be the use of it? I am a Mussulman, ?tis true, but to such a pitch as this--no never.

?The use?? answered the dervish. ?The use is this; that it will save you from being starved or stoned to death. These priests will hearken to no medium,--either you are a true believer or you are not. If they were to have the least suspicion that you doubted any of the articles of the faith,--that you did not look upon the Koran as a living miracle, and did not read it with becoming reverence, whether you understand or not,--they would soon show you what power they possess. And if they were to suppose you to be a _Sufi_ (a free thinker), by the death of your father and mother, they would tear you into little pieces, and then feel contented that they had got on another post on the high road to paradise. Perhaps, friend Hajji, you do not know that this is the residence of the celebrated Mirza Abdul Cossim, the first _mushtehed_ (divine) of Persia; a man who, if he were to give himself sufficient stir, would make the people believe any doctrine that he might choose to promulgate. Such is his influence, that many believe he could even subvert the authority of the Shah himself, and make his subjects look upon his firmans as worthless, as so much waste paper. But the truth is, he is a good man; and, except stoning his sufi, and holding us wandering dervishes as the dirt under his feet, I know of no fault in him.?

Having heard him out, I agreed that, however I might deplore the want of habit in my religious duties, yet, situated as I was, it was necessary that I should acquire them, in order to be held in proper estimation by the great authorities, under whose eye I was immediately placed; and forthwith I set about saying my prayers and making my ablutions, as if my very existence depended upon my regularity. Indeed, what I had formerly looked upon as irksome ceremony, now became an agreeable pastime, and helped greatly to soften the tedium of my melancholy life.

I never omitted to rise at the first call; to make my ablutions at the cistern, using all the forms of the strictest shiah, and then to pray in the most conspicuous spot I could find. The intonations of my _Allah ho akbar_ were to be heard in each corner of the tomb, and I hoped they came to the ear of every inhabitant of it. No face wore a more mortified appearance than mine: even the dervish, who was the best mimic possible, could not beat me in the downcast eye, the hypocritical e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, the affected taciturnity of the sour, proud, and bigoted man of the law.

It became known that I was a refugee at the sanctuary; and I very soon discovered the advantages which the dervish had promised me, from taking upon me the airs of the place, and a.s.suming the character of a rigid Mussulman. He spread abroad the history of my misfortune, of course much to my advantage, giving me out for one who was suffering for the sins of another, and a.s.serting that the doctor ought, in fact, to have been the sufferer.

I became acquainted with the princ.i.p.al personages of the town, who were agreed that they had never known a better model of a true believer than I; and had I not been confined to the walls of the sanctuary, it was in contemplation to have made me a _peish namaz_ (a leader of the prayers) at their religious meetings in the mosque. I found that the profound taciturnity which I had adopted was the best help towards the establishment of a high reputation for wisdom; and that, by the help of my beads, which I kept constantly counting, a mumble of my lips, and occasional groans and pious exclamations, the road to the highest consideration was open to me.

My dervish and I lived almost free of expense, so plentifully were we supplied with food. The women, in particular, did not lose an opportunity of bringing me presents of fruit, honey, bread, and other necessaries, for which I repaid them with kind thanks, and now and then with a talisman, written with my own hand.

But although our life was one of ease, yet it was so dull, and so void of incident, that even the spirits of my companion began to sink under it. In order to fill up some of the long hours of listlessness which oppressed us, I encouraged him to recite all his stories, one by one, not forgetting the one which he had related with so much effect in the caravanserai of the sultan?s reservoir, and we found this a very agreeable mode of closing the day.

I feel, O reader, that you also may partake of that same dullness which oppressed me; and I think it but fair that I should endeavour to dissipate it, in the same manner as mine was by the dervish,--therefore I will repeat the story which he related to me; and, whether it amuses you or not, yet perhaps you will be glad to know how the mind of a poor prisoner, in the sanctuary at Kom, was diverted from its miseries.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The baked head. 23.jpg]

STORY OF THE BAKED HEAD

The present Khon-khor of Roum[79] is a staunch Mussulman and a rigid upholder of the true faith. Upon his coming to the throne, he announced his intention of doing away with many customs common to the infidels, which had crept into the administration of the state during the reign of his predecessor; and he thought it his duty to endeavour to restore things to their primitive simplicity and to adopt a mode of government purely Turkish. Accordingly he resumed a custom which had almost got into disuse,--that of going about the city in _tebdil_, or disguise; and he was so careful about the disguises which he adopted, and the people whom he admitted into his secrets on these occasions, that he took all sorts of precautions, and invented all sorts of schemes of secrecy, in whatever related to his dresses, and the characters in which he chose to appear.

It is not long ago that considerable discontent prevailed throughout Turkey, and rebellion threatened to break out in Constantinople itself.

He was then very anxious to ascertain the temper of the public mind; and, in his usual wary manner, determined to get a suit made that would make him undiscoverable by even his own immediate attendants.

He usually sent for different tailors at different times, and in different places. On this occasion he ordered his favourite slave, the white eunuch Mansouri, to bring him one of no repute, with all the requisite secrecy, at midnight, in order that he might receive instructions about a dress.

The slave in great humility made his _bash ustun_ (on my head be it), and went his way to execute the command.

Close to the gate of the _Bezesten_, or cloth-market, he saw an old man in a stall, so narrow that he could scarce turn himself about in it, who was taken up in patching an old cloak. He was almost bent double with constant labour at his s...o...b..ard; and his eyes seemed not to have benefited by his application, for a pair of gla.s.ses were mounted on his nose. "This is precisely the man I want," said the slave to himself: "I am sure he can be of no repute." So intent was he upon his work, that he did not heed the salutation of "Peace be with you, friend!" with which Mansouri accosted him; and when he did look up, and saw the well-dressed personage whom he thought had spoken, he continued his work, without making the usual reply; for he could not suppose that the salutation was meant for such a poor devil as he.

However, finding that he was the object of the eunuch's attention, he doffed the spectacles, threw away his work, and was about getting on his legs, when he was stopped, and requested not to disturb himself.

"What your name?" said Mansouri.

"Abdallah," said the tailor, "at your service; but I am generally called Babadul by my friends and the world at large."

"You are a tailor, are you not?" continued the slave.

"Yes," said the other, "I am a tailor as well as the muezzin at the little mosque in the fish-market. What more can I do?"

"Well, Babadul," said Mansouri, "have you a mind for a job,--a good job?"