The Arab's Pledge Part 14

The time allowed to Azora to give a definite answer to the Sultan's proposal had quickly pa.s.sed away. She had not been allowed much time for preparation for the awful fate that menaced her in case of non-compliance, on account of the intrusive officiousness of the inmates of the hareem, who with childish kindness did all in their power to alleviate her distress, which they attributed to her regret at leaving her relations and friends; never for a moment imagining that she could have courage to relinquish the pleasures of life, and brave death in its most revolting shape, when it might be avoided by what appeared to them so slight a sacrifice; and they already looked upon her as a future companion. Some of the ladies of the hareem had handsome features which the absence of expression rendered valueless. They were the fair faces of women who are born, brought up, and die with scarcely (except in very childhood) any communication with their kind,--whose whole world from birth to death is comprised within three or four rooms with blank walls.

This sedentary existence is conducive to the obesity, which to Moorish taste is considered the perfection of female beauty; and the women adopt every means to encourage this natural tendency; one of these is the same as the plan adopted with us for fattening turkeys. A paste composed of new bread and oleaginous seeds, is formed into b.a.l.l.s, the size of a pigeon's egg, and a certain number of these are swallowed whole, washed down with water; this is done daily until the required standard of deformity is reached. The inmates of the Sultan's hareem had the advantage of gardens, into which their rooms opened. These gardens were planted with fruit-trees and vines on trellis; and in the centre of the one they now looked on, was a basin and fountain, that threw its spray on high and cooled the air, confined as it was within high walls.

One of the ladies was about Azora's own age, and had become very much attached to her, she had claims to beauty of face and form, which the fattening process, at her age, had not yet destroyed. Her black hair was ornamented with pearls and beads of fine gold; her flashing eye was brightened by the kohal, with which her lids were tinged; a latent smile played round a mouth which should have been lovely; she was a creature of mere life with no thought but for such trivial happiness as she might s.n.a.t.c.h in her contracted sphere on earth, and for anything beyond, probably never thought of it at all! She wore an embroidered green velvet jacket, fitted to the form, and flowing muslin trousers, over this dress was wound a fine hayk. Her name was Oom-el-Zin. While some of them were swallowing b.a.l.l.s, and others staining their feet and hands in patterns with henna, or employed in other ways, Azora and her friend wandered out, following one of the grape-walks, till they came to a secluded bower formed by the foliage, and furnished with carpets and cushions. Here they sat down.

"This day will seal my fate, O my sister!" said Azora, mournfully. Her friend said nothing in reply, but her habitual smile forsook her now sorrowful face, and tears stood in her eyes.

"Why are you so kind to me?" Azora continued, embracing her. "To part from you will more embitter the cup that I must drink."

"Oh, say not you will leave me," said Oom-el-Zin, throwing her arms around Azora, "you make me shudder when you talk of death, and yet I begin to believe you are in earnest. But no! you can not--you dare not--die!"

"The G.o.d of Israel will support me in death," said Azora, solemnly. "A few short years, and who, of all those who now behold my doom, will be alive to tell how died the Hebrew girl?--and shall I barter an eternity, compared to which centuries are but as those glittering drops of water to the firmament they mock, for power to drag out my few remaining years in guilt and infamy? What can I not dare for the love of G.o.d, to whom I owe all? and when His hand is heavy upon me, shall I not say, with the Arabian patriarch--'The Lord hath given--the Lord hath taken--blessed be the Lord.'"

"Talk not so, O dear, dear Azora! I would rather live out my life in a prison, without the light of day, only I would not die. Oh, we will be so happy here together! Oh, you cannot sacrifice yourself--you, so young, so beautiful; you make me so miserable. Oh, live! and stay with us." But in vain the tearful eye of the affectionate girl looked for a kindred feeling in the face of the enthusiastic Jewess.

"Alas! for you, my dear girl," she said; "did you possess the hope of a glorious future, you would not dread that which must, sooner or later, come to all.--But lo! we are called. The hour is come."

They arose to return, as one of the women attendants had come to summon Azora to the Sultan's presence.

"I almost distrust my own weak heart," she continued; "but the Lord of Hosts is my strength, the G.o.d of Israel is my refuge."

Tenderly embracing her weeping and disconsolate companion, she accompanied the messenger, and was conducted to the same apartment that had been the scene of her previous trial.

The short period that had intervened--but which to her had been an age of mental suffering--showed its influence on her frame; her pale cheeks witnessed to the anguish that had preyed on her soul; but now they flushed with a hectic glow, from the strong temporary excitement of her position, and her beauty was not the less transcendent.

The Sultan was reclining on the cushions when she entered, but rose to meet her.

"Welcome, O beautiful one!" said he; "how long to me has been the time, deprived of your presence! If it has changed your resolution, I am content. Come you now to enjoy with me life, happiness, and triumph, or--" His brow darkened as she stood silent and motionless, and he could perceive no signs of acquiescence. There was a pause.

"Finish, O my lord!" said Azora, at length, "'or death,' you would say,--G.o.d's will be done!--Yet, O my lord!" and she threw herself at his feet, "pause ere you p.r.o.nounce my doom. Oh, throw not away the high privilege of mercy. If in truth you loved me, could your tongue consign me to death? Impossible! To torture? Oh, the thought is horrible! Save me! O king, save me! though not for my sake, for your own, for the sake of your undying fame. Oh, will you for a caprice forego the satisfaction of doing a n.o.ble deed, and tarnish with blood the annals of a beneficent reign? What will be said among the nations when it is known that the Sultan Mulai Abd Er Rahman has shed the innocent blood of a woman? Oh, be merciful, and spare me!"

The Sultan was moved by this appeal, seconded by her imploring action and anguished face, but was too intent on his purpose to give way to more than a pa.s.sing emotion.

"Arise," he said, "why kneel to me; are you not the arbitress of your own fate? 'Tis I that implore you to save yourself and have pity on me.

That I wish not your death, which is forfeit to the law, witness my patience, and the efforts I have made to change your mad resolve. But that I love you, rather would I see you die, than given to the arms of another. What! shall I see a vile slave possess that which his sovereign sued for in vain? But what is this strange infatuation? Oh, change but your faith, and I will raise you from your base state, exposed to insult and persecution, to be the favourite of a Sultan, with slaves to obey your every wish--power to protect your friends--in short, all, all that a king can offer, shall be yours! Why will you thus madly persist in throwing away your life? Speak but the word--"

"All this, O my lord," said Azora, firmly, "shall not bribe me to betray my G.o.d; I ask mercy, but I ask it unconditionally. What law have I broken? what crime have I committed, for which to sue for pardon? yet the mercy you offer is more cruel than your unjust sentence of death!

Were you a just king, my false accusers--for you know them false--would ere this have paid the penalty of their perjury. I am in your power, and may G.o.d help me! I will endure all you can inflict rather than save my innocent life by a dishonourable and criminal compromise. But oh, how shall this black deed sully the brightness of your reign to all posterity! We shall meet again before the tribunal of the Lord of kings, and before whom Sultans will tremble."

She had drawn herself up to her full height while thus speaking, and her bosom heaving, and her eyes flashing with enthusiasm, she stood like an inspired prophetess, but with a martyr's calm resolve. The Sultan had thus far endeavoured to stifle his feelings, but now his rage became ungovernable.

"It is thus, then, that you defy me," he said: "now hear the alternative. If the thought is dreadful, how will you bear the reality?

How will you bear to be the gaze and scoff of a ruffian rabble--to be stripped by the rude hands of the executioner? How will your delicate frame bear the agony when thrown alive into the burning pile? Then, when the hot fire slowly seizes on each writhing limb, and every scorched nerve overwhelms your soul with agonising torments, then--when too late, you will repent your refusal of my proffered mercy. Then--when too late, you will wish to recall this lost opportunity, and your tender limbs will fall a lifeless corse among the smouldering ashes. This is your doom! I have said!"

With his face and frame agitated by his pa.s.sion, and casting a malignant look on the lovely but trembling girl, he rushed from the apartment.

Azora's heart sickened within her, as she listened, with suspended breath, to the description of the torture that awaited her. It was a fearful trial, and she had well-nigh sunk under it. Finding herself alone, her firmness forsook her; she threw herself on the cushions, and burst into an agony of tears, and convulsive sobs shook her frame; but this was a luxury, compared to the horrible feeling that came over her, when, after a time, she raised her deadly pale face, from which all traces of tears had pa.s.sed away, and remained with her eyes fixed on vacancy, while an icy chill seemed to curdle her heart's blood, and a tightness in the throat oppressed her almost to suffocation, as she realized the appalling picture of an ignominious death thus presented to her as the alternative of her resistance. Was it surprising that, at such a trying moment, her existence suspended trembling on the verge of the tomb, and failing nature standing terror-struck on the brink of the awful abyss that separated her from eternity,--she, so young, should shrink from taking the fatal plunge. Already was she beginning to parley with conscience,--already was her resolution wavering, and the bright crown of martyrdom, which seemed on the point of encircling her brow, was ascending from whence it was offered, as the love of life, and the enjoyments of the world, were resuming their dominion over her young heart, when, suddenly, overcoming herself with an almost supernatural effort, she fell on her knees, and poured out her anguished soul before G.o.d, imploring Him to take the love of the world from her heart, and strengthen her to support the trials that awaited her for her attachment to her faith. The struggle was past, her prayer was heard. She arose from her knees, a radiant smile lighting up her angel face, and she could now calmly contemplate death, as a pa.s.sage from her sufferings here to everlasting life in the presence of her Redeemer.

A stranger, unacquainted with the peculiar character and customs of this people, might naturally be disposed to ask, why the Sultan should be so scrupulous in his conduct towards a Jewess, of a race, moreover, described to be in a state of semi-servitude. It was exactly in the fact of her being a Jewess, that the obstacles the Sultan had to contend with lay.

If it had been possible that a Moorish woman could have made an objection to becoming a Sultana, the same compulsion would have been used, as is used in two-thirds of the marriages among them, in which the parties have no previous knowledge of each other. Moorish women are only too ready to become inmates of the Sultan's hareem. But in the case of a Jewess, of a despised religion, the Sultan dare not avow his real object. To have taken Azora, as a Jewess, would have raised a fanatical insurrection. There is, moreover, among the higher cla.s.ses of the Moors, much of that chivalric spirit which distinguished them in Spain, if, indeed, it is not of Arabian origin, and which invested woman with a sacred character,--indeed the very word hareem implies sanct.i.ty. Again, it is the policy of the Sultan to encourage the Jews, who alone of his subjects engage in foreign commerce, from which he derives the greater part of his revenue, and his only hold on them consists in the protection afforded to their religion. Interfere with their observances deliberately, and he is apprehensive of their abandoning these pursuits, and endeavouring to remove their wealth from the country. So long as Azora a.s.serted her Jewish faith, he might take her life, but she was in no danger of any other indignity; and it is probably owing to the unswerving attachment of the Jews to their faith, even to martyrdom, and its consequent want of success, that this false accusation is so rarely resorted to. The enraged despot, incapable of admiring the heroic fort.i.tude of his helpless captive, was incensed beyond measure by the failure of all his attempts to intimidate, or persuade her into compliance. Vacillating between his pa.s.sion and his fears, he was tempted to violate the commands of the Koran, which forbids a Moslem to marry an infidel; deterred, on the other hand, by the danger of the experiment, especially at the present juncture, when the princ.i.p.al Arab chiefs were in rebellion, and it behoved him to secure the fidelity of his troops, whose attachment might be entirely alienated by any sacrilegious breach of the laws of religion. As a last resource, he determined to put in execution a plan he had often thought of in his moments of rage and disappointment. He resolved to expose her to the wild beasts, of which there were several in his menagerie; he doubted not that her terror would then overcome what he considered her obstinacy, and should this fail, her death was decreed. Among the wild beasts was a magnificent lion, this animal was comparatively tame, being kept well fed, and under his keeper's control. Trusting to his docility, the keeper had ventured to lead him about the town by a rope, he had on one occasion destroyed a child, and on another struck down and killed an unfortunate donkey with one blow of his enormous paw, by way of practice, and to show what he could do. It was to this enormous brute, that the lovely and fragile girl was to be exposed, and the Sultan could hardly believe that she would not at once embrace the Koran, to escape the horrible fate of being torn to pieces. Moody and slow he took his way to the M'Shouar, and ordered the keeper to attend and receive his commands. Here he found the princ.i.p.al Wezeer, Talb Jelool, who, after the usual obeisance, informed him that he had matters of importance to communicate. The Sultan took his seat, and gave his acquiescence with an emphatic "Bism' Illah." And the Wezeer producing his papers, sat at the foot of the carpet, and, waving his hand to the attendants, they immediately withdrew.

"May my lord's throne be exalted!" he said. "I have heard that the Arabs are marching northward; they have already pa.s.sed through Suse and Draha, and menace the province of Rahamna; and behold here is a letter from the Kad of Teradant, which I will read to my lord the Sultan.

"'Praise be to the one G.o.d. To the great and mighty lord, the Khalifa of the Prophet, &c., &c., Mulai Abd Er Rahman, from his slave Abdallah Ibn Sadek, governor of Teradant. Be it known to my lord, that his rebel slave, Hamed Ibn Ishem, at the head of the tribes of Abu Sebah, Tuwat, Al Harib, and others, amounting to about ten thousand Arabs, have entered and overrun the province of Suse, carrying off flocks and camels, and levying tribute in the realm of our sovereign lord. Having only fifty hors.e.m.e.n, besides the militia of the town, my lord's servant was unable to take the field, against such large forces, and would humbly urge the necessity of sending a body of the black troops to stop their further depredations, and protect this town, the walls of which are not strong enough to keep the enemy out, should they attack it.

Peace! This 10th day of Saffer, 1248.'"

The Sultan could hardly keep patience during the perusal of this letter.

"And has the slave dared," said he, "to attack our territories, as well as refuse us tribute? By the holy Prophet's tomb, the death of every dog of his tribe would ill atone for such an insult. Summon the Berebber tribes of the mountains. Send troops to the a.s.sistance of the Kad of Teradant! And as soon as we are in a position to take the field, we will scatter their hordes, and drive the remnants to their barren sands."

A soldier here entered, and prostrating himself, rose for permission to speak, and then said, "May it please my lord, the keeper of the wild beasts is in attendance."

"Let him appear," said the Sultan.

And he was immediately dragged in by two soldiers, who threw him violently on his face, and then allowing him to rise to his knees, left him to receive his orders. The keeper of the wild beasts was a Jew, for the Moors say, although they do not believe it, that a lion is of too n.o.ble a nature to injure a Jew. He was a brutal-looking fellow, with a cast in his eye,--this had procured him the name of Ain ed Djin, or "Demon-eye;" he was short and square, with a stunted grey beard, he wore the black cap, but had put on a white cloak, and had also fortified himself with copious libations of brandy to appear before the Sultan.

"Have you obeyed my orders, dog?" demanded the Sultan.

"May my lord live for ever!" said Demon-eye, "the lion has been without food nearly four-and-twenty hours, which (may my lord be preserved!) is a long fast, seeing he was accustomed to two sheep daily. If my lord (may he be exalted!) had seen him the other day knock down the donkey, and suck its blood, and afterwards crunch its bones, with as much ease as my lord (exalted of G.o.d) would a roasted quail." He had got thus far, with a grin of delight and intoxication on his inhuman countenance.

"Peace, infidel dog!" thundered the Sultan, "lest you forthwith share the same fate. Have we nought better to occupy us but to listen to thy misbegotten speech? I would fain try the truth of the proverb on thy vile carcase, and see whether a lion will eat a Jew. Keep the lion fasting, and have him taken to-morrow to the old Serai, inside the south wall."

"My lord shall be obeyed," said Ain ed Djin, in whom the first part of the Sultan's speech had caused a shudder, regaining his a.s.surance, he continued, "When he has fasted forty-eight hours, he will give my lord (whose throne be exalted) satisfaction, and a fat infidel will be to him as a pistachio nut."

"Slave! Son of a cursed race," exclaimed the Sultan, "what dog's son art thou, that darest to pollute our ears with thy drunken words? Ho! the guards!" and making a sign to them as they entered, Demon-eye was seized and dragged out, perfectly sobered, and was soon taught by a severe and well-merited bastinado, administered with the leather thongs the soldiers wear for the purpose, to be more chary of his words in future; and when he arose writhing from his stripes, he was glad to make his escape and execute his orders.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE FALCON'S SWOOP.

It is very painful to record the fearful trials of this innocent and helpless girl, but truth demands it; and I indulge a hope, that, by drawing attention to the facts, I may enlist the sympathy of those who may have the power, and will exert their influence, for the amelioration of the condition of an unprotected race, and perhaps avert future similar outrages on our common humanity.

This new project of the Sultan soon became known through the town, and affected, with surprise and consternation, the friends who were working for Azora's deliverance. Ali had already some five-and-twenty of his followers in the town; these had introduced themselves as country Arabs with wood, vegetables, or fruit, for sale, while their horses were led by others personating horse-dealers. It is true that all strangers on entering the town were obliged to leave their guns at the gate with the guard till their exit; but this they evaded by carrying a second Moorish gun, while their own shorter pieces were smuggled in, in the loads or otherwise. Ali, however, did not feel himself strong enough for a _coup-de-main_, and was waiting anxiously for the chief, who, while his main body were plundering the provinces, was on his way with a chosen band, with the intention of carrying a foray to the very gates of Marocco, as well to intimidate his enemies as to aid at the same time, whether by stratagem or open force, in the redemption of his Pledge.

Ain ed Djin, a Jew himself, had informed Rachel and Ali, who had met him by appointment, of his orders, but could do nothing to help them. I will draw a veil over the sufferings of Azora's afflicted mother. Ali el Bezz was almost at his wits' end, not but that he would have destroyed every wild beast in the town rather than fail in his trust, but caution was absolutely necessary.

"Could you not poison this lion, O Jew?" said he.

"Doubtless, O Sheik!" said Demon-eye: "but there are three others."

"What will kill one will kill four," said Ali.

"And that is true, O my lord," said Demon-eye, "but then there are the panthers! O Sheik, look at these stripes upon my back. If one lion died, would here be still any skin remaining? If more lions died, how long would the Jew be alive? My head is not so beautiful as that of Rachel's daughter, but it is as useful to me; and, Inshallah, I mean to keep it.

Besides, O Sheik!" and here his brutal face softened, "I love my lions, and Na.s.ser is a king of lions, and he knows me. You Arabs love your horses."

A chord in the Arab's bosom vibrated in unison to the feeling in the breast of the Jew, and called up reminiscences, as it were the flash of light upon a picture; he was for a moment absent, and then his eyes beamed mildly on the degraded Jew, on whom he had previously looked with disgust. "G.o.d is great!" said Ali. "But where is this to take place, for I must find other means?"