The World's Greatest Books - Volume 6 Part 44

We advanced by slow marches over a parched and dreary country, and our conversation chiefly turned upon the Turcomans. Everyone vaunted his own courage; my master above the rest, his teeth actually chattering with apprehension, boasted of what he would do in case we were attacked. But when we in reality perceived a body of Turcomans coming down upon us, the scene instantly changed. Some ran away; others, and among them my master, yielded to intense fear, and began to exclaim: "O Allah! O Imams! O Mohammed the Prophet, we are gone! We are dying! We are dead!"

A shower of arrows, which the enemy discharged as they came in, achieved their conquest, and we soon became their prey. The Turcomans having completed their plunder, placed each of us behind a horseman, and we pa.s.sed through wild tracts of mountainous country to a large plain, covered with the black tents and the flocks and herds of our enemies.

My master was set to tend camels in the hills; but when the Turcomans discovered my abilities as a barber and a surgeon, I became a general favourite, and gained the confidence of the chief of the tribe himself.

Finally, he determined to permit me to accompany him on a predatory excursion into Persia--a permission which I hoped would lead to my escaping. I was the more ready to do so, in that I secretly possessed fifty ducats. These had been concealed by my master, Osman Aga, in his turban at the outset of his journey. The turban had been taken from him and carried to the women's quarters, whence I had recovered it. I had some argument with myself as to whether I ought to restore the ducats to him; but I persuaded myself that the money was now mine rather than his.

"Had it not been for me," I said, "the money was lost for ever; who, therefore, has a better claim to it than myself?"

We carried off much property on the raid, but as our only prisoners were a court poet, a carpet-spreader, and a penniless cadi, we had little to hope for in the way of ransom. On our return journey we perceived a large body of men, too compact for a caravan--plainly some great personage and his escort. The Turcomans retired hastily, but I lagged behind, seeing in this eventuality a means of escape. I was soon overtaken and seized, plundered of my fifty ducats and everything else, and dragged before the chief personage of the party--a son of the Shah, on his way to become governor of Khora.s.san.

Kissing the ground before him, I related my story, and pet.i.tioned for the return of my fifty ducats. The rogues who had taken the money were brought before the prince, who ordered them to be bastinadoed until they produced it. After a few blows they confessed, and gave up the ducats, which were carried to the prince. He counted the money, put it under the cushion on which he was reclining, and said loudly to me, "You are dismissed."

"My money, where is it?" I exclaimed.

"Give him the shoe," said the prince to his master of the ceremonies, who struck me over the mouth with the iron-shod heel of his slipper, saying: "Go in peace, or you'll have your ears cut off."

"You might as well expect a mule to give up a mouthful of fresh gra.s.s,"

said an old muleteer to whom I told my misfortune, "as a prince to give up money that has once been in his hands."

Reaching Meshed in a dest.i.tute state, I practised for a time the trade of water-carrier, and then became an itinerant vendor of smoke. I was not very scrupulous about giving my tobacco pure; and when one day the _Mohtesib_, or inspector, came to me, disguised as an old woman, I gave him one of my worst mixtures. Instantly he summoned half a dozen stout fellows; my feet were noosed, and blow after blow was inflicted on them until they were a misshapen ma.s.s of flesh and gore. All that I possessed was taken from me, and I crawled home miserably on my hands and knees.

I felt I had entered Meshed in an unlucky hour, and determined to leave it. Dressed as a dervish I joined a caravan for Tehran.

_II.--The Fate of the Lovely_

I at first resolved to follow the career of a dervish, tempted thereto by the confidences of my companion, Dervish Sefer, who befriended me after my unhappy encounter with the Mohtesib.

"With one-fiftieth of your accomplishments, and a common share of effrontery," he told me, "you may command both the purses and the lives of your hearers. By impudence I have been a prophet, by impudence I have wrought miracles--by impudence, in short, I live a life of great ease."

But a chance came to me of stealing a horse, the owner of which confessed he had himself stolen it; and by selling it I hoped to add to the money I had obtained as a dervish, and thereby get into some situation where I might gain my bread honestly. Unfortunately, when I had reached Tehran, the real owner of the horse appeared. I was compelled to refund to the dealer the money I had been paid for the horse, and had some difficulty, when we went before the magistrate at the bazaar, in proving that I was not a thief. I had heard that the court poet, with whom I had formed a friendship during his captivity among the Turcomans, had escaped and returned to Tehran. To him, therefore, I repaired, and through his good offices I secured a post as a.s.sistant to Mirza Ahmak, the king's chief physician.

Although the physician was willing to have my services, he was too avaricious to pay me anything for them; and I would not have remained long with him had I not fallen in love. In the heat of summer I made any bed in the open air, in a corner of a terrace that overlooked an inner court where the women's apartments were situated. I came presently to exchanging glances with a beautiful Curdish slave. From glances we came to conversation. At length, when Zeenab--for that was her name--was alone in the women's apartments, she would invite me down from the terrace, and we would spend long hours feasting and singing together.

But our felicity was destined to be interrupted. The Shah was about to depart for his usual summer campaign, and, according to his wont, paid a round of visits to n.o.blemen, thereby reaping for himself a harvest of presents. The physician, being reputed rich, was marked out as prey fit for the royal grasp. The news of the honour to be paid him left him half-elated at the distinction, half-trembling at the ruin that awaited his finances. The Shah came with his full suite, dined gorgeously at my master's expense, and, as is customary, visited the women's apartments.

Presently came the news that my master had presented the Shah with Zeenab! She was to be trained as a dancing-girl, and was to dance before the Shah on his return from the campaign.

When Zeenab was thus removed out of my reach, I had no inducement to remain in the physician's service. I therefore sought and secured a post as _nasakchi_, or officer of the chief executioner. I was now a person of authority with the crowd, and used my stick so freely upon their heads and backs that I soon acquired a reputation for courage. Nor did I fail to note the advice given to me by my brother officers as to the making of money by extortion--how an officer inflicts the bastinado fiercely or gently according to the capacity of the sufferer to pay; how bribes may be obtained from villages anxious not to have troops quartered upon them, and so on. I lived in such an atmosphere of violence and cruelty--I heard of nothing but slitting noses, putting out eyes, and chopping men in two--that I am persuaded I could almost have impaled my own father.

The chief executioner was a tall and bony man, extremely ferocious.

"Give me good hard fighting," he was accustomed to declare; "let me have my thrust with the lance, and my cut with the sabre, and I want no more.

We all have our weaknesses--these are mine." This terrible man accompanied the Shah in his campaign, and I and the others went along with him, in the army that was to expel the Muscovite infidels from Georgia. Having heard that the Muscovites were posted on the Pembaki river, the chief executioner, with a large body of cavalry and infantry, proceeded to advance upon them.

On reaching the river, we found two Muscovite soldiers on the opposite bank. The chief put on a face of the greatest resolution. "Go, seize, strike, kill!" he exclaimed. "Bring me their heads!"

Several men dashed into the river, but the Russians, firing steadily, killed two of them, whereupon the rest retreated; nor could all the chief's oaths, entreaties, and offers of money persuade anybody to go forward.

While we were thus parleying, a shot hit the chief executioner's stirrup, which awoke his fears to such a degree that he recalled his troops, and himself rode hastily away, exclaiming, "Curses be on their beards! Whoever fought after this fashion? Killing, killing, as if we were so many hogs! They will not run away, do all you can to them. They are worse than brutes! O Allah, Allah, if there was no dying in the case, how the Persians would fight!"

On our return to the camp, a proclamation was issued announcing that an army of 50,000 infidels had been vanquished by the all-victorious armies of the Shah, that 10,000 of the dogs had given up their souls, and that the prisoners were so many that the prices of slaves had diminished a hundred per cent.

When we went back with the Shah to Tehran, a horrid event occurred which plunged me in the greatest misery. I heard that Zeenab was ill, and unable to dance before the Shah; and, knowing the royal methods of treating unsatisfactory slaves, I feared greatly for the consequences.

My fears were warranted. I was ordered, with others, to wait below the tower of the royal harem at midnight and bear away a corpse. We saw a woman struggling with two men at the top of the tower. The woman was flung over. We rushed forward. At my feet, in the death-agony, lay my beloved Zeenab. I hung over her in the deepest despair; my feelings could not be concealed from the ruffians around me.

I abandoned everything, and left Tehran next day determined to become a real dervish, and spend the rest of my life in penitence and privations.

_III.--Among the Holy Men_

As I was preparing next night to sleep on the bare ground outside a caravanserai--for I was almost dest.i.tute--I saw a horseman ride up whom I recognised. It was one of the nasakchis who had a.s.sisted in the burial of Zeenab. I had been betrayed, then; my love for the king's slave had been revealed, and they were pursuing me.

I went into the caravanserai, sought out a friend--the dervish whom I had known at Meshed--and asked his advice. "I can expect no mercy from this man," I said, "particularly as I have not enough money to offer him, for I know his price. Where shall I go?"

The dervish replied, "You must lose not a moment in getting within the sanctuary of the tomb of Fatimeh at Kom. You can reach it before morning, and then you will be safe even from the Shah's power."

"But how shall I live when I am there?" I asked.

"I shall soon overtake you, and then, Inshallah (please G.o.d), you will not fare so ill as you imagine."

As the day broke, I could distinguish the gilt cupola of the tomb before me; and as I perceived the horseman at some distance behind, I made all possible speed until I had pa.s.sed the gateway of the sanctuary. Kissing the threshold of the tomb, I said my prayers with all the fervency of one who has got safe from a tempest into port.

My friend the dervish arrived soon afterwards, and immediately urged upon me the importance of saying my prayers, keeping fasts, and wearing a long and mortified countenance. As he a.s.sured me that unless I made a pretence of deep piety I should be starved or stoned to death, I a.s.sumed forthwith the character of a rigid Mussulman. I rose at the first call, made my ablutions at the cistern in the strictest forms, and then prayed in the most conspicuous spot I could find.

By the intensity of my devotion I won the goodwill of Mirza Abdul Cossim, the first _mashtehed_ (divine) of Persia, and by his influence I obtained a pardon from the Shah. Now that I was free from the sanctuary, I became anxious to gain some profit by my fame for piety; so I applied to Mirza Abdul Cossim, who straightway sent me to a.s.sist the mollah Nadan, one of the princ.i.p.al men of the law in Tehran. My true path of advancement, I believed, was now open. I was on the way to become a mollah.

Nadan was an exemplary Mussulman in all outward matters; but I was not long in discovering that he had two ruling pa.s.sions--jealousy of the chief priest of Tehran, and a hunger for money. My earliest duty was to gratify his second pa.s.sion by negotiating temporary marriages for handsome fees. In these transactions we prospered fairly well; but unfortunately Nadan's desire to supplant the chief priest led him to stir up the populace to attack the Christians of the city, and plunder their property. The Shah was then in a humour to protect the Christians; consequently, Nadan had his beard plucked out by the roots, was mounted on an a.s.s with his face to its tail, and was driven out of the city with blows and execrations.

Once more homeless and almost penniless, not knowing what to do, I strolled in the dusk into a bath, and undressed. The bath was empty save for one man, whom I recognized as the chief priest. He was splashing about in a manner that struck me as remarkable for so sedate a character; then a most unusual floundering, attended with a gurgling of the throat, struck my ear. To my horror, I saw that he was drowned. Here was a predicament; it was inevitable that I should be charged with his murder.

Suddenly it occurred to me that I bore a close resemblance to the dead man. For an hour or two, at any rate, I might act as an impostor. So, in the dim light, I dressed myself in the chief priest's clothes, and repaired to his house.

I was there received by two young slaves, who paid me attentions that would at most times have delighted me; but just then they filled me with apprehension, and I was heartily glad when I got rid of the slaves and fastened the door. I then explored the chief priest's pockets, and found therein two letters. One was from the chief executioner--a notorious drunkard--begging permission to take unlimited wine for his health's sake. The other was from a priest at the mollah's village saying that he had extracted from the peasantry one hundred tomauns (80), which would be delivered to a properly qualified messenger.

To the chief executioner I wrote cheerfully granting the permission he sought, and suggesting that the loan of a well-caparisoned horse would not be amiss. I wrote a note to the priest requesting that the money be delivered to the bearer, our confidential Hajji Baba. Next morning I rose early, and made certain alterations in the chief priest's clothes so as to avoid detection. I went to the chief executioner's house, presented the letter, and received the horse, upon which I rode hastily away to the village. Having obtained the hundred tomauns I escaped across the frontier to Bagdad.

_IV.--Hajji and the Infidels_

On reaching Bagdad, I sought the house of my old master, Osman Aga, long since returned from his captivity, and through his a.s.sistance, and with my hundred tomauns as capital, I was able to set up in business as a merchant in pipe-sticks, and, having made myself as like as possible to a native of Bagdad, I travelled in Osman Aga's company to Constantinople. Having a complaint to make, I went to Mirza Ferouz, Persian amba.s.sador on a special mission to Constantinople.

"Your wit and manner are agreeable," he said to me; "you have seen the world and its business; you are a man who can make play under another's beard. Such I am in want of."

"I am your slave and your servant," I replied.

"Lately an amba.s.sador came from Europe to Tehran," said Mirza Ferouz, "saying he was sent, with power to make a treaty, by a certain Boonapoort, calling himself Emperor of the French. He promised, that Georgia should be reconquered for us from the Russians, and that the English should be driven from India. Soon afterwards the English infidels in India sent agents to impede the reception of the Frenchman.

We soon discovered that much was to be got between the rival curs of uncleanness; and the true object of my mission here is to discover all that is to be known of these French and English. In this you can help me."