Alroy: The Prince of the Captivity

‘Bold man,’ exclaimed Alroy, ‘for a moment hear me! I am a pilgrim, poorer than a beggar. The jewel they talk of is a holy emblem, worthless to you, to me invaluable, and to be forfeited only with my life. You may be careless of that. Beware of your own. The first man who advances dies. I pray you humbly, chieftain, let me go.’

‘Kill him,’ said Scherirah.

‘Stab him!’ exclaimed Kisloch.

‘Give me the jewel,’ said the third robber.

‘The God of David be my refuge, then!’ exclaimed Alroy.

‘He is a Hebrew, he is a Hebrew,’ exclaimed Scherirah, jumping up. ‘Spare him, my mother was a Jewess.’

The assailants lowered their arms, and withdrew a few paces. Alroy still remained upon his guard.

‘Valiant pilgrim,’ said Scherirah, advancing, with a softened voice, ‘are you for the holy city?’

‘The city of my fathers.’

‘A perilous journey. And whence from?’

‘Hamadan.’

‘A dreary way. You need repose. Your name?’

‘David.’

‘David, you are among friends. Rest, and repose in safety. You hesitate. Fear not! The memory of my mother is a charm that always changes me!’ Scherirah unsheathed his dagger, punctured his arm,14 and, throwing away the weapon, offered the bleeding member to Alroy. The Prince of the Captivity touched the open vein with his lips.

‘My troth is pledged,’ said the bandit; ‘I can never betray him in whose veins my own blood is flowing.’ So saying, he led Alroy to his carpet.

‘Eat,’ David,’ said Scherirah.

‘I will eat bread,’ answered Alroy.

‘What! have you had so much meat lately that you will refuse this delicate gazelle that I brought down this morning with my own lance? ‘Tis food for a caliph.’

‘I pray you give me bread.’

‘Oh! bread if you like. But that a man should prefer bread to meat, and such meat as this, ‘tis miraculous.’

‘A thousand thanks, good Scherirah; but with our people the flesh of the gazelle is forbidden. It is unclean. Its foot is cloven.’

‘I have heard of these things,’ replied Scherirah, with a thoughtful air. ‘My mother was a Jewess, and my father was a Kourd. Whichever be right, I hope to be saved.’

‘There is but one God, and Mahomed is his prophet!’ exclaimed Kisloch; ‘though I drink wine. Your health, Hebrew.’

‘I will join you,’ said to the third robber. ‘My father was a Guebre, and sacrificed his property to his faith; and the consequence is, his son has got neither.’

‘As for me,’ said a fourth robber, of very dark complexion and singularly small bright eyes, ‘I am an Indian, and I believe in the great golden figure with carbuncle eyes, in the temple of Delhi.’

‘I have no religion,’ said a tall negro in a red turban, grinning with his white teeth; ‘they have none in my country; but if I had heard of your God before, Calidas, I would have believed in him.’

‘I almost wish I had been a Jew,’ exclaimed Scherirah, musing. ‘My mother was a good woman.’ ‘The Jews are very rich,’ said the third robber. ‘When you get to Jerusalem, David, you will see the Christians,’ continued Scherirah.

‘The accursed Giaours,’ exclaimed Kisloch, ‘we are all against them.’

‘With their white faces,’ exclaimed the negro. ‘And their blue eyes,’ said the Indian. ‘What can you expect of men who live in a country without a sun?’ observed the Guebre.

Alroy awoke about two hours after midnight. His companions were in deep slumber. The moon had set, the fire had died away, a few red embers alone remaining; dark masses of shadow hung about the amphitheatre. He arose and cautiously stepped over the sleeping bandits. He was not in strictness a prisoner; but who could trust to the caprice of these lawless men? To-morrow might find him their slave, or their companion in some marauding expedition, which might make him almost retrace his steps to the Caucasus, or to Hamadan. The temptation to ensure his freedom was irresistible. He clambered up the ruined wall, descended into the intricate windings that led to the Ionic fane, that served him as a beacon, hurried through the silent and starry streets, gained the great portal, and rushed once more into the desert.

A vague fear of pursuit made him continue his course many hours without resting. The desert again became sandy, the heat increased. The breeze that plays about the wilderness, and in early spring is often scented with the wild fragrance of aromatic plants, sank away. A lurid brightness suffused the heavens. An appalling stillness pervaded nature; even the insects were silent. For the first time in his pilgrimage, a feeling of deep despondency fell over the soul of Alroy. His energy appeared suddenly to have deserted him. A low hot wind began to rise, and fan his cheek with pestiferous kisses, and enervate his frame with its poisonous embrace. His head and limbs ached with a dull sensation, more terrible than pain; his sight was dizzy, his tongue swollen. Vainly he looked around for aid; vainly he extended his forlorn arms, and wrung them to the remorseless heaven, almost frantic with thirst. The boundless horizon of the desert disappeared, and the unhappy victim, in the midst of his torture, found himself apparently surrounded by bright and running streams, the fleeting waters of the false mirage!

The sun became blood-red, the sky darker, the sand rose in fierce eddies, the moaning wind burst into shrieks and exhaled more ardent and still more malignant breath. The pilgrim could no longer sustain himself.15 Faith, courage, devotion deserted him with his failing energies. He strove no longer with his destiny, he delivered himself up to despair and death. He fell upon one knee with drooping head, supporting himself by one quivering hand, and then, full of the anguish of baffled purposes and lost affections, raising his face and arm to heaven, thus to the elements he poured his passionate farewell.

‘O life! once vainly deemed a gloomy toil, I feel thy sweetness now! Farewell, O life, farewell my high resolves and proud conviction of almighty fame. My days, my short unprofitable days, melt into the past; and death, with which I struggle, horrible death, arrests me in this wilderness. O my sister, could thy voice but murmur in my ear one single sigh of love; could thine eye with its soft radiance but an instant blend with my dim fading vision, the pang were nothing. Farewell, Miriam! my heart is with thee by thy fountain’s side. Fatal blast, bear her my dying words, my blessing. And ye too, friends, whose too neglected love I think of now, farewell! Farewell, my uncle; farewell, pleasant home, and Hamadan’s serene and shadowy bowers! Farewell, Jabaster, and the mighty lore of which thou wert the priest and I the pupil! Thy talisman throbs on my faithful heart. Green earth and golden sun, and all the beautiful and glorious sights ye fondly lavish on unthinking man, farewell, farewell! I die in the desert: ‘tis bitter. No more, oh! never more for me the hopeful day shall break, and the fresh breeze rise on its cheering wings of health and joy. Heaven and earth, water and air, my chosen country and my antique creed, farewell, farewell! And thou, too, city of my soul, I cannot name thee, unseen Jerusalem–’

Amid the roar of the wind, the bosom of the earth heaved and opened, swift columns of sand sprang up to the lurid sky, and hurried towards their victim. With the clang of universal chaos, impenetrable darkness descended on the desert.

CHAPTER V

Lord Honain Rescues Alroy

NOW our dreary way is over, now the desert’s toil is past. Soon the river broadly flowing, through its green and palmy banks, to our wearied limbs shall offer baths ‘which caliphs cannot buy. Allah-illah, Allah-hu. Allah-illah, Allah-hu.’

‘Blessed the man who now may bear a relic from our Prophet’s tomb; blessed the man who now unfolds the treasures of a distant mart, jewels of the dusky East, and silks of farthest Samarcand. Allah-illah, Allah-hu. Allah-illah, Allah-hu.’

‘Him the sacred mosque shall greet with a reverence grave and low; him the busy Bezestein shall welcome with confiding smile. Holy merchant, now receive the double triumph of thy toil. Allah-illah, Allah-hu. Allah-illah, Allah-hu.’

‘The camel jibs, Abdallah! See, there is something in the track.’

‘By the holy stone,16 a dead man. Poor devil! One should never make a pilgrimage on foot. I hate your humble piety. Prick the beast and he will pass the corpse.’

‘The Prophet preaches charity, Abdallah. He has favoured my enterprise, and I will practise his precept. See if he be utterly dead.’

It was the Mecca caravan returning to Bagdad. The pilgrims were within a day’s journey of the Euphrates, and welcomed their approach to fertile earth with a triumphant chorus. Far as the eye could reach, the long line of their straggling procession stretched across the wilderness, thousands of camels in strings, laden with bales of merchandise, and each company headed by an animal of superior size, leading with tinkling bells; groups of horsemen, clusters of litters; all the pilgrims armed to their teeth, the van formed by a strong division of Seljukian cavalry, and the rear protected by a Kourdish clan, who guaranteed the security of the pious travellers through their country.

Abdallah was the favourite slave of the charitable merchant Ali. In obedience to his master’s orders, he unwillingly descended from his camel, and examined the body of the apparently lifeless Alroy.

‘A Kourd, by his dress,’ exclaimed Abdallah, with a sneer; ‘what does he here?’

‘It is not the face of a Kourd,’ replied Ali; ‘perchance a pilgrim from the mountains.’

‘Whatever he be, he is dead,’ answered the slave: ‘I doubt not an accursed Giaour.’

‘God is great,’ exclaimed Ali; ‘he breathes; the breast of his caftan heaved.’

‘‘Twas the wind,’ said Abdallah.

‘‘Twas the sigh of a human heart,’ answered Ali.

Several pilgrims who were on foot now gathered around the group.

‘I am a Hakim,’17 observed a dignified Armenian. ‘I will feel his pulse; ‘tis dull, but it beats.’

‘There is but one God,’ exclaimed Ali.

‘And Mahomed is his Prophet,’ responded Abdallah. ‘You do not believe in him, you Armenian infidel.’

‘I am a Hakim,’ replied the dignified Armenian. ‘Although an infidel, God has granted me skill to cure true believers. Worthy Ali, believe me, the boy may yet live.’

‘Hakim, you shall count your own dirhems if he breathe in my divan in Bagdad,’ answered Ali; ‘I have taken a fancy to the boy. God has sent him to me. He shall carry my slippers.’

‘Give me a camel, and I will save his life.’

‘We have none,’ said the servant.

‘Walk, Abdallah,’ said the master.

‘Is a true believer to walk to save the life of a Kourd? Master slipper-bearer shall answer for this, if there be any sweetness in the bastinado,’ murmured Abdallah.

The Armenian bled Alroy; the blood flowed slowly but surely. The Prince of the Captivity opened his eyes.

‘There is but one God,’ exclaimed Ali.

‘The evil eye fall on him!’ muttered Abdallah.

The Armenian took a cordial from his vest, and poured it down his patient’s throat. The blood flowed more freely.

‘He will live, worthy merchant,’ said the physician.

‘And Mahomed is his Prophet,’ continued Ali.

‘By the stone of Mecca, I believe it is a Jew,’ shouted Abdallah.

‘The dog!’ exclaimed Ali.

‘Pah!’ said a negro slave, drawing back with disgust.

‘He will die,’ said the Christian physician, not even binding up the vein.

‘And be damned,’ said Abdallah, again jumping on his camel.

The party rode on, the caravan proceeded. A Kourdish horseman galloped forward. He curbed his steed as he passed Alroy bleeding to death.

‘What accursed slave has wounded one of my clan?’

The Kourd leaped off his horse, stripped off a slip of his blue shirt, stanched the wound, and carried the unhappy Alroy to the rear.

The desert ceased, the caravan entered upon a vast but fruitful plain. In the extreme distance might be descried a long undulating line of palm-trees. The vanguard gave a shout, shook their tall lances in the air, and rattled their scimitars in rude chorus against their small round iron shields. All eyes sparkled, all hands were raised, all voices sounded, save those that were breathless from overpowering joy. After months wandering in the sultry wilderness, they beheld the great Euphrates.

Broad and fresh, magnificent and serene, the mighty waters rolled through the beautiful and fertile earth. A vital breeze rose from their bosom. Every being responded to their genial influence. The sick were cured, the desponding became sanguine, the healthy and light-hearted broke into shouts of laughter, jumped from their camels, and embraced the fragrant earth, or, wild in their renovated strength, galloped over the plain, and threw their wanton jerreeds in the air,18 as if to show that suffering and labour had not deprived them of that skill and strength, without which it were vain again to enter the haunts of their less adventurous brethren.

The caravan halted on the banks of the broad river, glowing in the cool sunset. The camp was pitched, the plain glittered with tents. The camels, falling on their knees, crouched in groups, the merchandise piled up in masses by their sides. The unharnessed horses rushed neighing about the plain, tossing their glad heads, and rolling in the unaccustomed pasture. Spreading their mats, and kneeling towards Mecca, the pilgrims performed their evening orisons. Never was thanksgiving more sincere. They arose: some rushed into the river, some lighted lamps, some pounded coffee.19 Troops of smiling villagers arrived with fresh provisions, eager to prey upon such light hearts and heavy purses. It was one of those occasions when the accustomed gravity of the Orient disappears. Long through the night the sounds of music and the shouts of laughter were heard on the banks of that starry river; long through the night you might have listened with enchantment to the wild tales of the storier, or gazed with fascination on the wilder gestures of the dancing girls.20

The great bazaar of Bagdad afforded an animated and sumptuous spectacle on the day after the arrival of the caravan. All the rare and costly products of the world were collected in that celebrated mart: the shawls of Cachemire and the silks of Syria, the ivory, and plumes, and gold of Afric, the jewels of Ind, the talismans of Egypt, the perfumes and manuscripts of Persia, the spices and gums of Araby, beautiful horses, more beautiful slaves, cloaks of sable, pelisses of ermine, armour alike magnificent in ornament and temper, rare animals, still rarer birds, blue apes in silver collars, white gazelles bound by a golden chain, greyhounds, peacocks, paroquets. And everywhere strange, and busy, and excited groups; men of all nations, creeds, and climes: the sumptuous and haughty Turk, the graceful and subtle Arab, the Hebrew with his black cap and anxious countenance; the Armenian Christian, with his dark flowing robes, and mild demeanour, and serene visage. Here strutted the lively, affected, and superfine Persian; and there the Circassian stalked with his long hair and chain cuirass. The fair Georgian jostled the ebony form of the merchant of Dongola or Sennaar.

Through the long, narrow, arched, and winding streets of the bazaar, lined on each side with loaded stalls, all was bustle, bargaining, and barter. A passenger approached, apparently of no common rank. Two pages preceded him, beautiful Georgian boys, clothed in crimson cloth, and caps of the same material, sitting tight to their heads, with long golden tassels. One bore a blue velvet bag, and the other a clasped and richly bound volume. Four footmen, armed, followed their master, who rode behind the pages on a milk-white mule. He was a man of middle age, eminently handsome. His ample robes concealed the only fault in his appearance, a figure which indulgence had rendered somewhat too exuberant. His eyes were large, and soft, and dark; his nose aquiline, but delicately moulded; his mouth small, and beautifully proportioned; his lip full and red; his teeth regular and dazzling white. His ebony beard flowed, but not at too great a length, in graceful and natural curls, and was richly perfumed; a delicate mustachio shaded his upper lip, but no whisker was permitted to screen the form and shroud the lustre of his oval countenance and brilliant complexion. Altogether, the animal perhaps predominated too much in the expression of the stranger’s countenance; but genius beamed from his passionate eye, and craft lay concealed in that subtle lip. The dress of the rider was sumptuous. His turban, formed by a scarlet Cachemire shawl, was of great breadth, and concealing half of his white forehead, increased by the contrast the radiant height of the other. His under-vest was of white Damascus silk, stiff with silver embroidery, and confined by a girdle formed by a Brusa scarf of gold stuff, and holding a dagger, whose hilt appeared blazing with brilliants and rubies. His loose and exterior robe was of crimson cloth. His white hands sparkled with rings, and his ears glittered with pendulous gems.

‘Who is this?’ asked an Egyptian merchant, in a low whisper, of the dealer whose stuffs he was examining.

‘‘Tis the Lord Honain,’ replied the dealer. ‘And who may he be?’ continued the Egyptian. ‘Is he the Caliph’s son?’

‘A much greater man; his physician.’ The white mule stopped at the very stall where this conversation was taking place. The pages halted, and stood on each side of their master, the footmen kept off the crowd.

‘Merchant,’ said Honain, with a gracious smile of condescension, and with a voice musical as a flute, ‘Merchant, did you obtain me my wish?’

‘There is but one God,’ replied the dealer, who was the charitable Ali, ‘and Mahomed is his Prophet. I succeeded, please your highness, in seeing at Aleppo the accursed Giaour, of whom I spoke, and behold, that which you desired is here.’ So saying, Ali produced several Greek manuscripts, and offered them to his visitor.

‘Hah!’ said Honain, with a sparkling eye, ‘‘tis well; their cost?’

‘The infidel would not part with them under five hundred dirhems,’ replied Ali.

‘Ibrahim, see that this worthy merchant receive a thousand.’

‘As many thanks, my Lord Honain.’

The Caliph’s physician bowed gracefully.

‘Advance, pages,’ continued Honain; ‘why this stoppage? Ibrahim, see that our way be cleared. What is all this?’

A crowd of men advanced, pulling along a youth, who, almost exhausted, still singly struggled with his ungenerous adversaries.

‘The Cadi, the Cadi,’ cried the foremost of them, who was Abdallah, ‘drag him to the Cadi.’

‘Noble lord,’ cried the youth, extricating himself by a sudden struggle from the grasp of his captors, and seizing the robe of Honain, ‘I am innocent and injured. I pray thy help.’

‘The Cadi, the Cadi,’ exclaimed Abdallah; ‘the knave has stolen my ring, the ring given me by my faithful Fatima on our marriage-day, and which I would not part with for my master’s stores.’

The youth still clung to the robe of Honain, and, mute from exhaustion, fixed upon him his beautiful and imploring eye.

‘Silence,’ proclaimed Honain, ‘I will judge this cause.’

‘The Lord Honain, the Lord Honain, listen to the Lord Honain!’

‘Speak, thou brawler; of what hast thou to complain?’ said Honain to Abdallah.

‘May it please your highness,’ said Abdallah, in a whining voice, ‘I am the slave of your faithful servant, Ali: often have I had the honour of waiting on your highness. This young knave here, a beggar, has robbed me, while slumbering in a coffee-house, of a ring; I have my witnesses to prove my slumbering. ‘Tis a fine emerald, may it please your highness, and doubly valuable to me as a love-token from my Fatima. No consideration in the world could induce me to part with it; and so, being asleep, here are three honest men who will prove the sleep, comes this little vagabond, may it please your highness, who while he pretends to offer me my coffee, takes him my finger, and slips off this precious ring, which he now wears upon his beggarly paw, and will not restore to me without the bastinado.’

‘Abdallah is a faithful slave, may it please your highness, and a Hadgee,’ said Ali, his master.

‘And what sayest thou, boy?’ inquired Honain.

‘That this is a false knave, who lies as slaves ever will.’

‘Pithy, and perhaps true,’ said Honain.

‘You call me a slave, you young scoundrel?’ exclaimed Abdallah; ‘shall I tell you what you are? Why, your highness, do not listen to him a moment. It is a shame to bring such a creature into your presence; for, by the holy stone, and I am a Hadgee, I doubt little he is a Jew.’

Honain grew somewhat pale, and bit his lip. He was perhaps annoyed that he had interfered so publicly in behalf of so unpopular a character as a Hebrew, but he was unwilling to desert one whom a moment before he had resolved to befriend, and he inquired of the youth where he had obtained the ring.

‘The ring was given to me by my dearest friend when I first set out upon an arduous pilgrimage not yet completed. There is but one person in the world, except the donor, to whom I would part with it, and with that person I am unacquainted. All this may seem improbable, but all this is true. I have truth alone to support me. I am destitute and friendless; but I am not a beggar, nor will any suffering induce me to become one. Feeling, from various circumstances, utterly exhausted, I entered a coffee-house and lay down, it may have been to die. I could not sleep, although my eyes were shut, and nothing would have roused me from a tremulous trance, which I thought was dying, but this plunderer here, who would not wait until death had permitted him quietly to possess himself of a jewel I value more than life.’

‘Show me the jewel.’

The youth held up his hand to Honain, who felt his pulse, and then took off the ring.

‘O, my Fatima!’ exclaimed Abdallah.

‘Silence, sir!’ said Honain. ‘Page, call a jeweller.’

Honain examined the ring attentively. Whether he were near-sighted, or whether the deceptive light of the covered bazaar prevented him from examining it with ease, he certainly raised his hand to his brow, and for some moments his countenance was invisible.

The jeweller arrived, and, pressing his hand to his heart, bowed before Honain.

‘Value this ring,’ said Honain, in a low voice.

The jeweller took the ring, viewed it in all directions with a scrutinising glance, held it to the light, pressed it to his tongue, turned it over and over, and finally declared that he could not sell such a ring under a thousand dirhems.

‘Whatever be the justice of the case,’ said Honain to Abdallah, ‘art thou ready to part with this ring for a thousand dirhems?’

‘Most certainly,’ said Abdallah. ‘And thou, lad, if the decision be in thy favour, wilt thou take for the ring double the worth at which the jeweller prizes it?’

‘My lord, I have spoken the truth. I cannot part with that ring for the palace of the Caliph.’

‘The truth for once is triumphant,’ said Honain. ‘Boy, the ring is thine; and for thee, thou knave,’ turning to Abdallah, ‘liar, thief, and slanderer!—for thee the bastinado,21 which thou destinedst for this innocent youth. Ibrahim, see that he receives five hundred. Young pilgrim, thou art no longer destitute or friendless. Follow me to my palace.’

The arched chamber was of great size and beautiful proportion. The ceiling, encrusted with green fretwork, and studded with silver stars, rested upon clustered columns of white and green marble. In the centre of a variegated pavement of the same material, a fountain rose and fell into a green porphyry basin, and by the side of the fountain, upon a couch of silver, reposed Honain.

He raised his eyes from the illuminated volume on which he had been long intent; he clapped his hands, and a Nubian slave advanced, and, folding his arms upon his breast, bowed in silence before his lord. ‘How fares the Hebrew boy, Analschar?’

‘Master, the fever has not returned. We gave him the potion; he slumbered for many hours, and has now awakened, weak but well.’

‘Let him rise and attend me.’

The Nubian disappeared.

‘There is nothing stranger than sympathy,’ soliloquised the physician of the Caliph, with a meditative air; ‘all resolves itself into this principle, and I confess this learned doctor treats it deeply and well. An erudite spirit truly, and an eloquent pen; yet he refines too much. ‘Tis too scholastic. Observation will teach us more than dogma. Meditating upon my passionate youth, I gathered wisdom. I have seen so much that I have ceased to wonder. However we doubt, there is a mystery beyond our penetration. And yet ‘tis near our grasp. I sometimes deem a step, a single step, would launch us into light. Here comes my patient. The rose has left his cheek, and his deep brow is wan and melancholy. Yet ‘tis a glorious visage, Meditation’s throne; and Passion lingers in that languid eye. I know not why, a strong attraction draws me to this lone child.