Part 8

Now, as _Blue Beard_ had no children by any of his wives, his sole surviving wife became mistress of all that had been his. All his vast estates and treasures came into her possession, and she was young and beautiful into the bargain. The first thing she did was to purchase commissions for her two brothers in the army; next, she bestowed a splendid estate and a large sum of money upon her sister _Anne_ as a wedding present on the occasion of her marrying the young man of her choice. Then _Fatima_ fell in love with, and married, a worthy gentleman who adored her, and these two lived out their lives in one continuous hour of happiness.

_His_ beard was black, and, when at length it grew grey, and then silvery white, she only loved him all the more. Even in the first year of her marriage she had quite forgotten the dark cloud cast upon her early life by that terrible man, _Blue Beard_; and ever afterwards she never had the slightest cause or reason to remember him.

CERBERUS

CERBERUS, the triple-headed, snake-haired, black dog guarding the gates of Hades, was a mythological monster of fierce and terrible aspect. When the shades of the departed from the upper world were ferried across the River Styx by old Charon the boatman, _Cerberus_ lay quiet and let them pass unchallenged. He knew them: they were shades brought in regular order, by Charon, and, as such, they were allowed to enter Hades. But, if they wished to retrace their steps, and gain the upper world again--this was a labour, this was a task not so easily accomplished, for _Cerberus_ would bar their way; his mane would rise and his jaws would gape, and there was no passing this terrible gatekeeper.

Yet, in the stories of antiquity, there are at least three instances of mortals, or gods in the form of mortals, passing the grim tiler on entering Hades, and repassing him on coming out again. These three were Persephone, Orpheus, and Æneas.

Persephone was the daughter of Ceres (Demeter), and was carried off by Pluto, the ruler of Hades. It was into Hades he carried her and made her his queen. _Cerberus_ knew his master, so, although Pluto bore in his arms a woman in mortal form, they passed in unchallenged by the janitor. But, when Persephone's mother, Ceres, having searched with lighted torches through all the world for her daughter, came at last to the gates of Hades, she evaded _Cerberus_ in some way that is not clearly recorded. And, when she found her daughter, and discovered that Zeus and Pluto had conspired over her abduction, she was angry and said that she would deprive the earth of cereals (a word derived from her name _Ceres_, the goddess of corn) until a satisfactory agreement was arrived at. Zeus and Pluto again conspired, and it was arranged that Persephone should spend four months of the year in Hades and the other eight with the gods. This meant that she had to pass and repass _Cerberus_ constantly.

The second case is that of Orpheus. His wife Eurydice died of a serpent's bite, and her shade was ferried across the Styx by Charon and passed into Hades without challenge from _Cerberus_. But Orpheus bewailed her loss, saying, as in Glück's wonderful opera, 'Eurydice':

'She is gone, and gone for ever';

and finally resolved to journey to Hades and bring his wife back. With the lute to which he had sung the praises of the gods, and so passed the Sirens in safety,--whereas Ulysses had to order his sailors to bind him to the mast,--he charmed the fierce dog into a deep slumber, and so entered Hades.

He found Eurydice, and Pluto agreed to let her go, provided that Orpheus did not look back before he passed _Cerberus_. But, when he came to the monster, Eurydice following, he looked back to reassure her, when lo, she vanished again to her place among the shades. Orpheus, in despair, sang again to his lute:

'She is gone, and gone for ever!'

and so, having charmed _Cerberus_ to sleep, passed to the middle world where, like Bacchus, he was torn to pieces by his fellow-mortals.

The third case is that of Æneas, the Trojan prince, who made the journey to Hades to find his lost love, Dido, and to consult his father, Anchises. He repaired to a sibyl dwelling among the mountains, and she conducted him to the gates of the lower regions.

There, over a crag that marked his den, rose the monstrous three-headed dog, his crested snakes bristling, his eyes shooting fire, his jaws greedy for prey. But the sibyl had provided herself with a cake steeped in honey and tinctured with an opiate drug derived from India and now called _Cerbera_. This she flung to the monster, who greedily devoured it and immediately sank into a deep sleep, leaving the way to Hades unguarded. And, ever since, the phrase 'a sop to _Cerberus_' has been used to signify a sweet morsel flung to pave the way to some concession.

This dog of Hades was not immortal. It remained for Hercules--the type of the perfect man--to vanquish him in the last of his twelve labours. And by this act Hercules was said to have abolished the tyranny of evil in the realm of Pluto, which extended from the utmost star of the galaxy to the lowest depth of Hades.

THE LADY BADOURA

A TALE FROM THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS

_The Lady Badoura_, Princess of China, the daughter of King Gaiour, Lord of all the Seas and of the Seven Palaces! O King! There was none like her in all the world! Her hair was as dark as the night of separation and exile; her face was like the dawn when lovers meet to embrace; her cheeks were like petals of the anemone filled with wine. When she spoke music was born again on earth; when she moved her feet seemed to faint with delight under the burden of grace and loveliness laid upon them. The seven palaces of the king, with gardens like the inmost courts of Paradise, were splendid and wonderful beyond the poet's art to describe, but, without the dazzling beauty of _Badoura's_ presence, they were as a houri's eyes without their lovelight--an empty and lifeless shade. And this all who beheld her in that sphere were destined to discover.

For, O King of the Age, it was as it were but yesterday that the _Lady Badoura_ reclined in a palace of gold, jewel-encrusted; her couch was of ivory, gold-inwrought; and on the air, fragrant with a thousand perfumes, floated the silvery voice of the slave-girl, singing of love. But to-day, O King, the _Lady Badoura_ was a prisoner in a lonely tower, attended by ten old women long deaf to songs of love. And the cause of this I will relate to you.

For several years the king, through his tender regard for her slightest wish, had left her to bestow her heart and hand of her own free accord upon some worthy suitor; but she had clung tenaciously to her freedom, rejecting all suitors--even the most powerful princes in the land. The king was sorely troubled at this, for _Badoura_ was his first and only child, and it was his greatest wish that she should marry, and raise up children for the continuance of his line. But greater trouble was yet in store. Came one day a monarch mightier than all others who had sought her hand in marriage. So powerful and dreaded was this potentate that the king dared not refuse him. He came with a splendid cortège bearing costly gifts such as are seldom found in the treasuries of kings, and he demanded of Gaiour his one and peerless daughter.

As soon as the ceremony of welcome was over, and the king had heard his guest's petition, he sought the _Lady Badoura_ and made the matter known to her. But she, knowing what was toward, rose not to greet him, as was her wont, but remained reclining, answering every stronger and stronger persuasion of her parent with shakes of her head and 'Nay, nay; I will not marry him.' At length, finding her will obdurate, the king gave way to anger, and, finally taking refuge in the opinion that she had gone from her mind, lapsed into grief, wringing his hands and crying, 'Alas! alas! that thou, my only child, shouldst be in this plight. I see now by thy look and manner that thy mind is affected.' With this he ordered his eunuchs and slaves to take her and place her, carefully guarded, where she could do no injury either to herself or others.

'Since none can rouse her heart to love,' said he, 'she must needs be insane.' And, had the first part of his words been true, thou wouldst know, O King, that the second would be true also. But she was not in this case; and now, having shown how and why she, who but yesterday was sitting free in a golden palace, was to-day imprisoned in a lonely tower, I will relate the causes of that love for an unknown one, which now afflicted her.

_Badoura_ had treasured to her heart a talisman,--a gem of wondrous beauty given to her by Dahnash the Efreet. Now, as you know, the Efreets are a powerful order of spirits, sometimes benign and friendly to mortals, sometimes malign and inimical. Dahnash, and another, of whom I shall presently speak, were of evil origin, but possessed enough of good in their nature to make them long for an immortal soul, and this they sought to obtain by labours of love for mankind. The talisman given to _Badoura_ had the peculiar virtue of uniting lovers destined for each other. She had, by this virtue, dreamed of one far away; and all her heart longed for him unutterably, while she still knew that a golden hour of the future would bring him to her side.

Know, O King, that the potency in a talisman is linked with its origin in the world of Efreets. Now in the far country of Khaledan, ruled by King Shazaman, dwelt Meymooneh, a female Efreet of great wisdom. It was she who had endowed this talisman with its virtues and sent it by Dahnash, an Efreet of lower degree, to the _Lady Badoura_. After this she had, by magic spells, led Prince Camaralzaman, the king's only son, to defy his father's command to marry; and, by her subtle arts, his heart and mind were so entranced by dreams of one as lovely as she was far away, that his ever-growing resistance to his father's will was at last met by the sternest anger. So it happened that just as _Badoura_ was imprisoned in the tower,--and for the same reason,--so was Camaralzaman cast into the dungeon beneath his father's palace. There in that self-same spot, in the depth of a well in a recess of the dungeon, dwelt Meymooneh the Efreet.

Towards midnight, when the Efreet goes forth, Meymooneh rose like a bubble from the bottom of the well and found the prince, beautiful in sleep, lying on a rough couch against the wall of his prison. Lost in wonder at his perfect loveliness, she gazed down upon him. For a while she stood thrilled with the thrill of the Efreet's love for a mortal, her outspread wings quivering above him; then at the call of her lifelong purpose she slowly folded her wings and drew back with a sigh. 'By Allah!' she murmured, 'I know now that He is good, or He could not have created a mortal so perfectly beautiful. I will fulfil my task and win my soul.' So saying she bent down and pressed a kiss between his eyes. He turned, dreaming that a rose-petal had fallen on his brow, but did not wake.

With glad heart and heel Meymooneh spurned the earth and soared aloft through the dungeon's roof, crying 'Dahnash! Dahnash!' Her summons was answered by a peal of thunder and a whirr of wings, as Dahnash appeared through a murky cloud. Torn from his demon abode he must needs come, for Meymooneh had power over him. By muttered spells she held him in mid-air, his eyes blazing, his tail lashing, and his wings vibrating feather against feather.

'Dahnash! sayest thou that she to whom I sent thee with the talisman is more perfect than any among mortals?'

'O Meymooneh!' replied he, fearing her glance, 'torture me as thou wilt if I have not told thee truly that there is none her equal: the _Lady Badoura_ is fair above all beauty among mortals.'

'Thou liest! He for whose sake I wrought the talisman is fairer.'

Word gave word in heated dissension, and Dahnash only escaped Meymooneh's wrath by pleading for a fair comparison of the two seen side by side.

'Go, then!' cried Meymooneh, buffeting him with her wing. 'Off with you to China and bring hither your bird of beauty. We will compare them side by side, as thou sayest; and then we will further prove the matter by waking first one and then the other to see which accords the other the more fervent protestations of love. Go! Bring her to my abode!'

On this Dahnash sped with incredible swiftness to China, while Meymooneh repaired to the dungeon where the prince was still in slumber.

In a brief space Dahnash reappeared at her side bearing the _Lady Badoura_ sleeping in his arms. He laid his lovely burden on the couch beside Camaralzaman, and the two Efreets, dumbfounded by the incomparable beauty of the pair, gazed upon them in speechless wonder.

'It is well we agreed that they themselves should decide,' said Meymooneh at length, 'for where both are perfect the decision is beyond our power.'

Then, transforming herself into a flea, she sprang forthwith upon the neck of the prince and bit him. Camaralzaman awoke, and, raising himself on one elbow, beheld the face and form of _Badoura_ by his side. Giving himself up to a sudden ecstasy of love, and crying that all his life had been a dream of which this was the waking fulfilment, he strove to arouse her; but in vain: she was bound by the spell of the Efreets, who, having rendered themselves invisible, were watching intently. At last, his words of love falling exhausted on her unconscious spirit, he placed his arm beneath her raven tresses, and, raising her head, kissed her on the brow with the purest love of youth. Then, by a sudden inspiration, on seeing a ring upon her finger, he exchanged it for his own; and, having done this, sank to sleep in obedience to the Efreets' spell.

Meymooneh, now anxious to show the other aspect of the case, again assumed the form of a flea, and, springing upon _Badoura_, soon found a way to bite her hard in a soft place. _Badoura_ sprang up wide awake and immediately beheld Camaralzaman sleeping by her side.

'Oh me!' she cried, 'what shame has come upon me? Yet, by Allah! he is so beautiful that I love him to distraction.' Then, after crying out the utmost words of love to his unheeding spirit, she fell to kissing his hands, whereupon she found to her amazement that her ring was upon his finger and a strange one upon her own. 'I know not,' cried she at last, 'but it seemeth we are married.' And with that she sighed with content, and, nestling to his side, fell under the Efreets' spell of sleep.

At a loss, even now, to decide which was the more beautiful, the Efreets agreed to waive their difference, and Dahnash, at the bidding of Meymooneh, raised _Badoura_ in his arms and sped through space to China.

When waking came with morning light the case with _Badoura_ was like that with Camaralzaman, save that the former, having quitted her couch, forgot it, whereas the latter was clearly certain he had not quitted his. Each discovered the other's ring bestowed in exchange. Each thrilled at the meaning of this pledge, which proved their meeting to have been no baseless dream. Each swore by Allah that a fiendish trick had been played at dead of night,--not in the wedding of them in their sleep, but in the snatching of them asunder before waking. _Badoura_ wailed for her husband; Camaralzaman rose in wrath and demanded his stolen wife. There was trouble in China and in Khaledan that day, and in each kingdom a sorrowful king wept for the madness of his first-born.

For three long years the pair nursed their love in separation and confinement. Camaralzaman was sent in splendid exile to a palace by the sea, but the wide expanse of waters only afforded him the greater space for the longing which consumed him. He could not know that, far across the ocean, the one he longed for was sitting, chained by the neck with a golden chain, there at the window of her palace tower--chained and guarded lest in her supposed madness she should hurl her body in the wake of her soul which rushed to meet him from afar. He could not know that her father, the king, had invited the astrologers and wise men to cure his daughter of her malady, the reward of success being her hand and half his kingdom, the punishment of failure the forfeiture of life; nay, he might even have rejoiced to know that already forty heads, relieved of wisdom, decked the walls of Gaiour's palace. Yet, O King of the Age, through the virtues of the talisman he was led thither to see and know.

One day _Badoura's_ old nurse arose from sleep bewildered, and, summoning her son Marzavan, she dispatched him on the track of the footprints of a dream. One in the wide world afar seemed to have come and gone, leaving nothing but a trail of the perfume of Paradise--a trail which Marzavan must follow. He set forth, and over land and sea he travelled on his quest. Now upon some fragrant gale he fancied he heard the voice of the one he sought; now in the sunset glow of the western hills he caught the echo of his horse's hoofs. Many he met who had heard of a prince afar who was mad for the love of one unknown, but none could pilot him to that prince's dwelling-place. At last it was the wing of chance--the certainty of talismans--that brought him to the feet of Camaralzaman. Through perilous adventure, ending in shipwreck, he found him and told him all. How they contrived their sudden flight and passage across land and sea I leave to your own thoughts, O King of the Age, for thou knowest in thy wisdom that, where none can find a way, Love will find a way.

So it transpired one day that the forty heads relieved of wisdom looked down approvingly upon a youthful astrologer beating with his staff upon the palace gates.

'By Allah!' cried the janitor on opening to him. 'Thou art in a mighty hurry to quit this life so soon.'

'Nay, I come to heal the _Lady Badoura_ of her malady. Let me in, and that quickly!'

He had his will. Then, step by step, each step an age, he followed up and up to the lonely tower. His hair seemed turning grey before he was admitted; but no sooner had he crossed the threshold than _Badoura_, with a cry of joy, rose and broke her golden chain, and sped to his arms, where she lay in bliss, pouring out her soul in sobs and kisses.

The cure was immediate. The king came in haste and saw in a moment that she was healed beyond the wildest hope of the forty bleached heads.

'Allah be praised!' he cried on seeing her face aglow and her eyes a-dancing with delight. 'There is indeed no god but Allah! For I perceive that He hath restored my daughter's reason.'

'Nay, my father,' returned she, 'Allah hath restored thy daughter's husband: her reason was never lacking.' And when, in proof of her words, she had shown the astonished king her own ring upon the finger of Camaralzaman, and his upon hers, she clung to her husband in an ecstasy of joy, returning his ardent kisses again and again and again.

When the whole story of Camaralzaman's perils and adventures by land and sea was told, the king marvelled greatly at the power of love that had drawn two sundered hearts together in so wonderful a fashion.

'Of a surety,' he said, 'the souls of these two have stood together in the Magic Isle of Love, where the woven moonbeams trap the hearts of lovers in one net. And, by Allah! though those silvery threads may stretch to the brink of the earth and the opposite sides of heaven, they must, at Allah's will, tighten again, drawing heart close to heart. Great is the will of Allah!'

* * * * *

The _Lady Badoura_, with her husband, Prince Camaralzaman, dwelt in the land of China in a state of the utmost delight and happiness for many, many days, beloved of the king and all the people. And _Badoura_ treasured the talisman that had brought such great joy: she wore it always,--sewn in her robe against the beating of her heart.

THE SLEEPER AWAKENED

A TALE FROM THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS

ABU HASAN THE WAG!

O my Lord the King, strange as was the story of Sindbad the Sailor, that of Abu Hasan the Wag is even stranger--indeed, there is no true story so strange in all the world. Abu Hasan--a mere merchant--awoke one morning to find himself caliph of Baghdad; and, as thou bidst me recall a tale of past telling, I will relate exactly how it happened.

Know, then, O King, that Abu Hasan the Wag, living in the reign of Harun-er-Rashid, inherited a large fortune from his father. As his wealth was no longer his father's but his own, he took thought as to how he might save at least some of it. Accordingly, without telling any one, he divided it into two equal parts, setting one part aside in a safe place and keeping the other at his disposal to lavish among his boon companions. 'In this way,' said he, 'I shall at once be risking only half my fortune and learning the way of the world; for I doubt not that when I have spent the one-half on my friends they will in their turn treat me in like fashion.' By which you will perceive, O King, that Abu Hasan, whose exact age I have not stated, was at least young.

A great man then was Abu Hasan. He had gold, and he summoned his boon companions to every delight his heart could devise. Long and loud was the revelry by night. Equally long were the bills by day. But Abu Hasan knew his friends: they were good fellows all, and he felt quite sure that when the half of his fortune was spent and they thought him penniless, they would turn to him and say, 'Thou didst treat us right royally while thou wast rich: now that thou art poor, come and partake, in your turn, of our _largesse_.' By which you will perceive, O King, that he was not growing any older.

A whole year passed in riotous living and extravagant generosity. Then, finding the money exhausted, he called his boon companions and laid his case before them, expecting what he did not receive. Every one of them turned his back and left him with the utmost unconcern. Some called him a fool; others could not imagine what he had done with all his money: all took their leave and went their ways.

A sad man then was Abu Hasan and, like all sad men, he sought his mother.

'O my son,' said she, stroking his hair, 'was it not always so? Thou wast rich: they were thy friends. Thou art poor: where is their friendship? My son, thou hast sold it and paid for it thyself. Alas! learn from this never to put thy trust in the friends of thy purse.' And, with his head upon her lap, she wept over him bitterly.

A changed man then was Abu Hasan. He arose and went forth, no longer young, and withdrew from its safe keeping the remaining half of his fortune. With a part of this--being still a man of wealth--he purchased a mansion and filled it with all manner of delights till it was fit to charm the heart of the caliph himself; and there he dwelt in luxury, as befitted a man of his station. But, having purchased a fragment of wisdom at the price of half his original fortune, he resolved to make use of it. He would have done with friends and have to do only with strangers, and these, moreover, should remain strangers, for his associationship with any one of them should be for one night only;--at dawn 'Farewell! Henceforth I know you not; for I have been sorely bit by friends; by strangers never.'