Part 10

While this conversation was going on between Delì Pasha and Hassan, Amina was sitting in her upper room, to which her slaves had just brought up a tray covered with sweetmeats and fruits. Mansour, the old eunuch, followed, bearing a cool sherbet of pomegranate. The younger slaves being ordered to retire, there remained only with Amina, Mansour and her governess, Fatimeh Khanum, both of whom had witnessed the jereed play—the eunuch from the front building, and the elder lady from another window in the harem, for Amina had not made the latter the confidant of her secret visits to the lattice in the boudoir. With well-assumed indifference Amina asked Fatimeh Khanum and Mansour to relate all the particulars of the games, which she had followed with an eye a thousand times more eager than theirs.

Hassan was a great favourite with them both, and as they expatiated on his noble figure, his grace and skill in the use of the jereed, and his unequalled horsemanship, Amina’s blushes mantled on her cheeks and overspread her neck. Not satisfied with hearing the praises of Hassan from the lips of her attendants, she wished to hear them also from those of her father, and after Mansour had retired to the other wing of the harem, she said to Fatimeh Khanum—

“Fatimeh, I have a great desire to see my father this evening, and to hear from him all about those Franks who were his visitors to-day. Go to him and ask him if he will take supper with his little Amina. I will have prepared for him all the dishes that he best likes.”

Fatimeh, who could never refuse anything to her beloved pupil, and who, from her mature age and position in the harem, was always permitted by the Pasha to come to him in his outer apartments through the private door of communication whenever she had any message from his daughter, willingly undertook this commission. After passing the eunuchs at the curtained door, she proceeded along the narrow passage which led towards the room usually occupied by Delì Pasha, but before reaching it she had to pass through an anteroom, in which, to her surprise, she found Hassan walking up and down alone. She was about to withdraw, when he came forward and said to her, “Lady, do not retire on my account. You were going to seek our Pasha; he will soon be disengaged. A visitor, a Bey whose name I did not hear, has just called, and has something for the Pasha’s private ear. His Highness ordered all the other attendants into the outer hall, and told me to remain here.”

Fatimeh Khanum knew that she ought to retire, but there was something in Hassan’s voice and appearance which detained her in spite of herself. “Am I mad? Am I under sorcery? What is there that draws me to this youth by unknown cords?”

Such were the thoughts which followed each other through Fatimeh’s troubled brain, when her eye happened to fall upon Hassan’s wounded cheek, on which a patch of blood was visible. A woman’s instincts impelled her at once to exclaim—

“Allah! Allah! you are wounded. Why has no one stopped or washed away the blood?” And without waiting for his permission, she caught up one of the porous jugs of water found in almost every Egyptian room and drew near to Hassan.

“It is nothing, my aunt,” said Hassan, calling her by the name of affectionate respect given by the Arabs to elderly ladies; “but I will submit to your kind surgery.”

While she was gently washing off the blood, and afterwards binding up the wound with a fine Turkish handkerchief, a sudden idea seemed to strike Hassan, and scarcely had she completed her simple dressing of his wound than he seized her hand, saying, “Thank you; may Allah prolong your life! I see you have a heart. Have pity on me.”

“What is it, my son?” said Fatimeh in surprise. “Wherein can I serve you?”

“Oh, my aunt, my heart is on fire with love—my liver is roasted[61]—and if you do not find some remedy I shall die.”

“My son,” said Fatimeh compassionately, though unable to repress a smile, “the complaint is not uncommon at your age; but how can I assist you? What is the name of your love, and who is she?”

“I know not her name, nor who she is,” replied Hassan passionately; “but you must know her, for she dwells in the harem with you.”

“In the harem!” said Fatimeh, surprised. “There are doubtless some fair maidens in our Pasha’s harem, but how can you have seen them?”

“Ask me not how,” said Hassan, who would not disclose the secret of the lattice and of the aperture near the roof; “but I have seen her, and she is lovely as a Houri of Paradise.”

“It is strange,” said Fatimeh, musing; “but do not despair. Our Pasha has already married more than one of his favourite Mamelukes to fair maidens from his harem, and if you serve him faithfully you may yet realise your hopes.”

“Inshallah! Inshallah!” replied Hassan; “yet, Khanum, I would like to know her name, that I might whisper it to my heart and in my prayers.”

“Agaib!” (wonderful!) said the Khanum, still in a musing tone. “Can it be Zeinab, the Circassian, who came last year from Stamboul?—she is small, with dark-brown hair and deep blue eyes.”

“No, no, it is not she,” said Hassan impatiently.

The Khanum then proceeded to name one or two others, giving a slight sketch of their features and appearance. But the same “No, no” broke from the impatient Hassan. She was sorely puzzled; for supposing that Hassan had by some accident caught a glimpse of one of the young slaves while attending the Pasha’s wives to the bath or to some visit, the idea of her young mistress, who had not once left the harem since Hassan’s arrival, never entered her head.

“I fear, Hassan, that I cannot help you. Methinks you must have seen some stranger coming to visit at our harem, for I have named all those who are young and attractive within our walls. Cannot you describe her in such a way as to assist my conjecture?”

“Describe her!” said Hassan, lowering his voice to a tremulous whisper. “Every feature, every look, every hair of her head is written in my heart!” He then proceeded to describe the features, the eyes, the looks, the complexion, the hair, with such accurate fidelity that Fatimeh, fairly thrown off her guard, exclaimed—

“Allah! Allah! it is Amina Khanum, our Pasha’s daughter!”

“Amina!” cried Hassan. “Thrice blessed name,[62] henceforth thou art the locked treasure of my breast. I thank thee, Khanum, for giving me the beloved name to think of by day and to dream of by night.”

“Are you mad?” said the Khanum, wringing her hands in agitation and distress. “Do you remember your own position, and who the Lady Amina is? Do you know that the highest and proudest in the land have sued for her hand in vain?”

“I know,” said Hassan with deep feeling. “I know who I am—that I am a poor unknown orphan, without name, without fortune. It is the love that I bear to Amina, not the thought that she is a pasha’s daughter, which prompts me to bow my head and kiss the dust on which she treads. Were she a slave-girl in the harem my worship of her would be still the same. It is herself, her own pure image—not her station or her jewels—that I treasure in my heart of hearts. You say that her hand has been sought by the great and the rich. What are they,” he added, drawing himself proudly up, “that I may not become? Pashas and beys, forsooth—what were they at my age?—‘Mamelukes,’ ‘pipe-bearers,’ and so forth. What was Mohammed Ali at twenty? Let the proudest and the best of them stand forth before me with sword and lance and prove who best deserves her. Will they climb for her as I would to the highest summits of the Kaf?[63] Will they dive for her as I would to the lowest depths of ocean? Will they live for her, toil for her, bleed for her, die for her, as I would? My kind aunt,” he added in a low and pleading tone, “have pity on me, speak to Amina for me; tell her that Hassan’s heart is in her hand, and that it is only for her that he lives and breathes.”

“Alas! alas!” said the kind-hearted Khanum, moved by the young man’s earnest passion. “What misfortune has befallen? There is no refuge but in God, the compassionate. I pity you, Hassan, with all my heart; but you know that I dare not speak to Amina on such a subject. I am the guardian and protector of her youth, and I can name to her no suitor who does not appear with her father’s sanction. Surely she can have no knowledge or thought of this insane passion?” she added in a tone of inquiry.

“I know not,” replied Hassan confusedly. “It seems to me that she has been in my heart and in my dreams from my earliest youth; her image is interwoven with my being, with my destiny; it floats in the very air I breathe, impregnating it with sweetness and with life. I know not ‘whether the zephyrs and the spirit of dreams have wafted the odour of my vows to the pillow on which the roses of her cheek repose.’”[64]

The Khanum was about to reply when the sound of approaching footsteps was heard, and a servant entered to inform Hassan that the Pasha’s visitor had departed and that his attendance was required.

“Khanum,” said Hassan, who had by a strong effort recovered his composure, “if you have business with the Pasha, I pray you enter first; I can await his Excellency’s pleasure.”

Poor Fatimeh, though scarcely able to control the agitation into which the events of the last few minutes had thrown her, adopted the suggestion of Hassan, and entering the Pasha’s apartment delivered the message with which she had been charged by Amina.

“Tell my Morning Star,” said Delì Pasha, “that I will willingly come and sup with her; indeed, I was going to propose it myself, for I have much to say to her. Draw nearer, Khanum,” he added in a lower voice. “I know you are a discreet woman, and that you are much attached to Amina, therefore I may tell you that Hashem Bey (Allah knows what a rich old miser he is) has just been here, and the object of his visit was to propose a marriage between her and his son Selim.”

This sudden announcement was too much for the poor Khanum’s already over-excited nerves; she staggered and would have fallen had not the Pasha started up and supported her to the divan on which he had been seated.

“What is the matter, O Khanum?” he said. “What is there in this news to cause you so much agitation? Is not Selim a youth well-born, well-spoken of, rich, and high in the favour of our lord the Viceroy?”

“Forgive me,” said the Khanum in a broken voice; “a sudden faintness, a giddiness came over me—perhaps—perhaps it was the thought that this marriage would separate me for ever from my beloved child.”

“Nay,” said the rough old Pasha, moved by her grief and the cause to which she had attributed it. “I know the love you bear to my Amina, and you must also know that the separation of which you speak would be yet more hard for me than for you to bear, but some day it must be endured. Amina is now of an age to marry, and it would be difficult to find a husband more worthy of her choice than Selim. But no more at present; compose yourself; say nothing of this to Amina—I will break it to her myself; only tell her that I will come and sup with her at sunset.”

Fatimeh Khanum retired, and as she hurried through the room in which she had left Hassan, he marked her agitated step and caught the words, “Oh, grief! oh, misfortune!” ere she disappeared behind the curtained door that led to the harem.

After her departure Hassan remained for some time with Delì Pasha, receiving orders and writing letters on subjects connected with his private affairs; and when these were concluded he retired, and passed the remainder of the afternoon in finger-talk with his dumb _protégé_, whose intelligence and knowledge of all that was passing at Cairo he found to be much beyond his years. The boy seemed so happy and grateful that Hassan found a real pleasure in perfecting himself in the practice of finger-conversation.

At sunset Delì Pasha proceeded to take his supper with Amina, who, with the instinctive tact of an affectionate daughter, had not only taken care to provide the dishes that he most fancied, but had arranged the cushions of his divan so that they were perfectly adapted to his habitual attitude—they were neither too soft nor too hard, nor too high nor too low, nor too broad nor too narrow; and as she knelt playfully before him, and placed in his hand the gold-thread purse which she had just finished, he stooped to kiss her fair forehead, and meeting the upturned glance of her eyes beaming with affection, he said, “Allah bless thee, my child!” with an earnest tenderness, of which those who had known him in the days of his wild and wayward youth, would not have believed his nature capable.

Fatimeh Khanum was not present. The supper was brought up to the door by eunuchs, and served by the women attendants who usually waited on Amina. Delì Pasha did not fail to praise several dishes which had been prepared expressly for him with unusual care, not that the old soldier was a gourmand, but he recognised and appreciated the affectionate zeal evinced by Amina to please him.

During the supper he talked about the events of the morning and the English strangers, and it was arranged that he should send an invitation to Mrs Thorpe and her daughter to visit his harem. They were to be received by his eldest wife, but Amina might be present, as she would be interested in seeing the Frank ladies’ manners, appearance, and dress. The Pasha also alluded to the jereed game, and to the actors therein, and while so doing, he mentioned Hassan in terms which brought the tell-tale blood into Amina’s cheeks. He spoke of him not only as being unequalled in horsemanship and skill in arms, but as being remarkable for his truth, modesty, and integrity.

“I like the lad,” said the old Pasha; “he is of a kind rarely found nowadays—a hot head, a ready arm, and a warm heart, but no _laf guizaf_ [talk and boasting]. If we had another war with the Wahabees, or with any other nation, that lad might soon be a Pasha; but in these dull times there is no fortune to be won by the sword. So Hassan must remain _khaznadâr_ of a very small _khazneh_.[65] Such is destiny, Amina—all is destiny.”

Little did the unconscious father think that in every word which he was then uttering he was fanning a flame already kindled in his young daughter’s breast.

No sooner was the supper over, and the Pasha had enjoyed his pipe and his coffee, than he called Amina to his side, and pushing back the tresses from her face, said to her, “Morning Star, you are no longer a child—you are a little woman now.”

The fair girl’s heart had lately explained to her this truth in language more expressive and convincing than her father’s.

He then proceeded to relate to her the visit of Hashem Bey and its object, together with the reasons which made him take a favourable view of Selim’s proposal, in words nearly similar to those which he had used when speaking to Fatimeh Khanum in the morning. Had the lights not been at some distance from the divan, and the room itself rather dark, he would have been frightened at the paleness which overspread his daughter’s face, though one little hand strove to cover it. She did not speak, but he felt the death-like coldness of the other little hand, which was clasped in his. “Speak, my child; what ails thee?” he said. “Marriage is the destiny, the blessing of women. What is there to terrify thee in these proposals from a youth who is rich, worthy, and of a condition equal to your own?” She sank on her knees before him and sobbed rather than said—

“Spare me, father! spare me!—save me from this hated marriage.” And as she bowed her head upon his hands, he felt her tears falling hot and fast upon them.

Astonished at this excessive and unexpected emotion, the fond father spoke gently to her, and used all the arguments which he could think of to reconcile her to the proposed match. For some time tears and sobs were her only reply. At length she found strength to say—

“Father, I will obey you in everything. My life is in your hands. But if you do not wish to break my heart and send me to an early grave, save me from this marriage. I do not wish to leave you, father. At least give me a year’s or six months’ delay.”

Delì Pasha could not resist the pleading grief of his beloved child. Secretly unwilling himself to part from her, he consented to the delay for which she so earnestly entreated.

“Be comforted, light of my eyes,” he said; “it is only your welfare and happiness that I wish. Dry up your tears and let me see you smile again. I have not passed my word to Hashem Bey. I will write to him that I wish you to go with me to Siout, and that the time for betrothal is not now opportune. That if after six months he desires to renew the subject, it can be then taken into consideration. Will that satisfy you, Amina?”

Amina did look up, and though her eyes were still bedewed with tears, rays of hope and joy and gratitude shone through them like sunbeams through an April shower. Covering his hands with her kisses, she exclaimed, “Oh, father, you have given me a second life—you are always too good, too kind to your Amina.”

What bright hopes, what sunny visions had the young girl’s sanguine imagination conceived and crowded into the space of six months! Selim would be gone to Turkey or the other world, Hassan would be a bey or pasha!

“My child, it is time for you to go to rest,” said Delì Pasha. “Allah bless you! may your night be happy, and to-morrow let me see my Morning Star shine as brightly as ever.” With an affectionate kiss on her forehead he went across to his own apartments.

Delì Pasha was neither a suspicious nor a reflecting man, but he had a fair share of good sense when he chose to exert it, and the more he mused on the events of the day the more did he feel puzzled and unable to explain them: the strange emotion and agitation of Fatimeh Khanum, usually so staid and tranquil in her bearing, the still more violent emotion and agitation of his daughter on receiving proposals of marriage from a suitor altogether unexceptionable, and whose name he imagined must be unknown to her. “Surely,” he said to himself, “these women must have heard some story against Selim, that he is hateful, or cruel, or brutal. I must inquire of Fatimeh Khanum and find this out.”

While he was indulging in these meditations Amina had locked herself into her boudoir, and having loosened the bands that confined her hair, left it to fall all over her lovely neck and shoulders; then, drawing forth her small praying-carpet, she went through her accustomed prayers, bowing her fair forehead upon it, and thanking Allah for having preserved her from a danger the recollection of which still made her shudder.

She went to the lattice and gently, very gently, opened the side of it. She could see nothing, for the moon was not up, neither could she be seen, though Hassan was watching like a true sentinel of love: the creaking of the half-opened lattice did not, however, escape his quick ear, and ere she retired from it she heard in a half-whispered tone, that seemed to hover in the air, the following verses:—

“Extolled be the Lord who hath endued with all beauty she who hath enslaved my heart. I see her not, I hear her not, yet I feel the fragrance of her presence like concealed spikenard. My love is the moon, and I am a solitary cloud wandering over the face of the sky— A cloud obscure and unnoticed; but let the moon shine upon it, and straightway it is robed in silver.”[66]

The following morning Hassan was for some time with Delì Pasha explaining to him the results of his examination of his predecessor’s accounts, and pointing out defalcations and deficiencies in some quarters, and certain sums due, but not collected, in others. Delì Pasha hated accounts and business, but he saw so much earnest zeal in Hassan’s desire to render them clear that he forced himself to give them some attention, and even that little sufficed to make it evident that his former _khaznadâr_[67] had complicated them on purpose to cheat him, and that his present one made them as simple as possible, and compensated for his want of experience by his conscientious industry. Scarcely had he got through the summary which Hassan had drawn up, ere he clapped his young treasurer on the shoulder and broke out into a fit of laughter.

“Hassan,” he said, “you are the cream of _khaznadârs_, and I am sensible of all the zeal and industry you have shown, but I cannot help laughing when I see my young Bedouin-Antar doing the work of a Coptic clerk.”

“I grant,” said Hassan, smiling, “that the pen is not so familiar to my hand as the lance; but if I know too little, I see plainly that my predecessor knew too much, and I hope that the _khazneh_ will furnish you with more purses this year than the last. It is my wish and duty to do you good service, and be it with lance or pen, Inshallah! I will do it.”

“Would you like a little exercise for your lance?” said Delì Pasha. “I do not mean a jereed game, but a few sharp thrusts and hard blows in earnest.”

“On my head be it—I am ready,” said Hassan, his eyes brightening. “Where is such occupation to be found?”

“I have this morning received a note from the Kiahia,” said Delì Pasha, drawing it out as he spoke from under a cushion of his divan, “and he tells me that a band of the Sammalous tribe have lately come up on a plundering expedition from their own country, near the Bahirah, and have ravaged several villages near Ghizeh, carrying off money and horses. It is said that they are now not very far from the Pyramids. The Kiahia proposes to send eighty horsemen instead of fifty to escort the English party going to-morrow to the Ghizeh Pyramids: forty can remain to guard them, and the remaining forty can make an excursion into the desert and try to find and capture these Sammalous thieves. He adds in his note that he should be glad if you could accompany that party, as you were trained in Bedouin warfare, and he has formed a high opinion of your skill and courage. What say you to the proposal?”

“Most willingly will I go,” replied Hassan, “to have a bout with those rascally Sammalous, who are the enemies of my old tribe the Oulâd-Ali. The very last fight that I saw among the Arabs was with them, and they wounded my adopted father.”

“El-hamdu-lillah” (Allah be praised), said Delì Pasha, “that the expedition is to your taste. I will write to the Kiahia that you accept, and will advise him to put the horsemen sent after the Sammalous under your command. And now as a chance hurt may befall from lance or bullet, and you might be unwilling to expose a horse not your own, to make your mind easy on that score I make you a present of your friend Shèitan: you have well deserved him, and, to say the truth, I do not believe he would obey any other master.”

Hassan carried the Pasha’s hand to his lips and said, “May your life and happiness be prolonged.”[68]

“Go, then, to-morrow morning,” continued Delì Pasha, “and Allah go with you: the Kiahia’s horsemen will meet you at Ghizeh, where you will also find one or two of those who were plundered by the Sammalous, and who will aid you in tracking the party.”

Hassan took his leave, and as he went to his own room he met his dumb _protégé_. Greeting him kindly, he informed him that he was going on an excursion which might detain him a few days, and at the same time thinking that the boy might be in want of some necessary during his absence, he offered him a few small pieces of silver.