Part 25

“A mere handful,” said Hassan scornfully; “you are enough to master them in five minutes. My advice, then, is this. As the Beys do not know that your eyes have been opened to their treachery, they will of course admit you at any hour. Let the _yuzbashi_ knock at the gate and say that he has something of importance to communicate to the Bey; he will be admitted at once. As soon as the gate is opened for his admittance, a party of us following close behind him will rush in and overpower the _bowàbs_ or sentries that may be there. We will then let in the remainder of our brave fellows, leaving only a small guard in this palace, and we will go and make prisoners of the Beys and all their followers. When Mohammed Ali’s troops appear in the morning I will go out to their commanders and tell them that you had been deceived and misled, but that you had now returned to your duty, in proof of which you had seized and were ready to deliver up to them the conspirators. I will answer for you receiving your full pardon and your full pay besides.”

“Mashallah!” cried several voices, “the plan is good; let us follow it at once.”

“It is not so easy as it seems,” said a cautious old fellow, who had a habitual dread of his commander. “Ali Bey is a desperate and dangerous man to take; he has always four pistols in his belt, and he fights like a devil.”

“Give me a sword, my lads, and leave Ali Bey to me,” said Hassan, his eyes lighting up as they always did at the approach of strife.

“Hassan’s the leader for us!” shouted one of those whom he had released at Siout—“open hand in peace, and iron hand in the fight.”

As he spoke his own and half-a-dozen other swords were offered to Hassan’s choice. Selecting with the eye of a connoisseur the trustiest blade, he said, “Now, my lads, let us go; but remember, no bloodshed excepting in self-defence. Our business is to take them alive; and, Wallah! we will take them if you are firm and steady. Now assemble at the gate in silence, and be ready.”

Whilst the men were collecting for the expedition, Hassan whispered to the _yuzbashi_ the course that he was to pursue, adding, “I do not know you, but I shall be close to you and observe you well. If you are faithful, you will be rewarded; but if you attempt to betray us, your head shall be the first to fall.”

“You shall see,” answered the _yuzbashi_ with a grim smile, “whether I do not pay my debt to Ali Bey and those other scoundrels.”

The evening was now advanced, the Ezn-el-âshah[117] had long since been chanted from the mosques, but there seemed to be no symptoms of retiring to rest in Ali Bey’s house. He himself, surrounded by Osman Bey, Nour-ed-din, and the other leaders of the conspiracy, were seated in his large salamlik, or reception-room, arranging their plans for the morrow and discussing eagerly the course they should adopt towards Ibrahim Pasha after they had got rid of his father.

All of them felt confident that he would gladly profit by their crime; but few felt sure that he would not punish its authors.

“He dare not punish us,” said Ali Bey boldly; “we are too many. See here,” he continued, drawing a paper from his vest, “here are the seals of twenty-five, none of whom are without power or friends. He may, indeed, affect to be angry at first, but he will be obliged to pardon and reward us.”

While he was yet speaking a servant came in and said that the _yuzbashi_, Suleiman Aga, followed by a number of the Bashi-Bazouks, was without, and wished to see the Bey.

“These fellows,” said the latter to his companions, “are ready for any mischief. I have worked them up to such a pitch of discontent that I can scarcely prevail on them to defer plundering the palace until to-morrow, when we shall have Mohammed Ali in our power. Let him come in.”

As he spoke, the _yuzbashi_, followed by a number of his men, entered the room, and the first words that he uttered were—

“Bey, I can no longer control these men: they demand justice and their pay.”

“Justice and our pay!” said a number of rough voices, as they kept pouring into the room.

“You shall have it, my lads, to-morrow—pay and plunder to your heart’s content,” said Ali Bey. “Only be patient to-night, and you shall have vengeance on those who have robbed you of your right.”

“They shall have it now!” cried Hassan, coming suddenly forward, sword in hand.

“And who in the name of the Prophet may you be?” said Ali Bey.

“Wallah! Wallah! it is that traitor scoundrel Hassan Ebn-el-Heràm,” cried Osman Bey, astonished at the sudden appearance of our hero, whom he had seen some hours before under arrest.

“Present!” said Hassan in a deep, stern voice; and immediately the Bashi-Bazouks, who now lined the side of the room, presented their pistols at the knot of conspirators seated at its upper end.

“Ali Bey, Osman Bey, and you others who have deceived and betrayed these brave men by withholding their pay, their hour of vengeance is come, not against Mohammed Ali to-morrow, but against you to-night. Yield yourselves prisoners, or I give the word to fire.”

“Never!” cried Ali Bey, springing with the others to his feet. “We have adherents below enough to punish these mutinous scoundrels.”

“Ali Bey,” replied Hassan sternly, “your adherents are already overpowered—your whole plot is known to Mohammed Ali—his troops surround your house—you have no means of defence or escape; you can only now trust to the Viceroy’s clemency.”

“You, at least, shall never live to boast of this treachery,” cried Osman Bey, who was literally foaming with rage, as he drew his sword and sprang upon Hassan.

The result was such as might have been expected where strength, skill, and coolness were on one side and ungovernable fury on the other. Scarcely a few seconds elapsed ere Osman Bey’s sword-arm, severed by one cut, fell to the ground.

“Bind up his wound and secure him,” said Hassan coolly to one of the Bashi-Bazouks who was near him; and without deigning another look at his fallen adversary, he addressed himself to Ali Bey, saying—

“I would fain avoid useless bloodshed; will you yield yourselves prisoners or not?”

Ali Bey, though a cruel and vicious man, was not deficient in courage; but the hapless fate of his confederate, the determined language and commanding appearance of Hassan, and the formidable row of pistol-barrels that gleamed at his back, might well have intimidated a bolder spirit. In the countenance of his companions he read nothing but dismay, so he replied, “We yield ourselves,” and sullenly threw his sword on the floor at Hassan’s feet.

His comrades followed his example, and in a few minutes they were all disarmed and pinioned. Their persons were searched by Hassan’s order, and he thus obtained possession of the paper to which the seals of the conspirators had been affixed.

Hassan spent the remainder of the night in visiting all the quarters of the house and seeing that the prisoners of all ranks were duly guarded. The Bashi-Bazouks who had witnessed the summary chastisement that he had inflicted on Osman Bey, and who seemed to feel an intuitive conviction that he was armed with the authority which he assumed, obeyed him without a murmur.

No sooner had the day dawned than he took the _yuzbashi_ and a few more of the men to the roof of the house, whence he showed them two field-pieces already in position in their front and the troops of Mohammed Ali drawn up and surrounding them on every side.

“Did I speak the truth,” said Hassan, “when I told you that if you continued in mutiny you would be cut off to a man?”

“Wallah! Hassan, you spoke the truth,” they replied. “Our only hope is now in you, for you said that if we obeyed you we should have our pay and our pardon.”

“Fear not, I will make my words good. I will go out now alone and speak to the officer in command of these troops in front: I think I should know him.”

Descending from the roof, he walked alone out of the gate and advanced to the front of the column, the Bashi-Bazouks watching his movements from the roof and from the windows with the deepest anxiety.

“Mashallah!” cried one, “what miracle is this? See, Hassan Ebn-el-Heràm is embracing that old officer, who by his uniform must be a Bey or Pasha. He is embracing also another younger officer: see, they are coming this way.”

“I know them well,” cried a soldier beside the first speaker. “The old officer is Dervish Bey the Swordsman, a brave old fellow; I served with him in Arabia: the other is Reschid, _khaznadâr_ of the Kiahia Pasha.”

“Ajaib!” (Wonderful!) exclaimed several voices, “that Hassan the outlaw should be so familiar with these Beys.”

As they slowly approached the front of the palace Hassan had time to explain briefly to his father the events of the night, and the manner in which he had effected the capture of the conspirators.

On hearing his report Dervish Bey desired Reschid to ride with all speed to Shoobra to inform Mohammed Ali of what had passed, and to ask his further orders. He also sent messengers to inform Delì Pasha and the commanders of the other troops that had been drawn towards the palace that the conspiracy was already crushed.

“What news?” said the Viceroy to Reschid as the latter entered his salamlik breathless and dusty from his gallop.

“May your Highness’s life be prolonged; the conspirators are all prisoners awaiting your sentence.”

“El-hamdu-lillah!” (Praise be to Allah!) said the Viceroy. “Had you much fighting? did the scoundrels make a stout resistance?”

“We had no fighting at all,” said Reschid, smiling; “Hassan did it all himself.”

“How was that?” said Mohammed Ali, surprised.

“In the course of the night he explained to the Bashi-Bazouk regiment how they had been misled, robbed, and betrayed by their officers; he showed them Ali Bey’s receipt, proving that your Highness had done them no injustice. Having convinced and brought them back to their duty, he led them into the adjoining house to arrest their own officers. Osman Bey made a sudden spring at him, but Hassan cut his arm off, and the rest surrendered without resistance.”

“Aferin! [bravo!] Hassan,” said Mohammed Ali; then turning to Reschid, he added, “Let them await my coming at the palace; I will be there within the hour.”

In less than the time specified the Viceroy appeared at the Esbekiah Palace gates mounted on Nebleh, who had become his favourite charger, and surrounded by a numerous guard. Having received the reports of his Pashas and generals as to the events of the night, and the names of the conspirators captured at Ali Bey’s house, he said in a loud and stern voice—

“Let Ali Bey, Osman Bey, and Nour-ed-din, who have robbed the troops of their pay, incited them to mutiny, and conspired against the Government, suffer the doom of traitors—off with their heads; and their villages, houses, and properties are confiscated. Let that villainous servant of Osman Bey named Ferraj, whose crimes are known to me, and his brother, Hadji Mohammed, who came into my service to poison me, receive one thousand blows of the stick; let the other prisoners await further inquiry and orders. Where is Hassan Ebn-el-Heràm? Let him stand forth.”

Our hero, thus called upon, came out and stood in front of that numerous assemblage.

“Hassan,” said Mohammed Ali, “if the disgrace imposed upon you by that dog Osman Bey led you for a time to forget your duty, your fidelity and good service now and on former occasions deserve reward; you are a worthy son of a worthy father. Hassan, son of Dervish Bey, I appoint you in the place of the traitor Ali Bey to the command of the Bashi-Bazouk regiment which he betrayed or misled. I grant them, for your sake, a full pardon, and they shall have all their arrears of pay. I present you also with the houses, lands, and property of Ali Bey, which have been forfeited to the Government.”

“May your Highness’s honour and prosperity be boundless as your bounty,” said Hassan, coming forward to kiss the Viceroy’s sleeve. He then retired a few steps, awaiting further commands or the signal to withdraw.

He thought not of the lands or the wealth he had acquired, but one of the brightest dreams of his youth was realised: he had been publicly recognised, by one whom he held to be the hero of the age, as a worthy son of the gallant Dervish Bey. This was the feeling which filled his breast with a bounding and tumultuous joy, and his eye sought and met that of his father. But Hassan’s thoughts were speedily recalled to the presence in which he stood by the voice of Mohammed Ali, who, once more addressing him, said—

“I have rewarded your services only as you deserve; I wish now to add a favour from myself. Have you any request to make? Speak it boldly.”

“If your Highness will pardon my freedom, I would ask you to give to my friend Reschid the command of the regiment vacant by the punishment of Nour-ed-din. These men, like the Bashi-Bazouks, have been misled by the treachery of their commander; but when they learn how they have been deceived, their hearts and swords will return to your Highness’s service. I have seen the courage and fidelity of Reschid put to the proof, and under him that regiment will be as true and efficient as any in your army.”

“What say you, Kiahia?” said Mohammed Ali to his chief Pasha; “shall Hassan’s request be granted?”

“Hassan has robbed me of a good _khaznadâr_,” said the old Kiahia, smiling, “but he has given your Highness a good colonel, so I must forgive him; neither will I deny that Reschid’s fingers, when employed on the seal or the pen, are always itching for the lance and the sword.”

“Be it so, then,” said the Viceroy; “make out the order to our War Office and we will seal it. And now, Hassan, as you would not ask anything for yourself, I must select for you. Strength and youth, and, Mashallah! good looks and a good name you have; it is a shame that you remain unmarried,—I have chosen you a wife from a noble harem, and I will give her a dower myself.”

Hassan’s lip grew pale and quivered as he said in a hesitating voice—

“Pardon me, your Highness, if I decline the honour. I have made a vow that——”

Here Mohammed Ali interrupted him, saying—

“Peace, _delikànloo_,”[118] and he fixed on the young man one of those piercing glances in which anger and humour were so strangely blended that it was difficult to know which was predominant. “Is there already so much wind of prosperity in your head that you despise the alliance of the daughter of Delì Pasha?”

At the sound of that name the blood rushed to Hassan’s temples. He dared not testify his rapturous delight before so many witnesses. Mohammed Ali read it in his eyes, while the lips only said—

“Your Highness has loaded me with benefits that the gratitude and service of a life cannot repay.”

“How obedient he became at once as soon as he heard the name,” said Mohammed Ali in an undertone to Delì Pasha, who stood near him.

“Your Highness knew their attachment,” said the old soldier gratefully; “to see them united under the shadow of your protection was my fondest wish.”

The Viceroy now retired into the palace, and on entering his private apartment said to his Hakim-bashi—

“There is one thing yet I forgot to learn from Hassan; send him here immediately, and send my seal-bearer into Ali Bey’s house with a guard, and tell him to seal every door, box, and cupboard till Hassan goes in to take possession, otherwise the thoughtless boy will find nothing but empty walls.”

Our hero was just receiving the congratulations of his father and Delì Pasha when he was directed to reappear immediately in Mohammed Ali’s presence. On entering the room the Viceroy said to him—

“When you captured the conspirators, did you learn anything certain of their numbers or associates without? Wallah! I forgot myself, or I would have ordered the scoundrels to be tortured to make them tell before their heads were cut off.”

“Men under torture,” said Hassan, “often tell falsehoods to gratify spite and revenge; but I took from Ali Bey’s vest a paper supposed to contain the seals of all those who had joined his plot. I have not shown it either to the Kiahia or to my own father, for I thought it might contain names which, for various reasons, had better be known to none but yourself.”

“Mashallah!” said Mohammed Ali, “though you are sometimes a _delikànloo_, you have a head fitted for older shoulders than yours; but I have long known that you could keep a secret. Do you remember the night that you passed in a certain palace near the Nile?”

“Did your Highness know of that?” said Hassan in surprise.

“Everything that passed,” replied Mohammed Ali. “One of the blacks in the service of that lady was a spy in my pay: her conduct compelled me to have recourse to these measures, but I have taken that house away from her. The old woman who plotted with Ferraj to entice you into the house is at the bottom of the Nile. You behaved nobly, and you have nobly kept secret events which, if known, would have brought disgrace on my family. Go on as you have begun, and, Inshallah! so long as Mohammed Ali lives you shall not want a friend. Now you may retire.”

Hassan kissed the hand extended to him and left the presence with an exulting heart, repeating as he went out the Arabic proverb, “The husbandman prayed for a shower, and, lo! an abundant rain,” which answers to our proverb, “It never rains but it pours”—_i.e._, that blessings, like misfortunes, seldom “come single” in life.[119]

A month has passed, and Hassan’s mother has wept tears of joy on the breast of her long-lost son, and they have reiterated to each other the mysterious attraction which had linked them in sympathy from the first moment that they had met in Delì Pasha’s house, and Zeinab Khanum (whom we have so long known as Fatimeh) has refused to leave Amina, now doubly dear to her, until her marriage.

And Amina—who can paint her happiness?—a happiness such as not once in a century can fall to the lot of a daughter of Islam: to be united to one whom her virgin heart has so long worshipped as an idol—one whose courage and devotion she has so surely proved—one whom her pure and trusting heart tells her, and tells her truly, will love her alone.

What an intensity of joy is mingled with the blushes on her cheek as she tries on the diamond ornaments with which the munificence of Mohammed Ali had decked the bride of Hassan. For his sake she is content to allow the busy tirewomen to exhaust their efforts in enhancing the brilliancy of her beauty: they stain her delicate fingers with henna, they draw a shaded line of kohl along the lids of her large and lustrous eyes, and they anoint her redundant tresses with the most sweet-scented unguents of Araby.

As Mohammed Ali had undertaken to dower the bride, all the city seemed disposed to take a share in the marriage festivities. For a week Hassan’s house had been illuminated every evening, and had been open to all visitors. Lambs, fowls, pilaws, and sweetmeats were demolished wholesale, and thousands of the poor were daily fed in the courts below.

The last day of these ceremonials had now arrived, and Amina was conducted in state to her bridegroom’s house. The procession, of immense length, was preceded by a band of tumblers or buffoons, who amused the public by their antics and somersaults; while in front of them walked a _sakkah_, or water-carrier, staggering under the weight of an enormous goat-skin sack filled with sand and water, which entitled him (if he could carry it to the bridegroom’s house without setting it down) to a liberal present. Some malicious urchin contrived, unperceived, to cut a large hole in the bottom of the skin, and escaped in the crowd. The _sakkah_, feeling the water trickling down his legs and the lightened load on his back, soon became aware of the trick that had been played him, and attributing it to the tumblers and jugglers behind him, turned round and began to belabour them with his half-empty sack, covering them from head to foot with sand and water, to the infinite amusement of the spectators.

Behind these buffoons there followed several open cars, one containing a _kahweji_, or maker of coffee, with the implements of his profession; another a _helwaji_, or sweetmeat-maker; a third a _faterji_, or pancake-maker,—all of whom dispensed their good things to the bystanders as they passed.

After these came a band of musicians, who were followed by a dozen married ladies of rank mounted on white donkeys, their saddles adorned with crimson silk and gold embroidery: to these succeeded a troop of unmarried girls on donkeys similarly accoutred.

Then came the bride, veiled from head to foot, a cashmere shawl over the veil concealing completely her face and figure from the envious eyes of the spectators.

It is usual for brides of rank to ride on donkeys, but on this occasion Amina was mounted on Nebleh, splendidly caparisoned by the Viceroy’s order, the beautiful Arab’s embroidered reins being held by eunuchs who walked on each side of her head. The procession was closed by a party of Mamelukes richly accoutred and a band of Turkish music.

On reaching Hassan’s house the bride and her attendants sat down to a repast prepared for them, the bridegroom being, according to etiquette, absent at the bath. After a certain time he returned with his party and a _cortége_ scarcely less numerous than that of the bride.

On entering the house he left his friends to refresh themselves below, while he went to an upper apartment where Amina was seated, still completely veiled, between Zeinab Khanum and one of Delì Pasha’s wives.

Agreeably to custom, Hassan went through the form of giving to each a piece of money, called the “unveiling fee” (for up to that moment the bridegroom is supposed not to have seen the face of the bride); the two elder ladies retired, and Hassan was left alone with Amina. According to the prescribed rules of their faith, he gently lifted the veil from her face, saying as he did so, “In the name of Allah, the compassionate, the merciful.”

But not strange to each other were those eyes that now exchanged their glances of unutterable love. Not the blush of a timid virgin on first seeing the stranger who is hereafter to be her tyrant was the rosy hue that tinged the neck of Amina as she listened in breathless silence to the prayer which, according to Mohammedan rite, he uttered before he ventured to embrace his wedded bride. Placing his right hand on her head, he said with a deep-toned earnestness which thrilled to her heart—

“Oh, Allah, bless me in my wife, and bless my wife in me. Unite us, as thou hast united us, for our good, and separate us when thou hast decreed to do so, likewise for our good.”

Here let us take the veil which Hassan had removed from Amina’s head and hang it over the portal of the room where their love is crowned with that “sober certainty of waking bliss,” which heretofore they had only seen in the visions of hope and in the land of dreams.

THE END.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.

Footnotes

Footnote 1:

The “Sons of Ali,” or, as they are called, the “Oulâd-Ali,” have been settled for many years in Egypt, but their legendary history is carried back to the period when they dwelt in Upper Arabia, and they claim affinity with a tribe which still pastures its flocks on the borders of the Nejd.

Footnote 2:

A _kels_ is a long rope extended in line, and fastened to the ground by pegs. Throughout its whole length, at intervals of eighteen inches, are fixed two short nooses or slip-knots, into which the forefeet of the goats are inserted at milking-time. In Persia it is usual on a march to fasten the horses at night in a manner precisely similar.

Footnote 3: