Part 8

They then withdrew into the outer apartment, and resumed the work which the noise made by the wild horse had interrupted.

Amina was making a beautiful embroidered purse for her father, and Fatimeh arranging some ornament of her favourite pupil’s dress, when a slave entered and said that the Pasha required Fatimeh Khanum’s presence in the _salamlik_. Throwing her veil over her head, she immediately obeyed the summons.

The Pasha was alone, having ordered his attendants to withdraw.

“How is my Amina, my Morning Star, to-day?” he exclaimed as soon as Fatimeh entered.

“Praise be to Allah, she is well, and her fingers are employed on a purse for your Excellency.”

“The blessing of Allah be upon her,” said the Pasha; “she is my heart’s delight. Inshallah! when I have finished the business now in hand I will come to her. Tell her that I will sup with her this evening.” He then proceeded to inform her that he had been appointed by the Viceroy to be Governor of Siout in Upper Egypt, and that in a few weeks he should take his departure, with all his family, to his new post. He proceeded to discuss with her the arrangements which it might be advisable to make for the conveyance of his daughter and for the other ladies of his harem.

Meanwhile Hassan, after seeing Shèitan secure in the stable, had returned to the house and inquired where he might find the Pasha.

“He is upstairs, in the _salamlik_,” said the young Mameluke whom he addressed. “You will find him in the large room at the end of the passage on your right; he has dismissed us from attendance, but he has asked twice for you; better that you make haste; Delì Pasha does not like to wait.”

Hassan rapidly mounted the stairs, and following the direction he had received, ran rather than walked along the dimly lighted passage which led to the Pasha’s room. Just as he reached the end, and was about to enter, he encountered a woman coming out, and the concussion was such that she must inevitably have fallen had he not caught her in his arms. As it was, the shock was such that it displaced her veil, and for a few seconds she was unable to speak. Hassan saw that she was a middle-aged woman, who still retained traces of early beauty; it was Fatimeh Khanum retiring from her interview with the Pasha.

“I hope you are not much hurt, lady,” said he in a tone of respectful solicitude, and depositing her gently on a stone seat at the side of the passage.

“Not hurt,” she replied, with difficulty regaining her breath, “but very much frightened.”

“I cannot forgive myself for being so careless,” he continued; “but I was in haste to obey the Pasha’s summons. I hope you forgive me; you can be sure I meant no rudeness to you.”

“I believe it, young Aga,” she replied with a smile, fixing her eyes involuntarily on the open and animated countenance before her. “I am recovered now; you had better go in to the Pasha, who is waiting.”

Hassan, after saluting her respectfully, left her and entered the Pasha’s room.

“You have not been very quick in obeying our summons,” said the latter, with a slight frown on his brow.

Hassan explained the accident by which he had been detained in the passage.

“What!” he cried, bursting out into a fit of laughter, “so you nearly knocked down our poor Kiahia Khanum, did you? I am glad she was not hurt. She is a good, kind-hearted soul. Now come here, Hassan, and tell me if you know anything of the postscript added by Mohammed Ali’s order to the merchant’s letter?”

“Nothing,” replied Hassan. “His Highness gave his orders in a whisper to the interpreter.”

“Well, it is written in this letter that I am to pay you ten purses [£50], and I shall order the money to be given to you this evening.”

The Pasha made Hassan give him an account of his interview with the Viceroy, and of his affray with the Government _kawàss_ on the canal, at which latter Delì Pasha laughed heartily; he then continued—“Hadji Ismael speaks so highly of you in his letter, that I propose at once to offer you the vacant post of _khaznadâr_ in this house. My _khazneh_ [treasury] is not very full, and will not occupy you much, so I shall expect you to assist in the purchase of horses which I am making for Ibrahim Pasha.”

Hassan stepped forward, and having placed the edge of the Pasha’s pelisse to his forehead in token of acknowledgment, retired from the room.

“I like that young giant,” said Delì Pasha to himself as Hassan withdrew. “His manners are so quiet and his face so prepossessing; but there is the devil in his eye when his blood is roused, as I saw this morning.”

Hassan was no sooner alone than he remembered the letter given him by his old friend Mohammed Aga, in Alexandria, to Ahmed Aga, Delì Pasha’s master of the horse, and hearing that he had gone to the stables, followed and rejoined him. Ahmed Aga, who had been an admiring spectator of Hassan’s performance with Shèitan, was already prepossessed in his favour, and when he read the letter which Mohammed Aga’s partiality had dictated, he welcomed Hassan with great cordiality; and as Ahmed himself was a man of open, honest countenance and sterling good qualities, they were disposed to like each other from the very first.

Hassan having communicated to his new friend that he had received the appointment of _khaznadâr_, the latter exclaimed—

“Mashallah! that is a good beginning; but the post is not so agreeable, for it brings you into constant collision with Osman Bey, the wakeel, who has charge of all Delì Pasha’s lands and property. He is a spiteful, jealous, and dangerous man. I fear he has taken a dislike to you already.”

“To me!” said Hassan, in surprise. “What can I have done to offend him?”

“You have offended him mortally by riding that horse Shèitan, which he was unable to mount; and as he is a good horseman, and very proud of his horsemanship, he is very angry at your having subdued that which he described this morning to the Pasha as a wild beast, perfectly untameable.”

“If he is spiteful against me on such grounds as those,” said Hassan, smiling, “I cannot help myself. I shall do my duty, and not trouble myself about his spite.”

Ahmed Aga shook his head, as if Osman Bey were not a pleasant subject to speak upon.

“Come,” he said, “let us go into the house. As _khaznadâr_ you are entitled to a separate room, a privilege enjoyed by none of the Mamelukes.”

When Fatimeh Khanum had recovered from the shock occasioned by running against Hassan in the passage, she pursued her way to the private door leading to the harem, where she was admitted by the eunuchs on guard.

No sooner had the good lady reached Amina’s apartment than she threw herself down on a divan in the corner, and the quick eyes of her pupil discovered that she was labouring under some violent agitation.

“What has happened, my dear Fatimeh?” said Amina, seating herself beside her governess. “What has agitated you thus?”

Fatimeh related to her pupil her accidental meeting with Hassan in the passage, and that he was the same youth whom they had seen from the window riding the wild horse.

“He carried me so gently,” she continued, “to a seat, and he was so kind in inquiring whether I was hurt, and his manner was so respectful, so unlike those young Mamelukes, that I could not take my eyes off him, I felt as if I were bewitched.”

“Oh!” cried Amina, clapping her little hands together; “Fatimeh Khanum, my wise monitress, has fallen in love with the young stranger.”

“My dear child,” replied Fatimeh, “the love you speak of has been dead within me for many years and can never be revived; and that which frightens me so much is, that I cannot account for the agitation into which I was thrown by his looks and his voice otherwise than by saying that I must have been bewitched.” And here the good lady began to recite some verses from the Koran as a charm against the evil eye, and to count the beads of her rosary.[54] Having performed this counter-charm against witchery, Fatimeh proceeded to inform her pupil of their change of residence and departure for Siout, and also of her father’s intention to sup with her.

“Oh!” cried the light-hearted Amina, “I will prepare him a dish of _kadaif_[55] with my own hands. He says that no one can make it so well as I do.” So saying, she bounded away to give the requisite orders to her slaves.

Meanwhile Hassan, aided by his new friend Ahmed Aga, had found a vacant room on the second floor, which was appropriated to his use, and his box and saddle-bags were transported thither. As he might, in his new capacity of _khaznadâr_, be called upon to take charge of sums of money belonging to Delì Pasha, he desired that a strong lock might be put on the door, of which he proposed to keep the key about his person. There was not much fear of thieves coming in at the window, as the only aperture for the admission of light or air was in the side-wall of the house, forty or fifty feet from the ground, and eight or ten feet above the floor of Hassan’s room. The remainder of the day, with the exception of a visit made to Shèitan, Hassan spent with Ahmed Aga, who gave him many useful hints as to the character of his new chief—hasty, impetuous, and choleric, but warm-hearted, and soon appeased.

The moon was high in the heavens when Hassan retired to his own room, where he busied himself in arranging his few movables before throwing himself on his mattress to sleep. While thus occupied, a Turkish song, with the words of which he was perfectly familiar, caught his ear; the voice was evidently that of a woman, and it was rich, low, and musical.

Hassan listened like one in a trance to that sweet sound, wafted into his room, he knew not from whence, by the night breeze. The song consisted of three stanzas, two of which the songstress completed, and then her fingers wandered over the strings of a lute, as if to recall the third to memory. Moved by an impulse which he could not restrain, Hassan took up the song, and in a low voice sung the concluding stanza. After this there was a profound silence, broken only by the distant barking of dogs and braying of donkeys, sounds which never cease day or night in Cairo, and Hassan fell asleep with the song on his lips.

He was up before sunrise, and went straight to the stables, where he hoped to find that Shèitan, having been kept all night without barley or water, might be more disposed to cultivate acquaintance. Such, however, was not the case; for when he endeavoured to approach with sieve or bucket, the horse laid back its ears and struggled with the heel-ropes, endeavouring to kick at him.

“Softly,” said Hassan; “no more violence now, we shall soon be better friends;” and putting away the corn and the water, he contrived with the assistance of his groom to saddle and bridle him. Armed with a good courbatch, he mounted and went out by a back gate, the horse fretting and plunging, but still evidently recognising his rider of yesterday.

Hassan gave him a good gallop of some ten miles over the desert, and brought him back much subdued to the stable. “Not a drop of water nor a grain of barley,” said he to the _sàis_, “until he takes it out of my hand.” So saying, he walked into the house and went up to his room, his thoughts ever reverting to the unseen songstress of yesterday evening. As he went along the passage his eye accidentally fell upon a small ladder, which appeared to have been lately used for whitewashing the upper wall and ceiling of the passage. A sudden idea struck him, and catching up the ladder, he carried it into his room, and after locking the door, by the help of the ladder he climbed up to the aperture which served as a window and looked cautiously out.

Opposite him, at a distance of not more than eight or ten yards, he saw a latticed window, which he at once knew to belong to the harem portion of the palace, and he guessed that from that window must have come the strain which he had heard the preceding night. Hiding the ladder, or rather the steps, under his bed, he went down to attend upon Delì Pasha, who received him with much kindness, and gave him several commissions connected with his new appointment. Having executed these, and dined as on the preceding day with Ahmed, he retired to his room, but not to sleep, for his imagination still fed upon the soft, musical voice of the night before, and he hoped that he might hear it again. Nor was he doomed to disappointment, for about two hours after sunset his ear again caught the same voice, singing, perhaps, in a lower tone and a different air.

Gently placing his steps against the wall below the aperture, he mounted, and found that the sound proceeded from the latticed window opposite. The moon shone full upon it, though he was in the shade. He fancied that through the little diamond-shaped apertures in the lattice he could distinguish a woman’s figure behind it. Holding his breath, he remained for some time on the watch, when the fair songstress, having finished her lay, threw open the lattice to look out for a few minutes at the moonlit scene.

Hassan gazed at the lovely apparition as if under a fascination. Her gorgeous black hair was falling in clusters over her neck and shoulders, veiling at the same time half of the arm on which she rested her rounded velvet cheek. Sometimes her large lustrous eyes were raised to the moon, and then they dropped under the shadows of their long dark fringes.

“My dream—my destiny,” murmured Hassan to himself, “there she is—she of whom I have dreamt—she whom I have adored from my earliest youth—her picture has been long in my heart, but my eyes never saw it till now!” In his excitement and agitation he sprang to the ground, and throwing himself on his bed, gave vent to all the impetuous and long-suppressed impulses of his romantic passion. He had not remained there many minutes ere the Turkish song of the preceding evening reached his ear, and the fair songstress paused at the conclusion of the second stanza. Moved by an impulse that he could not resist, Hassan caught up the air, and sang to it, with a voice trembling with agitation, the following lines:—

“Thy name is unknown, yet thy image is in my heart; Thine eyes have pierced me, and if thou show not mercy, I die.”

Again he crept softly up the steps and looked out; but the lattice was closed, and the fair vision had disappeared.

On the following morning Hassan was afoot before sunrise, and in walking across the space between the house and the stable he turned round in hopes of discovering the latticed window opposite to his own room. On carrying his eye along the wall that separated the outer palace from the harem, he easily recognised the window that he sought, in the upper storey of the harem, which faced the quarter of the house where his own room was situated, and being at the corner of the building, commanded a view of the space where he was walking, which was the Meidàn, where the Mamelukes and followers of the Pasha played at the jereed, and other equestrian sports in vogue at the time.

His thoughts still bent upon the lovely vision of the preceding night, he reached the stable, and on his approaching and speaking to Shèitan, the horse turned round and looked at him, seemingly more desirous of receiving something from him than of kicking or biting him. “So,” said Hassan, smiling, “we shall be friends after all!” The half-pail of water that he carried up to the horse’s head was swallowed, and Shèitan no longer disdained to eat the barley out of his hands. Allowing the horse only a few handfuls, Hassan gave him another canter over the desert, stopping every now and then to coax and caress him. After his return he gave Shèitan his full meal of barley, and from that day they grew more and more intimate, until at the end of a week the formerly vicious horse was as gentle as a lamb, and followed him like a dog.

During the first days of his stay he was chiefly employed in examining the accounts of his predecessor, in which he received great assistance from his friend Ahmed Aga; but the task was far from being easy, as the Pasha was very thoughtless and extravagant in all that regarded money, and the preceding _khaznadâr_ had thought it his duty to follow his chief’s example.

Hassan had also formed the acquaintance of the chief eunuch of the harem—a venerable-looking negro, with a beard as white as snow—and the old man took pleasure in relating to so enthusiastic and intelligent a listener some of the stirring and tragical scenes that he had witnessed in the days of the Mameluke beys and the French invasion, at which period he had been in the service of the famous Ibrahim Elfi Bey. Hassan had another motive in cultivating the acquaintance of Mansour Aga; for, as the old man seemed to know something of the history of every influential family in Egypt, he hoped through him to find some clue to his own parentage.

Every evening Hassan crept softly up to the aperture in the wall of his room; but the lattice was lost in the shade, owing to the change in the position of the moon. Nevertheless, though he could see nothing, he remained for a long time with his eyes fixed upon the lattice, as if the insensible wood could feel or return his gaze.

Lovers are never very good calculators, and thus Hassan forgot that the same change in the position of the moon which had thrown the latticed window into the shade, had also thrown her beams full upon his own face, and that the tenant of the opposite room could now, while perfectly concealed herself, trace every emotion that passed over his countenance.

The lovely songstress, behind her latticed shield, gazed in silence, night after night, on what was in her eyes the noblest face they had ever beheld; and when his longing and ardent gaze seemed to him to be arrested by that envious lattice, it fell in reality on the lustrous orbs and blushing cheeks of the lovely girl within, who, although concealed, trembled at her own audacity, and at the new emotions that agitated her. Having waited for some time in the vain hope of seeing a symptom of movement in the lattice, Hassan descended to his room, having sung before he left the following verse in a low voice:—

“Oh, sleep! fall like dew on that rosebud’s eyelids; Let her know in her dreams that Hassan’s heart is burnt with her love.”

On the following day Hassan had gone into the city on business intrusted to him by the Pasha, and on his return had just entered that part of the Frank quarter now called the Esbekiah when his attention was attracted to a tumultuous noise, occasioned apparently by some drunken Bashi-Bazouks.[56] He was about to pass on, when he heard his own name called aloud by a voice which he easily recognised as that of Mansour the eunuch, “Help, Hassan! help!—they will murder me!”

Snatching a heavy club from the hands of one of the fellahs standing by, Hassan rushed into the fray, and arrived just as one of the Bashi-Bazouks was dragging poor old Mansour off his mule by his snowy beard. A blow from Hassan’s staff on the fellow’s shoulder made him let go his hold, and his arm dropped powerless by his side. His two companions (for the Bashi-Bazouks were three in number) now turned upon Hassan, and one of them, drawing a pistol from his belt, fired it as he advanced; fortunately for our hero, the ruffian’s aim was unsteady, and the ball, passing through his sleeve, lodged in the shoulder of a boy who was an accidental spectator of the fray. The two then drew their swords and rushed upon him together, but the clumsy drunkards were no match for the steady eye and powerful arm of Hassan. Parrying their ill-directed thrusts, he struck first one and then the other over the head with the full weight of his club, and the contest was over; they both lay helpless on the ground.

Hassan then assisted the terrified eunuch to remount his mule, and the crowd was beginning to disperse when the _wali_ (or police magistrate), who happened to be passing by, rode up and inquired into the cause of the disturbance.

It was soon explained by Mansour that the Bashi-Bazouks had been the aggressors, and therefore the _wali_ ordered them to be conveyed to their quarters and delivered to their own officers. He then pursued his way, as did Mansour, after cordially thanking Hassan for his timely assistance.

Hassan was just returning to the spot where he had left his horse under the care of the _sàis_, when his eye fell upon the unfortunate boy whose shoulder had received the pistol-ball aimed at himself. On approaching to see whether he were seriously hurt, Hassan saw that he looked faint from exhaustion, and that his vest was stained with blood. Drawing near to examine the wound, he inquired whether he felt much pain; the poor boy, whose countenance was prepossessing and intelligent, answered only with a faint murmur, pointing at the same time to his mouth.

“The ball cannot have wounded you both in the shoulder and the mouth,” said Hassan. The sufferer shook his head, and again pointed to his mouth. Then Hassan understood that he was dumb.

“Poor child!” said Hassan compassionately; “I have been the cause of thy wound. I cannot leave thee here to suffer—perhaps to die. Where is thy home?”

A melancholy shake of the head was the only answer.

“Hast no parents?” Again the same reply.

Tearing a piece of linen off the edge of his shirt, Hassan stanched with it the blood still flowing from the boy’s shoulder, and binding a handkerchief over the wound, he lifted the sufferer gently in his arms; then placing him on his horse, and having desired the groom to go immediately for the Italian surgeon who attended Delì Pasha’s family, he walked slowly home, supporting the wounded boy on the saddle.

Mansour, the eunuch, after being so opportunely rescued by Hassan, pursued his way to Delì Pasha’s harem, and went up to give to the Lady Amina an account of the commission which he had been executing for her in Cairo.

After he had produced the gold thread which he had purchased for the completion of the purse which Amina was working for her father, the young lady remarked in his countenance the traces of recent agitation, and inquired the cause. The old man proceeded to relate to her his adventure with the Bashi-Bazouks and his timely rescue by Hassan. In speaking of the latter he launched forth into the highest praises of his courage and prowess, as well as the kindness of his nature and disposition.

Had the room not been darkened by curtains, and the old man’s eyesight not been somewhat dimmed by age, he could not have failed to notice the tell-tale blood rush to the cheeks and temples of Amina as she heard these encomiums on one whom she knew to be the same whom she had seen from her lattice, and whose voice had taken up her song; nor could she doubt from the expression which he had used, and from the deep and earnest gaze which he had fixed upon her lattice, that she was herself the object of his romantic attachment.

Repressing her emotions with a slyness which is one of the earliest lessons that Love teaches to his votaries, she asked Mansour, in a tone of seeming indifference, who this new follower of her father’s might be, and what his rank and parentage.

To these inquiries Mansour was unable to give her any satisfactory answer. He had heard that some mystery hung over Hassan’s birth, and all that he knew was that his form was a model of strength and activity, that as a horseman he was unequalled, that from his good-humour and obliging disposition he was already a great favourite in the house, and that Delì Pasha entertained so high an opinion of him as to give him the appointment of _khaznadâr_.