Part 13

There had been a mysterious gleam on the lower balconies of the palace; it flared up, vanished, reappeared again, and once more; and then nothing was seen or heard save at the postern of the garden, where the signal must have been looked for and understood. Swift as a hind there sped from the mazes of the darkened palace a human figure athwart the semi-tropic thickets of the grounds, admitted another one through the rear-gate, whispered a few syllables, and returned to the white pile of a thousand apartments hushed in perfect silence. The intruder, obviously informed of the whereabouts of his object, glided like a ghost toward Arzemia's retreat, and stood enchanted by the voice which articulated the essence of his highest felicity. Hardly did the last word die on her lip when the problematic person sank on his knees and, inclining his head as in adoration, spoke in a tone thrilling with passion, "Divine child, whom _Ahura-Mazda_ graces with the light of his countenance, grant me the privilege to worship at thy feet, an humble supplicant, my heart being thine, my soul thine--forever thine."

The frightened maiden would have screamed for help had not the voice she heard recalled a succession of notes that were still ringing in her ears. In a second she realized what she trembled to believe possible.

"And who art thou, most daring of men, who fearest not to invade the inviolable privacy of Chosroes Nushirvan's daughter?" cried the maiden in fluttering apprehension, dreading the realization of her prayer.

"Forgive! I am not what I was before thine eye smote me with madness to be thy votary--thy slave,--or not to be at all," was the answer.

"_Ahura-Mazda!_ thou the man whom Iran honors--thou, Shahrbaraz?" cried the girl.

"Thy servitor, thy slave in eternity," was the appealing reiteration.

"The auspicious god-stars brought thee hither. Oh! but humble not Arzemia in thus humbling thyself; the god-stars have linked our fates and, come what may, I am thine, yea, and thou art mine in eternity!" exclaimed the enraptured maiden.

"My heaven!" was the laconic ejaculation of the great soldier who, leaping to his feet, embraced her rapturously, pressing her to his heart.

As if in hymeneal sympathy with love's delicious union, the bulbul poured forth a stream of soul-stirring song, the sweet cadence calling forth responsive notes from the thick of sylvan recesses. Tears flowed from the eyes of Arzemia and fell on the face of her lover, who raised her like an infant in his mighty arms, covering her cheeks with passionate kisses.

"Thy tears of bliss will make the angels weep in paradise, sweet goddess," whispered Persia's world-renowned hero.

"The bulbul!--I never heard the bulbul sing so sad, so sweet, so prophetic; ah! it seems to sigh and weep and speak to my heart of things words cannot express! Some spirit moves it to move our hearts," breathed Arzemia with emotion.

"Thou art creation's sympathetic harp, responsive to spiritual harmonies lower natures fail to realize; the bird's melody is to me an unmeaning song, but in thy voice I hear _Mazda's_ music which moves the heavenly spheres," said Shahrbaraz softly.

"It is bliss to receive tribute from the lip of love; but what a thing am I, compared with thee, Iran's pride, who smote the Roman and took his holy city! Who has done a greater deed? If the armies of Chosroes were thine, wouldst thou not conquer the world?"

"I have conquered earth and heaven, star of my felicity; thou being mine, what remains in all the worlds to wish for? To smite the Roman and take his holy city was less an achievement than to come near to thee, the pearl of beauty, reached at greater hazard than he faces who dives into the ocean's abyss in quest of treasure," affirmed the general.

"Alas, thou art right! O, gods!--Thy life, thy dear life--shouldst thou be found at this hour with me at this place! Dearest, what power enabled thee to pass the guards, whose heads would answer for thy presence where the king alone has right?--Go hence, O, my soul's adorer, my heart's adored, go hence, lest the _devas_ thwart our happiness! I hear the friendly spirits whisper--depart," urged Arzemia, awaking to the danger that beset her lover under the circumstances.

"Thy prayer, child of light, that bade the walls to bend and the watchmen to be deaf,--yea, and love, whom Orpheus followed to the world of shades, have leveled my pathway hither, fearless of fate. They who enter heaven laugh death to scorn. Thy presence renders me invulnerable to mortal steel. Ah! waste no second, cherub, in the thought of death or danger," cried Shahrbaraz ardently.

"Forbid it, _Ahura-Mazda_, that Iran's glory be smitten by a treacherous hand!--Yet play not with the envious fates, lest they grow jealous of Arzemia's bliss, who would no heaven take for what is here on earth," cried the girl appealingly.

"Let all thy cares henceforth be mine, divine Arzemia. My 'golden spears' hold every fort and gate, and have no will but that of thy Shahrbaraz, who could be king this hour were he inclined. To come near thee I had to act my part unfair or fair; love knows no scruples. A scheme devised by me and taken seriously by the king gave me control of Ctesiphon and court," explained the strategist.

"The god-stars rule that I be queen one day and thou my king; my Ninus thou, I thy Semiramis, with Rome and Iran prostrate at our feet!--Ah, there a light!" exclaimed the girl in alarm, her eyes having caught a glimmer in the palace.

"It is the signal for me to begone," said Shahrbaraz, and a moment later the postern closed behind him, having given and received the kiss that is a taste of Elysian rapture.

The clandestine intercourse between the greatest general and the fairest princess of Iran was thus carried on for a time, when revolutionary changes threw Ctesiphon into confusion. Chosroes Nushirvan's court was a hotbed of intrigue, and his harem a seething caldron, overflowing with all the vices and evils engendered by arbitrary rule. Among the host of jealous females under the roof of the palace, Shirin, the Christian sultana, had the upper hand, having charmed her lord to the extent of disinheriting and imprisoning Kavadh, the legitimate heir to the throne, in favor of her son Mardanshah. But a turn of the wheel gave Kavadh the reins of government, and his first act was to drag his wretched father into his vaults of uncounted treasures, and let him perish there of hunger. Seventeen brothers were next executed to insure the rule of the monstrous parricide. These fearful crimes were inspired less by vengeance than--who would have dreamed it?--by Kavadh's vehement passion for Shirin. But the distracted sultana recoiled with loathing from the murderer of her husband and her son, and when the miscreant resorted to force he held a bleeding corpse in his arms, the sultana having ended her life by a self-inflicted wound. Arzemia was her only surviving child, and Shahrbaraz knew how to provide for the safety of his worshipped princess. Shortly after Kavadh fell.

During the chaotic conditions which followed the fall of Kavadh, Shahrbaraz matured a plot for the usurpation of Iran's sovereignty. Sustained by his fifty thousand golden spears, and favored by Arzemia's friends, the dashing general entered Ctesiphon in triumph, and had himself crowned in the palace of the voluptuous Chosroes. When it transpired that Arzemia not alone favored the usurper, but was going to be wedded to him in the imperial fire-temple, her many suitors combined in organizing a conspiracy, headed by Faruch-Zad, the mighty satrap of Khorassan, who was desperately in love with the princess. Shahrbaraz was assassinated on the day set for his wedding, his body was mutilated and dragged by an ass through the streets of Ctesiphon. Arzemia's horror was scarcely exceeded by her sorrow and her vengeance; and her opportunity was not slow in coming, being called to the succession of her father's throne, when Faruch-Zad urged his suit with obtrusive audacity. Policy forced her to smile on the man she hated, while her armies were engaged in the fateful struggle against the now all-conquering hordes of overflowing Islam. Impatient of delay and tortured by uncertainty, the satrap of Khorassan resolved to take by force what was denied him by favor. But the queen's friends learned of the plot; Faruch-Zad's followers were overpowered at the portal of the palace, and he was arraigned as a traitor before the one whose hatred for him could hardly be surpassed by his love for her. Arzemia blessed the gods for the chance thus afforded her to avenge the murder of Shahrbaraz. She apostrophized the culprit with bitter contumely, and had him executed under most cruel circumstances.

Faruch-Zad was not dead an hour when tidings from the battlefield spread consternation in the court. The golden lances, long held to be invincible, sustained a crushing defeat at the hands of Islam's votaries, and among the slain was Mahmud, the intelligent elephant, who bled to death through a wound struck at the extremity of his trunk. Mahmud's fall was generally accepted as prophetic of worse things to follow, and Arzemia, seeing her empire crumbling, turned to the Magi for an ungarbled version of her horoscope which was kept for reference in the royal archives. With fatalistic resignation the youthful queen listened to the dark prophecies associated with her birth, and insisted on having her father's dream read to her, it having been kept on record with the documents of her nativity. Deeply impressed by the fearful purport of her sire's vision on the night of her coming into this world, and remembering its ghastly realization in subsequent developments, Arzemia exclaimed resignedly, "It is _Ahura-Mazda's_ immutable decree that Iran's ancient glories fade with me at whose birth the god-stars frowned. Were it not better for Arzemia not to have been born?"

The queen had hardly uttered these words when an ominous noise in the royal courtyard caused her armed guard to rush toward the entrance of the palace. Here they were met by a desperate band of conspirators led by a relative of Faruch-Zad. The encounter was short and decisive. Arzemia fell into the hands of the avenger of the dead satrap, was tortured with refined cruelty, and put to death ignominiously.

Thus perished the noblest and most virtuous sovereign lady of one of the greatest empires which succumbed to the sword of Islam.

THE STUDENT OF TIMBUCTU.

At the close of the year 1578 the slave-markets of Mauritania were glutted to their uttermost, and for once the price of a male slave was less than that of a donkey. This overstock of human ware was due to the thousands of prisoners who had survived the fateful battle fought in the neighborhood of Al-Kesar Kebir, on the banks of the Elmahassen, between the invading army of Dom Sebastian, the youthful, overbearing monarch of Lusitania, and the host of Muley Abd-al-Melek, the formidable Emir-al-Mumemin, the Commander of the true believers, the _Seedna_ or lord of the Moorish Empire.[10]

[10] This battle and the fate of Dom Sebastian as narrated in this tradition agrees with historical fact.

The Moslem's cruelty to his Christian slaves rose in proportion to the latter's decline as marketable articles, and fanaticism revelled in the daily spectacle of crusaders doomed to immurement, because of their refusing to embrace Islam by uttering the _Fatha_. The irony of the historic whirligig showed itself in the fact that the Catholic Auto-da-fè had its counterpart in the frightful doom of a king and an army led by the flower of his nobility, who, barely a hundred miles from the coast of their kingdom, had to choose between apostasy or being immured alive for the edification of the vengeful Moor. The wretches were compelled to prepare their own graves, usually cells in the city's wall, one Christian bricking up his fellow only to be in turn entombed alive himself.

A melancholy distinction was reserved for the royal zealot, Dom Sebastian, who had encountered crushing defeat and humiliation. With less than half of his smitten chivalry and valiant soldiers he saw himself in the power of an inexorable foe, himself wounded and in chains pining in the vile dungeon of Mequinez, one of the Sultan's capitals, the others being Fez and Morocco. After the obsequies of the unmourned _Seedna_, who had died on the field of battle, his son and successor, having been proclaimed Sultan, and crowned in the holy shrine of Mulai Edris at Fez, proposed to celebrate his coronation by the entombment alive of the Christian king who had invaded his father's empire, notwithstanding the warning of the late _Shereef_ that the unjust inroad would surely land the aggressors in ruin. His Majesty furthermore remembered the treacherous proceeding of Sebastian, who, at the end of the decisive battle, had caused a white flag to be displayed, but had broken the truce by throwing himself with fifty of his knights into the thick of the Moorish ranks, causing slaughter and consternation, and resulting in the death of the late Sultan.

But the strongest motive of the young _Shereef's_ dire vengeance was the unaccountable loss of his sire's priceless crown, which Muley Abd-al-Melek was in the habit of carrying with him whithersoever he went, wearing it on solemn occasions. Muley had worn the crown upon his head while the great battle was being fought, after which that invaluable symbol of imperial grandeur was not to be found. The crown was an heirloom traced back to the great Caliphat of Omar, whose victorious general Saad had acquired it with the enormous treasures of the Chosroes. It was worn by Chosroes Nushirvan in the throne-hall of his grand palace in Madayn, the capital of ancient Persia, and its incalculable value had been further enhanced by a rare jewel which the Emperor Heraclius had sent Omar as a present.

Such were the cumulative incentives to one of the most cruel executions devised by human atrocity. And the tortures also inflicted by order of the new _Seedna_ on his most loyal attendants, such as the _Mul-el-Ma_, who satisfies His Majesty's thirst when in camp from a gazelle-skin; the _Mul Attai_, who prepares the royal tea and serves it; and the most important _Mul M'dul_, the keeper and holder of the _Shereef's_ red umbrella, left the mystery unsolved.

The inhabitants of Mequinez, who since times immemorial furnished the bulk of the Emperor's most devoted servitors, tingled with excitement, and the entire population turned out to witness the burial of a live Christian monarch. From the portal of the imperial mosque issued a train of chosen notables, long-bearded _Kadis_ robed in white flowing raiments, wearing white turbans, red sandals, the _delill_ or prayer book suspended from the belt by a cord of silk; _talebs_, the doctors of law; _emins_, the ministers of the mosque; _adools_, the public notaries; and a train of _fukies_, the all-moving luminaries at whose feet the rising generation of the faithful drink in truth and wisdom. They were joined at the city's gate by another cortege, grotesque and dismal enough to match the gruesome processions of the Inquisition. This was made up of happy juveniles, who struck tom-toms, rent the air with the blare of infernal horns, and accompanied the music with ludicrous grimaces and comical dances, to the great delight of a sympathetic crowd, who swelled the chorus to the pitch of mad vociferation. A hideous negro, broad-shouldered, tall and massive, his frame clothed tightly in black, his eyes blinking dismally from circles of red, with a pointed hat to add several feet to his unusual height, impersonated Azrael the angel of death. Behind this caricature came a donkey whereon was seated the woeful representative of outraged Christian royalty, bare-headed, dressed in a black _jellab_, holding in his right hand a human skull,--a picture of terror and anguish. This was Dom Sebastian, riding to his sepulchre, on his right Monkir, to his left Nakir,--the demons of livid hue, who wake the dead to question him about his faith, and beat him with clubs if unable to stand the examination. The rear of this group was occupied by Eblis, grotesquely attired in red and armed with the implements of hellish torture. A throng of naked, filthy saints ran along howling and spitting at the whilom majesty of Portugal, relegating his soul to the deepest pit, and praying Allah to show no mercy to the Christian dog. Having passed out of the city's gate, the procession advanced along a tortuous road, winding among well-fostered gardens, protected by an outer and much lower wall, toward the spot where a cell about six feet high, but barely wide enough to enclose a human body, stood open in the main wall for the death by suffocation and for the dreamless rest of the fallen king. Too weak to dismount unassisted, Sebastian was rudely handled by Monkir and Nakir, who raised him from his seat, lifted him to the level of the cell, and pushed him inside, turning him with a twist so that the fanatic spectators had a full view of his face. Three wooden bars held the victim against the dead wall.

All eyes were now turned in the direction of the mosque, whence the signal for the closing up of the king's grave was to be given by the firing of a gun and the hoisting of a flag. The ghastly ceremony was so timed that the bricking up of the living tomb coincided with the hour of prayer, so that the boom of cannon and the appearance of the flag streaming to the breeze, was answered by a score of muezzins from the tops of their minarets, who called; "_Allah akbar, Allah akbar_,--God is great, and Mohammed is his Prophet!" The multitude fell prostrate in the dust, sending the _fatha_ eastward to Mecca: "Praise be to God, the Lord of all creatures, the most merciful, the King of the Day of Judgment! Thee do we worship, and of Thee do we beg assistance. Direct us in the right way, in the way of those to whom Thou hast been gracious, not of those against whom thou art incensed, nor of those who go astray."

The echoes of the _Sulhama_ having expired in the air, the faithful rose from their posture of adoration, and the supreme Kadi of the land read this decree: "Hear me, ye worshippers of the true God! The Christian there had planned the downfall of our nation and the uprooting of Islam; but Allah willed it otherwise, decreeing that we deal with him as he meant to deal with us. Our late Seedna--may Allah grant him the joys of paradise--died in his coat of mail, combating that infidel dog, who came as a foe and acted as a traitor, dishonoring his flag. Therefore did our Emir-al-Mumemin decree that he perish ignominiously, like the other slaves who would not recite the _fatha_. May Allah wither the right hand of our Seedna's enemies.--There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his Prophet!"--Slowly bricks and mortar closed up the open side of the upright tomb. One hour later there was no cell to be seen, but a plain wall hiding a monarch quickly choking to death, while the barbarians returned jubilant to the city.

Under the rule of Muley Zidan, a firman, bearing the Grand Vizier's signature, was placarded in every mosque of his domain, promising him who should be instrumental in restoring the lost crown to the ruling dynasty not alone high honors, but the option of leading home as wife any maiden of the empire, from the daughter of the first Sultana down to any damsel within the confines of Mauritania, and the assurance was given that there would be no inquiry as to how the lucky finder had come into possession of the imperial diadem.

As time lent distance to the disastrous crusade and its tragic sequels, a spontaneous crop of tales and legends transferred the former memorable event into the realm of romance. Down to this day the rustic folk of Lusitania look forward to the return of Dom Sebastian, whom they believe to dwell among the Moors in the somnolent state of Barbarossa, while among the tribes of Western Barbary it is popularly current that, owing to unknown causes, the great battle is periodically fought over, always at new moon, the phantom armies engaging each other on the banks of the Elmahassen, and the combat winding up with the historic rout of the crusaders.

Indeed the foolhardy invasion would read like the myth of the Argonauts, had the outcome turned out less crushing to the adventurers. For a youthful king, in the twenties, and of limited resources, to embark on a career of conquest remote from his base of supply, the coveted prize being a warlike empire much larger than the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal combined, an empire which Christendom learned to fear, is so daring an adventure that, but for its unquestioned reality, it could pass as a bit of chivalrous fiction. And the circumstances under which the last encounter took place, the death of the Sultan, the loss of the crown, and the terrible fate of the prisoners, tend much to invest the event with a halo of the mystic and the ghostly.

However, the legendary evolution of that desperate struggle near Al-Kesar Kebir may be traced back to the adventures of a student from Timbuctu, who arrived at Fez at the beginning of the sixteenth century. That was the time when the Fazzi had good cause to boast of cherishing one of the greatest centres of learning in the world. From the valley of the Nile, from the banks of the Congo and the Niger, from populous Europe, darkest Africa, and farthest Asia, the youth of the opulent without distinction of creed and race flocked to the halls of the Kairouin to cull the honey dropping from the lips of inspiration, especially the dimly revealed arcana that teach how to read the signs of the stars.

The Kairouin was then, and is in diminished lustre now, four institutions in one,--the highest school, the largest mosque, the greatest library, and the most hospitable caravansary in the vast regions traversed by the Atlas Mountains. Within the precincts of the Kairouin hundreds of poor students found then not only free shelter and tuition but also food and garments, the cost being defrayed from the ample bequest of the philanthropic Fatma, the original benefactress of that curious university. It embraced a miniature world of the rich and the poor, the learned and the ignorant, the faithful and the infidel, the good and the bad; was the home of every Moslem who had none other; and, among its many good things, was distinguished for an atmosphere of tolerance, peace and cordiality. Even to-day the president of the Kairouin, the _Mokaddun_, whose office is hereditary, treats all as equals, the prince and the beggar having the same right, and that is to take life easy,--very easy. Instances of nervousness from overwork have never been heard of in the Kairouin. Once matriculated, the student is not expected to pass examinations, and is a privileged character, his presence in the city being a source of revenue to its inhabitants. For it should be remembered that among those who come to the Kairouin in quest of wisdom are the sons of the wealthiest _sheykhs_, nobles, and merchants from all the habitable lands which skirt the sands of the Sahara, young lords wrapped in soft silks, bestriding Arabian steeds magnificently caparisoned, followed by retinues of slaves to cater to their physical wants, and harems to beguile their ennui. Nor is, in the chase of romantic diversion, the beautiful Fazzi neglected; the people being inclined to connive at the trivial transgressions of the future pillars of Moslem scholarship. Thrifty parents know how and when to be absent when the young lords from Insala, Nubia, Tunis, Tripoli, Egypt, Taradunt, or Timbuctu are sure to mark their transit through apartments of supposed inviolable privacy by a trail of gold-sand. Such are the traditions of the Kairouin, realized down to this day.