Whilst Hassan warmed himself by the fire he exchanged a recital of adventures with Abou-Hamedi. Those of the latter were not of a character to raise him in the estimation of the citizens of a civilised state, although they were far from being degrading in the eyes of an Arab, for he had become a leading member of a band of freebooters who had lately exercised their vocation with no little success in the province of Siout.
They were mostly Arabs from the interior of the Tunis and Tripoli deserts, who, having performed the pilgrimage to Mecca by way of Keneh and Cosseir, left the caravan on its return and levied blackmail on the villages of the left banks of the river in Upper Egypt. In order to avoid suspicion, Abou-Hamedi had located his family, and a few others of the Gemàat tribe who had accompanied him from Damanhour, on the spot where they were now encamped, on the right or eastern bank of the river, where they cultivated a small tract of ground, and passed for industrious, inoffensive people, as indeed they were, with the exception of Abou-Hamedi himself, whose notions of meum and tuum were somewhat indistinct, and who had “exchanged horses,” as he termed it, with a rich merchant of Siout. This exchange had been effected by the simple presentation of a pistol at the head of the latter in an unfrequented spot; and although Abou-Hamedi had obtained a fleet and powerful horse in exchange for a sorry, broken-down nag, he was so ill-satisfied with the bargain that he had politely compelled the Siout merchant to throw in his purse as compensation.
All this he detailed with imperturbable gravity to Hassan, adding that he and his companions always carried on their plundering expeditions on the other side of the river, so that his encampment was undisturbed and unsuspected. The band met at certain intervals and by preconcerted signals; when he joined them it was by night; and among his talents one of the most remarkable was his power of disguising himself in such a manner that the roving freebooter of the left bank and the peaceable fellah of the right were never suspected to be one and the same person.
Hassan was much amused by his adventures, and was pleased to find that in the rough breast of his lawless host there existed towards himself a feeling of gratitude and devotion that he had not expected to find: the latter even pulled a leathern purse from his girdle and proposed to repay a portion of the money advanced by Hassan for his liberation; but to this he would not consent, saying, with a smile, “Not now, my brother; I promised you that when I required it I would ask you for it. You have a family, and I have none; keep the money, therefore, until I ask you for it. Let us now talk of other things. Do you know whose are those two boats which lately passed?”
“Well do I know,” replied the Arab. “They are the dahabiahs of the new Governor of Siout, Delì Pasha.”
“True,” replied Hassan, “and I am in his service. My sister, now in your tents, is in the Pasha’s harem: she fell overboard in the storm, and they must think her drowned. As they must all be now searching, and weeping and wailing, is it possible to convey her to the dahabiah to-night, or must I go to inform them of her being safe here?”
“It is quite possible,” said Abou-Hamedi, “if she be not too feeble and tired from having been so long in the water: we have several donkeys here with saddles, and there is a good path to the ferry just above the place where the boats are made fast for the night.”
By Hassan’s desire the Arab’s wife was then called, and desired to inquire whether Amina felt herself sufficiently recovered to ride to the ferry. An affirmative answer being eagerly returned, the donkeys were soon caught and saddled, and the party ready for departure.
“I will not go with you myself,” said Abou-Hamedi aside to Hassan. “It is better that none of the Governor’s people should see my face.”
“I understand,” replied Hassan, laughing; “and if I meet you in Siout, I will take care not to know you; but as my sister is young, and unaccustomed to the presence of men, I wish you could let one of your harem go with her to the boats.”
The wife and sister of Abou-Hamedi had anticipated the wish. No service that they could render seemed to them sufficient to repay their obligation to Hassan; and the extraordinary beauty of Amina, together with the gentle gratitude which she had shown for their attentions, had so won their affections that they determined not to leave her until they had seen her safely deposited in the harem. They now appeared at the door of their tent ready for their night journey, Amina clad from head to foot in the warmest clothes they possessed, her own wet suit wrapped in a bundle and intrusted to one of the three young Arabs selected to guide the party to the ferry, while one ran on before to rouse up the ferryman and to get ready his boat. The easiest-paced donkey was assigned to Amina, and Hassan walked beside her, his arm ever ready to support her in case of the animal stumbling over the dimly-seen bushes or earth-clods that might obstruct the path.
What a delicious hour for the lovers. Amina, now warmly clad and free from all alarm, recalled to mind the brief and thrilling moments in which she had exchanged with Hassan the confession of their mutual love; and as they spoke together in Turkish, which none of the party but themselves understood, they renewed the same sweet confession in a thousand forms of tenderness, such as love alone can invent, and in which love alone finds no satiety.
“I am very jealous,” said Amina, while the little hand that trustfully reposed in his belied her words. “Do you know, Hassan, that these Arab women, both of whom are young, and one of them very comely, have done nothing but talk to me of my brother’s amiability and generosity? They say that their service, their lives, all that they have, are at your disposal. When and how did you steal away their hearts, Hassan?”
“Perhaps they told you,” he replied, “of a service which I rendered to the family, and their gratitude overrates its extent. They have kind hearts, I believe, and this is the custom of kind hearts. Look at yourself, sweet light of my eyes; you have filled my lonely heart with a joy it never knew before—you have quenched its burning thirst; from the Keswer of your love you have turned the night of my destiny into the sunshine of noon; you have bestowed on a humble aga, of unknown birth, who has nought but his truth and his sword, a treasure which the highest and the wealthiest in the land would be proud to solicit; and yet it is scarce an hour since you, teller of sweet untruths, said that you were my debtor.”
“Is life and all that makes it dear no debt, Hassan?” replied Amina.
“If you will have it so,” said Hassan, smiling, “you shall be my debtor, as the earth is debtor to the showery cloud, and repays it with a thousand fruits and flowers delicious to the taste. Yet, sweet light of my eyes, forget not that again our separation is at hand: at Siout you will be shut up in the harem, offers of marriage from the great and the rich will be made to your father, he will urge you to consent—how can you resist his will?”
“Hassan,” replied Amina, with a firmness and solemnity of which he had scarcely thought her capable, “I love my father, and it would grieve me to disobey him, but Allah is greater than he. I have sworn, and I repeat the vow, by your mother’s head, that neither force nor entreaty shall induce me to marry another. If destiny forbids our union, I can die.”
“Allah forbid!” said Hassan, pressing her hand to his lips. “Destiny will not be so cruel. But tell me, as it seems to me necessary to my life that I should sometimes see your blessed face, even if it be for a moment and afar off—tell me, do you know the cry of the wit-wat?”[99]
“I believe not,” said Amina, laughing. “Why do you ask?”
Turning aside his head for a moment, he imitated the cry of the bird so exactly that the most experienced fowler would have thought that a curlew had just passed by.
“Be it my task,” he said, “to find out the window of your apartment. When you hear that cry after sunset you will know that your wit-wat is watching below it for a glance from those loved eyes, or a word from that tongue which is more musical than ‘the bird of a thousand songs.’”[100]
Thus discoursing they reached the ferry, and crossed it without accident. On approaching the spot on the opposite bank where the dahabiahs had come-to for the night, they could see by the number of moving lights and figures on the bank that all the party was still astir and in unwonted agitation. One of the Arab youths who had accompanied our hero and his fair charge ran forward at full speed until he reached the boats, where he shouted at the top of his voice, “The Khanum is safe; Hassan has drawn her out of the river. They are coming.”
The news spread with the rapidity of lightning. Men and women, masters and servants, all crowded forward to greet the advancing party; and Amina, on dismounting from her donkey, found herself in the arms of her beloved Fatimeh, who had been nearly deprived of reason by the supposed loss of her young mistress, whom she loved like a daughter.
The Arab women who accompanied her, and whose kind and hospitable attentions to her wants she explained, were taken into the harem cabin and so loaded with kisses, caresses, and presents that they began to think that Amina must be a daughter of Mohammed Ali himself, that her recovery should be attended with such extraordinary and generous demonstrations; nor were the Arabs without entertained with less hospitable warmth.
As for Hassan, the eunuchs of the harem crowded round him to kiss his hand, and the tears of the faithful creatures bore testimony to the attachment which they felt towards their young mistress, whose life he had saved. Neither on board nor on the bank was there any thought of sleep that night. The tale of Amina’s miraculous escape was repeated from mouth to mouth, with a score of variations and exaggerations, by groups assembled around blazing fires on the bank, while interminable pipes and coffee beguiled the hours of night.
Hassan contrived ere long to withdraw from these wonder-loving circles to a spot where he was able to enjoy in quiet the hearty congratulations of Ahmed Aga, and one or two others of his intimate companions.
On the following morning the Arab party returned to their encampment, loaded with presents forced upon them by the generosity of the Pasha’s major-domo and the ladies of the harem, while the dahabiahs pursued their course without accident or interruption to Siout.
The official residence assigned to the Governor was a large and tolerably convenient house, which had been built not many years before by order of Ibrahim Pasha, at the northern extremity of the town. The front looked upon an open square or meidàn, where the troops were paraded; while the back, occupied by the harem, was surrounded by gardens in which orange, lemon, and pomegranate trees flourished in considerable abundance.
Love, though proverbially blind to danger and to consequences, is quick-sighted and quick-witted. Thus not many days had elapsed ere the cry of the wit-wat was heard under one of the windows that looked upon the garden; the casement was cautiously half-opened, and the lovers enjoyed a few moments of stolen conversation, which, for fear of being overheard, they carried on chiefly by signs and glances, or as the Arab distich has it—
Notwithstanding these precautions, it unfortunately happened that one evening a gardener, who had remained beyond the usual hours of labour, saw Hassan spring over the wall at the bottom of the garden. Impelled by curiosity, he watched our hero’s movements, heard his signal, and saw a window in the harem half-opened, partially disclosing a woman’s form, to whom Hassan addressed a few words in an impassioned undertone.
No sooner was the casement reclosed and Hassan had retired from the garden than the gardener emerged from his hiding-place, and, in the anticipation of a good reward, hastened to communicate what he had seen to Ferraj, the confidential servant of Osman Bey, the deputy-governor, with whom he, the gardener, happened to be acquainted.
Ferraj being the unworthy pander to his master’s passions in sensuality as in revenge, and who instinctively knew the hatred which he bore to Hassan, hastened to impart to his chief the information he had received. A grim smile passed over the features of Osman Bey. He had already heard of Amina’s rescue by the devoted courage of Hassan, and easily divined the object which led him to the garden. He anticipated, therefore, the double satisfaction of punishing a man whom he hated for an infraction of the sanctity of the harem, and of wounding by publicity the tenderest feelings of Delì Pasha, whom he both feared and disliked.
“Take with you,” he said, “three stout fellows and conceal yourselves in the garden after sunset, according to the directions given you by the gardener; repeat this every evening until you find this insolent harem-breaker. Have with you a large cloak and some cord; while he is looking up at the window throw the cloak over him and bind him fast, for the fellow is strong and active as a wild ox,[101] and might otherwise escape. When you have got him, bring him straightway before me.”
These instructions were only too punctually executed, and two or three evenings after, just as Hassan had reached the spot from which he gave his accustomed signal, and was watching for the opening of the casement, a large blanket was thrown over his head from behind, and, before he could extricate his limbs from its folds, he was thrown to the ground and bound hand and foot. In this condition he was carried before Osman Bey, who, in order to make his crime as public as possible, summoned Ahmed Aga and all the chief officers of Delì Pasha’s household to attend the investigation.
The news spread like wildfire throughout the palace and the neighbouring houses, so that in less than an hour the Bey’s divan was crowded with wondering spectators. Investigation was scarcely required, for the evidence was clear; the culprit had been taken in the forbidden precincts. The gardener swore to the fact of the casement having been twice opened, and that a woman appearing there had held communication with the prisoner; while the eunuchs of the harem, when interrogated, could not deny that the casement in question belonged to the Lady Amina’s private apartment.
Osman Bey, cloaking his revengeful hatred towards Hassan under a semblance of zeal for the Pasha’s honour, ordered a pair of iron manacles to be fixed on the prisoner’s wrists, and then having caused the cords and blanket in which he had been bound to be removed, ordered him to stand up and state what he had to say in his defence.
Hassan, drawing himself proudly up to his full height, and darting on Osman Bey a glance of withering scorn, replied in a loud voice, “Delì Pasha is father of the lady and Governor of the province; for him I reserve what I have to say: to you I shall give no reply.”
“Take him to the guard-house prison,” cried Osman Bey in a fury; “we will see if that insolent tongue will not find another kind of speech to-morrow. Let four soldiers with loaded pistols attend him to prison and watch at the door: if he escapes, their lives shall answer for it.”
After Hassan had been removed in obedience to this order, Osman Bey remained for some time in consultation with the commander of the troops and other officers respecting the punishment to be inflicted on Hassan. Ahmed Aga lingered among these, and in order to disarm the Vice-Governor’s suspicions of his sentiments towards the prisoner, he was loud in his condemnation of the offence, although he took no part in the discussion that arose regarding the punishment.
Osman Aga declared that the honour of the Pasha required it to be both prompt and severe, so as to deter others from invading the sanctity of his harem, and before the consultation closed he avowed his determination to have Hassan publicly beaten on the following morning in the open meidàn in front of the palace, and be afterwards reconveyed to prison to await Delì Pasha’s arrival. Ahmed Aga, who well knew that all opposition to a decision based on motives of personal revenge and hatred would be fruitless, feigned acquiescence in its justice, and suggested to the Governor that it would be improper that the prisoner should be confined and punished in the dress of khaznadâr to the Pasha: he proposed, therefore, that he should be authorised to see him deprived of his household dress and arms, and that he should be clad in a costume more befitting his disgraced position.
To this Osman Bey, willingly assenting, gave an order that the prison should be opened to Ahmed Aga to allow him to make the change; but he knew so well Hassan’s popularity in the Pasha’s household, that he intrusted the custody of the prisoner, both in prison and at the place of punishment, solely to his own followers and to the soldiers now under his orders as Vice-Governor.
Ahmed Aga, having provided himself with a suit of clothes such as was worn by the humbler attendants of the Pasha, proceeded in company with two of Osman Bey’s followers to the prison, and being aware that his every word and gesture would be closely watched and reported, he affected a tone of the greatest harshness in addressing the prisoner.
Hassan, to whom his secret motives were unknown, was more hurt at the conduct of his former friend than he could have been by any indignity inflicted on him by the spite of Osman Bey. Had he known Latin and history, he might have ejaculated, “Et tu, Brute!” but as it was, he observed a proud and haughty silence while delivering over his khaznadâr dress, together with his shawl-girdle, purse, and dagger, of all of which Ahmed Aga took possession. Scanning with a rapid glance the walls and dimensions of the prison, Ahmed Aga noticed that it was lighted only by one small aperture, so high that escape was impossible; and he had already heard the orders given to the sentries who paced before the door with loaded pistols, and who knew that their lives were made answerable for the prisoner’s safety.
“Give him bread and water,” said he to the guards, “and let him have a light burning in the cell; it may be useful if you want to look in at any hour before morning to see what he is doing. He is a desperate fellow; beware, my men, that you do not let him escape.”
“You may trust us for that,” they replied gruffly, “as we have no wish to take his place or share his punishment.”
Poor Hassan made his solitary bread-and-water meal with the proud stoicism of a Bedouin, though his heart bled at the apparently hopeless issue of his love and the treacherous ingratitude of Ahmed Aga.
The early hours of the night had passed, and he was just about to lose a sense of his troubles and dangers in sleep, when he was aroused by seeing something drop near his feet, which had evidently been thrown in at the aperture in the wall. Reaching out his manacled hand, he found it to be a lump of clay, to which was attached a note containing a small file and the following words:—
“Light of my Eyes, beloved Friend,—Your condition is very perilous; all I could do I have done. Osman Aga swears you shall be publicly beaten to-morrow, and he will keep his oath. The place will be the wooden pillar in the middle of the meidàn; if you try to escape before you reach it you will be killed, according to his orders. The cords by which they tie you will be rotten; with the file you can cut nearly through one of the manacles near the wrist, where the cut will not be seen, and you may then break them with a sudden effort. Immediately in front of the post will sit the Bey, and behind him you will see a large clump of date-trees, at the back of which is a ruined sheik’s tomb, where you will find your clothes, your arms, and your horse ready saddled; if you have courage and fortune to reach that spot you are safe. You must turn northward behind the date-trees, and I will direct the pursuit westwards toward the desert. Allah bless you. I have been obliged to seem your enemy to obtain the means of serving you, but Hassan knows the truth of this heart and hand.”
“I should have known and trusted,” said Hassan, pacing up and down his cell in agitation; “but I doubted thee, Ahmed, and am unworthy of thy friendship.”
After giving himself up awhile to these thoughts, he reverted to the letter. “Beaten!” he said, while he crushed the paper in his gyved hand. “I, Hassan, the Child of the Pyramid, whose lance has emptied the saddles of warriors; I, the betrothed of Amina, to be exposed in the meidàn and beaten like a thief or a slave—by Allah! rather will I die ten thousand deaths.” He cast his eye scornfully down on the rusty manacles that fettered his wrists. “Fools,” said he, “to think that the hands of Hassan could be held by brittle toys like these! The intention of Ahmed in sending me the file was friendly, and it may yet be needed, but not now. The slaves might examine these chains before leading me out, and my escape be thus rendered impossible.”
So saying, he hid the file in the folds of a linen girdle that supported his serwal (or drawers), and having carefully reperused Ahmed’s letter so as to fix it firmly in his memory, he tore it piecemeal and buried it in the dust in a corner of his cell, so that in case he should fall in his attempted escape there might not be found anything to compromise his friend.
Having made these preparations and recited his evening prayer, he lay down and slept soundly till he was awakened by the drawing of the bolts of the prison-door, and the entrance of half-a-dozen armed men appointed to conduct him to the place of punishment.
In obedience to their orders, before leaving the prison they examined the manacles, which Hassan held up to their inspection with an air of good-humoured confidence, which, together with his noble and distinguished mien, impressed the rough fellows in his favour.
They were strangers to him personally, but they thought it a pity that so handsome a youth should be subjected to a degrading punishment for speaking a few words in the garden beneath the window of a Khanum whose life he had saved only a few days before. However, they knew Osman Bey’s character, and dared not disobey his orders, so they marched their prisoner to the appointed spot, where a man stood ready to tie his hands to the post mentioned in Ahmed’s letter.
While performing this office, his back being turned to the Bey, a single wink of the eye sufficed to show to Hassan that he was a friend, and that the cord was either half-cut or rotten. Osman Bey sat on a cushioned carpet smoking his chibouq, some of the officers of his household standing on either side, while behind him Hassan recognised many friendly faces of Delì Pasha’s attendants, on which sympathy and indignation were legibly written: beyond these again he noticed the palm-grove, where his horse and liberty awaited him if he could escape from stab or bullet on the way. The attempt seemed desperate; yet, although Hassan had resolved to risk it, none could read any agitation or emotion in that calm, proud eye, which, after surveying the surrounding crowd, rested its scornful glance on the Vice-Governor.
“Osman Bey,” said Hassan in a loud, firm voice that was heard by all present, “I warn you to desist from this unjust punishment. I have appealed to Delì Pasha; it is he alone who should judge his own khaznadâr.”
“Dog!” replied Osman Bey, “dost thou teach me my duties and my powers? Am I not Governor till Delì Pasha arrives; and shall I not punish a scoundrel who dares to invade his harem? I will have thy back beaten till thou canst not speak, and I will leave thy feet for Delì Pasha to beat till thou canst not stand. Slaves,” he continued, addressing two men armed with sticks who had silently taken their places on each side of the prisoner, “strike! and if you do not lay it soundly on, by my head you shall taste the stick yourselves.”
Even as he ceased speaking the fall of a heavy blow on Hassan’s back sounded over the meidàn, and an involuntary groan burst from many of his former comrades in the Pasha’s household. Uttering the single word “Allah!” in a voice of thunder, Hassan burst the cord that bound his hands to the post, and dashing them apart with the full power of his gigantic strength, the rusted manacles snapped like whipcord: a single bound brought him to the side of the astonished Bey, who had scarcely time to take the pipe from his mouth ere he received from the iron chain still hanging from Hassan’s right hand a blow which broke his nose and deluged his face in blood. Without turning even to give him a look, Hassan dashed impetuously forward, brandishing a sword that he had snatched from the Bey’s nearest attendant. Some made way for him apparently paralysed by fear or surprise, some doubtless from secret friendship, so that, here and there parrying a random cut or thrust, he succeeded in gaining the palm-grove.
Such was Hassan’s extraordinary fleetness of foot that he had distanced all pursuers when the Bey, rising from the ground and holding a handkerchief to his bleeding face, roared aloud in fury to his kawàsses and Bashi-Bazouks to mount in pursuit. “A hundred purses to any one who takes him dead or alive!”
It may well be believed that a reward of such unheard of magnitude sent many of the greedy soldiers to their saddles with all possible speed.
Hassan meanwhile sped his way to the sheik’s tomb, beneath which he found a friendly young Mameluke of the Pasha’s mounted and holding Shèitan by the bridle.
“Quick, quick!” said the youth; “here is your belt and pistols—they are primed and loaded; here your sword and dagger; in these small bags, firmly tied to the saddle, are your clothes and purse. Away, away to the right, round these palms; I will gallop off to the left and shout as if in pursuit.”
With a grasp of the hand, and without exchanging another word, Hassan fastened his arms in his girdle, and vaulting into the saddle, went off at full speed; while the young Mameluke galloped off in the opposite direction, shouting aloud, and followed, as he expected, by the first horsemen who came up, and who, supposing him to be in sight of the fugitive, hastened in pursuit, hoping to snatch from him the coveted prize of one hundred purses.
One of the mounted kawàsses only, a powerful fellow, and greedy, like the rest, to secure the promised reward, had heard the sound of Shèitan’s retreating hoofs, and followed in the right direction; nor was it long ere, leaving the palm-grove and entering on the adjoining open fields which bordered the desert, he caught a view of Hassan in full flight before him. Well knowing that he could trust, if necessary, to his horse’s speed, Hassan did not wish to distress him at the commencement of a chase the length of which was uncertain. He contented himself therefore with going on at a moderate hand-gallop, which soon allowed the impatient kawàss to gain on him. Hassan perceiving, as he came nearer, that the man was armed like himself with sword and pistols, drew one of the latter from his belt and quietly awaited his adversary’s approach.
The kawàss, thirsting for the hundred purses, and trusting to his skill in the use of his weapon, galloped by our hero, discharging his pistol as he passed. The ball whizzed by Hassan’s head, but missed its mark; and, driving the stirrup into Shèitan’s flanks, he brought him quickly within range of his opponent, when he fired with so true an aim that the kawàss fell dead at the first shot.
“Fool!” said Hassan; “what harm had I done you that you must strive to take me?”
He dismounted, and, seeing that no other pursuers were in sight, dressed himself in the kawàss’s clothes, and throwing the body into an adjoining ditch, added a second brace of pistols to his own means of defence, and led off his late opponent’s horse, which he resolved to retain or turn loose as circumstances might render it advisable.