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Title: Her Majesty the King
A romance of the harem
Author: James Jeffery Roche
Illustrator: Oliver Herford
Release date: January 22, 2025 [eBook #75179]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: R. H. Russell, 1898
Credits: Bob Taylor, David Edwards and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HER MAJESTY THE KING ***
Transcriber’s Note
Italic text displayed as: _italic_
Her Majesty the King
[Illustration:
_Her Majesty the King_
]
[Illustration:
HER MAJESTY
THE KING
A Romance of the Harem
_Done into American
from the Arabic_
By
JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE
_With Illustrations by_
OLIVER HERFORD
[Illustration: Decoration]
NEW YORK
R. H. RUSSELL
1902
]
_Copyright, 1898, by_
JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE
_Copyright, 1902, by_
ROBERT HOWARD RUSSELL
UNIVERSITY PRESS · JOHN WILSON
AND SON · CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
DEDICATION.
[Illustration: Decoration]
_To the lineal descendant of the Lady Kayenna, who told me this true
history, the while I could but marvel and admire the teller; for, of
a truth, since Scheherezade there hath been none to approach her in
goodliness and wit and wisdom and all comeliness of mind and person
and, especially, in a proper and intelligent appreciation of_
THE ILLUSTRIOUS AUTHOR.
FOREWARNING.
[Illustration: Decoration]
(YEAR OF THE HEGIRA 1276.)
Many, and in sooth foolish, are they who writing books send them forth
to the world with humiliating disparagement of their contents and
servile appeals for mercy to those who may read them. Now a man who
hath dates, or coffee, or rice to sell goeth not into the market-place
crying out, “Lo! the merchandise which I offer for sale is poor and
mouldy and unworthy stuff; yet of your charity, good people, I pray you
to buy,” seeking yet to cajole his hearers with coarse flattery. As if
any man were silly enough to buy damaged goods because, forsooth, the
vendor praised the good judgment of the buyer!
I, who have made the pilgrimage and kissed the Kaaba which endowed with
truth, am not as the Franks who trust to the beguilement of the Stone
of Bel-Ârni. This volume, containing the surprising adventures of
the good Kayenna and the marvellous wisdom of Shacabac, the Wayfarer,
needeth no apology. If it excelleth all other works of history in lofty
thought, in rich imagery, in polished style, and in perfect diction, it
is only because I have made it to do so. Had it existed in the days of
the good Caliph Omar, wisest of all censors, it would not have shared
the fate of that mass of unworthy literature by him justly condemned to
the flames. Rather would it have been commended to all the faithful as
a work not to be hastily skimmed by the light and thoughtless who seek
transitory knowledge in the public libraries, but to be _bought_ and
preserved for careful and frequent study by the discriminating reader.
While the work of no mortal is perfect, the only defect in this book is
its brevity. Its merits are as many as its words. If any man fail to
recognize them, let him wisely be silent, and, returning the book to
him from whom he borrowed it, pray Allah for better judgment and mourn
the hour in which he, unworthy, ever learned to read.
CONTENTS.
[Illustration: Decoration]
PAGE
FOREWARNING v
CHAPTER I. 13
He that repenteth too late may some time worry too
soon.—_The Kâtâmarana._
CHAPTER II. 20
A lie grows so fast that its own parents may not recognize
it.—_Deucalion._
CHAPTER III. 29
The hardest thing to find is an honest partner for
a swindle.—_Samith._
CHAPTER IV. 34
A grandfather is a man who has two chances to
make a fool of himself, and seldom neglects them.—_Ginglymus._
CHAPTER V. 46
An omen, said the Fakir, is a sign of the future.
Blame not the omen, but the future, if the sign prove
not true.—_Shiraz, the Younger._
CHAPTER VI. 55
The man who can invent a good working substitute
for honesty has yet to be invented himself.—_Eastern
Proverb._
CHAPTER VII. 61
Nevertheless, much depends on a man’s horoscope.
One is born in the desert, and becomes a brigand;
another is reared in the great city, and publishes books.
It is Kismet.—_Ben Haround._
CHAPTER VIII. 72
What is a cryptogram? asked the Pupil.
It is a cipher, replied the Sage.
What is a cipher? persisted the Pupil.
It is naught, answered the Sage.
Is there a cryptogram in this book? asked the Pupil.
If there be, a Sage alone will find it. It should explain
aught that may seem irrelevant.—_The Wisdom
of Shacabac._
CHAPTER IX. 88
There are times when it is inexpedient, if not actually
immoral, to kill the bediamonded clerk of a caravansary.—_Manco
Capac._
CHAPTER X. 95
Surely, thou dost not expect strangers to pay for thy
books. And, surely, thou wouldst not ask thy friends
to buy them. Seek some other way of achieving
wealth through letters. And let me know if thou
findest it.—_The Pauper Poet._
CHAPTER XI. 106
Some men borrow books; some men steal books; and
others beg presentation copies from the author.—_Ben
Haround._
CHAPTER XII. 122
In time of war begin to prepare for it.—_The Compleat
Art of Logistics, by Yang Kee._
CHAPTER XIII. 129
Every nation has just the government for which its
people are fitted; at least, that is what is said by the
rulers who are piously engaged in misgoverning it.—_Manco
Capac._
CHAPTER XIV. 136
This Book is a Mirror wherein the Wise Man seeth
Wisdom, but the Fool seeth Folly.—_Shacabac._
CHAPTER XV. LAGNIAPPE. 142
THE ILLUSTRATIONS.
[Illustration: Decoration]
Her Majesty the King _Frontispiece_
“‘In what way?’ asked his wife” _Page_ 14
Al Choppah 22
Shacabac, the Sage 40
Ben Zoin 62
“‘I bring evil news!’” 104
Badeg, the Soothsayer 108
“‘Out of this, fortune-telling dog!’” 118
[Illustration: Three men sitting]
CHAPTER I.
He that repenteth too late may some time worry too soon.—_The
Kâtâmarana._
The Pasha Muley Mustapha was unhappy. He was a peaceloving,
easy-tempered man, as Pashas go, and, when allowed to have his own
way, was never inclined to ask for more. But now, after seven years of
wedded life, he found his wishes thwarted, not for the first time, by
the caprice of a woman, and that woman his only wife, Kayenna, well
surnamed the Eloquent. The misunderstanding had arisen, innocently
enough, in this way:—
“I think, my dear,” said Muley Mustapha, as he sat smoking his nargileh
one day at the beginning of this history, while his wife reclined
on a divan,—“I think, my dear, that my parents (may their memory be
blessed!) made a great mistake in their treatment of me in my youth. I
was brought up too strictly. They gave me no opportunity of seeing life
in all its phases. Consequently, I find myself, in middle age, almost a
stranger among my own subjects. I mean to adopt an entirely different
system with little Muley.”
“In what way?” asked his wife, rising on her elbow, and casting a
suspicious look at her lord.
“Well, in this way,” replied Muley Mustapha, deliberately,—“in this
way. I intend to let him go out into the world, mingle with the youth
of his own age, share in their sports, and, as the Giaours say, ‘sow
his wild oats.’”
[Illustration:
“_‘In what way?’ asked his wife_”
]
“Muley Mustapha,” said his wife, sitting bolt upright, “you shall do
nothing of the sort. ‘Sow his wild oats,’ indeed! He shall never leave
my sight, not for a single moment, until he is a grown man and I have
provided him with a wife to take my place as guardian of his morals.
It ill becomes the trusted vassal of my noble father, the Sultan of
Kopaul, to talk thus of corrupting the child who is to be one day ruler
of that mighty empire. You forget that fact, Muley Mustapha.”
“On the contrary,” retorted the Pasha, a little tartly, “I am not
likely to forget it, so long as the daughter of the Sultan of Kopaul
condescends to remain the wife of the Pasha of Ubikwi.”
For Muley Mustapha had married above his station, and the circumstance
had not been permitted to escape his memory. He never complained of his
lot; but, when his faithful Vizier once hinted that the Koran allowed
each true believer the blessing of four wives, he answered with a sigh,
“I find one enough for this world: the rest I will take in houris.”
Some subtle reflection of that sentiment must have made itself visible
on the face of the Pasha at this moment; for his worthy spouse, with
apparent irrelevance, suddenly exclaimed,—
“Muley Mustapha, if you are going to cast your vagabond Vizier in my
face, I will leave the room—until I have time to go home to my father,
who will protect me from insult.”
“Great Allah!” cried the Pasha. “Who is casting anybody in your face?
And who has mentioned the name of the Vizier?”
But the virtuous Kayenna had risen to her feet, and in low, intense
tones began:—
“Sir, there is a limit to what even a wife may endure. When I think
that a son of mine is threatened with contamination at the hands of a
low, disreputable, adventurous vagabond, like your worthless underling”—
Here the good lady was so overcome by her feelings that she burst into
a flood of tears, and had to be borne, shrieking, to her apartments.
“I foresee that I shall have trouble in bringing up that boy,” mused
Muley Mustapha, as he relighted his nargileh, and stroked his flowing
beard.
Braver man there was not in all Islam than the dauntless young Pasha
of Ubikwi, whose valor on many a hard-fought field finally won him the
favor of the Sultan of Kopaul, and the fair hand of that Sultan’s only
child. Once, some years after his marriage, he propounded to Shacabac
the Wayfarer, then a sage whose merits had not been appreciated by a
dull generation, the old paradox of the Frankish schoolmen: “When an
irresistible force meets with an immovable object, what happeneth?”
And the wise man answered, “In case of matrimony, the Force retireth
from business.” Struck by the aptness of the reply, Muley Mustapha made
the sage his Vizier on the spot.
[Illustration: Three women]
From that day forth the Pasha had peace in his household. There is much
virtue in self-abnegation; but, like most unconditional surrenders,
it does not always evoke the admiration of the victors. Yet was Muley
Mustapha not without his reward. Kayenna knew just how far she might
venture in dictating to him, and, by judiciously yielding that for
which she cared naught, managed ever to obtain that which she desired.
Thus doth the wise spouse gain new raiment by denying to her lord the
society of an unbeloved mother-in-law.
CHAPTER II.
A lie grows so fast that its own parents may not recognize
it.—_Deucalion._
Three days after the occurrence of the events narrated in the preceding
chapter a venerable man, clad in the robes of a physician, was ushered
into the presence of the Pasha. He salaamed low, and said,—
“Great and mighty Pasha, I bring thee good news.”
“Speak,” said the Pasha: “what is thy news?”
“Great and good tidings,” answered the leech. “Mother and child are
doing well.”
“Allah be blessed!” said Muley Mustapha. “And the boy? My own little
Muley! Is he a healthy, comely lad,—such an one, think you, as will
hold his own among the gallants of the land, and not prove a puny
milksop, clutching his mother’s apronstring?”
“Truly, O potent Pasha,” was the answer, “it is a fair and well-formed
child, but”—
“But me no buts, knave,” roared the Pasha. “Darest thou say the boy is
deformed,—blind,—deaf,—lame? Speak, or by the beard of the Prophet”—
“Mercy, O gracious lord! I meant nothing,” cried the sage, falling on
his knees, “only this—the child”—
“Well, go on, and quickly. The child”—
“Is a girl, O great and mighty”—
But Muley Mustapha had leaped to his feet, spurning the old man from
his way, and was shouting to his chief eunuch:—
“Ho, there, slave! Send me straightway the Vizier and the Soothsayer
and—hark ye, slave, send me the Headsman. By Allah! there is work here
for all three.”
The Pasha had a rich command of language, and he made free use of it
while awaiting the summoned functionaries. Soon they were ushered into
his presence, the swart Nubian, Al Choppah, bringing up the rear of the
procession. The Soothsayer prostrated himself at the feet of the Pasha,
who thus addressed him:—
[Illustration:
_Al Choppah, the Headsman_
]
“O triple-tongued liar and silverhaired son of Gehenna, what hast
thou to say for thyself? Dost remember that but six months ago thou
didst issue a prophecy, standing before us as proud and confident as
Bhilibidam, the haughty prince of Eblis, and didst say that I was to be
the father of a son, and didst warrant the prediction with thy head?
What should be done, O Shacabac, with such a defaulter on his sacred
pledge?”
“So please your Highness,” replied the Vizier, promptly, “I should
foreclose on the security.”
“It is well said,” quoth the Pasha, and, signing to the Nubian, bade
him advance and do his duty.
[Illustration: Man kneeling in front of another]
Al Choppah ran his thumb along the edge of his scimitar, swung it
slowly aloft, and was about to bring it down, when the Soothsayer, in
a trembling voice, cried out: “The will of Allah be done! But hath not
thine own trusted adviser counselled mercy to all creatures, even to
the least merciful? And, even though I die, I tell thee that the child
born to thee this day shall reign over Kopaul!”
Astounded and secretly a little impressed by this remarkable speech,
Muley Mustapha signed to the Nubian to withdraw to the ante-chamber.
Then, bidding the Soothsayer stand up, he said sternly: “Do not dare
hope to escape thy doom by laughing at our beard. Explain thy riddle;
but, first, Shacabac, what means the slave by saying that thou hast
counselled mercy even to the least merciful of creatures?”
Shacabac, who did not disdain the music of his own voice, replied:—
“Truly, this Soothsayer hath deeply offended; but he showeth a proper
taste in literature, and, perchance, seeth more of the future than
ordinary mortals. It is true, I have counselled mercy to all creatures;
for mercy may sometimes be wisdom. I have said:—
“‘Kick not the sleeping tiger in thy path; and, if thou meetest a shark
in the river, go thy way,—the sea is wide enough for him and for thee.
“‘Utter no evil, not even of the dumb beasts. If thy horse offend thee,
put him away from thee; and when thou sellest him, speak only of his
good parts.’
“I have also written: ‘Dispute not with thy neighbor if his hens
permeate thy garden, but bid them welcome and give them shelter. So
shalt thou have fresh-laid eggs for thy breakfast.’
“As to this wretched Soothsayer, I fear me much his character as a
prophet is sorely damaged. Nevertheless, as I have written elsewhere:—
“‘A bad character is better than none at all. Rather behave ill than
have men say of thee, “Lo, he knoweth not how to behave.”’”
Just then appeared a slave with the startling tidings that a messenger
from the great Sultan of Kopaul had arrived and besought an interview.
If Shacabac was annoyed at being interrupted in the pleasant pastime
of quoting from his own works, which is said to be not a displeasing
diversion with other great writers, the Pasha quickly recalled him to
more pressing matters, by saying: “Now, Shacabac, great is thy written
wisdom. Mayhap thou hast wit enough to tell us how we may break the
news to the great Sultan, my father-in-law, that his ‘grandson’—dog of
a Star-gazer, that was _thy_ precious work!—is a granddaughter.”
But even the wisdom of Shacabac was unequal to such a contingency; and
this true story would never have been written, had not the Soothsayer
averted an irreparable loss to literature by humbly asking permission
to speak.
“Speak,” replied the Pasha, “and see that thy words be precious; for on
them hangs thy life.”
Thus encouraged, the Soothsayer first asked, how many people knew
of the child’s sex. He was informed that, besides themselves there
present, only the mother and the attendant physician as yet possessed
that knowledge; but the whole country would know of it, to their
grief, when the wrathful Sultan learned how his hopes had been
blighted. “And upon my head, O wretched juggler,” cried the Pasha,
“shall fall the chief weight of his anger. Accursed be the hour in
which I was not born a girl!” The last two words he uttered with
infinite grief and scorn.
“Then, O Pasha, the country is safe, if the Physician be silenced,
and we, keeping the secret to ourselves, inform the Sultan that his
daughter and _grandson_ are doing well. The Sultan is very old (may
his years be many!), and he will have gone to his fathers long ere he
discover the deception; and thou and thy noble spouse shall reign in
Kopaul ere anybody know, if they ever know, that thy son is _not_ thy
son.”
Audacious as was this proposition, yet the Pasha grasped at it as a
drowning man at a straw, especially as it met the approval of Shacabac.
He generally accepted the advice of that wise and good philosopher.
The Soothsayer and the Physician were enjoined to strict silence; and,
the better to insure it, they were commended to the care of Al Choppah,
the Nubian, who, being a mute, could tell no tales. His two guests do
not appear again in this history.
CHAPTER III.
The hardest thing to find is an honest partner for a swindle.—_Samith._
But it was absolutely necessary for the peace and dignity of the realm
of Ubikwi that the court should not be without an official Soothsayer.
Wherefore the vacant office was presently filled by a young and
promising astrologer, Badeg by name, who had studied for some years at
the feet of his lamented predecessor.
Muley Mustapha, while secretly contemning the whole science because
of the wretched blunder whereby he thought himself the chief sufferer
(though the lately deceased soothsayer, had he been able to give an
opinion, might have thought otherwise), found it hard work to keep up
a pretence of respecting the new incumbent and his office. Kayenna,
more alive to the danger of arousing suspicion, took pains on every
occasion to show profound respect for the holy man, and never failed to
enjoin a similar course on the part of her lord. It was not her fault
if Muley Mustapha erred on that or, indeed, on any line of policy; for
in all Ubikwi there was not a wife more ready at all times to direct
her husband in the path of right.
Nevertheless, there was something about the new astrologer which
caused her uneasiness, worried Muley Mustapha, and disturbed the
serene imperturbability of Shacabac. It was this. Whenever he issued
a prediction, were it only a casual prophecy of the coming weather,
he always accompanied it with a qualifying phrase, such as, “Allah
permitting,” “subject to other conditions,” “errors and omissions
excepted,” or something equally foreign to all the traditions and
precedents of prophecy. At such times he was wont to cast at Muley
Mustapha, Kayenna, or the good Shacabac a swift, furtive glance which
did not add to the mental composure of any of them.
Yet, such is the effect of a guilty conscience, not one of the three
ever questioned his slightest assurance, no matter how the prediction
turned out. If he foretold “rains, followed by showers, for the Lower
Lake region,” on a given day, and that day happened to be the sunniest
of the whole year, the Pasha was sure to appear in waterproof garments,
with an umbrella ostentatiously in his hand, and took pains, if he
met the prophet, to declare that this was truly a wonderful season
for rain, but no doubt it would be good for the crops. The Soothsayer
never made any reply other than, “Great is Allah, and wonderful are his
ways!”
Kayenna was annoyed and Shacabac alarmed at the unwisdom on the part of
Muley Mustapha in thus overdoing his part, especially as Badeg, grown
bolder with the immunity shown him, began to be absolutely reckless in
his prognostications, sending out forecasts of the stock market which,
had they been followed, would have bankrupted the royal exchequer.
A deputation of traders called upon the Pasha to protest; but the wise
Vizier met them with the calm assurance that the prophet was a man
marked by heaven as insane, and therefore doubly deserving of homage.
“Should his visitation prove chronic,” said the sage, “it may be taken
as a sign that he should be made custodian of the national treasury.”
Whereupon the merchants withdrew their protests, averring with one
voice that without doubt the Soothsayer was sane and wise beyond the
sons of men, and that they would thenceforth accept his predictions as
inspired, and govern themselves accordingly. The which they did; but
it was noticed that the market from that time became conservative, and
business flourished the more as it was fostered the less by government,
even as the Giaour jest hath it, that the patient getteth well or dieth
without the assistance of the doctors.
CHAPTER IV.
A grandfather is a man who has two chances to make a fool of himself,
and seldom neglects them.—_Ginglymus._
While the events recorded in the preceding chapter and covering some
years had their influence on the affairs of state, life within the
harem went quietly on. Kayenna, the faithful spouse of Muley Mustapha,
accepted the congratulations of her friends on the birth of little
Muley; and it was remarked that, so devoted a mother was she, nobody
but herself was ever allowed to nurse or watch or otherwise care for
the beloved child.
“My daughter will spoil the brat and bring him up a regular milksop,”
growled the great Sultan one day after paying a prolonged visit to the
happy couple. “I thought you had an idea, Muley, of rearing the boy to
be a manly fellow and letting him see the world.”
“Truly, I had,” was the reply, rather sadly made; “but, as he is our
only child, his mother is so passionately attached to him that I cannot
find it in my heart to train him as robustly as I should wish.”
“Bosh!” ejaculated the fiery old monarch. “My grandson should be taught
to fear nothing, whereas he looks and acts like a girl. Send him to
Kopaul for a while, and I promise you he will learn some manliness.”
But to this proposition Kayenna demurred so vigorously that the old
Sultan was forced to desist; for that truly admirable woman had the
happy faculty, whether as daughter, wife, or mother, of bending every
will in her own direction, which was that of righteousness always.
Heaven had blessed her from infancy with a fine flow of language,
accompanied by a noble firmness of purpose, so that such was the repute
of her wisdom, whenever she opened the coral portals of her speech,
the whole court was ready to accept her dictum on any question rather
than waste time and invite humiliation by the fruitless attempt to
controvert her.
[Illustration: Woman floating]
[Illustration: Two men talking]
The Sultan went home discontented. Before departing, he took Muley
Mustapha aside, and said impressively: “Muley, if I had a wife like
yours, I would teach her humility if I used up a cord of bamboos and
half a dozen eunuchs.” Then, sighing heavily, he added: “After all, it
is not your fault, but that of myself, who brought her up sparingly as
to the bamboo. If you should ever have a _daughter_, Muley,”—the Pasha
gave a slight start at the word,—“which Allah forbid!” continued the
Sultan, “take the advice of an old man, and”—He finished the sentence
with an eloquent gesture of the right arm extended from the shoulder at
an upward angle of forty-five degrees, fingers close together, and palm
forward. This gesture, when made with the arm raised perpendicularly,
is a sign of peace among the Bedouins and other nomads. It was not as
such that the Sultan employed it.
“What did my father mean by lifting his hand like the sail of a
windmill? And of what was he speaking as he bade you farewell?” asked
Kayenna, when she and Muley found themselves alone. “Oh, nothing,” was
the reply. “He was talking about the education of our daught”—
“Muley Mustapha! Do you mean to say that _you told him_?”
“No, no, my dear, of course not. Only when he said something about our
ever having a daughter, I was so surprised that I feared he might have
suspected something, and for the moment regretted that we had deceived
him about his ‘grandson.’”
“And, pray, who deceived him?” queried Kayenna, with icy severity. “I,
for one, have not. I have never told him that our little darling was
or was not a boy. If he choose to deceive himself or to be deceived
by tricksters like your vagabond Vizier, that is his own concern, not
mine. I know what his gesture signified; but, thank Allah, corporal
punishment was abolished in _my_ nursery by my angel mother, and my
honored sire has not forgotten the occasion, I ween.”
Kayenna wore such a pensive smile of retrospective happiness in saying
this that Muley Mustapha did not give a moment’s entertainment to his
father-in-law’s counsel, but prudently resolved to put the bamboo plant
to other and more profitable uses; and Shacabac, to whom he confided
his troubles, commented sagely: “The spinster knoweth how to bring up
children, and the bachelor to rule a wife. It is well that they remain
single: else who would be willing to leave this happy world, had they
the direction of its family affairs?”
“How hath it happened,” asked the Pasha, after ruminating some minutes
on this proposition, “that thou thyself hast never married?”
“Solely in order that I might the better devote myself to the
improvement and instruction of my fellowmen; for, if there be one man
on earth who knoweth less than all others, it is he who is the husband
of a wife, and she will be first to tell him the same. While Allah
preserveth her, his halo shall never be too small for his head.
“No man knoweth what true happiness is until he getteth married: then
is the knowledge rather a sweet memory than a new boon.
“Twice blessed is he in whose tent dwell both his mother and his wife’s
mother; for, even though he gain not Paradise, yet shall he fear not
Gehenna.
“In choosing a wife, disdain not youth nor beauty; for these are things
which time will cure.
“Love not a woman for her riches; but, loving first the riches, thou
shalt learn in time to love her for their sake.
[Illustration:
_Shacabac, the Sage_
]
“There are two ways of missing the miseries of matrimony: one is by not
getting married, the other by not being born. The Prophet hath said
that there is a third, which is by always overlooking the errors of thy
partner. I know naught about this, but it recalleth an apologue:—
“There were two brothers of Bassorah who dwelt under the same roof,
both being married. They had the misfortune, about the same time, to
offend their wives most grievously. Kadijah, the wife of the elder,
was so incensed that she never again spoke to her lord. Zobeide, the
younger, not only forgave her spouse, but made it a point every day,
in reminding him of his fault, to forgive him again most solemnly.
Yet was the husband of Zobeide no happier than that of Kadijah; and
when, finally losing patience, she procured a divorce from him, the
ungrateful wretch only said, ‘It is better to have loved and lost than
never to have lost at all.’ Truly, matrimony is a state into which none
but the wise should enter, and they do not.”
Encouraged by the silent approval of the Pasha and fortified by a
copious draught of the strong waters forbidden, but not unknown, to
true believers,—concerning the use whereof he had eloquently written:
“Hospitality saith, ‘Be blind when the guest helpeth himself to thy
wine flask; but be deaf when he asketh for more’; also, ‘Tempt not
thy neighbor with the cup which inebriates, lest he fall; but, if
thy neighbor offer thee to drink, refuse him not, lest thou give him
needless pain,’”—the Sage continued:—
“To be constant in love to one is good: to be constant to many is great.
“Politeness between husband and wife costeth nothing. Were it
otherwise, the virtue would be even rarer than it now is.
“Marry not any woman out of gratitude, lest perchance she come in time
to wonder where the reward cometh in.”
Furthermore, he inculcated the sage maxim: “Save up money for a rainy
day, and it is sure to rain.”
He also added, perhaps irrelevantly,—for like other great philosophers
he never allowed his mind to be fettered by text or theme,—“Be not
concerned if thou findest thyself in possession of unexpected wealth.
Allah will provide an unexpected use for it.”
In conclusion, he said impressively, after vainly shaking the now
empty wine-flask: “It hath been said of the son of the desert, ‘Lo! he
hath sand’; but what availeth a whole Sahara, and no sugar to blend
therewith? Or who that hath a river before his door, and never a cow in
his barn, shall grow rich in the milk business?”
To this pertinent question the venerable Muley Mustapha made no
rejoinder, because in truth he had fallen asleep ere the Sage had
been fairly launched on his discourse, which would have been lost to
posterity, had not the speaker thoughtfully taken notes of the same,—a
practice commended to all preachers afflicted with drowsy congregations.
Shacabac withdrew silently from the presence, musing—not for the first
time—on the generous lack of appreciation bestowed by the great upon
the wise. As he was about to enter his humble domicile, he suddenly
perceived a large tiger stretched sleeping before his hearth, whereupon
he moved noiselessly to the roof of the house without disturbing the
fierce animal or alarming the other inmates who might molest the
unbidden visitor. Unhappily, his delicacy was but ill rewarded; for his
rich and parsimonious uncle, whose fortune he subsequently inherited,
on entering the kitchen the next morning, was incontinently devoured
by the ungrateful brute. The sad event was commemorated by the Sage in
a noble threnody, wherein the virtue of resignation is beautifully
set forth. Rare indeed was the occasion, or dire the catastrophe, from
which the worthy man could not extract some moral or material benefit.
CHAPTER V.
An omen, said the Fakir, is a sign of the future. Blame not the omen,
but the future, if the sign prove not true.—_Shiraz, the Younger._
So it came to pass that little Muley grew up into his nineteenth year,
a tall, well-favored, graceful stripling, but distinctly a “mother’s
boy”; and nobody but his parents and the discreet Shacabac held, or
thought they held, the secret of his effeminate appearance.
Then one day, sudden and fearful as the khamsin wind of the desert,
came a message from the aged grandsire, informing Muley Mustapha and
Kayenna that he had contracted a noble alliance for the heir to his
throne with the Princess Amine, only daughter of his neighbor, the
powerful King of Nhulpar.
Now here was a most serious complication. The King of Nhulpar was the
mightiest monarch of all the earth. Twenty caliphates trembled at
his nod; an hundred thousand lances were levelled at his word; the
number of wild riders ready to follow his standard were as the sands
of the desert multiplied by the sands of the seashore. When he said,
“Do this,” it must be done, whether it could be done or not. In fact,
he rather liked performing impossibilities by proxy, the daring one
who failed in the task being added to his Majesty’s large and varied
collection in the royal mausoleum of Dedhed.
Had he known that the Sultan of Kopaul in offering his “grandson’s”
hand in marriage to the Princess Amine was essaying the most impossible
of all impossibilities, he would have been delighted beyond expression.
He had not a single Sultan’s head in his album; but even that of
a Pasha was not to be despised, as Muley Mustapha thought with a
shudder, when he was apprised of his father-in-law’s well-meant but
most compromising negotiations.
What was to be done? It was not possible much longer to deceive the
old Sultan; and it was absolutely out of the question to traverse the
wishes of the fiery king.
“You see to what a pass you and your vagabond Vizier have brought us,”
said Kayenna. “Now, mayhap, you may be able between you to extricate us
from it.”
“I—I don’t know,” stuttered the bewildered Pasha, who did not see
why he was especially to blame for the blunder of a dead and gone
Soothsayer. Then, clutching at the suggestion of a companion in misery,
he added: “By all means, my dear, let us call in Shacabac; and he may
advise us for the best. He has some very sound views upon matrimony, I
know.”
“Yes, no doubt he has,” said Kayenna, ironically. “I can fancy what
they are like, but I should wish to have him repeat them to me.”
Kayenna did not admire the abstruse philosophy of Shacabac, which she
did not fully understand; but, with keen feminine intuition, she knew
that it could be only evil, for she disliked the philosopher. She was,
however, seriously impressed with one of his more homely maxims, which
she always endeavored to follow, namely:—
“Talk not with thy guest of his own affairs, for with those he is
sufficiently acquainted; but discourse ever of thine own,—of thy good
luck and ill, of thy horses, thy servants, thy children, and thine
ailments. If thou dost not succeed thereby in making him feel at home,
thou mayst at least induce him to wish himself there.”
Fortified by these maxims, Kayenna consented to the presence of the
Sage at the family council.
The messenger despatched for Shacabac found him in his lecture hall,
discoursing to a class of scholars on Omens, and illustrating his
words of wisdom with apposite examples. Even royalty had to wait until
the precious pearls falling from his lips should be gathered by his
hearers. He was saying:—
“It is very lucky to find a horseshoe, if there be a horse attached;
but unlucky, if the owner be about.
“It is a bad omen to meet, on leaving thy house in the morning, a mad
dog, a tiger which hath not breakfasted, or a man to whom thou owest
money.
“Steel cuts love. The great Sultan Ras-el-Dasl never knew perfect
conjugal bliss after inadvertently throwing the carving knife at his
favorite sultana.
“To break a mirror is also portentous of evil. Backsheesh, the porter,
once incautiously smashed a large pierglass over the head of his
spouse; and it cost him a month’s fees to replace them both.
“It is unlucky to sleep thirteen in a bed.”
Here the Sage was rudely interrupted by a voice, which said, “I know of
something yet more unlucky than all of these,—something which neither
great nor small, neither Pasha nor Sage, may do with impunity.”
Shacabac fixed an angry eye in the direction of the intruder, but
lowered it when he discovered the speaker to be Badeg, who was gazing
at him with a contemptuous leer.
“I see a messenger from the palace,” said the Sage; “and this class is
now dismissed. Badeg, I will speak with thee anon; for I would fain
know what thou hast learned from the stars that is more wondrous than
the marvels of which I have humbly discoursed.”
“Speak as thou wishest, or hold thy tongue, if that be wiser,” replied
the Astrologer, insolently; “but my words are for thy betters, who may
find them more precious than golden sequins, and only less valuable
than my silence.”
With this significant threat, Badeg wrapped his mantle about him, and
strode away, leaving a visible impression on the minds of the students,
who listened to him in wonder.
Shacabac, much disconcerted, repaired to the palace, where he remained
long in consultation with the Pasha and his spouse.
But, in a case wholly without precedent in history or fiction, the
wisdom of even so great a man as Shacabac is necessarily at fault: the
experience of one so aged as Muley Mustapha avails no more than the
instincts of a child. Only the intuition of the superior mind finds
a solution of the difficulty, or, at worst, a means of deferring the
catastrophe.
The present case proved to be no exception. After listening patiently
to the timid suggestions of her lord and the ineffectual though
sagacious aphorisms of the Vizier, Kayenna calmly observed: “I see that
there is but one way of settling the matter. I will go with the child
to Nhulpar.”
“And tell the King the truth?” cried both men, in consternation.
“And tell the King the truth,” echoed Kayenna, blandly.
“But it will cost both of your lives!” exclaimed Shacabac.
“It will cost me my Pachalik,” cried Muley Mustapha, dismally.
“It will cost fifty thousand gold sequins, to begin with,” replied the
noble matron. “As a preliminary step, you will order the First Lord of
the Treasury to go into the Street of the Moneychangers, taking the
Court Torturer along with him, and solicit a loan of that sum, at par,
within half an hour. I shall prepare for our departure on the day after
to-morrow, at sunrise. You, Shacabac, will come with us. See that the
caravan and guards be ready ere the break of day.”
CHAPTER VI.
The man who can invent a good working substitute for honesty has yet
to be invented himself.—_Eastern Proverb._
Great were the rejoicings in Ubikwi when the news was announced that
the young Prince Muley was about to wed the daughter of the mighty King
of Nhulpar, becoming thereby prospective heir not only to the Pachalik
of Ubikwi, but also to a great Sultanship and a vastly greater Kingdom.
The people rejoiced with great joy, not reflecting that, perchance,
the cost of sustaining the triple dignities might fall heavy on their
own shoulders. But it hath ever been the way of the populace to take
delight in increased burdens, provided the packages only be gaudily
decorated; wherein they differ from the camel and the ass and other
brute beasts, which have no appreciation of æsthetics.
The merchants, especially, who everywhere boast of being a conservative
class, that would rather pay ten piastres of tribute than one for the
suppression of brigandage, hastened to lay their loyal congratulations
before the Pasha. Shacabac received them affably, and in reply to their
address delivered a discourse fraught with practical wisdom, of which
unhappily only a few fragments have been preserved to this day; but
these are not without their value to traders of another and a foreign
generation. He said:—
“We have all more or less to do with Commerce. We buy goods, and
sometimes pay for them. We sell the precious products of our hands or
brains at the best price we can get. If the buyer pays up, we are sorry
that we did not charge him more. If he fails, we are glad that he did
not decide to pay less on the piastre. When we have grown very rich, we
speculate; and that keeps us from being purse-proud and haughty.
“Be diligent in keeping your accounts. It is better to charge an item
twice than to forget to charge it once. That is the true principle of
Double Entry.
“Pay as you go, but not if you intend going for good.
“Boast not of your wealth; but let humility curb your tongues when the
Assessor cometh around.
“Buy when the market is rising: sell when it is going to fall. If you
be not a prophet, any friend on the Street will notify you of each
impending change. Were it not for this unfailing, beautiful trust in
human nature, few of us would be able to make money.
“In selling goods by sample, let the samples be at least as good as the
bulk of the merchandise.
“Do not put all the best figs at the top of the crate. Have just as
good a layer on the bottom also; for there are sometimes evil-minded
persons who open the package at that end.
“Concerning truth: Do not believe all that you hear or see,—not even in
the newspapers. Advertisers are human and liable to err.
“It is a great mistake to suppose that all men are rogues. If there
were not a large majority of fools in the world, who would buy stocks?
“The essence of Free Trade is embodied in the axiom: Buy in the
cheapest and sell in the dearest market. This is absolutely correct.
I myself have bought shares for ‘half nothing,’ and doubled my money
inside of a week.
“Time is money. Every second saved at your mid-day lunch means so many
sequins by and by for your family physician.
“Be not angry with your creditors, if they importune you. It is nobler
to forgive and forget them.
“‘Three removes are as bad as a fire,’ but that depends largely on how
you stand with the underwriters.
“Do not judge a customer by the clothes he wears: he may not have paid
for them. Be courteous to all men. The humblest of your neighbors may
sit upon your jury one day.
“A business man who finds it necessary to attend a daily noon
prayer-meeting is either abnormally virtuous or his piety is of a kind
that needs a good deal of stimulus to keep it going.”
A young man who had listened with attention to this discourse came at
the close to Shacabac and asked, “How shall I become rich without too
much trouble?”
“List to me,” replied the wise man, “and I will teach thee in six easy
consecutive lessons, at one sequin per lesson.”
The young man, joyfully complying, paid the money, and sat at the feet
of the Sage. But, when the course was over, he cried out, “Bismillah!
thou hast taught me naught.”
“Nay,” returned the Sage. “I have taught thee how to make six sequins.
Go to, ungrateful one.”
And the ungrateful one, abashed at the reproof, immediately opened a
Commercial College where every branch of Business could be learned
“while you wait.”
But the envious Badeg, looking on, scoffed aloud, saying, “_I_ know how
to make a fortune without waiting at all!”
CHAPTER VII.
Nevertheless, much depends on a man’s horoscope. One is born in the
desert, and becomes a brigand; another is reared in the great city,
and publishes books. It is Kismet.—_Ben Haround._
A splendid retinue attended the virtuous Kayenna, the highborn Prince
Muley, and the Sage Shacabac, as they set out at sunrise of the next
day, from the gates of Ubikwi, on the long and toilsome journey to
Nhulpar. Muley Mustapha watched them with tearful eyes, not knowing
when, if ever, they might return, nor what might be the event of their
enterprise; still less—and this concerned him most sorely—what would
become of him in their absence. Nor were his forebodings lightened when
he beheld the astrologer Badeg grinning malevolently at the departing
caravan. He would have been even more disturbed in mind, had he seen
the latter, as the cavalcade was setting forth, pluck the sleeve of
Shacabac, and heard him whisper the fateful words: “You asked me what
omen was more malign than any of those you named. I will tell you.
It is to cheat a mighty Sultan and try to cheat a mightier King _by
palming off a Princess for a Prince_!”
[Illustration:
_Ben Zoin_
]
Pale with mingled anger and astonishment, Shacabac rode his camel
beside that of Kayenna, and, begging a private interview, hastily
confided to her the malignant words of the astrologer. The brow of the
fair lady darkened as much as a brow so fair could lose its alabaster
hue. Then, summoning her chief of staff, she said to him, “Hark ye,
Ben Zoin, trusty servant of my royal father, take at once twenty of
your best lances, and, when we shall have reached the well of Al-kohol,
and the caravan is in bivouac, steal forth with them, letting no man
know it but yourselves, and ride as for your lives to the capital of
Kopaul. Demand immediate audience of the Sultan,—this signet ring will
admit you at any hour,—tell him that there is treason in Ubikwi. Bid
him summon his forces, and march at once to the relief of my husband.
Should he find the rebels contumacious and able to withstand him, let
him say to them that Kayenna of Ubikwi, with her son, the Heir Apparent
of Nhulpar, and an hundred thousand spears, will be at the gates ere
the waning of another moon. Go, and be silent; for traitors may be in
this caravan also.”
The bearded, black-browed Ben Zoin bowed as he took the sacred signet,
and promised to be at the capital of Kopaul as speedily as camel might
carry him.
“Thou didst well to tell me of that caitiff’s words, good Shacabac,”
said Kayenna, graciously; “and, though thou art not over-clever in all
things, yet I believe thee honest in most. For this act thou mayst find
thyself one day Grand Vizier of three realms, an thou diest not of thy
weight of wisdom in the mean time.”
Laughing gayly as the caravan presently came in sight of the oasis of
Al-kohol, she gave the order to camp for the night. But ere the second
hour of encampment had passed, Ben Zoin and a score of the best lances
in the cavalcade had stolen noiselessly out of the enclosure; and none
were missed until the morning’s muster.
* * * * *
“Where is my trusty Ben Zoin?” asked Kayenna, when the caravan was
forming in order of march. Shacabac was so surprised at the question,
knowing what he knew, that he was on the point of explaining to her,
when a look from her keen eyes closed his lips.
“God is great,” he muttered to himself. “Of a verity, I am becoming
an imbecile; or, mayhap, I have been one all my life without knowing
it. If so, Allah be praised! there is yet some hope for me; for he who
beginneth to understand himself hath at least reached the outer portals
of Knowledge. But what an actress she is!”
Nobody seemed able to answer the question propounded so simply. The
captains of the guard, all old soldiers and comrades of the missing
warrior, said that they knew not how to explain his absence.
“He may have gone reconnoitring,” said one.
“Some mischance hath surely befallen him in the night,” said another.
“An evil genie may have spirited away him and his companions,” said
a third, who was brave, but imaginative, and suspected of composing
poetry in his hours off duty.
“Most likely he hath proven traitor, and deserted,” said the voice of
another, who was not of the old guard.
“Ha! what sayest thou?” cried Kayenna. “Come hither. Thy words are
ominous. Come to my tent at noonday, and we will inquire further. This
disappearance must be explained.”
Nothing more was heard of the missing soldier and his fellows; and the
caravan, much disturbed in mind, halted at noon by the oasis of Rhi,
near to the wells of Bûrbon, famed for the exhilarating quality of
their waters.
“And so thou hast reason to apprehend that Ben Zoin and his men have
deserted the caravan of the Pasha’s wife, being traitors or cowards?”
queried Kayenna of the man who had suggested that explanation at the
morning muster.
“No,” stammered the man: “I have no reason, only that it _stands_ to
reason that they could not have gone away save of their free will; and
what else could they be but traitors if they”—
“Strange,” mused Kayenna, “that an honest man never suspects his
neighbor of being a knave, while a rascal is ever distrustful. But
suspicion is like a plague. Once started, it attacks all. _I_ even have
caught the infection, and cannot withhold my suspicions of this worthy
fellow. Let him be searched forthwith, so that my unjust thoughts of
him may be forever dispelled.”
So, in despite of his protestations and even vigorous resistance, he
was promptly stripped; and, lo! within the lining of his caftan was
found a scroll of parchment addressed to his Majesty, the King of
Nhulpar.
“I did not know,” said Kayenna, “that we had in our retinue a bearer of
dispatches to the sovereign whom we are about to visit. From our worthy
lord, mayhap?”
The poor wretch only shook his head.
“Not, perchance, from our royal father, of Kopaul?”
The captive groaned.
“Then, as it does not appear to be a privileged communication, I will
take the liberty of inspecting its contents. Meanwhile, Shacabac, you
will bear witness that I have the messenger’s permission to examine the
document.”
As a matter of fact, she had not that permission; but the last man on
earth to challenge the statement at that moment was the poor wretch
pinioned by two stout guards and overshadowed by the giant form of
Al Choppah, who, without understanding a word that was said, grinned
anticipatively, as a conscientious sinecure might, at the thought of
doing something, however trifling, in the line of duty.
“To his Most Puissant Majesty, the Mighty King of Nhulpar,” read
Kayenna, as she unrolled the scroll, “from Badeg, Astrologer-in-chief
to the Court of Ubikwi, in prospective to the Court of Kopaul, and in
humble hope to the Royal Court of Nhulpar, these:
“I take this opportunity to inform your most gracious Majesty that the
caravan which sets forth this day for your royal court goes upon a
wicked and deceitful errand; namely, to impose upon your Majesty.”
“That is enough,” said Kayenna, refolding the scroll. “I see that
thy master has been good enough to cast the horoscope of the King of
Nhulpar; and a very pretty one it is. Pray tell me, has he cast thine,
also? No! Well, let me do it for thee. It is not a very bright one; but
it hath this advantage over even more auspicious predictions, that it
is absolutely and irrevocably true. I do not need to know under what
planet or conjunction of the stars thou wast born, nor in what ‘house’
a single sign of the zodiac was domiciled on that unlucky day. Thy
fortune began with the moment when thou didst accept the commission of
that villain Badeg to play the spy and traitor on this caravan, and
it will end ere the sun set on another day. Hast ever heard of the
two-headed Snake of Rhi, the horrible monster with a venomous mouth
at either end of his body, wherewith he devours his prey? What? Badeg
forgot to mention that trifling wonder to thee? What a dull knave he is
to set himself up for an astrologer! In a little while thou shalt know
more than he has learned in all his life; but the knowledge will not
abide with thee so long, perchance. Ho there, Al Choppah, put up thy
scimitar! There is rarer sport here. To-morrow there shall be a treat
for the caravan and the two-headed Snake of Rhi.
“This two-headed serpent,” explained Kayenna, carelessly, to Shacabac,
“is a rare monster which delighteth in flinging himself bodily on
his prey, striking it with the middle of his length, then tightening
himself, fold on fold, around the victim, until, life being all but
crushed out, he feasts with his double heads on the dying body. I
care little for such spectacles myself, for I think they savor of the
grotesque; but it will amuse our caravan, and make a weary hour pass
pleasantly.”
CHAPTER VIII.
What is a cryptogram? asked the Pupil.
It is a cipher, replied the Sage.
What is a cipher? persisted the Pupil.
It is naught, answered the Sage.
Is there a cryptogram in this book? asked the Pupil.
If there be, a Sage alone will find it. It should explain aught that
may seem irrelevant.—_The Wisdom of Shacabac._
Now it happened that, some days before, a guard came unto the tent of
Shacabac, leading a tattered remnant of humanity, who had been found
crawling toward the spring in dire distress. After allowing him to
slake his thirst, and being unable to obtain from him any coherent
explanation of his forlorn condition, the guard brought him before
Shacabac. The Sage, after bidding his body-servants to relieve the
stranger of his valuables, asked him how he came to be in such woful
plight. The outcast replied in the Lingua Franca dialect: “Truly,
because I could not resist the inducement of a free ride from Nhulpar
to Ubikwi; but the people of my caravan deserted me in the wilderness
two days since, and I have been in sore straits to reach this oasis.”
“And what was thy business in Ubikwi?” asked the Sage.
“None whatever,” replied the stranger; “but it was a free ride,—have I
not told thee so?—and of course I went along.”
[Illustration: Man sitting on carpet]
Struck by this remarkable explanation, the Sage asked, “Of what
country art thou?” and the enfeebled one, lifting his head proudly,
replied, “I am an American.” “Nay,” responded Shacabac, “thou art more
likely to prove erelong that thou dost belong to a yet more numerous
race,—that of the deadheads.”
Nevertheless, he was so moved by the piteous condition of the stranger
that he allowed him to join the caravan and lead a pack-camel every
day during the rest of the march. And the Sage wrote upon his tablets
this precious aphorism: “The free lunch is for the thirsty, not for the
hungry.”
A happy thought now occurred to Shacabac, and he said:—
“The two-headed Snake is a beautiful instrument of justice; but, if
your Highness will pardon her slave for offering a suggestion, I think
that the penalty is a trifle too short-lived. The crime deserves a more
prolonged punishment.”
“That is true,” rejoined Kayenna; “but, unfortunately, we omitted to
bring the Court Torturer with us on this journey, and we can ill afford
to waste precious time in mere diversion. Nevertheless, if you think
of any device which may serve to enliven the noon hour of rest, do not
hesitate to speak. I feel in a kindly mood toward all the world at
present, and would not rob so true a friend as yourself of any innocent
pleasure.”
Thus encouraged, Shacabac proposed that the stranger whom the caravan
had picked up by the oasis of Rhi should be sent for, and interrogated
concerning the criminal jurisprudence of his outlandish country beyond
the Western Ocean.
Kayenna was pleased to look graciously upon the suggestion, and
immediately despatched a slave in search of the stranger, who promptly
appeared at the entrance of the pavilion of state.
Great was the surprise of Shacabac on beholding the transformation
which had occurred in the appearance of the man, but a few days agone
the most forlorn outcast in all the land. From the rich folds of his
jewelled turban to the red tips of his Levantine slippers, the whilom
vagrant was attired in splendid raiment, and bore himself with that
dignity which in Occidental lands marks the owner of sumptuous apparel.
Shacabac, whose keen eyes took note of all things, quickly recognized
the habiliments before him.
“Amrou’s turban,” he said to himself, making a mental inventory,
“Cassim’s slippers, and Selim’s caftan! That is the scimitar of Sokum,
resting in the sash of Tippoo, the Congo porter, beside, as I live, the
yataghan which I myself did foolishly wager but yester eve on the fall
of an idle card! An this keep on, the rascal will own the whole caravan
ere we reach Nhulpar.”
For, by some necromancy known to his barbarian countrymen, the stranger
had learned to control the fortuitous movements of inanimate pieces of
pasteboard, so that they fell ever as he listed, but always contrary
to the wishes of the true believer, who vainly challenged fate on what
seemed a certain result. Allah alone knoweth how such prodigies are
permitted to come to pass.
Stifling his anger at this last outrage, because of Kayenna’s presence,
he bade the stranger kneel at the feet of her Highness, and affably
addressed him as follows:—
“Dog of an unbeliever and scum of the saliva of jackals, her most
gracious Highness deigns to ask of thee in what way do thy obscene
countrymen punish a knave guilty of high treason against the mockery
which they miscall a government.”
Whereunto the outcast replied, “Which?”
“It is not a question of Which or of What,” said Shacabac, severely,
“but of How. In what way do the misguided infidels of your country
treat their desperate criminals? for I suppose that not all of them are
permitted to escape justice, and flee to more blessed lands, wherein
they are enabled to despoil the followers of the Prophet.”
[Illustration: Men playing cards]
“In grave cases,” said the stranger, after a moment’s reflection,
“when the accused has neither friends nor money nor influence, he is
subjected to preliminary torture at the hands of what we call the
Interviewers. Often he is present in person during the ordeal; but
that is largely optional with him, and wholly so with them. In practice
it has been found that the most satisfactory interviews are conducted
in the absence of the subject. It is a matter of taste and convenience.
The real ordeal begins when the prisoner is subjected to the Process of
Lor.”
“And what is that?” asked Kayenna and Shacabac, as with one breath.
“It is a complicated process,” was the answer, “but highly instructive.
In the first place, the judge, or Cadi, as you would call him, orders
twelve men, who know nothing about the case,—otherwise they would not
be selected,—to be arrested and imprisoned until the guilt or innocence
of the accused can be established. Absolute ignorance of the question
is the prime essential governing the selection of the twelve; but
total ignorance of everything constitutes the ideal qualification of
what we call a ‘juror.’ The less the jurors know or are capable of
knowing, the greater the probability that they will speedily agree
upon a verdict. It is a very wise and ancient provision of Lor,”
added the stranger, reverently; “for, if it were something foolish
and new-fangled, it would seem impossible that any twelve men of
intelligence could agree unanimously upon a question so intricate as
those which are usually brought before our juries. Happily, however,
the jurors are not supposed to be intelligent; and, consequently, they
nearly always agree upon a matter concerning which any two of them
would scarcely be found in accord outside of the sacred jury-room.”
“But, when they have agreed,” interposed Kayenna, who had a mind for
things concrete, “what happens to the criminal?”
“Oh, the criminal!” responded the stranger: “he is put under restraint
at the beginning of the proceedings, as are the witnesses also, if
there be any; but that depends upon whether or not they be able to
furnish securities for their appearance in court.”
“It is a strange system, this administration of Lor, as you call
it,” said Kayenna, not without some suspicion that the stranger was
indulging in romance; “but tell me in a word, does it never _punish_
anybody?”
“Does it?” ejaculated the stranger. “Well, I should say it does.
It punishes everybody,—the jurors, the judge, the witnesses, the
people who have to hear or read the proceedings of the court, the
citizens who have to pay for all the business. Why, even the prisoner
himself is sometimes punished, and always more or less annoyed by the
procrastination and uncertainty of the whole affair. There are times
in the life of such a man when he almost feels that Lor itself is a
failure. Of course, he has his consolation, such as it is, in the
flowers and sweetmeats and love-poems sent to him by non-resident
members of Female Asylums for the Feeble-minded, once he is found
guilty of a dazzling crime; but what are flowers or candy or poetry
to a man who feels that he is losing time which might be homicidally
valuable to himself and society, under different circumstances?”
The stranger spoke with some heat, as one who might have himself
experienced the sad uncertainty of Lor; but Kayenna, with her logical
mind, brought him quickly back to the main point.
“You say,” said she, “that the criminal is sometimes punished. Describe
the process of capital execution.”
“It varies,” responded the stranger, “in the different sections of
my country. In some places the condemned is strangled: in others he
is imprisoned ‘for life,’ but usually pardoned after a few years.
In the State where I last dwelt they have introduced the fashion of
electrocution; that is to say, of killing the victim by electricity.”
“And how is that done?” queried Kayenna, always interested in anything
savoring of novelty.
“I fear I cannot explain it clearly without the aid of a Brush
generator or a dynamo of some kind, and I do not see anything of the
sort hereabout. But your Highness no doubt has often seen the effects
of a thunder-storm whereby somebody was slain, in the twinkling of an
eye as it were. It is thus that we destroy such of our criminals as
outlive the Process of Lor.”
“What doth the knave mean?” asked Kayenna, with a frown, aside to
Shacabac.
“It passeth my comprehension,” was the reply, “but I fear me the dog
laugheth at our faces; for how can any man call down lightning from
heaven to destroy his enemies?” Then, addressing the stranger, he
asked sternly: “Hath this divinity of thine—this not very infallible
Lor—command of the forces of nature, so that it can at will draw
down the thunderbolt wherewith to smite its victims? Thy tale is
wondrous strange. Her Highness would fain see a proof of it. Take out
the culprit, guilty of high treason but yesterday, and let him be
‘electrocuted,’ as thou callest it, before our eyes. Say I not right?”
he added, turning toward Kayenna.
“Thou sayest but what is right and just,” was the prompt response;
“and I confess that I am interested in seeing the operation of this
invention so strangely chanced upon by ignorant unbelievers. Go
on, stranger. The victim is ready. Let us see thee electrocute him
forthwith.”
But, as obedience to that command was wholly beyond the stranger and
as he could not give a satisfactory or intelligible explanation of
his inability to obey, Kayenna became exceedingly wroth; and, being
moreover a good deal tired of his long and tedious disquisition on
Lor, she settled the matter summarily by saying: “This stranger is
an impostor who hath doubtless fled from the rude justice of his own
country. Let him be cast, along with the traitor, into the cave of the
two-headed Snake; and thus let there be an end to all knaves and liars!”
[Illustration: Camels]
This sentence being communicated to the American, he fell at the feet
of Kayenna, and begged as a dying request that his picture might be
taken before execution. On being asked why he desired that such
a crime against the law of Moses as well as of Mohammed should be
perpetrated, he only answered, in a somewhat incoherent fashion, “so
that it might appear in the papers.”
“But knowest thou not,” said Kayenna, sternly, “that it is forbidden by
thy law, as by ours, to make a graven image or likeness of any living
thing?”
“O Lord!” wailed the unhappy man, “surely a newspaper picture does not
come under that head! But take me away,” he added despairingly. “People
who never heard of electrocution cannot be expected to appreciate
electrotypes.”
So he was borne to his dungeon; and in a short time four stalwart
slaves thrust him, along with the condemned traitor, into the mouth of
the cave of the horrible two-headed Snake, there to suffer the most
cruel death ever conceived of by mortal mind.
But mortal mind erred, at least for once. On visiting the cave next
morning, the executioners found not a trace of the two culprits,
wherefore they supposed that the snake had despatched them promptly.
But the snake also was missing, and the closest search disclosed no
explanation of his absence.
The mystery was partially solved when the caravan reached the capital
of Nhulpar a few days later, and was confronted at the very gates of
the city with flaming placards announcing that
THE GREAT AND ONLY WILKINS
ACKNOWLEDGED EMPEROR OF THE OPHIDIAN WORLD
WILL EXHIBIT
FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY
THE WONDROUS TWO-HEADED SNAKE
SECURED AT AN ENORMOUS EXPENSE FROM THE MENAGERIE
OF HER ROYAL HIGHNESS
KAYENNA THE GREAT
AND EXHIBITED BEFORE THE CROWNED HEADS OF ALL ASIA,
EUROPE, AND AFRICA
PRIOR TO HIS IMMEDIATE RETURN TO AMERICA
CHAPTER IX.
There are times when it is inexpedient, if not actually immoral, to
kill the bediamonded clerk of a caravansary.—_Manco Capac._
Kayenna was at first deeply incensed on reading those advertisements,
and would fain have invoked the assistance of the King of Nhulpar to
punish the culprit; but Shacabac sagely counselled her, saying: “Let
it be. If the people of Nhulpar believe in this two-headed Snake, all
the more will they reverence thee who art supposed to own others of the
kind; and meanwhile the terror of thy name shall be spread throughout
the earth. But [he added to himself] I would that I had the knave who
defrauded me of my trusty yataghan, or knew the secret whereby he made
his cards fall as he willed. Great is Philosophy, and marvellous is
Science; but miraculous is this thing which the Giaours call ‘Luck.’
Methinks it hath more to do with Science than with Philosophy. Would
that the knave had stayed with me long enough to explain the strange
mutations of that mysterious game which he calleth Po-kah!”
But ere this had come to pass, and while the caravan was crossing a
sandy, waterless stretch of desert, Kayenna summoned the Sage to her
side, and, smiling in a knowing way, asked, “Hast thou, in thy long
experience, ever heard of a more difficult problem than that which
confronts us, or a device whereby such a grave difficulty might be
overcome?”
Shacabac had by this time conceived a profound respect for the genius
of Kayenna; yet he could not imagine any stratagem by which she might
extricate herself and him and the fortunes of Ubikwi and Kopaul from
the impending dilemma. “Nay,” he answered modestly, “I have heard of
many, but of none so intricate as this. And I own that my heart weighs
heavier with every step of our journey. Will not your Highness deign
to tell her meanest slave how she purposes to carry us in safety to
Nhulpar and home again, with our heads on our shoulders?”
“O Shacabac,” laughed Kayenna, “thou art only a man, after all, and a
bachelor at that. Hast never heard of even a man’s outwitting another,
not to speak of the endless resources of his superior, Woman?”
A little piqued at this sally, Shacabac replied: “Truly, I have known
of some such; but they were all as child’s play compared with this
coil. There was the case of the Ameer of Khali-Mazu, who, being
secretly envious of the great Sultan Djambhori, sought to compass
his ruin by a gift of twoscore large and healthy elephants, the bare
feeding of which for one twelvemonth would have emptied the royal
exchequer. To have sold or given away the animals would have been a
grave discourtesy.”
“That was rather a pretty dilemma,” admitted Kayenna. “How did
Djambhori escape it?”
“He escaped it,” replied Shacabac, “by having the animals quietly
despatched, and their tusks made into keys for twoscore grand pianos,
the which he sent as presents to the wives of the Ameer, thus nobly
revenging the wrong that had been done him. The Ameer, struck with
remorse on perceiving the magnanimity of his foe, committed suicide
shortly after the arrival of the pianos, and while the harem yet
resounded with the practice lessons of his devoted wives. The
incident,” added Shacabac, “attracted much attention at the time,
and led to the strict laws since passed against the importation of
elephants and pianos into Khali-Mazu.”
“Verily, the device was ingenious,” commented Kayenna; “but it hardly
matches what is required of us in a few days hence. Hast thou ever
heard of a youth so situated that he could not fill any office in the
land, yet rising to the highest, and that, too, without awakening the
hostility of a single human being, notwithstanding the fierce jealousy
which assails even those of lofty rank when they aim for rank yet
higher?”
“Never,” answered Shacabac, “unless [bethinking himself of one
remarkable exception]—unless it be that of Dar-Khos, a slave who once
attained by a single stroke to boundless wealth, high rank, and length
of days, merely by refusing to obey the commands of his master, the
great Sultan Al-Kali.”
“That sounds interesting,” said Kayenna; “and how did it happen?”
“In this wise,” responded Shacabac. “The Sultan and his slave,
travelling without escort, came to a deep and wide river; and the
Sultan ordered Dar-Khos to go forward and ford the stream. ‘Nay,’
answered the slave, with great humility, ‘the dog followeth his
master.’ Being pleased with which reply, the Sultan plunged into the
stream, and presently sank in a quicksand, so that naught of him was
visible save only his turban, in which he had hidden, for greater
security, the crown jewels and other valuables. These, with great
difficulty, did Dar-Khos rescue, and by judiciously investing them was
enabled to secure the nomination and election to the vacant sultanship.
And the moral thereof is, A drowned man dreadeth the water, but a wise
one shunneth it from the beginning.”
“Thy tale is amusing,” commented Kayenna, “and the moral is as
irrelevant as a moral should be; but both are far and wide from the
purport of my question: How is a poor, weak woman to soothe the chagrin
and placate the anger of two mighty monarchs, when they find that
nature hath been greater than herself and they together?”
But Shacabac had naught to answer; for, indeed, the same problem had
been puzzling his head for many days, and making that head seem to fit
very loosely on his shoulders. It was a sad business all round; and
he cursed the hour in which he had been tempted from his scholarly
seclusion to aid in the wild schemes of a desperate woman; saying to
himself, “A bird on toast is worth two on a bonnet,” which indeed is a
truth that any child might comprehend.
CHAPTER X.
Surely, thou dost not expect strangers to pay for thy books. And,
surely, thou wouldst not ask thy friends to buy them. Seek some other
way of achieving wealth through letters. And let me know if thou
findest it.—_The Pauper Poet._
Right royal was the welcome given to the caravan and its illustrious
passengers on reaching the suburbs of the capital of Nhulpar. Imposing
ranks of soldiery, horse and foot, lined both sides of the broad road
for at least five miles without the gates. On entering the city, they
found the streets carpeted with roses, hung on both sides with gorgeous
banners, and canopied with evergreen arches spangled with flowers of
every hue.
Before coming into the presence of the king, they were treated
to a rare feast of intellect. First, a chorus of ten thousand
school-children, attired in white, sang a hymn of welcome, consisting
of three hundred and forty stanzas, each replete with a tender thought
or dainty conceit. Then followed an address from the chief men of the
city, setting forth at much length the ancient friendship existing
between the two nations,—a friendship which was now about to be
cemented more firmly than ever. With great felicity and originality
of thought the speaker pointed out that the people of Ubikwi and the
people of Nhulpar were of the same origin, speaking the same language,
that of Omar and Abdullah. “We must be friends,” he said, “for the sake
of our common blood, our common language, and the common Koran which
teaches us all. A quarrel between two such peoples would be a crime
against humanity.”
If the speaker overlooked the fact that such crimes had been committed
once or twice already, with the enthusiastic consent of both parties,
that was neither here nor there. The sentence was well turned, and that
is enough to expect of a state oration.
Kayenna and her suite, most of them being mutes, listened with rare
courtesy and patience to the addresses which followed; but Shacabac,
who had not yet broken his fast,—and it was now high noon,—was visibly
and audibly wearied by the ceremonies, and devoted one hundred and
sixty-three pages of his inimitable diary to a scathing denunciation of
the vice of prolixity.
[Illustration: Horse pulling cart load of men]
There were addresses from
The Incorporated Association of Muezzins;
The Imaum Brotherhood;
The Dancing Dervishes, who spoke as well as danced;
The Santon Society;
The Ancient Order of Arabian Knights, one thousand and one strong, each
in turn relating a sprightly anecdote;
The Brethren of Backsheesh, numerous and influential;
The Camel Drivers’ Association;
The Fraternity of Water Carriers;
Thirty-two ex-presidents of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals, seated in a beautiful chariot drawn by a cream-white pony;
Citizens generally.
Following these came interesting songs and recitations by local talent,
all encored. Nor was the impatience of Shacabac relieved when a portly
personage in spectacles was introduced by the presiding officer as “the
far-famed and immortal Ben Haround, the Pauper Poet.”
“Truly, a tautological title,” murmured the Sage, as the bard, stepping
forward, proceeded to unroll many lengths of an ode written for the
occasion, or for any occasion, and respectfully dedicated to the
illustrious Prince of Ubikwi. The verses, unfortunately, have not been
preserved, notwithstanding that the Poet presented to Kayenna a copy
beautifully woven in silk, and distributed among the throng several
thousand other copies printed on a cheaper material. Ben Haround’s
works had a large circulation during his lifetime; but his zeal in
disseminating those gems of poesy kept him constantly poor, whence came
his title of the Pauper Poet, to distinguish him from the opulent bards
of other lands.
This being the first visit of the Ubikwians to Nhulpar, several youths
in brazen armor, bearing tablets and writing instruments, pressed
forward at this point, and, respectfully accosting the strangers,
begged to be informed regarding their “impressions of the country.”
Happily, at this juncture, the King himself rode up, and averted an
international quarrel by ordering the indiscreet youths to be immersed
in a caldron of brine for the next twenty-four hours. Then, courteously
welcoming his guests, he gave order that the feast should be spread.
The King of Nhulpar sat at the head of the banquet table. On his left
sat Kayenna; beside her the lovely daughter of the King, and at her
side the child whom all believed to be the son of Muley Mustapha.
Shacabac was awarded a place on the opposite side of the table, next
to the favorite spouse of Nhulpar, the mother of the intended bride.
Women are not commonly admitted to share in the feasts of state; but
exception had to be made in the case of Kayenna, and the others were
allowed to keep her countenance,—a provision entirely unnecessary with
her.
[Illustration: Group of people eating at a table]
Shacabac vainly endeavored to catch her eye and signal a warning, when
he perceived, to his dismay, that the Princess of Nhulpar was engaged
in animated discourse with the potential cause of all future trouble,
the Prince of Ubikwi, who, in truth, bore his assumed honors with
becoming gallantry. Never, indeed, had a genuine prince carried himself
with more debonair grace.
The illusion was perfect, so that even hardened, old courtiers
exchanged furtive winks and nudges, as who should say, “Our coming
King hath a merry way with the women, and will not lose his bride for
lack of brave wooing!”
Meanwhile Kayenna and the King kept up a gay conversation. The royal
mother beamed approval on the young people, and indulged in the
original remark to the Sage that “Heaven made and hath matched them,”
whereat Shacabac, stifling a groan, smiled a courtier’s smile and
murmured assent.
After the feast there were speeches, dignified, gracious, affectionate,
and not too brief; but Shacabac had broken his fast, and feared naught
that fate might bring until—until it brought the worst,—discovery,
discomfiture and ruin.
“The nuptials will be celebrated at sunset,” said Kayenna to him as the
wedding dinner ended, and the ladies retired to their apartments to
prepare for the great festivities.
“But, Great Allah,” he exclaimed in horror, “do you know what then?
Unless something happens, we are lost,—thou, I, the gentle Princess,
thy daughter”—
“Have no fear, good Shacabac,” she replied smilingly: “something _will_
happen ere thou knowest it.” Again she smiled, the smile of confidence
or of fatuity, he could not tell which, and moved away in the bridal
train.
And something did happen,—something not down on the programme of King
or Queen, Sage or Soothsayer. As the last of the retinue disappeared
behind the hangings, a trumpet-blast was heard without the court, and a
messenger, who had evidently ridden in hot haste, was admitted to the
royal presence.
“Your Majesty,” he said, bending low, “I bring evil news. There is
trouble in Ubikwi. The great Pasha Muley Mustapha is besieged in his
palace by a rebel rabble, led by a scurvy Soothsayer, and, unless help
be sent to him forthwith, woe to him and his household, and to all the
friends of Ubikwi!”
The King of Nhulpar, as we have said, was a warrior who loved the music
of battle. The sound of clashing arms was sweet to his ears, and the
savor of blood was as fragrance to his nostrils. The call to action
came at an opportune moment; for the preparations of the past weeks had
been a burden to his soul, which liked not the effeminate adjuncts of
matrimony.
“Ha, sayst thou so?” he exclaimed. “Then, by the beard of the Prophet,
thy words are welcome. I would fain see how this stripling, my
son-in-law and heir to be, can bear himself in the lists of war. He
seemeth over-confident in those of love, for one of such stern stuff as
the King of Nhulpar should be. Here, slave, go to the apartments of the
Prince of Ubikwi, and say to him that the King beseeches his company
on a pleasant joust. Bid the wedding guests await our return, which may
be anon or later.”
[Illustration:
“‘_I bring evil news_’”
]
“Allah help our Kayenna now and her bantling!” exclaimed Shacabac to
himself, as the warlike preparations went on. “I can but join the
cavalcade, though little stomach have I for blows and blood. Nathless,
I think that my head will be safer at Ubikwi than before the jaws of
this battle-loving king. Verily, the sandal-maker should stick to his
sandal-wood, and the man of wisdom to his preaching, leaving to fools
the dangerous work of practising the same.”
CHAPTER XI.
Some men borrow books; some men steal books; and others beg
presentation copies from the author.
_Ben Haround._
The courier told only the truth. Dark and dangerous times had befallen
poor old Muley Mustapha in his lonely palace of Ubikwi. For days he
had wandered disconsolate through the zenana, missing the presence of
Kayenna, which had ever been as the cooling east wind to his fevered
brow; missing Shacabac, whose words of wisdom had so often wooed him
to repose; missing Al Choppah and his diverting bowstring and scimitar
that had enlivened many a long hour.
He did not miss little Muley; for, of a truth, he had seldom laid eyes
upon the offspring whom he unjustly blamed as the cause of all his
woes. And now, when he strayed into the child’s sleeping-room, he noted
with a shocked sense of the incongruous how it was decorated with the
toys and the arms of virility,—ghastly relics of the futile attempt to
deceive his people and the people of two greater nations!
“If she had never been born! If she had had the good taste to die any
time during the past miserable eighteen years! If that villanous old
Soothsayer”—
Here he was startled by a voice at his elbow,—“Your Highness was
pleased to allude to _me_?”
It was the new Soothsayer, Badeg, looking, if possible, more impudently
familiar than ever.
Muley Mustapha plucked up a spirit. “No, I was not alluding to you;
though I _was_ thinking of a villanous Soothsayer—an old one—who went
to his reward long ago. But what in the name of Eblis is it to you?”
[Illustration: Toy soldier]
“Nothing,—oh, nothing,” was the bland reply. Then, after a pause:
“Perchance your Highness was thinking of the great Astrologer Kibosh,
who rose from the sorry condition of a beggarly carter to the
highest favor in his master’s eyes because of a secret which he once
discovered. He went to his reward many years ago, as your Highness hath
said; but his secret died not with him, and it is said to be even more
wondrous than that possessed by the Wise Man who could change base
metal into shining gold, inasmuch as the possessor of it hath no need
to buy even the base metal, for”—here the speaker paused and looked
significantly at the Pasha—“he findeth it right before him and ready to
his hand.”
[Illustration:
_Badeg, the Soothsayer_
]
Muley Mustapha, trying to dissemble and not succeeding very well,
answered with assumed carelessness: “Truly, that must have been a
remarkable man. I do not remember having heard of him before. What
didst thou say he was when he led an honest life?”
“He was a poor carter,” replied the Soothsayer, “and, though he worked
hard every day, and was very thrifty in his habits, yet he found
himself growing poorer day by day and year by year. For he had a large
family, consisting of seven sons and six daughters, whose respective
ages were 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. It was no
easy task to feed those thirteen jaws, or I should say pairs of jaws,
without counting those of himself and his patient wife.
“Howbeit, it happened that Kibosh, on a certain Friday morning,
awoke rejoicing that it was the day of rest, yet murmuring that,
such being the fact, he knew there would be for him no work that day
whereby to earn food for the morrow. He sat up in his couch, yawned,
sighed, arose, and put on his garments. Then, after saying his morning
prayers and making his scanty toilet, he sat down to a humble meal
of black bread and dates. The bread was old and hard, and the dates
were dry. Kibosh groaned as he chewed the uninviting food between his
two-and-thirty teeth.”
“Had he two-and-thirty teeth?” interrupted the Pasha.
“Truly, he had no more,” replied the narrator. “It is the exact number
possessed by all men of ripe years, unless, indeed, they have lost one
or more.”
“Then,” said the Pasha, “what was there remarkable in his having that
number?”
“Nothing,” was the answer, in a tone of scarcely veiled impertinence.
“Only _I_ am telling the story; and I am trying to tell it in the only
proper style, which is the Realistic. Is it your Highness’s wish that I
proceed?”
“By all means,” said Muley Mustapha; “but, before going any further,
how many hands had this Kibosh?”
“I was about to come to that,” returned the Soothsayer, tranquilly. “He
had two hands, on each of which were one thumb and four fingers. He had
likewise two feet, with five toes on each. This being a true story, I
will not attempt to conceal the fact that he was furthermore blessed
with two eyes, the like number of ears, one nose and mouth, and as
many hairs on his head and chin as might be; for these I did not try to
enumerate.
“Having finished his frugal meal and smoked his chibouk, Kibosh went
to the mosque, like a good Mussulman. His wife, the faithful Zaidee,
remained at home. She had many things to do, attending to the wants
of her numerous offspring, preparing the mid-day meal, and arranging
the thousand little details of her house for the day. Moreover, she
knew that her attire was hardly meet for the eyes of strangers. Her
next-door neighbor, Ayesha, the wife of Hassan, the porter, had but the
day before called on her, attired in a new yashmak, which was a sore
trial to the patience of Zaidee, it having cost not less than fifty
piastres at the bazaar kept by Solyman, the one-eyed Hebrew, opposite
the fountain adjacent to the house of Amrou, the camel-driver.”
Here the Pasha, stifling a yawn, asked wearily, “How many eyes didst
thou say the Hebrew dog had?”
“One, your Highness. The other, I believe, was lost in consequence of—”
“It matters not how it was lost,” said the Pasha, hastily. “Allah be
thanked, it _was_ lost! and thy story hath some novelty. Go on.”
“For these reasons Zaidee remained at home while Kibosh went to the
mosque. As it happened, he met on the way none other than his neighbor,
the porter Hassan; and the two fell to talking of many things, such as
the weather, the hardness of the times, and the great cost of bread and
dates, and other such subjects.
“Even as they were speaking, they were accosted by a poor cripple, who
beseeched alms of them in the name of Allah. ‘Alas!’ replied Kibosh. ‘I
am but a poor man, with a large family, and can give thee naught save
my prayers.’ But Hassan smiled a little haughtily, and, pulling out
his wallet, displayed it full of shining gold and silver pieces. As
he saw the eyes of Kibosh fixed upon it in wonder, he hastily closed
the wallet, and said, ‘I, too, am but a poor man,’ and gave the beggar
naught. But, when they had passed on, Kibosh spoke to Hassan, saying,
‘O Hassan! but now thou didst complain of thy poverty; and, lo! thou
hast a purse full of gold and silver.’
“‘It is not mine,’ said Hassan, in confusion: ‘it is my wife’s.’
“‘But thy wife is as poor as thyself,’ retorted Kibosh, severely;
for he knew that Ayesha was only the daughter of old Cassim, the
tent-maker, who was as poor as any man in the quarter, and indeed lived
partly on the bounty of his son-in-law.
“‘Nay, then,’ said Hassan. ‘I will confess that I found this purse on
the Square last week, and know not who its owner may be.’
“‘The Square,’ said Kibosh, ‘has been closed for the past ten days by
order of the Caliph, as thou dost forget; and neither could any man
enter it to lose or to find a purse. Hassan, thou art a prevaricator;
and I must denounce thee to the Cadi as a thief unless—’
“‘Unless what, good neighbor Kibosh?’ cried Hassan, in terror. ‘Surely,
thou wouldst not denounce and ruin thine old friend!’
“‘Nay,’ said Kibosh; ‘but I would first know how thou camest into
possession of so vast a sum of money, and next I would ask thee for a
loan of, say, one-half thereof.’
“Hassan thereupon, being in terror of his life, confided to Kibosh that
he had become acquainted with a State Secret to divulge which would be
disastrous, while so long as it remained unspoken it was a source of
liberal revenue to him.
“As soon as Kibosh heard this, he said, ‘O Hassan, it is now some
seventeen years, or maybe eighteen, that I have known thee and thy good
wife, Ayesha, and thy father-in-law, Cassim, not to mention thy son
Karib and thy daughter—’”
“Perish Kibosh and Hassan and all their tribe!” shrieked the Pasha,
leaping to his feet. “Gehenna be their portion and thine, thou babbling
impostor! What hath all this to do with me?”
“What hath it to do with thee?” answered the astrologer. “Much, very
much, with thee and thine, and with the people of Ubikwi, and the
people of Kopaul, and the people of Nhulpar, when they learn that
the secret known to the dead Hassan (for he died very suddenly that
same day) and confided to Kibosh (also an unhappy victim of Azrael’s
visitation) is now _my_ secret. Dost wish to hear it? Or would your
Highness prefer that I tell it in the market-place, that the child thou
palmest off on the world as thy ‘son’ is really—”
Muley Mustapha was a meek man. His critics said behind his back that
he was a hen-pecked man. The whole world knew that he was an old
and feeble man. But the blood of Ali ran in his shrivelled veins;
and it went boiling at the insolence of this red-headed beggar of a
star-gazer, who dared beard him in his own harem. His hand leaped for
his sword, and found only an empty scabbard; for the peaceable old
Pasha had long ceased to carry the deadly scimitar, which he had once
been wont to wield in the forefront of battle. His eyes fell upon the
only weapon in sight, a razor (he afterward wondered what use there
could have been for it in the harem); and, seizing it, he shouted in a
voice of thunder, “Out of this, fortune-telling dog, liar, and humbug,
ere I cut the false tongue out of thy insolent throat!”
The Soothsayer fled from the palace in terror; but, on gaining the
street, he found his voice again, and began shrieking aloud that the
Pasha had become mad and was threatening the lives of all his friends.
“Know ye, O people of Ubikwi,” he shouted, “that the old man’s sins
have found him out; and Heaven hath punished him by striking him with
madness, because he hath sinned against the truth by passing off as his
son a female child born unto him eighteen years ago!”
[Illustration:
“‘_Out of this, fortune-telling dog!_’”
]
A large crowd was speedily attracted by the cries of the Soothsayer;
and they began saying one to another: “Truly, this holy man cannot
be mistaken. The child Muley hath more of the woman than of the man
about him, and no eyes have ever seen him engaged in any manly sport.”
And the elders, prompted by insinuations previously sent out by
the Soothsayer and his henchmen, began to remember that the former
Soothsayer had disappeared mysteriously, together with the Physician,
on the very day of little Muley’s birth.
Wherefore there arose a great clamor from the multitude assembled
before the palace; and the old Pasha would have fared badly that day,
had it not been for the prompt action of a veteran Mameluke and a dozen
or two followers, who, riding out of the postern gate as if on patrol
duty, set their horses, first at a gentle canter and then at a sharp
gallop, right into the midst of the throng, speedily dispersing the
unorganized crowd.
“Hark ye,” said the mustached Captain, as his Arabian charger reared on
his haunches so that his fore feet almost touched the shoulders of the
Soothsayer, who fell back some paces in haste. “I know nothing of your
stars or your prophecies; but this is the exercise ground of my troop,
and you have spoiled our manœuvres to-day by being in the way. Next
time we shall not abate our speed because of any dirty carcass in our
path. Halt! Form fours! Trot! Gallop!” And down the esplanade at full
speed and back again went the handful of horsemen, whose simple creed
was obedience to orders.
Tradition hath it that the grim Captain of the troop was a renegade
Christian, whose sole redeeming qualities were that he was loyal to the
flag which he followed for the time, and that he dearly loved a fight.
The mob was, like all mobs, disconcerted at first by the organized
force of a disciplined soldiery; and, after a few vain attempts to
carry the palace by storm, it settled down to besiege and starve out
the garrison,—a decision which vastly pleased the Pasha and his
Mameluke Captain, who shrewdly surmised that relief would not fail
to come from some quarter if only delay could be gained. The palace
was well supplied with provisions, for the Pasha loved good cheer
and plenty of it. Could they but hold their own for a few weeks, the
garrison might laugh at the efforts of the enemy.
CHAPTER XII.
In time of war begin to prepare for it.—_The Compleat Art of
Logistics, by Yang Kee._
When the mighty Sultan of Kopaul heard of the straits into which his
son-in-law was driven, he lost no time in beginning to get ready to
prepare to fly, metaphorically speaking, to his assistance. Age had
somewhat chilled the ardor of his blood; and in this sudden crisis
he sorely missed the counsels of his lamented spouse, Paprikah, from
whom the wise Kayenna had inherited her rare firmness of character.
In the course of many years of conjugal controversy he had learned to
respect her vigorous intellect and fluency of expression; but, after
her melancholy loss, he seemed to lack in some degree the promptitude
of action in emergency which had been so conspicuous a feature of his
government during her lifetime. For this lack he made up by a fecundity
and loudness of speech which impressed all who had not the happiness of
his intimate acquaintance. With him, as he was wont to say, it was “a
word and a blow.” His critics sneered that the terms were synonymous,
but they did not understand the latent resources of the old warrior.
When the time for action came, he displayed his ability in a way that
surprised them and all the world. In order not to be embarrassed by
the presence of professional soldiers, who are ever an annoyance to an
administration, he permitted a thousand of his veterans to proceed at
once with Ben Zoin to the scene of action, and then set himself to the
more serious work of planning a great and glorious campaign, summoning
for the purpose his Minister of War, in whom he had the highest
confidence.
Between them they formulated a martial policy which had the unique
distinction of being alike agreeable to themselves, to the army
contractors, and even to the enemy. Some old-fogy soldiers, it is true,
objected to it on the last ground; but as most of them died under its
operation, their voices were not long heard.
A board of strategy, composed of eminent individuals who, having no
experience, could have no prejudices in military affairs, resolved
upon a line of action unprecedented in warfare. Three corps were
mobilized and despatched, after due deliberation, to the scene of
hostilities. The first consisted of raw levies, hastily organized,
but ably officered by friends and relatives of the government, men
who had distinguished themselves either by political services or
by meritorious consanguinity. The latter were, so to speak, “born”
soldiers.
This first corps was sent to the front by a special caravan. Their arms
and ammunition were forwarded, some time later, by a separate route.
A third caravan, following yet another line of march, transported the
food, tents, forage, and medical supplies.
By this ingenious arrangement the board of strategy had reason to trust
that all three caravans might reach their destination in safety and
good condition for effective work. “Divide and conquer” was the motto.
If the soldiers should be captured, it was reasoned, their capture
would be of no value to the enemy without the arms, provisions, and so
forth, as would also the capture of the latter without the former.
Certain conservative persons, having a stake in the country, suggested
that it would be more prudent to keep the ammunition and commissariat
trains at home until after the arrival of the troops at the front,
so that nothing more valuable than lives might be lost in case of
any disaster; but there are captious people who will criticise the
wisest works of man, even historical works of the most transcendent
merit, which a modest author may not name. The board of strategy,
having a more than official interest in army contracts, disregarded
such criticisms, saying, properly enough, that it were better to lose
material which could be replaced, at government expense, than to hazard
the prospects of future contracts. Wherein they showed a commendable
forethought and put to shame their censors, who did not hold any
contracts, present or prospective.
The Sultan had great confidence also in the reserves, composed of
various military and civil organizations distinguished for the
splendor of their uniforms and the vociferousness of their patriotism
in time of peace. As it happened, their reserve was so pronounced and
shrinking in its character that it kept them from thrusting themselves
to the front in time of war. Patriotic Orders, which had vowed to die
for their country many a time, did not forget their vows when the dread
ordeal came, but, on the contrary, with a fortitude unequalled in
history, chose the most lingering death that a patriot might suffer,
and voted unanimously to die of old age for the land which they loved
so well and so wisely. For, as they truly said: The ignorant soldier
goes and dies for his country, and thereby ends his usefulness to
the country; but we who stay at home live to devote ourselves to the
country’s service in any capacity, however lucrative. Bismillah! they
were wise in their generation.
So it was that the mighty Sultan of Kopaul went to war vicariously, as
all good sovereigns do, and, when it was over, asked for no greater
reward than a seaport and coaling-station in the Sahara, where there
was no sea and where a coaling-station was as superfluous as it would
be in Gehenna. Ensued to his country much glory and a pension list,
which was the wonder and the envy of the world; for, although the glory
was evanescent, the pension list endured for generations, and the
seaport and coaling-station served to “extend the sphere of Kopaulian
influence,” and thus distribute the burden of taxes, even as a prudent
merchant on the brink of bankruptcy enlarges the number and amount of
his obligations, on the principle that in numbers there is safety.
CHAPTER XIII.
Every nation has just the government for which its people are fitted:
at least, that is what is said by the rulers who are piously engaged
in misgoverning it.—_Manco Capac._
The Captain of Mamelukes repented later that he had not given his
charger the treat of trampling the internal economy out of the
Soothsayer, when, on looking out of an embrasure of the palace, he
descried a vast mob approaching, headed by the same Soothsayer, and
brandishing every sort of nondescript weapon, while they shouted in
angry tones: “Death to the False Pasha! Death to the Imposter who has
deceived the People with a False Heir! Death to the foreign Mameluke
who insults our Astrologer!”
“That means me,” said the Mameluke, grimly. “And it seems to mean
business. I wish I had Ben Zoin and a dozen of his rough riders behind
this gate to-day. By Allah! we’d teach those carrion to sing another
song. What is your Highness’s wish?” saluting, as he spoke, the aged
form of Muley Mustapha. “Shall we comply with the petition of your
royal subjects, and offer them our heads as a guarantee of good faith?
or let them come and take them, if they can?”
Muley Mustapha, for answer, only extended his hand, which the grizzled
warrior took and kissed.
“I take it your Highness does not mean to part with his head for
nothing?”
A new fire shone in the eyes of Muley Mustapha. “What my brave guard
does, that and no less will I do,” he answered. “Let the dogs come on,
if they dare!”
And the dogs came. Did ever a pack of hounds fear to face the wounded
stag at bay? But dearly did they pay for their temerity.
For a full hour the unequal combat raged in front of the feeble gates
of the palace. Foremost at every breach the bare white locks of Muley
Mustapha were seen, as he wielded his trusty scimitar and hewed down,
one after another, every foeman who dared face his flaming countenance.
First in every sortie loomed the gigantic figure of the Captain of
Mamelukes, who seemed to bear a charmed life, and to escape death by
the very eagerness with which he courted it, as sometimes happens to
champions in the milder domain of courtship and love.
Nevertheless, the fortune of war had gone ill with the dauntless few
against the mighty force of numbers, had not assailants and assailed
been startled, at the very crisis of the conflict, by the loud notes
of a bugle and the sound of tramping hoofs in the distant streets,
whence presently there emerged, in the splendid panoply of war, a
thousand of the body-guard of the Sultan of Kopaul, led on by Ben Zoin,
the gallant champion of Ubikwi.
A ringing cheer went up from the worn defenders of the palace at sight
of the relief. A wild cry escaped from the besiegers at the same; but
the false Soothsayer, raising aloft a green banner, the Prophet’s
sacred ensign, exhorted his followers to fight in the name of Islam.
The fanatical appeal gave new heart to the rebels, so that not even
the stout lances of Ben Zoin could have overcome the hostile array,
had there not appeared at the further gate of the city a new cohort of
cavalry, led by a plumed knight, whose face no man recognized, as he
and his followers, with levelled spears, thundered on the rear of the
rebel horde.
The rout of the besiegers was complete. The greater part threw down
their arms and cried for quarter or sought safety in the alleys and
lanes adjacent. The unknown did not draw rein until he was face to face
with the Soothsayer, against whose neck he levelled the point of his
lance.
[Illustration: Woman on horse]
“By what right, thou scoundrel,” he thundered, “dost thou levy war on
the just and mighty Pasha of Ubikwi? Answer, knave, ere my steel find
an answer in thy throat!”
Thus forced into a corner, the insolent Soothsayer, trusting to his
sacred office, made answer: “By the right of my divine duty. I am
a Soothsayer, and _know_ that the Pasha of Ubikwi hath deceived his
subjects and offended against high Heaven by palming off as his son the
female child born to his house eighteen years agone.”
“And, by the divine right of my birth,” responded the knight, “_I_ know
thee to be a liar and a knave. Look at me. I AM PRINCE MULEY, born unto
the house of my father eighteen years ago, and neither a female child
nor a male impostor, like thee. Die, dog, with the lie in thy throat!”
With that he set spurs to his horse, and the point of his lance came
out through the back of the Soothsayer’s neck. Whereat all the people
cried out, as with one voice, “Long live Prince Muley, the son of his
noble father, Muley Mustapha!”
But Muley Mustapha merely gasped in wonder, as not comprehending
the simple way in which the truth had been witnessed and error
confuted,—as, indeed, a wiser man might have wondered, had he not been
told the explanation given in the next and concluding chapter.
CHAPTER XIV.
This Book is a Mirror wherein the Wise Man seeth Wisdom but the Fool
seeth Folly.—_Shacabac._
“I don’t think that I quite understand,” began Muley Mustapha, when he
found himself alone with his gifted spouse for a few moments before
dinner, and while the other dignitaries were pleasantly engaged in
restoring tranquillity to the realm by superintending the decapitation
of the disaffected.
“You mean that you don’t quite understand that you think,” interposed
the good lady, sweetly. “Well, I will explain. The child whom you
wickedly designed to bring up in a life of shame and turbulence was
not, as you thought, a girl, but a boy!
“I determined, as I think I told you at the time, to save the innocent
being from the contamination of a wicked world and the evil example
of an unworthy sire. The Physician whom you ruthlessly put to death
consented to the pious deception, for which I have ever revered
his memory. He was a worthy man, and understood my nervous system
better than any leech that I have ever known. Another kind of husband
would have appreciated his merits, but let that pass. As for the
old Soothsayer, he deserved his doom for lacking faith in his own
predictions. I regret not his death. No government can be conducted
safely unless its members be able to convince themselves and others
that with them all wisdom dieth. Frequent changes of administration,
save in favor of our own party, are disastrous to the welfare of any
country.
“Henceforth place your trust in me; and I will see to it that all
official prophecies come out correctly, though it cost a new soothsayer
every week.
“I leave you now,” she added, “to prepare my daughter-in-law for her
bridal, and to instruct her in the proper way of managing a husband.
I fear me much that the present Queen of Nhulpar is sadly lacking in
decision of character. His Majesty the King, I am told, keepeth State
secrets from her ears,—a great error on the part of a dutiful spouse.”
It was even as the good Kayenna had said. Young Muley Mustapha was a
genuine Prince, with all his father’s old-time courage, re-enforced
by a strain of firmness inherited from his noble mother. The rebel
horde, who had taken up the false Soothsayer’s taunt that the youth was
effeminate, no longer repeated the insult, partly because the lad had
proved his manhood on the field, but chiefly because, after Al Choppah
had finished his work, not one of them was left to talk indiscreetly,
nor, indeed, to talk at all.
Despite, or perhaps because of, the harem seclusion in which he had
been reared, the youth was more than commonly free from bashfulness
in the presence of women; and his own harem (for he did not copy his
sire’s monogamous example) was ruled by him in right royal fashion.
“In numbers is safety,” was his sagacious maxim. Yet, because of the
mystery surrounding his youth, he was ever known throughout three
kingdoms as “Her Majesty the King.”
When the aged Pasha went to his account, a few years later, everybody
in official position said, as with one voice, that, with the exception
of his illustrious successor, he was the wisest and best ruler that
had ever reigned in Ubikwi. The same had been said of his sire and his
grandsire and his greatgrandsire, so that it was evident that virtue
and wisdom were hereditary in that noble family, as they are in all
reigning dynasties everywhere.
Kayenna lived to see her son mount successively the thrones of Ubikwi,
Kopaul, and Nhulpar, and to supervise the education of a large and
interesting family of children and grandchildren, dying at the last of
a tetanus superinduced by the arduous labor of umpiring a debate on
“Woman Suffrage.”
Shacabac lived to a ripe old age. Of his latter years his biographer
says, “Allah had granted to him length of days and the divine faculty
of repose, so that, while saying much, he thought but little, and
worked hardly at all.”
When his mental faculties had become sufficiently impaired, the gallant
King of Nhulpar appointed him Regius Professor of Political Economy in
the National University,—a position which he filled with great credit
for many years. By his thoughtful lectures and essays, “Patriotism
Another Name for Selfishness,” “A Nation’s Debt a Nation’s Wealth,”
“Our Country always Wrong,”—and especially by his erudite monograph on
“Finance,” so profound that not even the ablest minds could comprehend
it,—his fame spread throughout all lands, and made him the envy of
philosophers all over the earth. His stately monument bears the simple
motto which governed him through life,—
“LOVE THYSELF: SO SHALL THY AFFECTION BE RETURNED.”
LAGNIAPPE.[1]
When the great and good Shacabac had completed, as he thought, his
incomparable book of Wisdom, he said to himself, “Here at last, is
a perfect work of mortal man,” and went, none too humbly, to the
venerable philosopher Woppajah, from whom he had imbibed his first
draughts of knowledge. But the Master, after skimming a few lines and
paying the tribute of a yawn, turned over the leaves until he came to
the last chapter, when he pointed his finger to the number thereof,
and, lo, it was the fatal number—thirteen!
Abashed at the silent rebuke, the Sage would have withdrawn in
confusion, but the good man bade him stay. “Let this,” he said, “be
a lesson unto thee; and, that thou mayst ever be ready to extract
the cork of hope from the demijohn of disappointment, and avert
the debasing influence of superstition by always heading off an
inauspicious omen, write now a fourteenth chapter and bestow it upon a
grateful world, which ever rejoiceth to get something for which it hath
paid naught.”
Rakkam, the tooth-puller, built up an enormous trade and grew in
riches, by drawing two teeth for one price, and even though one of them
were sound, the patient would boast that he was so much ahead, which
meant out of his head.
It is a simple world and easily pleased. Ali-Kazam, the wise, when
his partner said: “Here be three apples to divide between us twain,
and neither of us hath a knife to carve them withal,” merely replied,
“Naught could be easier, my brother.” So saying, he ate one apple, and
handing another to his partner, said, “Behold, we now have one apiece.”
Thus was justice attained and wisdom rewarded.
Gratitude is one of the invertebrate virtues. It doth not crowd its
more robust brothers out of the way in order to push to the front and
assert itself obtrusively. Even when sought, it shrinks from notice, or
modestly withdraws entirely from the field of action. Saped, a young
man whose wisdom had not grown apace with his liver, once complained to
a great physician that his head ached in the morning and that he had
no desire to break his fast, adding, “I fear me that I must have eaten
something that disagreed with me.” Now the physician could read the
human face without glasses, and scanning the grapevine tendrils which
adorned the cheeks of the young man, he said, “Nay, I am sure it was
not anything that you have eaten,” with a significant emphasis on the
last word.
“But,” cried the youth, “it could not have been anything that I
_omitted_ to eat.” The physician, unheeding this remark, continued,
“Henceforth, if you would escape headaches and other ills of the flesh,
you must drink wine only at dinner.” The young man thanked him and
went away, saying to the people that the physician had counselled him
to dine all the time. But the physician was not grateful for the good
report, nor was Saped any longer, after he had received the bill of the
wise leech.
Many a man is grateful at being told a piece of news, until he is
enjoined to keep a secret. Then doth it weigh like a millstone around
his neck or a wife upon his knees.
Some are grateful, though possessing neither wealth nor health nor
high station, because they have had illustrious ancestors. It is a
harmless kind of pride; for who would be cruel enough to ask them if
such “descent” did not also imply degeneracy?
Many a man who never murmured at poverty complaineth loudly when he
hath grown rich enough to be assessed for taxes.
When Adam was expelled for eating the apple he blamed “the woman.” She
said naught, but years afterwards she invented pie; and the worst of
these is apple-pie.
A conscientious publisher, who had printed an unauthorized edition
of a great work (which modesty forbids mentioning here by name),
was stricken with contrition some months afterwards, and wrote to
the author saying: “Truly, kind Sir, I know that I have erred in
publishing your invaluable work without leave, but, albeit there is
no legal obligation on me to recognize your interests, in the absence
of any rational copyright law, yet my soul tells me that you have a
moral right which may not be denied. Wherefore I have directed that
a statement of account of sales be sent to you herewith. As you will
perceive that the venture unhappily hath resulted in a loss, your
remittance of a moiety thereof will be received by me with a gratitude
which will go far toward allaying the pangs of a remorse-torn sinner.”
The prudent pirate burieth not his treasure in a remote cave or
sandbank, but bestoweth it in the safety deposit vaults, for the day
when he may have to face a stern but not implacable jury.
The truly good man may love his enemies; but it taketh a hermit,
dwelling alone on an inaccessible island, to love his neighbors.
When the great Caliph Omar—may his memory be forever blessed!—beheld
the mountain of manuscripts heaped up in the Alexandrian Library, he
asked, “Of what doth this Himalaya consist?” The Librarian, proudly
waving his hand about, replied: “For the greater part, or say about
ninety-five per centum, it consisteth of inestimable works of fiction
based strictly upon the facts and so forth of History. They have all
been selected from the best-selling nov—” But the Caliph, who had the
gift of prophecy and could foresee even unto the present day, and
perceived also that the folios were extremely dry, ordered that they be
all fed to the furnaces of the baths, which had not been lighted for
many moons because that the Egyptian tyrant, Kholrobba, had oppressed
the people with a Fuel Trust. Allah is just, and the soul of Kholrobba
suffered not from cold when it went home.
A conqueror’s hymn of thanksgiving for victory needeth no wings. It
reacheth its destination by the force of gravity.
* * * * *
And the paradox of gratitude is this: that the author is thankful if
he know that the reader is not, when he beholds the mystic word in a
foreign tongue,—
“FINIS.”
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A Creole word signifying the same as the Chinese “_kum-shaw_.”
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