The Lion of Janina Part 13

"And when _shall_ I die?"

To this the pen gave no answer.

In vain the favorite pressed her question. How many years, how many months, how many days had she to live? The spirit answered nothing.

"And how shall I die?" asked the woman.

The Sultan s.h.i.+vered at this senseless question, and would have made the girl withdraw; but, in an instant, the pen had written out the answer, "Thou shalt be killed."

The woman grew as pale as a wax figure, and stammered, "Who will kill me?"

Both of them awaited in terror and with baited breath what the pen would answer, and the pen, taking good care not to form a single illegible letter, wrote on the parchment, "Mahmoud!"

The favorite fell unconscious into the arms of the Sultan, who, carrying her away, laid her on the divan, watching over her till she came to herself again, and then comforting her with wise saws.

An evil, mocking spirit dwelt in the reed, he said, consolingly, who only uttered its forebodings to agitate their hearts. "Did it not say also that I should love thee to the death? How then could I slay thee?

A lying spirit dwelleth in that reed!"

And yet the Sultan himself was trembling all the time.

That night no sleep visited his eyes, and early in the morning he took the reed from his favorite by force, telling her that he was going to throw it into the fire.

But he did _not_ throw it into the fire. On the contrary, the Sultan frequently produced it, and, inasmuch as he sometimes convicted the spirit of a false prophecy, he began to regard the whole thing as a sort of magic hocus-pocus, invented by the kindly Fates to amuse mankind by its oddity, and he frequently made it serve as a plaything for the whole harem, gathering the odalisks together and compelling the enchanted pen to answer all sorts of petty questions, as, for instance, "How old is the old kadun-keit-khuda?" "How many sequins are in the purse of the Kizlar-Agasi?" "At what o'clock did the Sultan awake?" "When will the Sultan's tulips arrive?" "How many heads were thrown to-day into the sea?" "Is Sadi, the poet, still alive?" etc., etc. Or they forced the pen to translate the verses of Victor Hugo into Turkish, Arabic, and Persian. And the pen patiently accomplished everything. At last it became quite a pet plaything with the odalisks, and the favorite Sultana altogether forgot the evil prophecy which it had written down for her.

Now it chanced one day that the famous filibusterer Microconchalys, who had for a long time disturbed the archipelago with his cruisers, and defied the whole fleet of the Sultan, encountered in the open sea, off Candia, a British man-of-war, which he was mad enough to attack with three galleys. In less than an hour all three galleys were blown to the bottom of the sea, nothing of them remaining on the surface of the water but their well-known flags, which Morrison, the victorious English captain, conveyed to Stambul, and there presented them to the Divan.

Boundless was the joy of the Sultan at the death of the vexatious filibusterer, and there was joy in the harem also, for a feast of lamps was to be held there the same night, and Morrison was to be presented to the Divan on the following day to be loaded with gifts and favors.

At night, therefore, there was great mirth among the odalisks. The Sultan himself was drunk with joy, wine, and love, and the hilarious Sultana brought forth the magic pen to make them mirth, and compelled it to answer the drollest questions, as, for instance, "How many hairs are there in Mahmoud's head?" "How many horses are there in the stable?" and "How many soldiers are there on the sea?" And, finally, laughing aloud, she commanded it to tell her how many hours she had to live.

Ah, surely a life full of joy lay before her! But the Sultan shook his head; one ought not to tempt G.o.d with such questions.

The pen would not write.

Then the favorite cried angrily, "Answer! or I will compel thee to count all the drops of water in the Black Sea, from here to Jenikale in the Crimea!"

At these words the pen, with a quivering movement, arose, and scratching the paper with a shrill sound, as if it would weep and moan, wrote down some utterly unintelligible characters, with the number "8" beneath them, and surrounded the whole writing with a circle to signify that there was nothing more to come.

Everybody laughed. It was plain that the spirit also loved its little joke, and was angry with the Sultana for torturing it with so many silly questions.

It was then the third hour after midnight, all the clocks in the room had at that moment struck the hour. After that the odalisks fell a-dancing again, and the eunuch-buffoons exhibited a puppet show on a curtained stage, which greatly diverted the ladies of the harem. But the number "8" would not go out of the head of the favorite, and as all the clocks in the room, one after the other, struck four, she took out the pen, and with an incredulous, mocking smile on her face, but with horror in her heart, she asked, "Come, tell me again, if thou hast not forgotten, how many hours have I got to live?"

The pen wrote down the number "7."

Those who stood around now began to tremble. But Mahmoud treated the whole affair as a joke, and a.s.sured them that the pen was only making them sport. And again they went on diverting themselves.

An hour later the clocks, in the usual sequence, struck the hour of five. And now the favorite stole aside, and placing the reed on a table repeated her former question. And the pen wrote down the number "6."

Thus, with each hour, the number indicated was lesser by one than the previous number. The Sultan observed the gloom of his favorite, and to drive away her sad thoughts, compelled her to retire to her bedchamber, where she enjoyed two hours of sweet repose, leaning on the Sultan's breast; whereupon the Sultan arose and went into his dressing-room, for he had to hold a divan, or council.

The first thing the favorite did on awaking was to look at the time, and she perceived that it was now seven o'clock. She immediately hastened to interrogate the pen, and asked the question of it with fear and trembling; and now the pen wrote down the number "4."

The Sultan himself sent for Morrison.

The English sailor was proudly conscious of owning no master but the sea. During his long roamings in the East and South he had always made it a point of visiting all the barbarous chiefs and princes who came in his way. He regarded them simply as freaks of nature, whose absurd rites and customs he meant to thoroughly investigate in order that he might make a note of them in his diary, and he even went the length of adopting for a time their manners and customs, if he could not get what he wanted in any other way.

A summons to appear before the divan was scarcely of more importance in his eyes than an invitation to a wild elephant hunt, or initiation into the mysteries of Mumbo Jumbo, or an ascent in the perilous aerial s.h.i.+p of Montgolfier. He donned a dark-blue-colored garment and a plumed three-cornered hat, and condescended to allow himself to be conducted by the ichoglanler specially told off to do him honor to the splendid canopied, six-oared pinnace, which was to take him to the palace.

They escorted him first to the Gate of Fountains, and left him waiting for a few moments in the Chamber of Lions, allowing him in the meanwhile to draw a pocket-book from his breast-pocket and make a rapid sketch of all the objects around him. They then relieved him of his short sword, as none may approach the Sultan with arms, and threw across his shoulders an ample caftan trimmed with ermine. He did not reflect for the moment what a distinction this was. His only feeling was a slight surprise that he should be dressed in green down to his very heels, as, with the dragoman on his left hand, he was conducted into the Hall of the Seven Viziers, where the Sultan sat in the midst of his grandees.

Morrison greeted the Padishah very handsomely, just as he would have greeted King George IV. or King Charles X., perhaps.

"Bow to the ground--right down to the ground, milord!" whispered the dragoman in his ears.

"I'll be d.a.m.ned if I do!" replied Morrison. "It is not my habit to go down on my knees in uniform!"

"But that was why they put the caftan on you," whispered the dragoman, half in joke. "'Tis the custom here."

"And a deuced bad custom, too," growled Morrison; and, after reflecting for a moment or two, he hit upon the idea of letting his hat fall to the ground, and then bent down as if to pick it up again.

But, by way of compensation, immediately after righting himself he stood as stiff and straight as if he were determined never to bend his head again, though the roof were to fall upon him in consequence.

The Sultan addressed a couple of brief words to the sailor, metamorphosed by the dragoman into a floridly adulatory rigmarole, which he represented to be a faithful version of the Sultan's ineffable salutation. In effect he told the sailor that he was a terrible hippopotamus, an oceanic elephant, who had ground to death countless crocodiles with his glorious grinders, trampled them to pieces with his mighty hoofs, and torn them limb from limb with his trunk, and had therefore merited that the sublime Sultan should cover him with the wings of his mantle. Let him, therefore, ask as a reward whatever he chose, even to the half of the Padishah's kingdom. I may add that if any one had in those days actually asked for half of the Sultan's kingdom, he would probably have got that part of it which lies underground.

Morrison thanked the Sultan for his liberal offer, and asked that he might see the favorite wife of the Grand Signior.

At these words the dragoman turned pale, but the Sultan turned still paler. The convulsive twitching of the muscles of his face betrayed his strong revulsion of feeling, and, lowering his heavy, s.h.a.ggy eyebrows, he dashed at the sailor a look of deadly rage, while a heavy sigh escaped from his deep chest.

The Englishman only regretted that he could not acquit himself as creditably in this play of eyebrows. His own were small, of a bright blonde color, and somewhat pointed.

The dragoman, however, could read an ominous meaning in this deep silence.

"O glorious giaour, rosebud of thy nation!" whispered he, "fleet water-spider of the ocean, ask not so senseless a thing from the Grand Signior! Behold his wrathful eyes, and ask for something else; ask for his most precious treasure; ask for all his damsels, if thou wilt, but ask not to see the face of his favorite. Thou knowest not the meaning thereof."

Morrison shrugged his shoulders. "I want neither his treasure nor his damsels. I only want to see his favorite wife."

Mahmoud trembled, but not a word did he speak. Two tear-drops twinkled in his dark eyes and ran down his handsome, manly face.

At this the Viziers leaped to their feet, and it was evident from their agitated cries that they expected the Sultan to order the presumptuous infidel to be cut down there and then.

The dragoman, in despair, flung himself at the seaman's feet.

"O prince of all whales!" he cried. "O unbelieving dog! Thou seest me, a true believer, lying at thy feet. O wine-drinking giaour! Why wilt thou entangle me with the words which the Sultan said to thee through me? Art thou not ashamed to place thy foot on the neck of the lord of princes? Ask some other thing!"

In vain. The sailor changed not a muscle of his face. He simply repeated, with imperturbable _sang-froid_, the words:

"I want to see his favorite wife."