Chapter V

Beneath that tattered robe you’ll find
A woman’s heart--a hero’s mind.

NIZAMI.

Suleiman, keenly marking the quarter whence the voices had come, now proceeded towards it with the greatest anxiety, holding the lamp before him so as to shew its light along the floor. Upon reaching the extreme end of that part of the caravanserai, he discovered his two friends sitting side by side against the wall, to which he perceived they were both fastened by strong cords passed through an iron ring. Commanding them in a low tone to preserve the strictest silence, he took off his cap and shawl, and raising the lamp to his face, bade them be of good cheer, for that Allah had sent him to their deliverance. They immediately recognised the chieftain in his lowly garb, and uttered a fervent prayer of gratitude to Providence, while they both instinctively attempted to rise. But they could scarcely move. In addition to the ligatures by which they were made fast to the wall, iron chains were passed several times round their bodies, which kept them linked together, the ends of the chains being riveted to an iron plate, which defied even the muscular strength of Suleiman.

Of the fetters by which they were made fast to the wall he easily disencumbered them, by setting fire to the ropes; but to remove the captives from the caravanserai, without being able to separate them from each other, was a matter of more difficulty. Suleiman’s ingenuity, however, had been long exercised in the school of war. Drawing his friends gently towards the edge of the floor, he showed them the two robbers still suspended, who had prepared to strip them of every thing they possessed. Seirami could hardly suppress a smile of pleasure at beholding this instance of summary justice. Kazim gazed upon them with a feeling of terror, wondering that men could be found so lost to every sense of humanity as to meditate the plunder of two unhappy prisoners, already doomed to the most excruciating species of death.

Suleiman, feeling the moments gliding rapidly towards day, lost none of them in meditation. He cut the two robbers down, and deposited them near the place where his friends had been confined. Then removing the ropes which had been the instruments of his prompt administration of the law, he twisted them together, and fastening one end of the double rope to that of the iron chain which bound Seirami and Kazim together, he pushed them downwards, and permitted them to descend until they were about the height of a steed from the ground below. Fastening the other end of the rope firmly to the top of the notched pole, he rapidly lowered himself to the ground, and leading one of the horses beneath his friends, he cut the rope with the sabre of the still sleeping sentinel. Seirami and Kazim thus found themselves, like a pair of panniers, on each side of the horse; and the only difficulty that now remained to be achieved, was the escape of the animal from the stable with its burthen.

But the preparations of Suleiman were not yet concluded. His mind extended its precautions to every point, that was connected with an adventure hitherto so propitiously conducted. The dervish, who had risked his life for the preservation of a person on whom, so far as Suleiman remembered, no obligation of service was imposed by any former acts of kindness on his part, would most probably be compelled by torture to disclose the circumstance of lending his ragged garments to the foe of Mirtas. If they could be found on the decapitated robber, whose head might be removed to prevent any doubts as to identity; if the loft should be ignited, as he took good care it should be, by the burning cordage which he left on the boards; the cindered remains of the two thieves above would doubtless be considered those of the two condemned captives, while that of the third would be hewed into a thousand pieces, under the persuasion that it had once held the soul of Suleiman.

Stripping off his tattered robes, he clothed himself in the attire of the headless robber, to whom he quickly transferred his cast-off garments: he then put the culprit’s head into a bag, which he slung over his shoulders. His next objects were to place the robber outside the door, to open the gate of the stable, to lead out the horse upon which Seirami and Kazim were balanced, to appropriate another steed to his own use, and to effect his departure without disturbing the sentinels, whom, though his inveterate enemies, he disdained to slay in their sleep.

The grey of morning was just beginning to shew the domes and minarets of the town, defined against the still lingering darkness of the night, when Suleiman moved forward, mounted on an excellent charger, and leading by the rein the other horse, with its double burthen, over which he had thrown one of the sentinel’s large cloaks. After wandering through a labyrinth of narrow streets, not one of which he recognised as having passed through the evening before, he found himself in a large square, where preparations were already going on for the execution that was decreed to be consummated at sun-rise. Some wild looking figures were collected round a fire in the middle of the square, and near them were fixed strong posts, to which eight horses were tied, whose violent pawing of the earth, incessant neighing and plunging, showed that they must have been recently brought in from the desert, and peculiarly adapted to be the ministers of the cruel punishment decreed by Mirtas. Groups of men were already gathering in from the different streets that led to the square, curious, no doubt, to behold the tragic scene which rumour had taught them to expect. Suleiman, without advancing farther, turned shortly into the nearest lane he could find, but proceeded at no unusual pace, lest he might give rise to suspicion.

The increasing freshness of the air soon inspired him with the hope, that he had already reached the suburbs. Passing over a wooden bridge, he looked backwards at the town, which still appeared a dense mass of gloom, although the skies were beginning to be dappled with streaks, that, becoming every moment of a brighter hue, announced the near approach of the sun. Suddenly he beheld the blush of morning surpassed by a column of flame, which rose high in the air from a distant part of the town. Now it sunk, and now it burst forth again with fresh fury, flinging fiery sparkles around, that threatened to involve the whole town in conflagration. Drums were heard beating, and trumpets sounding, and shouts of innumerable voices blended together in frightful confusion. One immense burst of flame then shot up into the heavens, after which little more was seen than a pale reflection, that showed itself for a while fitfully, and then appeared no more.

While the attention of the people in the town was thus absorbed by one all-engrossing object, Suleiman pushed forward rapidly through the suburbs, until he reached a blacksmith’s forge, where he found a man and a boy already hard at work, unconscious of the alarm that prevailed around them. Stopping at the door of the forge, he called out to the man, telling him that he had a small job, which he wished to be done immediately. The chains, he said, by which his merchandise, consisting of bars of silver and pieces of broad-cloth, was tied together on his second horse, seemed already to gall the back of the animal. He wished the rivets to be filed off at the heads, and driven through the plate, where they were fastened, in order that he might adjust the burthen in a manner by which his valuable horse might not be injured. The smith, much envying the apparent magnitude of the rich merchandise, and expecting, of course, to be munificently rewarded, professed his readiness to serve his kind employer, and ascending the horse by the tail, was preparing, with his implements, to execute the task assigned him, when Suleiman put both horses to their speed, telling the blacksmith to hold on by the mane as well as he could, for that the animals, frightened by the fire of the forge, were running away. Notwithstanding the additional burthen under which one of the steeds laboured, both flew over the open plains with the speed of lightning, the blacksmith thrown now on one side, now on another, as if he were the sport of the winds. Terror and the want of breath prevented him from crying out, fearing that every moment he would be flung over the merchandise and killed on the spot.

For a full hour Suleiman thus continued to scour the country; but at length perceiving a wood suitable to his purpose, he turned into it, allowing the panting animals to slacken their pace gradually, until they penetrated beneath the shade of some trees, which effectually excluded the light of morning. Here he compelled the trembling artizan to remove the rivets, when, the chain being loosened, the packages on each side fell suddenly on the grass, with a groan which nearly frightened the blacksmith out of his senses. Finding his way to the earth as well as he could, the mechanic scampered off without waiting to receive his expected reward, convinced that he was a very fortunate man in having escaped with so little injury from the evil spirits, which were always sure to be present wherever gold or silver treasure required their protection. Suleiman, loosening the chain, set his friends at liberty; then depositing it in the bag which contained the robber’s head, he committed both to the bosom of a pond of stagnant water which he found hard by.

Seirami and Kazim leaped with joy at being able once more to give full play to their limbs, fettered as they had been in one position during a period of more than thirty hours. Suleiman invited Kazim to ride behind himself, while Seirami mounted the other horse. They soon emerged from the wood, and as they had no longer any fear of pursuit, they rode onward at an equable pace, relating to each other the adventures that had occurred to them since they had last been separated.

Meanwhile Mirtas, who had fought Suleiman hand to hand in the battle, could not have been deceived for a moment by the substitute whom he found in the garden hut. He charged his men, who had solemnly promised to deliver up his foe alive into his power, with a deliberate design to deceive him, and ordered them forthwith to be decapitated. But the dervish frankly confessed that he alone was the guilty person, that they were innocent of any participation in his crime, if such it was; that in his estimation, however, he had only performed an act of duty in preserving the life of a chieftain, to whom he had pledged his allegiance, and that he was now prepared to suffer any penalty which Mirtas might think proper to inflict.

The Mogul, struck by the heroic conduct of the dervish, promised to pardon him if he would acknowledge the contrivance by which he enabled Suleiman to escape. To this he frankly answered, that they had only exchanged raiment, upon which the soldiers, who had recently seen the disguised chieftain limping through the gardens, led the pursuit after him in all directions, anxious to vindicate themselves by extraordinary zeal, in the good opinion of their master. By their active inquiries they succeeded in tracing Suleiman to Karaman, where, however, they soon lost all further clue to his footsteps through the streets of the town.

The fire which broke out in the early part of the morning, drew Mirtas to the caravanserai, where, however, he did not arrive until the conflagration was over. The horses, which had been confined in the stable, were the first to give warning to the neighbourhood by their wild cries, urged by a sense of suffocation. The sentinels were with difficulty extricated from the danger to which they were exposed; and when the burning loft fell with a crash upon the interior of the stable, the remains of two half-burnt robbers convinced Mirtas that he was defrauded of the vengeance which he had meditated against the two captives, one of whom he suspected to be Suleiman’s adviser in all measures, whether of peace or war, while he looked upon the other, as a willing instrument in the execution of the stratagem to which he and his followers had very nearly fallen victims. But the discovery of the third body found outside the door, compensated Mirtas for every disappointment. The tattered clothes in which it was arrayed were distinctly recognised by the soldiers, as those which the dervish had exchanged with Suleiman; the dervish himself bore testimony to the truth of their evidence, lamenting with many genuine tears that he had not perished himself, rather than behold his chieftain slain in this ignominious manner. One of the sentinels claimed to himself the merit of having cut off the head of Suleiman; in proof of which he produced his naked sabre, which was found on the floor of the stable stained with blood. Of the head, indeed, he could give no account; it must have been burnt to a cinder; but he reported a violent altercation in which he was engaged with Suleiman, who came to offer him large sums of money if he would assist him in effecting the escape of the two prisoners who had been committed to his care, and to that of his companions. The altercation, as well as the temptation, were terminated in the manner now evident to every body, for there the alleged Suleiman lay without his head; upon which the sentinel claimed and received a suitable reward from Mirtas, and the body itself was ordered to be torn limb from limb by the wild horses, already prepared for the purpose in the public square. Thus the multitude assembled to see the execution, were not wholly deprived of the spectacle which they were so desirous to behold. The death of Suleiman was publicly proclaimed; such of his soldiers as had been taken prisoners cheerfully transferred their allegiance to the conqueror, who was acknowledged sovereign of Karaman. For a whole week the town resounded with dance, dulcimer, drum and song, and with the clamour of the troops intoxicated by wine and humiz, who boasted every where of the great victory which they had achieved over the treacherous foe of Mirtas.