Chapter VI

Though he take recreation in my absence, and smile on all around
him, yet my soul remembers him;--him whose locks are decked with
the plumes of peacocks resplendent with many coloured moons, and
whose mantle gleams like a dark blue cloud, illumined with rainbows.

SONGS OF JAYADEVA.

The next day the whole court assembled again to witness the performances of the Bengalese. They began by making an excavation in the earth, which they filled with water. They then spread a sheet over the pond, and after a short interval removed it, when the water appeared to be a complete mass of ice. To prove its solidity, one of the elephant keepers was directed to lead his elephants across the frozen element; the stupendous animals walked across it with as much ease and safety as if it were a platform of solid rock. The sheet was thrown over the pond again, and when after a while it was withdrawn, no vestige remained either of the ice or the water, or even of moisture of any kind. Two tents were set up at the distance of a bow-shot from each other, the entrances being mutually opposite. The walls of these tents were lifted all round in order to shew that they were perfectly empty. Then fixing the tent walls in their proper position, one of the seven entered each tent, while their chief man, prostrating himself before the emperor, supplicated his majesty to name any birds or beasts between which he would choose to behold a contest. Jehangire called for two ostriches, as he had never seen any of those birds. Immediately two of those enormous birds ran forth from the tents, and opening their wings, attacked each other with fury; the blood streamed from their heads and long necks, and the combat having continued for nearly an hour, without victory declaring on either side, the birds were separated, and conveyed within the tents. The greater part of the day was spent in similar contests between lions and panthers, wolves and tigers, and other animals, all of which came out, as the emperor commanded, from the two tents, and yet when these were removed, no trace of any bird or quadruped could be discovered.

A chain of fifty cubits in length was next produced from a bag; one end of the chain was thrown towards the sky, where it remained as if fastened in the air. A fox was then brought forward, who ran rapidly up the chain until he reached its extremity, when he vanished. A wild boar followed, and disappeared in a similar manner. Next appeared a noble stag, panting as if pursued by hunters; stopping, he looked steadily around him, lifting his antlered forehead with that composed and graceful pride which seems to disdain even the shafts of fate. Presently the deep cry of a troop of beagles was heard in the distance, followed by the cheers of the hunters. The cry sounded nearer. The stag hastened up the chain, and was instantly followed by a hundred hounds and hunters. All dashed on into the sky, where the voices of the dogs and men were heard echoing far and wide, as if they had been in a neighbouring forest. For a while all was silent. A single bark was then heard,--again another, and another; the huntsman’s call to the dogs followed, and then came swelling on the air in a deep and soul-stirring concert, the full melody of the whole of the hounds, as if they had but one voice. The fox, the wild boar, and the stag were distinctly seen in the sky, returning towards the camp, pursued by the dogs and men through the firmament. It was a glorious spectacle. A shout of wonder burst from the whole army, who rushed from their tents to witness it. The fox was at length seized, and instantly torn in pieces and devoured. The same destiny awaited the boar. The dogs were closing rapidly on the stag. “The trumpets! The artillery!” exclaimed Jehangire. The signals were immediately given; and just as the exhausted and beauteous animal surrendered to his victors, a clash of cymbals, and a peal of trumpets and drums from all parts of the camp, followed by the thunder of the artillery, hailed the termination of the splendid chase. A dense black cloud, rising in the north, swept through the sky; and when it passed, neither hounds nor hunters were any longer to be seen.

The emperor immediately directed the bearer of his privy purse to present the Bengalese with fifty thousand gold rupees. The emissaries, when they beheld the money bags delivered to the principal of the seven, grieved that they had as yet no opportunity for commencing their work of plunder. Their fears, however, of being betrayed, were far from being diminished by the wonders they had witnessed. They observed the lynx eye of Bochari frequently directed towards them. His pallid cheek and frowning brow told them, moreover, that something was passing in his mind which often took away his attention from the operations of the Bauzigurs. Feared he that they would unmask the murderer of Fazeel?

Jehangire having directed the principal of the seven to attend him in the evening, retired within his pavilion. The court immediately followed his example, and the emissaries hearing the Bengalese say something of a nocturnal exhibition, which was to eclipse all their preceding performances, withdrew to the suttlers’ bazaar, where, over some cups of arrack, they settled the course of their proceedings. When the chief of the Bengalese waited on the emperor, whom he found alone, his majesty questioned him much upon the means that were used in order to produce the marvels which excited every body’s astonishment. As to himself, he confessed that they were beyond his comprehension. The sage, bowing with great humility to the sovereign, entreated that he would issue his command for any sort of entertainment he might desire to witness, but avoided answering the king’s interrogatories, upon the plea that inviolable secrecy as to the sources of the power exercised by himself and his companions, was one of the essential conditions upon which they were granted. Jehangire then demanded whether it was within the magicians’ art to predict the result of the approaching battle; to which the latter replied that he was altogether unskilled in astrology, and denied the faculty of looking into futurity.

The emperor, disappointed, rose from the divan upon which he was seated, drawing from his superb hookah the fragrant perfume of tobacco leaves of Shiraz. He walked up and down his tent for some time, much excited; at length, stopping before the Bengalese, who was standing in an attitude of profound obeisance, asked him whether he could exhibit before him his misguided son, Chusero, whose rebellion had caused him so much trouble and anxiety of mind. The Bauzigur expressed a hope that he might be able to gratify his majesty upon this point. He then rejoined his companions, and speedily returned to the pavilion with a mirror, which he placed upright on the divan, against the wall of the pavilion, opposite the cushions occupied by Jehangire.

In the course of a few minutes the space behind the mirror appeared to be occupied by a large army, drawn up on the banks of a river, and beyond it, on a rising ground, Chusero was distinctly visible, surrounded by Man-Singh, Hussein, and a brilliant staff, to whom he was giving orders, while he held in his hand a chart, with strong red lines drawn upon it. Far in the distance was seen the subah of Cashmere, at the head of a numerous body of troops, marching towards the river under the standard adopted by the prince.

“It is indeed my son!” exclaimed Jehangire, with deep emotion. “Unhappy boy! Heaven be my witness, that if he were now to repent of his crime, and to sue at my feet for pardon, I would receive him with open arms! Chusero--my son--oh! who could have imagined this when first I received you smiling from your mother’s bosom? How have I watched over your infant years, with the warm gushing love known only to the heart of a parent! How have I waited, when fever or pain preyed upon your delicate frame, for the changes that indicated the departure of the disease! Oh, when those happy moments came--moments that appear to be but of yesterday--when your countenance became itself again, and your precious, blithe, and innocent looks, repaid us all for the sorrows we had suffered on your account--what joy we experienced! How the world, that was before all darkness, seemed to put on a new robe of triumph! But now--armed against your father--the father that still cherishes you in his heart of hearts--it is too much--agony beyond endurance!”

The Bauzigur, affected by this natural burst of parental tenderness, was about to remove the mirror, but the emperor, who perceived his purpose, beckoned to him to desist. Pressing his hand upon his forehead and eyes, from which tears copiously rolled, Jehangire sobbed aloud.

“And Afkun, too,” he resumed, when the flood of his emotion subsided; “Afkun, the subah of Cashmere; the husband of Nourmahal--of _my Nourmahal_--turned traitor! The conduct of Hussein does not surprise me. Man-Singh’s machinations are not new to me; but Afkun, why has he turned traitor against his lawful sovereign? Misguided men--misguiders of my son; whom, doubtless, ye desire to use as an instrument for the accomplishment of your own base designs, few are the hours that remain between this and the moment of my just vengeance. Bochari! Bochari! I say!”

The commander immediately made his appearance--surprized--not a little annoyed, upon seeing the emperor alone with the Bengalese.

“Bochari! issue orders through the camp to-night, to prepare for marching at the dawn. Afkun has joined the rebel standards, and if we delay here much longer, possibly other wavering chieftains may be induced to follow his example.”

“I have learned as much by despatches which have just arrived. The rebel forces are drawn up on the farther bank of the Sutledge, resolved to resist our passage across that river. Afkun has brought twenty thousand men into the field, instigated by his sultana, Nourmahal, of whose real designs I never entertained a doubt.”

“By Nourmahal!” exclaimed the emperor, in a voice of amazement; “impossible. If I had ever any skill in reading the heart of woman, her soul is free from the guilt you would impute to it. Say, if you choose, that she aspires to be the empress of Hindostan; but with Jehangire at her side.”

“An officer of the outposts humbly asks admission to your majesty,” said one of the eunuchs in waiting.

“What is his business?” demanded Bochari, in a peremptory tone.

“He states that his message is one of importance, which he can communicate only to your majesty,” said the eunuch, still standing before the emperor.

“Let him come in,” said Jehangire. The officer having been admitted, and having made the usual obeisance, proceeded to relate, that as he was walking on the banks of a small river, near which the guard under his orders was stationed, outside the camp, his attention was drawn to a bundle of flowers floating down the stream. It was stopped in its course by a cluster of rushes that grew in the river, and when he brought it out on the end of his spear, he perceived that it had been carefully tied by a golden band, and arranged, manifestly as a symbol, which, as he was unskilled in the language of flowers, he knew not how to interpret. Apprehending that it might be a mode of secret communication between the rebel leaders and disaffected persons in the camp, he deemed it his duty to lay it at the feet of his majesty, where he requested permission to present it, with his sincere, though lowly homage.

The emperor took the symbol into his hands, which he examined with intense anxiety. “It is!” he exclaimed, his face radiant with exultation; “it is a message from Nourmahal. See here, Bochari; _Nourmahal to Selim--her heart to its lord!_ Said I not the truth? Oh! I knew it well. I needed no messenger to tell me that though I were abandoned by all the world, she would remain faithful to her first love. Divine invention, by which distance is thus annihilated between two beings, who are conscious of the thoughts of each other.”

Pressing the flowers to his bosom, Jehangire examined them again and again, kissing them with passionate ardour.

“Take that officer’s name, and write him down a commander of two thousand.”

“What, sire!” inquired Bochari, “make a man commander of two thousand for bringing you a handful of flowers, picked up in a stream--thrown into it, no one knows where, or by whom. To a low pass, indeed, has fallen the service of the state, when its honours are to be dealt about in this manner!”

“Where they have been found, I know not,” remarked the Bengalese, in a tone intended only for the emperor’s ear; “but certain I am, that those roses could only have come from Cashmere. They are the true growth of that garden of the world, and cannot be found beyond it.”

“If so,” said Bochari, who permitted nothing to escape him, “then Nourmahal must be nearer than we were aware of; there must be treason in the camp.”

The officer of the outposts was questioned, and desired to explain his discovery, without omitting the slightest circumstance. He could only repeat what he had already stated, adding that he had heard, while formerly serving in Cashmere under Acbar, of a fountain that communicated, in some mysterious manner, with all the rivers in Hindostan; that it was dry during eleven months of the year, but that during the month of May it was filled and emptied three times within the twenty-four hours. He had never seen it, but the tradition was notorious.

“Wonderful!” exclaimed the emperor. “What think you of this tradition?” he asked, addressing himself to the Bengalese.

“The officer is well informed,” answered the sage; “your majesty will find it mentioned in the Ayeen Acberry.”

“It is false!” said Bochari, who turned pale and trembled all over; “it is the silly invention of some fools, or the machination of some knaves to impose upon the emperor.”

“I can only appeal to the work itself for the truth of what I say,” mildly replied the Bengalese.

“Desire one of my secretaries to bring hither the Ayeen Acberry,” said Jehangire, addressing the eunuch who answered to the call of his silver bell.

In a few minutes a secretary appeared, with the volume in his hand; it was, by the emperor’s command, delivered to the Bengalese, who, turning to the author’s account of the subahship of Cashmere, read from it these words:--“In a long straight, in a mountain, there is a reservoir of water, seven ells square, which the Hindoos consider as a place of great sanctity. This reservoir is dry eleven months in the year; but in the month of May, the water gushes out from two springs. First the water appears in an aperture, which they call Send-Brare, situated in one corner of the reservoir; and when this is full, the water springs up in another corner, called Sureyshy, till at length the reservoir flows over; after which it immediately begins to decrease, and continues doing so till it is perfectly dry; and this flux and reflux happens every morning, noon, and evening. When the reservoir is full of water, people throw into it flowers for the different rivers, and, to the astonishment of the beholders, the flowers are afterwards found in the particular spring to which they were consigned.”

“Let the officer be written down forthwith a commander of _three_ thousand,” said the emperor, delighted with this proof of the accuracy of his information. Bochari bowed to the mandate with his usual malevolent smile, jealous of any favours bestowed by Jehangire, which were not of his own suggestion, and directing the fortunate bearer of the flowers to follow him to his tent, quitted the imperial pavilion.

“I have read the same account of Send-Brare,” added the Bengalese, “in the Neelmut, the most ancient book we possess relating to Cashmere, and said to have been found at the bottom of the spring that gives birth to the Jumna. Beneath that spring, as the Ayeen Acberry also relates, is the celebrated city of the sultan Damuder.”

“Assuredly there is no empire in the world to be compared to this of mine for the wonders it contains, and for the great and wise men it has brought forth in every age. Future generations will scarcely credit the marvels which you and your associates have wrought in my presence. But I have given strict orders to my secretaries to preserve a faithful record of them, in order that I may not omit such unprecedented operations in the memoirs which I intend to compose of my life. There is one thing more I would ask of you, if it should be within the dominion of your faculties. Nourmahal,--you must have heard of her matchless beauty, of that miracle of intelligence and grace that captivates all hearts,--does she accompany Afkun, or has she remained in Cashmere?”

The Bengalese again arranged his mirror, and, after a short interval spent by him in silent prayer and meditation, the instrument disclosed a castle raised on a rock, surrounded by natural fortifications, apparently impregnable, and by a deep wide fosse filled with running water. Within the walls were seen an extensive garden, teeming with flowers and fruits of every description, and a grove of cedars which appeared to wave gently in the breeze. Sentinels walked up and down the ramparts; the draw-bridge was chained up; domestics passed occasionally through the court-yard, in performance of their ordinary occupations; the towers of the castle rose, in fair proportions, one above another, most of them mantled in ivy, one being distinguished from the rest by the superior beauty of its windows of richly painted glass, on which the sun shone in the full splendour of its setting.

While Jehangire was gazing on this beauteous scene, one of these windows looking to the garden and grove was thrown open, and at the casement appeared the figure of a lady, sitting on a couch, with a withered lily of the valley in her hand. Her countenance was almost as pale as the flower upon which she looked with intense solicitude, as if she were reading in its decayed leaves some story that held in thraldom all the feelings of her soul.

“There,--there they are! those eyes,--that light about her countenance never to be by me mistaken,--never forgotten! Nourmahal! O that you could hear my voice! Can she not? say, can she not speak to me?”

The sage shook his head.

“That lily of the valley, too!--Ah! I remember it. Her pallid cheek,--there is grief upon it. She is no longer the glowing, buoyant, smiling seraph she was at Agra,--but how infinitely more lovely! For me she suffers! O these welcome interpreters give me assurance that for me she still preserves her heart inviolate, though a terrible destiny has separated us for a season. I have erred. Too much of my youth has been spent in habits of gross indulgence. Twenty, thirty cups of the strongest wines in one day I have often, for years together, thought but a moderate allowance. If I were but an hour without my usual beverage, my hands began to shake, I was unable to sit at rest. I have deserved punishment, and now it has come upon me. My best beloved son in open arms against his parent! Nourmahal,--whatever human laws may or shall say,--_my_ Nourmahal,--the wife of another!”

Jehangire, tearing off his turban, flung it away from him, and throwing himself on the carpet, sobbed aloud, as if his heart would break.

“Crown, sceptre, treasures, all, I would be content to resign,--never to have possessed,--rather than have them upon these dreadful conditions! The peasant who wraps to his bosom the maiden of his first affection, and the infant of their mutual love, ah! how much happier is he than Jehangire! Why are those feelings planted in our bosoms? What is authority over millions of men to me, if at my heart I am to suffer these pangs of woe!--woe, which no tongue can tell, no medicine can assuage!”

The Bengalese, affected by this scene of imperial humiliation, felt that he ought no longer to interrupt the sacred privacy of grief so overwhelming. Hoping that the entertainments which he had still in store for the night might afford the royal sufferer some relief, he quitted the pavilion with a soft step, and rejoined his companions.