CHAPTER I.
Lody Chan was seated in the veranda of his palace, smoking his hookah, and enjoying the luxury of repose which that exquisite instrument is so admirably calculated to induce. Behind him stood a tall attendant dressed in a tunic of green cloth, his waist encircled by a red cummerbund, his head surmounted with a bright yellow turban, undulating a yak’s tail over his master, to prevent mosquitos from sounding in his ears their little note of warning, or fixing their fine taper antennæ into those rich conduits through which the currents of life meander in ten thousand winding avenues to and from the heart. Beside this man stood another attendant, somewhat differently clad as to colour, but precisely similar in costume, waving a punka beside the Chan, in order to break the stagnation of the hot air of noon, in a shade where the thermometer would stand at ninety-eight degrees.
Lody was seated upon a carpet from the valued looms of Persia; beside him stood a goblet of Shiraz wine, and at his right hand a matchlock, its stock richly inlaid with gold. From the eaves of the veranda fell a silk awning, which was lowered when the sun slanted its level rays above the horizon in its early rising, or flooded the plain with its departing glories, ere it sank behind the broad ocean. This awning was brocaded with the precious metals from the celebrated bazaars of Ispahan, unrivalled throughout the East for the richness of its tissues. The walls were panelled with polished steel, which multiplied the reflection of every object near, and seemed to give an almost interminable space to the balconies by which the palace was surrounded. Arms, burnished with a care that showed how highly they were prized, hung from the pilasters which supported the projecting roof of the veranda, and various emblems of war were distributed around, with a profusion and an attention to effect, which sufficiently evinced how familiar the lord of this palace was with that bane of peace upon earth of which it has been too truly said, and but too little heeded, that
War’s a game
Which, were their subjects wise, kings would not play at.
Everything around the palace of Chan Lody attested his predilection for this most desperate game of chance that man can engage in. He was one of the greatest warriors of his day. Being a descendant of the imperial family of Lody, he felt anxious to maintain the dignity of his house; but though glory was the fierce aim of his ambition, he never tarnished it by an act of dishonour. He was indeed an ambitious prince, but a generous soldier and a virtuous man.
Whilst he sat drawing through the golden mouthpiece of his beautifully embossed hookah the exhalations of a richly aromatic chillam, a stranger was announced desiring to have an interview with the Chan.
“Admit him,” said Lody to the attendant, who instantly withdrew, and shortly returned, ushering in the stranger.
The latter appeared to be a youth of noble deportment and gallant bearing. He was evidently in the dawn of manhood, but had all its best attributes legibly recorded on his clear open brow and small decided features. Lody’s eye relaxed into a faint yet bright smile as he bent it upon the noble stranger, whose salutation he returned with much courtesy.
“Chan Lody,” said the youth, “you are aware that the Emperor Jehangire is in paradise; a usurper, aided by the influence of the Sultana, is upon the throne: the Sultan, Shah Jehan, now lawful sovereign of the Moguls, is on his march to vindicate his rights and seize the imperial sceptre: his route lies through your territories, through which he demands your permission to pass, and a safe conduct. What answer shall I return, Chan Lody?”
Lody’s brow became suddenly overcast; and he said bitterly, “Princes who solicit favours should know how to bestow them.”
“Is this the answer I am to return to the Sultan?”
“No; when you have refreshed yourself with food and rest, I will give you my answer at length.”
“Is it hostile or peaceable?”
“You will know when you receive it.”
“Chan Lody, I accept not the hospitality of an enemy. If you deny what I come to solicit, I quit your presence with a full and unqualified defiance; if you grant it, I will eat your salt with joy, and the Prophet’s blessing will requite you for the boon.”
“Young man, your defiance or your blessing is to me alike indifferent. I have no desire that you should either eat my salt or make my palace a place of rest. Bear my answer to your master. I grant no safe conduct to rebels. A rebellious son cannot be a just prince. I would rather see the enemy at my gates, than Shah Jehan Emperor of the Moguls.”
“A time may come when Chan Lody will be glad to forget that he has dared to insult his sovereign.”
Saying this, the youthful messenger turned upon his heel and was about to depart, but the Chan ordered him to be detained; then, by way of adding contempt to his refusal, the indignant Omrah commanded the dress of a menial to be brought, and filling a small bag with rupees, he charged the sultan’s envoy to deliver them, together with an old lean horse, to his master.
The young man departed; and meeting a shepherd at some short distance from Burhampoor, gave him the dress, the rupees, and the horse, bidding him deliver them to Chan Lody with this message:—that Prince Morad, son of the Emperor Shah Jehan, returned the gift designed for his royal parent, as the giver might one day need a beggar’s boon, since adversity was generally the lot of insolent nobles and disaffected subjects.
The shepherd, not considering himself bound by the laws of honour, and not being harassed by delicate scruples, appropriated the dress, rupees, and horse to his own purposes. What to one man was an offence, was to another a blessing.
Morad, galled by the indignity which had been so wantonly offered to him, proceeded towards his father’s encampment. On emerging from a thick forest upon an extensive plain, he saw a party at some distance advancing in the direction of the jungle. As they approached nearer, he perceived a palankeen accompanied by a numerous train of attendants. Before they had reached the path which led into the forest, a wild elephant started from the thicket, and rushed with a short shrill cry towards the approaching cavalcade. Terrified at the sight of such a huge foe, the attendants dispersed; and the bearers laying down the palankeen, fled in different directions. The elephant advanced with an aspect of deadly hostility towards the palankeen, which, as Morad perceived, from the curtains being closely drawn round it, contained a female; and, from the number of her attendants, it was evident that she was a female of rank. Unappalled by the danger, he darted forward; and being nearer the palankeen than the elephant, came up with the animal before it could reach its victim. Striking it with his sword just above the knee joint of the right leg behind, he at once disabled it, and diverted its attention from the object of attack. The huge creature immediately uttered a scream of agony, and turned upon Morad but unable to use the wounded limb, its movements were slow and embarrassed: Morad, therefore, had no difficulty in evading its assault by actively running behind it, and seizing his opportunity, he inflicted another wound on the other hind leg, which rendered the elephant unable to do mischief. It rolled upon the earth: and Morad calling upon his attendants to approach, took a matchlock, and placing the muzzle to the ear of the huge beast, sent a bullet into its brain. The animal uttered a short loud roar, and died.
Meanwhile the lady had quitted her palankeen, and stood before her youthful deliverer in the beaming lustre of her beauty. Her countenance was calm and unruffled, and her dark eye was fixed upon the dead elephant with an expression of resolute satisfaction that showed how little she had been disturbed by the past danger. She made a graceful salaam of acknowledgment; and, beckoning with an air of haughty command to her attendants, thanked her deliverer with a somewhat lofty courtesy, and, inviting him to return to her father’s palace, entered her palankeen. Morad, who had been struck with her beauty, learned in a few words that she was the daughter of Chan Lody. Notwithstanding the late discourtesies which had passed between them, and the insult offered to his parent, he determined to escort the lovely girl to her father’s dwelling. He had been charmed with the beautiful countenance and magnanimous bearing of the Chan’s daughter, and now felt really anxious that a better understanding should exist between her parent and his own. He therefore returned with her to Burhampoor. On reaching Chan Lody’s palace, the lady wished Morad to enter, in order that he might receive her father’s acknowledgments for the signal service he had rendered his child.
“Lady,” said the prince, “I am the son of Shah Jehan, to whom your father refuses a passage through his dominions. I cannot again enter the presence of one who has denied my parent and his sovereign so poor a boon.”
“Life, prince, is a valueless possession, unless we hold it on those terms which make it worth the prizing; and, believe me, I would rather mine were forfeited than be indebted for its preservation to a scion of Chan Lody’s foe. You, however, have conferred the obligation nobly, at the risk of your own; my courtesy, therefore, is the least I can offer you. Enter, and I will take upon me to secure for you my father’s hospitality, who could not but be happy to entertain his daughter’s deliverer.”
“I should be sorry to test the hospitality of a man whose heart would be at variance with his urbanity. For what I have done, the approbation of my own conscience is a sufficient reward; and your courtesy has cancelled whatever obligation you may have considered yourself under to me. But perhaps you will do me the favour to tell Chan Lody that he is indebted for his daughter’s life to the son of Shah Jehan.”
The lovely Jahanira a moment bent her piercing eye upon Morad, and said, in a tone of proud dignity, “Our acquaintance then will end here, since you refuse the hospitality which has been at least courteously offered; but I am your debtor, and shall, I trust, live to cancel my debt. Farewell!”
She entered the palace, and Morad retraced his steps. As he pursued his journey towards his father’s tents, he could not help reflecting on the sublime beauty of Chan Lody’s daughter. She was evidently a woman of a lofty and indomitable spirit. Her parent’s dauntless soul beamed in her full black eyes, and her small budding mouth, the lips of which met each other with a firm compression that seemed to mock the tenderness of a more gentle contact, showed there was a high resolve within her which nothing short of death could subdue. Morad was young and ardent. His whole soul quivered like a sunbeam at the bare thought of an enterprise that should cast a halo of glory around it and his bosom glowed with germane sympathy, where he beheld any symptom of feeling congenial with his own. The stern refusal of Chan Lody had roused his indignation; the proud spirit of his daughter had won him to a gentler mood, and her beauty ratified what her lofty bearing had expressed.
When he entered his father’s presence, he reported the Omrah’s refusal, but withheld the indignities with which it had been accompanied. Shah Jehan was mortified and indignant at this issue of his embassy to the haughty noble of Burhampoor; and, breaking up his camp, he proceeded to the capital by another route.