CHAPTER I.
The morning dawned upon two travellers in the midst of a blighted wilderness. As the sun threw its level rays over the horizon, they flooded a plain where no boundary could be traced but the sky, and from which the dominion of vegetation was almost wholly withdrawn; there being nothing to relieve the dull, uniform sterility of the scene but occasionally the trunks of a few stunted trees, which appeared to stand there only as so many legible records of the utter barrenness of the spot. These sad wayfarers rose from beneath the scanty shades of one of those skeletons of the wilderness to pursue a journey with a deplorable prospect before them. They were far advanced upon a wide inhospitable desert, where no welcome serai was to be seen, and where the passenger was seldom met. The refreshing well was nowhere found in these dreary and unfruitful solitudes.
The travellers were a Tartar and his wife, who, in consequence of a marriage not approved of by their respective families, had fled from their country to seek that home in another which was denied to them in their own. The man was handsome, of noble carriage, possessing all the generous qualities of his race; bold, active, enterprising, with great capability of endurance, and withal of a mild and placable spirit. The woman was young, beautiful, but extremely delicate; and to crown her husband’s misery and her own, she was about to become a mother. When they arose on this sad morning, they consumed the last of their provisions. They had only a small quantity of water in a leathern bottle, which the Tartar made his fainting wife drink before they proceeded on their way. What a deplorable condition! To linger was certain death, and to advance seemed only a dallying with hope—there appeared no chances of relief. They had several days’ journey to perform, without being provided with any sustenance for so long and arduous a travel; and the chances of meeting with passengers were so remote as to render their perishing in the wilderness almost a certainty.
The Tartar’s wife was mounted upon a small lean horse, which for the last several days had been so sparingly fed that it could scarcely proceed. The wretched woman was unconscious of the extent of her danger. She knew not that the whole of their provisions were exhausted, save one small rice cake which the tender husband had reserved for her use. He kept from her the awful fact of their utter destitution, lest in her precarious condition it should bring on premature labour where no assistance could be obtained, and she would thus probably perish. In spite of the misery of his situation, he still entertained the hope that he should obtain relief; and trusting in the mercy of Him who guides the wanderer as well in the wilderness as in the populous country, he pursued his journey though with a heavy and foreboding heart. As the sun rose, the heat became intolerable. There was no shelter from its scorching rays. The anxious Tartar held an umbrella over the head of his wife as he walked painfully along by the side of her lean ambling pony; but after a while his arm became so cramped that it was with difficulty he could bear the weight of the chatta. This, though not great, was the more sensibly felt from the elevated position in which he was obliged to keep his arms. He was, however, marvellously sustained by the excitement of his anxiety for the dear object near him, who bore with unrepining endurance privations which in her state were especially deplorable. They travelled through a long and toilsome day. The rice cake was consumed long before they halted for the night.
There being no shelter near, the husband fixed the handle of his umbrella into the ground, and throwing over it a thin palampore,[33] formed a kind of rude tent, under which his wife might repose without immediate exposure to the unwholesome night air. She was exhausted with fatigue; her tongue was parched with thirst, and the rapid increase of circulation too plainly told that fever was fast coming on. To attempt to depict the husband’s agony were a vain endeavour. Without food—without water—his wife actually in the pains of labour—with no hope of relief—in the midst of a vast wilderness, which even the wild beasts shunned as a solitude where only death and desolation reigned—he had no thought but that both must lie down and die. The sufferings of his hapless companion were appalling, yet she bore them without a murmur. The severity of her pangs aggravated that thirst by which she had been so long and so grievously oppressed. He had but one alternative, and did not hesitate to adopt it in such a trying emergency. His wife’s agonies were every moment increasing. He quitted the insecure canopy which he had erected for her temporary accommodation, seized his dagger, ran to the pony, and, in a paroxysm of tumultuous anxiety to save the life of the object dearest to him upon earth, plunged it desperately into the animal’s throat. Having caught the blood in a wooden trencher, he bore it to the tent.
During his short absence, his wife had become a mother. The cry of the poor babe raised within him, at this moment, emotions of parental joy; but these were in an instant stifled by the consciousness of those awful perils by which he was surrounded. He put the bowl to the lips of the suffering mother; she took a small quantity, and was in a slight degree refreshed. He now kindled a fire upon the wide blasted desert, and broiled some flesh of the animal which he had just slaughtered. It was tough and rank. The juices, however, of this unpalatable repast subdued in a degree the yearnings of hunger and the dreadful pangs of thirst.
On the morrow, when the sun again cast its vivid light upon the vast level of the wilderness, this wretched pair arose to pursue their journey. The Tartar dreaded the increased difficulties which he should have now to overcome. His companion was so weak that she could scarcely stand; yet she was obliged to carry her infant, as he was loaded with their baggage and other necessaries, that had hitherto been confined to the back of the pony. They had scarcely commenced the prosecution of their melancholy journey, when they were cheered with the prospect of relief. Not more than half a coss[34] distance before them, a beautiful lake seemed to smile in the morning sun, and to invite the suffering travellers to bathe their limbs in its limpid waters. The margin was dotted with groups of trees, displaying a luxuriant foliage, which was reflected in the still mirror below, and promised a grateful shade to the travel-worn passenger. Oxen appeared to be grazing on its margin, and every now and then, in the luxury of the most exquisite enjoyment, to hide themselves under the pellucid surface of its calm waters. Beyond, a gorgeous city reared its battlements amid the solemn silence of the desert, over which it seemed to cast the glow of its splendour, and to speak with a mute but eloquent voice of cheering to the heart of the forlorn wanderer, of which they alone can appreciate the magic force who have braved the perils of the wilderness, and seen death stand before them face to face amid its vast and inhospitable solitudes.
The Tartar and his wife, overjoyed at the sight, made the best of their way towards the lake and the city, in which the stir of busy life seemed to prevail; for they saw, as they imagined, multitudes of their fellow beings issue from its gates and spread over the adjoining plain. The scene, to the excited imagination of the travellers, was animated beyond description. The sight of human habitations, and of human beings who could afford them succour; of water in which they might assuage the pangs of the most painful of bodily privations; of houses in which they might find shelter after their perilous journey—all gave such a stimulus to their exertions, that even the weak and suffering mother, with the assistance of her husband’s arm, was able to go onward with tolerable firmness.
When they had proceeded for some time, the lake and the city still appeared before them, but no nearer. It seemed to them as if they had been moving their limbs without advancing a single step. They still, however pressed forward under the delusive expectation of reaching the fair goal of their hopes; but after a while the lake began suddenly to disappear, the city was by degrees shrouded in mist, which dispersed in the course of a few minutes, and, to their consternation, they saw nothing save the wide arid expanse of the desert before them. The unhappy woman sank upon the earth in a paroxysm of mental agony. The miserable man was now perfectly overwhelmed with despair. He feared that his wife was dying. She could no longer carry the infant; there was, consequently, but one alternative. The struggle of nature was a severe one, but no choice remained between death and parental inhumanity. The desire of life prevailed; and it was determined, after an agonizing conflict, that the infant must be sacrificed. The mother’s tears were dried up on her burning cheeks, and the father’s pangs were lost in the anxieties of the husband. The appeals of nature were only stifled by louder appeals in both their bosoms; and, however fierce the repugnance, it was to be resisted and overcome. The death of their babe was the least of two evils; they therefore submitted to the stern severity of their condition.
It was agreed by the half-distracted parents, that the newborn pledge of their affections should be abandoned. The mother having kissed it fervently, consigned it to the arms of her husband, who, having taken it to a spot where the stunted stock of a tree protruded from the scorching sand, placed it under the scanty shade of this bare emblem of sterility; and, having covered it with leaves, left it to the mercy of that God who can protect the babe in the desert as well as the sovereign on his throne. On rejoining his wife, the Tartar found her so weak that he feared she would be unable to proceed. Though released from the burden of her infant, her prostration of strength was so extreme, from the united effects of mental and bodily suffering, that she could scarcely rise from the earth. The pangs of thirst were again becoming horrible; still, after a severe struggle, she rose, and the wretched pair pursued their journey in silence and in agony.
They had not proceeded far before the invincible yearnings of nature prevailed over mere physical torment, and the bereaved mother called in a voice of piteous anguish for her child. She could no longer endure the pains of separation. The idea of having voluntarily consented to become the instrument of its death, was a horror which increased with every step, and she sank exhausted upon the sand. The sun, now rising towards its meridian, poured upon her the fiery effulgence of its beams. The husband’s heart was subdued by her sufferings. Dashing a tear from his cheek, he undertook to return and restore their infant to the arms of its distracted mother. Fixing the handle of his umbrella again in the ground and throwing the palampore over it, he placed his wife under that frail covering, and immediately retraced his steps. With a sad heart he reached the spot where he had lately deposited the infant; but what was his consternation at beholding the leaves removed, and a black snake coiled round it, with its hideous mouth opposed to that of his child! In a frenzy of desperation he rushed forward; but instantly arrested by the instinct of paternal fear, he stood before the objects at once of his tenderest interest and of his terror, as if he had been suddenly converted into stone. The previous motion, however, had evidently alarmed the monster; for it gradually uncoiled itself from its victim without committing the slightest injury, and retired into the hollow trunk which marked this memorable spot. The father snatched up his child, and bore it in ecstacy to its mother; but she was extended under the palampore in the last struggle of expiring nature. Her feeble spirit had been overborne by her lengthened sufferings of mind and body, and she now lay at the point of death. She raised her eyes languidly, received the babe with a faint smile upon her bosom, and tenderly kissed it. The effort overcame her, and she fainted. After a short time she rallied—but it was only to die. The husband hung over her with mute but intense tenderness, cursing in his heart with a bitterness which that very tenderness aggravated, those relatives who had caused the death of all he valued upon earth, and rendered him the most desolate of men.
“Aiass,” said the dying woman, “dig me a grave in the wilderness; don’t leave this poor body to the beasts of prey. We shall be restored to each other. There is a paradise beyond this world where all the good meet and are blessed: we shall be among them. I die happy in the possession of your love, and in the consciousness of never having forfeited my claim to it.”
The Tartar could not speak. He pressed the wife of his bosom to that heart which she had so fondly engrossed, and scalding tears of agony overflowed his cheeks. He threw his arms tenderly round her, his heart throbbing audibly, and buried his bursting temples in the hot sand beside her. She spoke not—she stirred not; he raised his head to kiss her fading lips—her eye was rayless—those lips were slightly parted, but fixed; a faint smile was on her cheek, yet no breath came. She was dead!