Experience alone teaches us the mutability of fortune: we hear of it, we see it, we think we understand and believe it,—but when we find ourselves precipitated from an height of happiness into an abyss of misery, it is then for the first time that we really discover the slightness of our former perceptions.—The adversity of others “we write in sand;” our own “we engrave on brass.”
Sebastian had now constant opportunities of making this reflection, for until his dismal change, absolute power had prevented him from even dreaming of a reverse in his own person: since that reverse had happened, he bitterly lamented his precipitate promise to the pope, whose sanction might otherwise have been obtained, and then Gonsalva would have been left at least a queen, protected by wealth and authority.
But these regrets could not recal the past; they were useful only as lessons for the future:—he averted his mind from such reflections, directing all its energies, towards the present objects of his care.
Some of these were attained: his fellow-slaves of the garden were comparatively happy through his means; Hafiz continued to shew him increasing regard; and Gaspar was losing most of those alarming symptoms which so lately threatened his life.—Though in slavery, and condemned to perpetual labour, the young monarch had never yet smarted under one degrading indignity which he would hereafter blush to have survived: this was a consolation almost transporting; it assured him of divine protection, he thought, seeming to say, that Providence might bend but would not crush him.
As it was from Kara Aziek that Sebastian anticipated the completion of every hope, he was naturally inquisitive about her character and habits of life: by his facility of acquiring languages (the most enviable because the most useful of talents,) he was now competent to converse with Hafiz in excellent Moresco; he therefore seized an opportunity one day when they were alone together inspecting her nursery of exotics, and questioned him respecting their gentle mistress.
He learnt in reply that Kara Aziek was the sole surviving child of the Almoçadem by a Portuguese lady who had been carried off by a set of those pirates, who frequently plundered the neighbouring coasts, and brought to Morocco: as she was scarcely passed childhood, El Hader had succeeded in persuading her to change her religion, and to become his wife, upon the condition that he never would marry any others; this promise he had kept, living in harmony with her many years, until they were separated by death.
Though this lady was not a woman of much sense, she was accomplished, and constitutionally humane; her influence had softened the prejudices of the Almoçadem, so that he suffered her to educate her daughter after the European fashion, in all respects, save religion: Kara Aziek was therefore mistress of the Portuguese and Italian languages, and the literature of both countries; she was a Mahometan it is true; but her expanded and inquiring mind, her pure, beneficent spirit, etherialized the grossness of her creed, and made her almost a Christian, in action.
After her mother’s death, Aziek became sole arbiter of her father’s decrees; at her request he granted such indulgencies to his slaves as no other slaves throughout Barbary ever enjoyed, but unhappily these indulgencies had never been faithfully administered:—Kara Aziek was too young and inexperienced to conceive the possibility of her father’s benevolent commands being disobeyed, or rather not obeyed with eagerness; she therefore believed the Christians to be well fed, moderately worked, humanely treated; when in reality most of their task-masters appropriated the liberal allowances to themselves; sold their surplus of labour; and in fact tyranized over both their bodies and their souls.
The freedom of a captive she had never obtained. El Hader thought it argued well for his piety that neither money nor persuasions could induce him to liberate an enemy of his prophet; on this point he was inflexible; and Sebastian, on hearing it, scarcely knew how to hope any thing for himself:—but hope is a sturdy plant that will grow on the most rocky soil; it is destined for the aliment of man’s spiritual part, and without it he could not exist.
Encouraged by the gentleness of Aziek’s character, Sebastian believed that she might be easily induced to pity, and finally to assist him—perhaps her intreaties might not always be unsuccessful:—Fraught with these ideas he heard of her return with the Almoçadem.