“Has the sovereign forgotten that the queen-mother was originally one of that degraded class which the king thinks it unjust to dignify?”
“No woman is degraded by her condition, because she is the mere instrument in the Deity’s hands for perpetuating the human race. The son derives neither rank nor degradation from the mother;—it therefore matters not whether she be a slave or a princess.”
“The king reasons like a profound casuist,” said Lallcheen, with an ill-disguised sneer; “and I feel how utterly impossible it is for a slave to beat down the lofty fences of royal logic.”
“You do not, however, seem very heartily convinced by it; but of this I would have you in future assured—that it will be one of the principles of my government not to place my bondmen upon a level with free men.”
Lallcheen had been a favourite with the late king, whose memory his son held in great reverence; he therefore bore with the liberty of the servitor who during the last reign had received a sort of licence to express his thoughts without reserve, being a person of considerable intelligence and of an active inquisitive mind.
Lallcheen was exceedingly mortified at the sentiments expressed by the young king. They were scored upon his mind with literal fidelity, and he secretly meditated revenge, though he did not show it openly. He had sprung from a race of bold haughty barbarians, who held freedom to be the pole-star in the firmament of human glory; and the friction from the fetters of bondage seemed to rub against the very core of his heart. He panted for liberty as a drowning man does for the air which the waters exclude from his lips; and the disappointment with which the sovereign’s definitive resolution was charged came over his spirit with a crushing burden that for a moment seemed to weigh it down to the lowest level of degradation. His fierce passions, however, which had long slumbered under the assuasive kindness of his late master, rose to his relief, casting off the burden from his soul as with an arm of might and lifting it where it could soar unincumbered from the trammels of its griefs, devise new motives of action, and nerve itself to high and important resolves.
The slave had a daughter, the fame of whose beauty had reached the ears of Gheias-ood-Deen. She was as celebrated for her wit as for her personal attractions, and her skill in music was so perfect that she eclipsed all the regular professors of the capital. There was not an accomplishment of which she was not mistress. Her celebrity had already gained her many admirers, and the king expressed a desire to see her.
Lallcheen was not sorry at the opportunity which this circumstance might afford him of mortifying the sovereign, or of punishing him more effectually, and therefore determined to throw the lovely Agha in his master’s way in the palace gardens, to which the slave had free access.
The king was one morning walking in the gardens with his brother Shums-ood-Deen, a remarkably beautiful boy in his sixteenth year.
“Who is that yonder, brother,” asked the latter, “by the marble tank?”