CHAPTER IV.
When Shums-ood-Deen was placed upon the musnud, intimidated by the fate of his unhappy brother, he was afraid to oppose the man who had raised him to the throne; he had therefore little more than the name of king. All the substantive power was in the hands of his late father’s slave, who assumed the title of Mullik Naib, an office equivalent to regent; and the nobility who had escaped the sword, seeing no safety but in submission, bowed to his authority. The queen-mother, having been originally a slave, paid the utmost deference to the traitor who had blinded her elder son, in order that she might obviate any mischief against the younger, whom she advised to submit to the wiser counsels of his minister, observing that he was indebted to him for his crown, and that the man who had so easily deposed one brother might with equal facility depose the other. “Besides,” she said, “you owe him a debt of gratitude, and, depend upon it, he will expect it to be paid. You will find, my son, many malicious insinuations breathed into your ear against your benefactor—but let me conjure you to give them no heed, for the king who requites benefits with injury can have no security for his throne.”
“Alas! mother,” said the young monarch, “I have been exalted only to misery; I find the throne a seat of thorns instead of roses. My elevation has been the means of separating me for ever from the object of my soul’s idolatry, and I am become a wretch whom the veriest outcast might pity.”
“Nay, this is mere delusion: higher objects will engross your attention now. Alliances will be sought with you by princes; seek not, then, the attachment of slaves.”
“Did you not recommend gratitude towards my benefactor?”
“True, I did; but this may be shown without marrying his daughter.”
“To marry her is the one dear wish of my heart; not in order to signify my gratitude to the man who has placed me upon the pinnacle of human greatness, but to signalise my love for one who is at once an honour to her sex and to her country.”
“These are youthful raptures, my son, which the cares of royalty will soon stifle.”
“Never! the impress upon my heart is too deep to wear out: it will never be effaced but by the worm.”
The queen-mother could not succeed in persuading her son to relinquish all thoughts of the lovely Agha, which she was anxious to do, in order that he might form an alliance that would secure him upon the throne, and render him independent of a man who might turn all his influence against him, should he be impelled by caprice or interest to serve some other object of his ambition.