“Boy,” said Sam to his son Eiz-ood-Deen, “I’m sadly tired of this banishment. One’s own country, after all, is the only paradise upon earth, and to be exiled from it is a sad penalty to a patriotic heart.”
“But,” replied the son, “you entered this land of strangers under poverty and bereavement; you have here raised yourself to distinction and wealth; your adopted country has been more favourable to you than your fatherland; why, therefore, should you seek to quit these hospitable shores for those from which you were once spurned a beggar and an outcast?”
“Because the yearnings of nature are too strong to be resisted. Besides, there I am known to belong to the blood of her kings; here I am looked upon as a mere trafficker in merchandise, upon which, indeed, I have grown rich, but in a manner that ill becomes the offspring of royalty.”
“I have been too long accustomed to consider this as my native land to desire to seek another home; but the desires of the son ought to yield to those of the father: I am, therefore, content to quit it whenever you may deem it fitting.”
The merchant Sam was, in truth, son of the king of Ghoor, a mountainous region, which finally became tributary to Ghizny, and had been obliged to fly from his country on the death of his father, who, while attacking a fort, was killed by an arrow, which entered his eye. The son fled into India, and finally settled at Surat, a city or considerable commercial importance, about twelve coss from the sea. Being of an enterprising turn of mind, he assumed the business of a merchant, and, in the course of a few years of successful traffic, became a man of great wealth.
Although he found few Mahomedans at Surat, there were a number of old Parsee families, who had fixed their abode in a certain quarter of the city. With these he freely associated, as they were not so backward in holding social intercourse with strangers as the native inhabitants, among whom the exclusive prejudices of caste were maintained generally with extreme rigour. The Parsees being a mercantile people, the royal merchant found that they very much advanced the success of his ventures, and with them, therefore, he dwelt upon terms of mutual good-fellowship. Having, however, reaped the full harvest of his industry, he was anxious to return to that exaltation in his native land which he had forfeited by his flight, especially now that he possessed the means of maintaining a dignity which his ambition rendered him eager to enjoy. His son, though he yielded to the wishes of his father, had other views. When he had left his native mountains, he was too young to retain any endearing impressions of home or of country; he, therefore, felt no desire to quit a spot which was endeared to him by other ties than those of a long residence.
Eiz-ood-Deen was in the habit of visiting the family of a Parsee who had an only daughter, a beautiful girl in her thirteenth year. She was the pride of her father, and he watched over her with a vigilance only equalled by his fondness, being anxious to keep her from the view of suitors, as he had betrothed her to the son of a wealthy Parsee merchant in Bombay, to whom she was shortly to be married. It happened that she felt an invincible repugnance to the young man to whom she was betrothed, but had never dared to express this repugnance to her father, knowing the extreme severity of his resentments when his purposes were crossed, and being well assured that even his parental affection would give way before the fierceness of his anger, if she should dare to rebel against his authority.
She had frequently observed Eiz ood-Deen, when he called upon her parent, through the venetians of her window that overlooked the street, but which she had never ventured to raise. She was much struck with the easy elegance of his person, and the lively intelligence of his countenance, which had a sprightliness and characteristic amenity of expression far more attractive than mere exclusive beauty. He was in his nineteenth year, vigorous and well formed, and altogether an interesting rather than a handsome person. She could not help contrasting him with the object of her father’s choice, who was a short fat youth, with an ungainly countenance, and pitted with the small-pox.
The sight of the Mahomedan rendered her more than ever averse to the Parsee, and she soon became silent and desponding. Her father perceived the change, but could not draw from her the cause of her depression. He never, for a moment, imagined that it could arise from any antipathy to the object of his choice for her, because he was firmly persuaded that she had no choice in the matter, his fiat being the rule of her will. He was uneasy, however, at the change, as his affection for her was surpassed only by his desire to see her the wife of a wealthy husband, which she would have in the son of his friend, the Bombay merchant.
Eiz-ood-Deen had heard much of the beauty of the Parsee’s daughter, but had been in the habit of visiting at his house for the best part of a year without having once seen her. She, however, had indulged herself, by seeing him enter and quit the house almost daily for several months, and the first favourable impression which his person made upon her in no degree subsided; so far from it, that she felt for the first time the two extreme passions of love and hate glowing in her bosom at the same moment—love towards the Mahomedan, and hatred towards the Parsee. She frequently pondered upon the misery of her lot, in being doomed to wed a man whom she loathed, and debarred, by the difference of creeds, from marrying one with whom she fancied she could realize her fairest dreams of happiness. She became at length so excited by anxiety, that she determined to brave all hazards, and, in defiance of her father’s anger, reveal her passion to the object of her love. It was some time before a safe opportunity occurred.