This was an unexpected shock. He sickened as he thought upon the melancholy consequences that might arise to the object of his fondest affections, and quitted the house with a sad presentiment of mischief. It was clear they had been betrayed. The old woman no doubt, in the hope of reaping a richer harvest, had revealed their visits to the inexorable parent, and the consequences of his anger would no doubt be extreme.
During the whole of that day he could obtain no tidings of the Parsee’s daughter. Many dark hints were thrown out by some of his tribe, whom Eiz-ood-Deen knew, which led him to apprehend some fearful consequence, but he could ascertain nothing positive. He returned to his father’s house. The worthy merchant was surprised to see the gloom with which his son’s countenance was overcast, and inquired the cause; but an evasive reply silenced his questions, though it did not hush his suspicions.
The following morning Eiz-ood-Deen was walking beyond the suburbs of Surat, and bent his steps towards the cemetery of the Parsees. It was a circular inclosure, protected by a wall about four feet high. Within was a deep vault, covered by an iron grating, upon the top of which the bodies of the dead were placed, and there left to corrupt, the bones finally falling into the receptacle below, whence they were removed at certain periods, and cast into the sea. Reaching the wall, he sat on it, in order to rest himself or to give free scope to the sadness of his thoughts in the immediate vicinity of so solemn a spot. Looking towards the grating, he saw a body which had been that morning placed upon it. Urged by an irresistible impulse, he leaped into the inclosure, and approaching the vault, was horror-struck at beholding the disfigured corpse of the Parsee’s daughter.
CHAPTER II.
Eiz-ood-Deen returned to his father’s house stunned with the shock he had received at the Parsee cemetery. It struck his mind with the fiery quickness and impetuosity of the thunderbolt that the fond girl had been murdered—murdered because she loved him—murdered for his sake. This was a dreadful reflexion. There was no interfering with the domestic habits of the Guebres. They were governed by their own laws, with which the native authorities at Surat presumed not to interfere; he had, therefore, no means of instituting an inquiry into the death of his beloved. He was the most wretched of men. The blast of desolation had swept over his heart, and he looked upon himself as a seared and blighted thing, which the sun of joy could no longer warm into blossoming life. He was now as anxious to depart from Surat, as he had once been to remain.
The only thing that pained him at quitting the scene of his misery was the thought of leaving unrevenged the death of that tender girl whom he had so fondly loved. But how was he to prove that she had been sent out of the world by violence? Besides, had he not been guilty of an act of deep moral obliquity in carrying on a clandestine intercourse with the daughter of a different tribe, corrupting her father’s servants, and meditating her final abduction? He felt upon what tottering ground he trod, and therefore soon abandoned all thoughts of revenge. His father could not account for his agitation; attributing it, however, to those capricious sallies of youth which are frequently the mere sudden eruptions of passion arising from trifling disappointment, he did not take the trouble to inquire very minutely into the cause, but occupied himself about preparing for his voyage. As the transfer of property to any great distance was impracticable, he turned a large portion of his wealth into jewels, which were less difficult to be disposed of, could be easily secreted, and occupied little room. These preparations engaged him for some days, during the whole of which period Eiz-ood-Deen was a prey to the severest grief. He scarcely uttered a word. His father now imagined that his sorrow arose simply from the circumstance of his being about to quit a spot endeared to him by the strong and linking associations of youth, but felt no doubt that when the first ebullitions after departure should subside, new scenes and new objects would soon absorb his attention, and win him from his partialities to the scenes of his boyhood.
Having made the necessary preparations, the old man purchased a vessel, which he manned with Hindoo sailors, for the best of all possible reasons, because no other were to be had. The vessel was a large clumsy boat, carrying about sixty tons, with no deck, save a kind of poop, under which there was one small cabin. She was manned by fifteen native seaman. Everything being put on board, the merchant Sam, with his son Eiz-ood-Deen, set sail from Surat with a favourable breeze. The old man’s heart bounded as he quitted those shores which had been the place of his exile for years, and although he had filled his coffers with money in this strange land, his predilection for that of his birth had never been once stifled; it was still glowing. He was anxious to lay his bones among those of his forefathers, and he tried to rouse the spirits of his son to the same level of gratification with his own; but the image of death was too vividly impressed upon the mind of Eiz-ood-Deen to be so readily effaced. He could not banish it. It seemed as if a fiery hand had seared it upon his brain with an impress so deep and glowing that the finger of death only could obliterate the tracing. His heart sickened when he reverted to the repelling reality.
“Nay, my son,” said the glad father, “you seem as if you grieved at a parent’s joy. Why this gloom? Is there no other country upon the globe’s wide surface which can yield us as glad a home as that which we have quitted. Why do you repine? What have you relinquished? Were we not living among communities which despised our religion, and held us unfit to be admitted to the privileges of social intercourse? Were we not rather tolerated than welcomed by those idolators whom our religion has taught us to despise?”
“Then why, my father, have you made their country your home for so many years? They admitted the exile among them, and surely those people are not to be despised who received him whom his own countrymen had abandoned. But you mistake the cause of my sorrow. I grieve not at quitting the land of my father’s exile; on the contrary, I rejoice at it: but there are griefs which weigh heavy on my heart, and never shall I remember the city which we have quitted but with a pang that must lacerate my bosom.”
The merchant was astonished. Absorbed in the pursuits of trade, he had allowed his son to have so much his own way, that he knew little or nothing of his pursuits, and had been altogether ignorant of his acquaintance with the beautiful Parsee; he was, therefore, not a little surprised when Eiz-ood-Deen related to him his attachment towards the Guebre’s daughter and the lamentable issue of it.