“I am afraid you will find me but an awkward practitioner in a profession which I so little understand.”
“Ay, I suppose you are what those fools who affect to be good and wise among us, call an honest man—whose whole life is only one broad varnished lie. Honesty is a mere term for a purpose. Where are there greater rogues than they who would be teachers of their fellows, and under the veil of religion commit the vilest abominations, and dub them with the name of honesty? We’ll soon teach you a different lesson. We pretend not to be honest, for thieving is our craft, and we glory in making the pampered pay for our civility when they happen to cross our path. You’ll quickly learn to get rid of your qualms, for with us hunger is a frequent visitor, and you’ve no notion how eloquently it persuades men to become rogues. But you must go with us, whatever may be your antipathies.”
There was clearly no use in contending with a set of desperadoes, who had evidently made up their minds to have their own way; the merchant’s son, therefore, followed them, without attempting the slightest expostulation.
The robbers conducted him into a deep recess of the jungle, where there was the ruin of what appeared to be an ancient temple. It was low, not more than a few feet above the common level of the forest, and was entered by a narrow portal which led into, several small dark chambers, inhabited by the bandits, of whom there were upwards of thirty.
Eiz-ood-Deen was refractory, and did not choose to enrol himself among this marauding company. They treated him with considerable harshness; he nevertheless continued firm in his resolution to remain their captive, rather than unite with them in their practices of plunder.
It happened that the robbers had received intelligence of a party of troops being on their way, with supplies, towards the camp of Sultan Ibrahim, sovereign of Ghizny, who had invaded India with a numerous army. As their route lay through a part of the jungle, the robbers determined to attack the detachment in a narrow pass, where they would be unable to act effectively, and plunder the waggons. This was accordingly attempted, and with some success. They partially robbed one of the waggons, and bore off an officer who defended it. In the evening they brought their prisoner to their forest dwelling. Dissatisfied with the issue of their expedition, they determined to attack the waggons again on the following day; and in order to effect this with greater security, they put to their captive certain questions, which he refused to answer. Every temptation was offered to induce him to make disclosures, but he declined giving the slightest communication; this so incensed the robbers that they shot him to death with arrows. They were not, however, suffered long to triumph in their cruelty. On that night their haunt was assailed by the troops which they had so recently attacked, and the greatest part of the band were made prisoners.
CHAPTER IV.
Eiz-ood-Deen was made prisoner with the rest or the robbers, who were severally put in irons, and finally marched to Ghizny, where they were cast into separate dungeons. The merchant’s son now looked upon his doom as sealed. Taken up as a robber and murderer, he saw little chance of escape, and began to look forward with dreadful apprehensions to undergoing an ignominous death. How was he to prove his innocence when he had been taken in the very den of those criminals who had committed the murder, and was declared by them to be one of their party? He could bring forward no proof of his innocence to countervail such strong presumptive evidence of his guilt. His mere declaration would scarcely be listened to, it being well known that the guilty almost invariably declare themselves innocent. He paced his prison with a restless and impatient step. It seemed as if the doom of destiny were upon him. Since the death of that guiltless girl, whom he had hoped to make his wife, he had known nothing but misfortune. The conviction smote upon his heart that he had been saved from destruction, when the hurricane stirred the elements into frightful combination, and threatened every moment to engulf him amid the raging billows, only to meet a more dreadful doom upon land. He now regretted that he had not perished amid the turbulent waters which bore his father to the abode of spirits, or that the tiger had not struck him dead when it raised its paw against him in the jungle. What was to be done? There was no evading the doom which awaited him. He must die a degraded criminal, his body would be thrown to the vultures and to the jackals. It was a fearful thought! To have his bones whiten in the sun, and his flesh furnish a banquet for beasts of prey!
The robbers were severally tried, all found guilty, and executed. Their heads were placed upon the walls of Ghizny. His trial came last. The day preceding he endeavoured to prepare himself for the fate from which he concluded there could be no escape; but he could not brace his spirit to that pitch of resolution which defies the terrors of death, and renders the condemned man capable of going through the awful details of a public execution, not only without dread, but with perfect tranquillity of spirit. Every one of the robbers—for he had been taken from his dungeon to witness their execution—had met death with that sullen resolution peculiar to fatalists, for such were they; but Eiz-ood-Deen, entertaining a different faith, felt that he was not likely to meet it with equal resolution. The night which preceded his trial was one of dreadful mental excitation. He had no rest; the fever of anxiety was on his brow, and the phantoms of terror flitted round him as he courted a transient oblivion of his woes.
The morning dawned upon his disturbed slumbers, and the dim light which reached his dungeon through a narrow aperture in the wall roused him from the damp earth upon which he had cast himself for the last time. He arose feverish and unrefreshed. His hands were cold as the stones by which he was surrounded, but his temples were painfully hot, and throbbed almost audibly. He tried to summon resolution to appear before the court with composure, but nature mastered all his energies, and he gave way at length to a violent burst of emotion. The remarkable manner of his escape from destruction during the storm and its accompanying circumstances had endeared life to him, and he felt unconquerably loth to relinquish it, although at one time he had really persuaded himself that death would be a boon.