The concluding feat of the day was a conflict with wooden swords between the Abyssinian slave and an Indian, a Catti Rajpoot, who had been taken prisoner in a late invasion of some of the provinces of Hindostan. The Catti, as all his race are, was considered pre-eminently skilled in the use of the sword. The wooden weapons with which the combatants stood armed were made of a heavy wood and were long and broad.
The onset was commenced by the Catti, who displayed a skill and activity which at first somewhat confounded the slave, the latter doing as much as he could in parrying the strokes of his adversary without attempting to make a return. The vigour, however, of the Catti, gradually abated; and finding that his blows were so successfully parried, and that he was wasting his energies to no purpose, he began to be more wary. The Abyssinian now occasionally became the assaulter, but his efforts to hit the Rajpoot were foiled with equal skill.
Each of the champions had received slight blows, and appeared to be so equally matched, that it was difficult to decide which had the advantage. The Catti at length grew impatient and lost his caution. His attack was more impetuous and reckless. In proportion as he became heated the slave was cool; and taking advantage of his opponent’s precipitation, just as the latter had raised his arm to strike, Yakoot hit him suddenly above the elbow with such force that the bone of his arm instantly snapped, the fractured member dropped powerless by his side, and the wooden sword fell from his relaxed grasp.
This concluded the sports. The Rajpoot walked from the arena in sullen disappointment, whilst the victor was borne in triumph upon the shoulders of four men in a car, decorated with flowers. The Queen quitted the balcony, and the gentle Bameea thought more ardently than ever that the slave was in every respect a marvellous man.
CHAPTER II.
Early the next morning Yakoot was at work in the palace garden, which was watered by a thousand fountains, and seemed to be the abode of all the beautiful genii which preside over the operations of vegetation. Flowers of all hues and fragrance decked the slopes and parterres; shrubs of every description to which horticulturists have attached value for their beauties or rare qualities, were here displayed in lavish profusion; trees of every kind, celebrated for their fruits or for some singular intrinsical production, were bountifully scattered over this earthly paradise. Fish sported in the marble fountains which terminated the walks; birds of various feather and accomplishment warbled their gentle notes of love from the embowering foliage; doves cooed from the arbours, and rabbits grazed upon small enclosed plats especially dedicated to their enjoyments, but beyond which they could not trespass, in consequence of a wire wall which debarred them from passing the circles appropriated to them.
Amidst this scene of earthly beauty Yakoot was sad. He remembered with emotions of stern regret the savannas and forests of his native home, where the wild beast prowled and the hand of man was frequently lifted against his fellow with the deadliest purpose. He eyed with solemn composure the gorgeous blending of nature and art, by which he was at this moment surrounded; but it conveyed no gratification to his heart. His predilections were of a different temperament. He sought delight in the rugged and the severe, and therefore laboured with a smile of cold contempt amid the luxuries brought from almost every quarter of the world by the munificence of eastern regality. He had heard the applause of men, won by his prowess in the sports of the preceding day, but they moved him not. The approbation of the Sultana, which had been conveyed to him with a mandate that he was to appear before her on the following morrow, administered no joy; but amid the gloom of his condition, a light broke in upon his soul when he remembered the smile dancing upon the full pulpy lip of the beautiful Bameea as she applauded his feats of prowess in the arena. He had gazed upon her with an earnestness which called the blood into her cheek; and for the first moment during his captivity, which had only been one of a few short weeks, he felt his bosom glow towards an object with that mysterious sympathy which binds the heart, although in a silken fetter, yet with a security more lasting than links of iron. There was no accounting for the sudden impulse that almost instantly seemed to overmaster the rugged severity of his nature, and draw his kindly affections forth in bland and assauging emotions. But who was he that entertained thoughts of so pure and holy an intercourse as that which Heaven sanctions, when hearts are united and wishes harmonize? Was he not a slave? Could the high-born and refined look upon a bondman but with feelings of repugnance? And yet, while his lips muttered these querulous doubts, there was an antagonist presentiment within which repudiated them.
He was at one end of the garden, his eye wandering over the fairy scene around him, when it caught the shadow of a female figure advancing along one of the walks. His breast throbbed: the shadow so truly represented the outline of a form which of all others he desired to behold, that he could not be mistaken. He kept his eyes fixed upon the spot that was in a moment to reveal an object upon which it would be rapture to gaze; and, ere he could finish the expiration which mingled surprise and delight had suspended, the interesting Bameea stood before him. He bent his head as she approached, and touching the ground with his fingers, placed them upon his brows.
“Ha! Yakoot,” said the timid girl, returning his salutation, “I bring you joyful intelligence. You will not long have to toil in these gardens under the scorching sun to rear flowers and trim shrubs. The prowess which you exhibited yesterday has won the admiration of your royal mistress, and she has declared her intention of having you numbered among her household.”
“I desire not, lady, so near a contact with sovereigns. Slaves are foils to those poor worms of might, and I seek not to illustrate one of the extremes of high and low.”