It was a heavenly night. The light of a clear moon peeped through the trees, and seemed to dance in ten thousand phosphoric coruscations, as the slender branches, agitated by a gentle evening breeze, diverted its course for the moment, or trembled in its gentle beams. The forest gloom contrasted solemnly with the silvery light of the deep azure expanse above, and the general repose of nature, at that still hour when man retires to rest from the stir and bustle of day, added an additional tone of solemnity to the scene. The beast of prey was abroad, and, as it prowled, its occasional roar was a sort of diapason to nature’s imposing harmony.
The traveller having collected some dried leaves strewed them under the broad foliage of a tree, the branches of which formed a thick canopy within six feet of the ground, and casting himself upon this easy woodland couch, courted that slumber which his fatigue had rendered welcome. His reflections were peaceful. He reverted to the occurrences of the day, and though the loss of his steed was a subject of uneasy recollection, yet it was more than countervailed by the happy remembrance of that little episode in the brief chronicle of his life, which he never afterwards reverted to without satisfaction—the restoration of the fawn to its bereaved dam.
He lay for some time pursuing the quiet tenour of his contemplations, occasionally lapsing into a state of half-consciousness and then reverting, by a sudden impulse of the mind, to perfect, self-possession. At length, overcome by the active process of his thoughts and fatigue of body, he fell into a profound sleep, in which some of the most striking events of the past day were presented to his imagination, combined with new associations, and invested with new hues and a more varied colouring. He dreamed that he was visited by the Prophet, who approached him in shining garments, from which a glory was emitted so dazzling that he could not gaze upon it, and said—“The generosity which you have this day shown to a distressed animal has been appreciated by that God who is the God of dumb as well as of rational creatures, and the kingdom of Ghizny is assigned to you in this world as your reward. Let not your power, however, undermine your virtue, but continue through life to exercise that benevolence towards man which you have done this day towards the brute.” Having uttered these words, the celestial messenger disappeared, and the stranger awoke.
The moon was still bright in the heavens, but he could not again close his eyes in sleep. The vision was too strongly impressed upon his waking senses to allow them to yield to the gentle solicitations of slumber. He arose, and watched the clear “pale planet,” through the trees, as it slowly marched towards the horizon to make way for the brighter dawn.
The dews fell heavily, and a thin silvery mist began to rise and invest every object with an ashy tint, as the moon gradually faded in its far descent behind the distant hills. The grey dawn at length broke slowly over the plain, but was not perceptible to the traveller’s eye until the valleys were flooded with the young dewy light. The mist had thickened. The leaves of the trees dripped with their liquid burthen, and every spot that was not protected by a mantle of thick foliage, presented a bloom of moisture from the atmosphere, that seemed tinted with hues from fairy-land. Each blade of grass curved under its watery load, bending its delicate neck as if proud to bear the pure deposit of the skies. Everything was clothed in the same soft drapery, which was shaken off by the morning breeze, when each object resumed its natural variety of hue, and harmonious conformity of light and shadow.
The traveller gathered together the leaves on which he had slept, kindled them, and taking a small cocoanut hookah from his wallet, smoked his chillam; then, making a scanty meal from the cold rice, refreshed himself with a draught of the dews which he had allowed to drip during the night into a plantain leaf doubled up in the form of a cup.
Although his repast was a spare one, it was taken with a pure relish, and having once more strapped his few articles of baggage upon his shoulders, he prepared to resume his journey; but first turning his face towards the holy city, he offered up his devotions with pious fervour, and supplicated the protection of Heaven through his wanderings.
As he pursued his solitary way through paths to which he was a perfect stranger, he could not help recalling the vision which had haunted his sleep. It had come so vividly before him that he more than half persuaded himself it must have been intended to be a direct revelation from Heaven, and yet, that a man without a name, without a home, a stranger in the land, should become the monarch of a powerful empire, seemed one of those impossibilities only to be dreamed of, but never realised.
To his calmer reflections, the night-vision appeared nothing more than the lively operation of a fancy excited by sleep, and which had been rendered the more keenly alive to impressions from certain peculiar coincidences of events that had deeply interested him, and from those reflex images presented in slumber in consequence of the strong feelings which those coincidences had awakened within him. Nevertheless, in spite of the apparent unreasonableness of the thing promised, the utter improbability of such an event taking place, and the force of his arguments upon the folly of harbouring such a thought, he could not expel from his mind the singular revelation of that night.