“I have done my duty, and if that is not consistent with the station to which a criminal partiality has advanced me, I am ready again to become the slave of the Sultana, instead of her Ameer-ool-Omrah. I courted not the distinction, and will never maintain it at the price of my virtue.”
The eye of Ruzeea Begum flashed fire.
“Slave!” she cried, “thy virtue is but the mask of hypocrisy. There is the cause of all thy disloyalty;” and she pointed with a quivering lip towards Bameea,—“there is the rebel who has seduced thee from thy allegiance; but there shall come a day of retribution—a day of vengeance—and remember that the revenge of monarchs is not the sudden irruption of the whirlwind, but the wide-spreading devastation of the hurricane.”
Bameea shrieked as she heard this fearful denouncement, and buried her brows in her small delicate hands.
“Bear her from my sight,” said the angry Queen: “henceforward I dispense with her services. But you,” turning to the Abyssinian, who stood before her in the same attitude of unruffled self-possession—“you may look for punishment when you least expect it. You have many enemies, and yet fancy yourself secure in the supremacy of your own valour; nevertheless, though you possessed the bravery of our holy prophet, and were endowed with a supernatural power of locomotion, there is no spot upon earth or in heaven where the vengeance of an insulted queen would not reach you.”
“Hear me, before I quit your presence for the last time,” said Yakoot, solemnly. “I am threatened with your vengeance; it is right I should tell you that I shall do my best to anticipate and to repel it, whenever and wherever it may appear. From this moment I revoke my vows of fealty to the daughter of Shums-ood-Deen. When monarchs become tyrants, from that instant they cease to be accredited sovereigns, and lose all right to the allegiance of good men. Had I forfeited my claim to your respect by an act dishonourable to my name or title, I were content to suffer the heaviest penalty which human laws award to human offences; but, as my integrity has remained untarnished in your service, I feel that you have now heaped upon me a wrong of which I am not deserving, and from this moment I quit your presence as a foe.”
The Sultana was silent; she dared not speak lest the current of her rage should burst forth into a torrent, and the Abyssinian retired from her presence with an unruffled brow.
That night he was passing towards his home, without a guard and unarmed. The street was dark and narrow. Towards the end there was a ruin used for the purposes of stalling cattle, where all the homeless and vagrant of the city congregated. He passed the ruin, but saw not a human soul, nor heard a sound. Musing upon the unpleasant occurrences of the morning, he walked leisurely onward. His heart was stirred to a quicker pulsation as he reflected upon what his beloved Bameea might undergo from the criminal jealousy of her royal mistress. On passing a house supported by a projecting buttress, the drapery of his loose dress caught in a fractured stone, and his progress was thus for the instant impeded. As he stopped, he fancied he heard the stealthy sound of footsteps, and, turning round, soon perceived three figures at a short distance cautiously approaching. They paused when they saw that he no longer advanced. The recollection of the Sultana’s threat immediately struck upon his memory like a flash of light. There was something so sinister in the movements of the three men that determined him to be upon his guard. He placed his back against the wall, having his left side protected by the projecting buttress. The men advanced, and upon reaching the place where the Ameer-ool-Omrah was stationed, sprang upon him simultaneously, and attempted to pierce him with their daggers. With a sweep of his muscular arm he levelled two of them to the earth, and raising his foot, impelled it with such quickness and force against the body of the third that he fell senseless. One of the assailants who had been struck down was almost instantly on his legs, and rushed forward with his dagger raised to strike; but, stumbling over his prostrate companion, the Abyssinian caught him in his arms, lifted him like a cushion in the air, and dashing him on the ground, left him there stunned. Releasing the weapon from the grasp of his fallen foe, he approached the other man who had been first prostrated by the sweep of his arm; buried in his heart the instrument with which he had just armed himself; and taking their turbans from the heads of the other two assassins, bound their hands and feet together, and in this painful situation left them to the charities of the casual passenger.
Next morning, the report of a man having been murdered spread through the city, and the two individuals, who were found tied by the wrists and ankles, having been examined, feared to fix the charge upon their intended victim, lest it should lead to a discovery of their criminal assault; but, whilst they were under examination, to their astonishment the Abyssinian appeared before their judge, and detailed all the circumstances of the attack made upon him by the prisoners, and how he baffled them in their murderous design. They were immediately led forth to execution, lest they should betray who had employed them. Suspicion fixed upon the Sultana; but, as she did not interpose her authority to rescue the assassins from death, the suspicions of the many were silenced, though they were still harboured by the few, as it is too common a practice for tyrants to abandon their instruments when failure has laid them open to the chance of discovery.
The Queen affected great concern at what had occurred, and sent a messenger to Yakoot to congratulate him upon his escape from the murderous assault of his foes. He received her deputy with cold formality, but did not even return a message. She was outrageous at her condescension, being so openly slighted by a slave, as she still called the man whom her own voice had declared free, and whom she had raised to the dignity of Ameer-ool-Omrah. The smothered flame did not immediately burst forth, but, while it smouldered, gathered strength for a fiercer conflagration.