Tara: A Mahratta Tale

by Meadows Taylor

But that bright future was long past. The present was dark, uncertain, menacing. Had there been any one to listen, the bitter sob of the old Khan—a sob of exquisite pain as his thoughts alternated between the happy past and a gloomy future—might have been heard,—such pain as those alone can know whose affections and memories of the past arise most vividly to augment any new suffering that may be present. The years of happiness in his home, which might have been his lot had his wife been spared to him, rose to the mind of Afzool Khan as a sad mockery; for though the grave had long held her whose fair form seemed renewed before him, it appeared almost as if she were again present to him in all her beauty.

"Thou art a fair blossom. May God love thee! May the holy saints keep thee! May thy mother watch thee, my child!" murmured the Khan, as he bent over his sleeping daughter. "Even such was thy mother in those first days, as guileless and as beautiful. Nay, thou art but the copy, Zyna. And had she but lived to see thee and thy brother as ye are it would have been well. Yet why not well as it is?" he resumed after a pause; "surely Fate is good whatever it be. If my heart warns me of coming ill—nay, if he too be gone from me, well; he is with her, and the old man will soon follow, and there will be peace, peace, peace! Yet I would live still a little for thee, my child—only for thee! else the first shot or keen sword-cut were welcome to Afzool Khan."

So he thought and watched, and at times gently fanned his child with the papers in his hand that her sleep might be the lighter, and again resumed his occupation of reading. All was silent, but the night wind sighed mournfully through the open trelliswork of the window, and seemed rising; and as he listened, there were mutterings of a coming storm.

Opening one of the small casements, he looked out. The city was dark beneath him, and still; even the dogs seemed to have gone to sleep. Far distant, the wailing howls of a pack of jackals came upon his ear fitfully, and again ceased as the sound was blown away by the wind. Over the face of the sky the wild dark clouds were now hurrying ragidly along, disclosing here and there a star, which was again as instantly hidden. In the west, the horizon was black and threatening, and the edges of a heavy bank of cloud, now fast rising, pile over pile, were illumined like burnished silver, as lightning flashed rapidly through them, lighting up the city, and the bold domes and tall minarets of the mosques and mausoleums, with a sickly glare for an instant, to disappear as rapidly as a thought. One of the night-storms of the season was evidently approaching, and the cool fresh wind was grateful to the Khan, as he leaned forth and looked into the void of darkness abstractedly.

The papers he had been perusing had been the subject of consultation that day at the court between the King, his Secretary, and himself. They were reports from the governors of the west and north-west provinces—a country which Afzool Khan had governed some years before, and knew perfectly—and related to a growing disaffection and a rising spirit among the people of the mountain valleys, which could not be accounted for save by the intrigues and machinations of Sivaji Bhóslay and his adherents. Sivaji, as a restless youth, had before risen in petty insurrection, and had resisted small forces sent against him, but had renewed his fidelity to the State, and had been pardoned. Notwithstanding, however, he was believed to be active in evil designs; and report assigned to him constant communication and intrigue with the Moghul emperor Aurungzeeb, as well as endeavours, on his own account, to excite the people.

Afzool Khan was no indifferent spectator of these events. He was one of those who, with others of his rank, had received profuse promises from the Emperor during his first invasion of the kingdom; and though Aurungzeeb's intentions had not been finally declared, yet Afzool Khan knew that if he favoured his cause, even secretly, for the present, he was certain hereafter, should the Emperor prevail, of high rank and rewards far beyond those which he now possessed, and also that the weight and influence of a few men like himself would at once turn the scale against Beejapoor, which already trembled in the balance.

The Moghul party, he well knew, was strong in the city. Many who had been disappointed of court influence almost openly professed it: they had nothing to lose and everything to hope for. But there were others—like the prime-minister, Khan Mahomed, for instance—who, in the enjoyment of large estates, high commands, and immense wealth, still desired more; nay, even the partition of the kingdom, that they might hold what they possessed as independent princes.

Again, Aurungzeeb's zeal for the cause of his faith was a well-known element of his character. He was a strict Soonnee, who held the heretical belief of the Sheeas in hereditary hatred; and the sight of the noble domes of the mosques at Beejapoor filled him with a fervour of bigotry even stronger than the lust of territorial dominion, to subvert the royal house which held those detested tenets.

Afzool Khan was also an orthodox Soonnee. He looked with abomination upon the Sheea ceremonies at the great mosque. He could not join in prayer there, nor could he enter save with the certainty of being offended and insulted by the religious ceremonies of his King. It was equally certain that the doctrines he professed belonged to a strong party in the city, who on all possible occasions urged amalgamation of the country with the empire of Delhi, in order to insure the supremacy of their own creed. Yet he was true.