This letter was too tempting for Bajazet, and he eagerly seized the opportunity offered. It was indeed a fact that a subterranean way was made to his tent, but it was Tamerlan's workmen who constructed it! At midnight the hammering of the subterranean poleaxes let the Sultan know that his rescuing body of moles were coming! The earth gave way under his feet, and from a narrow passage human heads rose up from the earth before him. "Come!" whispered the head which ascended from the earth's depths. "Come!" And the Sultan followed the enticer, taking with him Maria and his son Muza. They could only proceed in bent form along the footpath, holding one another's hands. Finally the neck of the cavernous way became visible. The extreme end was the Bakery oven. When Bajazet was going to step out from the low opening, some one put out a hand to assist him, and when he emerged he who had given him a helping hand did not release his own. The Sultan looked at him. Timur Lenk stood before him!
"What! Is this your sovereign word?" he softly demanded of the terrified Bajazet.
The Sultan saw that he was trapped. Timur threw away his hand from him:
"This is not the hand of a Sovereign. It is the hand of a slave."
So saying, he turned away and left him to himself. Bajazet saw only the executioners before him, carrying chains and iron rods in their hands!
CHAPTER XIV
Timur was not an ordinarily cruel man—satisfied to be able to bathe himself in the blood and break the limbs of his opponents. He was a veritable poet and artist in mercilessness! He required poisoned arrows by which to strike his foes. He did not want to kill Bajazet, but he wanted to drive him mad. After this attempt at escape he had a cage made for him out of iron rods, wherein he caused him to be imprisoned, and he placed the cage on a car and had it drawn about the camp. A crier preceded this, pointing out with his pike this spectacle to the curious multitude.
"Here is a captive Sultan; a celebrated wild animal whose name is Bajazet, the King of Kings, the Padishah, the Master of the Seas and Earth, a crowned king who has got four hundred thousand soldiers, foot and horsemen. Look at the conqueror of the Round World! who is the only Master from East to West! He is in the cage!"
Ha! ha! ha! laughed the armed crowd gathered together. Bajazet sat mute and motionless inside the iron bars as though nothing could hurt his feelings. The crowd threw jibes and curses after him, and the youth threw oranges and walnuts into his cage as it is customary to do to monkeys. But Bajazet's face did not change. The crier now formed the idea of playing on the drum and cornet an air which evidently amused him, and which ended in the refrain "Do not let Szivasz fall, or your son be lost!" If anything could fill the captive's heart with bitter sorrow it was this song! Oh, had he only listened in time to this! Oh, if he had not in the days of his pride forbidden it to be blown by the shepherds of Izmid! Had he but only hastened in time to the rescue of his son Ertogrul, he would not then have had to listen to it from the cornet of this bear-dancer and buffoon, who now paraded a King in place of strange animals!
The fellow carried him away in his cage up to the hills where the heads of his heroes were piled up. On the summit of these piles were placed here and there the heads of leaders, whose turbans fluttered in the wind! Bajazet knew these faces too well! They were the heads of his most trusted veterans. He had frequently distinguished them for their services, and kissed their faces after victorious battles! Now they stared at him with glassy eyes from the top of these piles raised from the heads of his troops! After this buffoon had carried the Sovereign captive about the camp, he returned with him to Tamerlan. The Khan, his sons, and the vassal princes, the Khan's wives, and the slaves of the Court were taking part in a fête, and at the height of its amusement the gilded iron cage arrived with its sad captive. A vanquished Sultan brought thus before drunken slaves!