“Well done! Bind him tightly with the old Persian. If Beltrezzor’s ransom does not arrive by sunrise, we will make way with them both together.”
My uncle had betrayed me into the hands of the Ish[pg 45]maelite to be murdered. There could be no doubt that the atrocious assassin had taken every precaution to prevent escape or failure. Resistance was impossible. There were four men in sight, either one of whom could have overpowered me in a moment. My heart sank in despair when my guide led me behind the tent, and bound me securely to a little tree, without evincing the least remorse or care at his own part in this shameful and cowardly transaction.
I now surveyed my fellow-prisoner, who was tied to another tree close to me. His gray hair and beard showed that he had passed considerably beyond the meridian of life. He had a serene and rather handsome face, full of thought and benevolence. Young and inexperienced as I was, I perceived by a kind of intuition that my companion in distress was a cultivated and superior man. He wore a rich Eastern robe and a bright-colored turban. He was smoking a long pipe curiously carved and twisted. He surveyed me quietly and nodded kindly to me, evidently pitying my childish terror and despair.
“We shall be murdered to-morrow!” I gasped.
“I learned a proverb in India,” said the old man. “Brahma writes the destiny of every one on his skull. No man can read it”—and watching his smoke fade into air, he slowly continued, “and even the gods cannot avert it.”
I was astonished at his coolness; but his fatalism did not console me.
“To die—to die!—to leave my poor sisters unprotected and to see them no more—Oh, it is horrible!”
“Not to be,” said the Persian, in a voice of singular [pg 46]depth and sweetness, “not to be is better than to be; and not to have been is better than all.”
In spite of myself and my fears, the calm and almost spiritual halo which seemed to surround this strange old man, began to quiet my agitation and to divert my thoughts from my impending fate.
“Are you a philosopher?” said I.