Volume Three—Chapter Two.
Deep was the grief of Ina when she saw her beloved father and brother depart for the scene of conflict, nor could her heart refrain from sad forebodings when she thought of the dangers to which they must be exposed. Too often had she been witness to the misery and heart-rending wailing of her countrywomen, when anxiously expecting a father, a husband, or a brother, as they met in lieu the mangled remains of the loved one brought home on a bloody bier by his comrades. Such grief she herself had never known; but she felt too clearly that horrors like those might be in store, too, for her; nor could the fierce blast of war, which raged round the land, steel her heart.
Zara did all in her power to tranquillise and cheer her friend under her affliction; but too well could she also enter into and share her fears, for she had seen her gallant father brought home stiff and cold on his shield, slaughtered by the foe in repelling an inroad into his country. That father was the last prop of her grandsire’s declining years; and hopelessly for him had the old man mourned, for he had now no warrior descendant to succeed to his name and possessions, and none to guard his child from danger. At his death the disposal of Zara in marriage would devolve on the eldest of his tribe, and they would not inquire if her heart could be given with her person. Her destiny, therefore, might be a cruel one. A new chief would be chosen to lead the clan to battle, and, in peace, to preside at their councils, and poor Zara might be neglected.
Such was the fair girl’s account of herself; and thus the two friends, by pouring their griefs into each other’s bosom, found mutual consolation. She confessed, indeed, that there was one whom she hoped might win her, and whom she thought loved her; but he had no wealth, and as yet had little renown in arms. Yet she whispered to her friend’s ear, that she fondly loved the gallant young Alp, though she had enjoyed but few opportunities of meeting him.
The aged Prince, Aitek Tcherei, having warmly embraced the tenets of Mahomet, the two maidens were more strictly secluded than Ina had been accustomed to; the old Ana, or nurse, who presided over the domestic arrangements of the anderoon, keeping a constant and vigilant watch upon them. Though the custom of the country would not allow of their being limited to the same strict seclusion as in a Turkish harem, the nurse was, nevertheless, horrified at the idea of Ina’s appealing in public without her face being entirely shrouded by a thick veil, nor did she at all approve of her propensity to ramble through the groves, or amid the shadowy cliffs.
The old Kahija’s ideas of female happiness did not extend beyond the acquisition of a new veil or robe, or, more than all, the enjoyment of a gossip. What pleasure could the girls find in scrambling over the dirty mountains and damp grass? or why should they dance or sing, except to please their lords and masters, when other persons are paid to dance and sing to them?
Her parents had sold her, when young and promising great beauty, to a Turkish slave-merchant; and it was with unalloyed pleasure, in anticipation of the novelty and magnificence of the great Stamboul, that she leaped on board the vessel which was to convey her from her friends and country. At first she herself felt the irksomeness of constraint; but soon became reconciled to her self-chosen lot, and learned to approve of all the regulations of the harem to which she was consigned. Her notions, therefore, on her return, at the death of her master, to her own country, were much scandalised at the freedom and what she considered the levity of her young countrywomen; and she loved to expatiate on the superior manners and customs of the fair captives in the seclusions of Stamboul. Like other dames, who find that their charms can no longer captivate, her temper at times became rather cross and crabbed, though she always tried to treat her young motherless charge with kindness.
Such was the old Ana, Kahija, who, wrapped in her feridji, now entered the anderoon to interrupt with her gossip the conversation of the two maidens. She delighted in gossiping—what old nurse does not? particularly a Turkish one. She now came out of breath, with her exertion of walking from a neighbouring cottage, to say with great eagerness, that the chief shepherd had just come in from the distant mountains, where he had seen the dark mountain khan, Khoros Kaloret, whose brother had turned traitor, and been killed by the young chief Selem, galloping by with a long train of savage followers, who were riding furiously in the direction of the Ubin.