Halil Patrona was sitting on the balcony of the palace which the Sultan and the favour of the people had bestowed upon him. The sun was about to set. It sparkled on the watery mirror of the Golden Horn, hundreds and hundreds of brightly gleaming flags and sails flapped and fluttered in the evening breeze.
Gul-Bejaze was lying beside him on an ottoman, her beautiful head, with a feeling of languid bliss, reposed on her husband"s bosom, her long eyelashes drooping, whilst with her swan-like arms she encircled his neck. She dozes away now and then, but the warm throb-throb of the strong heart which makes her husband"s breast to rise and fall continually arouses her again. Halil Patrona is reading in a big clasped book beautifully written in the ornamental Talik script. Gul-Bejaze does not know this writing; its signs are quite strange to her, but she feasts her delighted eyes on the beautifully painted festoons and lilies and the variegated birds with which the initial letters are embellished, and scarce observes what a black shadow those pretty gaily coloured, b.u.t.terfly-like letters cast upon Halil"s face.
"What is the book thou art reading?" inquired Gul-Bejaze.
"Fairy tales and magic sentences," replied Patrona.
"Is it there that thou readest all those nice stories which thou tellest me every evening?"
"Yes, they are here."
"Tell me, I pray thee, what thou hast just been reading?"
"When thou art quite awake," said Halil, rapturously gazing at the fair face of the girl who was sleeping in his arms--and he continued turning over the leaves of the book.
And what then was in it? What did those brightly coloured letters contain? What was the name of the book?
That book is the "Takimi Vekai."
Ah! ask not a Mussulman what the "Takimi Vekai" is, else wilt thou make him sorrowful; neither mention it before a Mohammedan woman, else the tears will gush from her eyes. The "Takimi Vekai" is "The Book of the Sentences of the Future," which was written a century and a half ago by Said Achmed-ibn Mustafa, and which has since been preserved in the Muhamedije mosque, only those high in authority ever having the opportunity of seeing it face to face.
Those golden letters embellished with splendid flowers contain dark sayings. Let us listen:
"Takimi Vekai"--The Pages of the Future.
"On the eighth-and-twentieth day of the month Rubi-Estani, in the year of the Hegira, 886,[3] I, Said Achmed-ibn Mustafa, Governor of Scutari and scribe of the Palace, having accomplished the Abdestan[4] and recited the Fateha[5] with hands raised heavenwards, ascended to the tower of Ujuk Kule, from whence I could survey all Stambul, and there I began to meditate.
"And lo! the Prophet appeared before me, and breathed upon my eyes and ears in order that I might see and hear nothing but what he commanded me to hear and see.
"And I wrote down those things which the Prophet said to me.
"The Giaours already see the tents of the foreign hosts pitched on the Tsiragan piazza, already see the half-moon cast down, and the double cross raised on the towers of the mosques, the khanze[6] plundered, and the faithful led forth to execution. In the Fanar quarters[7] they are already a.s.sembling the people, and saying to one another: "To-morrow!
to-morrow!"
"Yet Allah is the G.o.d who defends the Padishah of the Ottomans. Their Odzhakjaiks[8] will scatter terror. Allah Akbar! G.o.d is mighty!
"And the captains of the galleys, and the rowers thereof, and the chief of the gunners, and the corsairs of the swift ships will share with one another the treasures and the spoils of the unbelievers.
"And the Padishah shall rule over thirteen nations.
"But lo! a dark cloud arises in the cold and distant North. A foe appears more terrible and persistent than the Magyars, the Venetians, or the Persians. He is still tender like the fledgelings of the hawks of the Balkans, but soon, very soon, he will learn to spread his pinions.
Up, up, Silihdar Aga, the Sultan"s Sword-bearer! Up, up, Rechenbtar Aga, the Sultan"s Stirrup-holder; up, up, and do your duty. And ye viziers, a.s.semble the reserves. Those men who come from the land where the pines and firs raise their virgin branches towards Heaven, they long after the warm climates where the olive, the lestisk, the terebinth, and the palm lift their crowns towards Heaven. The fathers point out Stambul to their sons, they point it out as the booty that will give them sustenance; tender women lay their hands upon the sword to use it against the Osmanli, and will fight like heroes. Yet the days of the Sons of the Prophet will not yet come to an end; they will resist the enemy, and stand fast like a Salamander in the midst of the burning embers.
"The years pa.s.s over the world, again the Giaours a.s.semble in their myriads and threaten vengeance. But the Divan answers them: "Olmaz!"--it cannot be. The Anatolian and the Rumelian lighthouses, at the entrance of the Bosphorus, will signal from their watch-towers the approach of the foreign war-ships.
"But this shall be much later, after three-and-twenty Padishahs have ruled over the thirteen nations; then and not till then will the armies of the Unbelievers a.s.semble before Stambul. Woe, woe unto us! Eternally invincible should the Osmanlis remain if they walked, with firm footsteps, according to the commands of the Koran. But a time will come when the old customs will fall into oblivion, when new ways will creep in among Mussulmen like a rattlesnake crawling into a bed of roses.
Faith will no longer give strength against those men of ice, and they will enter the nine-and-twenty gates of the seven-hilled city.
"Lo! this did the Prophet reveal to me in the season of El-Ashsor, beginning at the time of sundown.
"Allah give his blessing to the rulers of this world."
Thus ran the message of the "Takimi Vekai."
Halil Patrona had read these lines over and over again until he knew every letter of them by heart. They were continually in his thoughts, in his dreams, and the eternally recurring tumult of these anxious bodings allowed his soul no rest. What if it were possible to falsify this prophecy! What if his strong hand could but stay the flying wheel of Fate in mid career, hold it fast, and turn it in a different direction!
so that what was written in the Book of Thora before Sun and Moon were ever yet created might be expunged therefrom, and the guardian angels be compelled to write other things in place thereof!
But such an idea ill befits a Mussulman; it is not the mental expression of that pious resignation with which the Mohammedan fortifies himself against the future, submissive as he is to the decrees of Fate, with never a thought of striving against the Powers of Omnipotence with a mortal hand. Ambitious, world-disturbing were the thoughts which ran riot in the brain of Halil Patrona--thoughts meet for no mere mortal.
Poor indeed are the thoughts of man. He piles world upon world, and sets about building for the ages, and then a light breath of air strikes upon that which he has built and it becomes dust. Wherefore, then, does man take thought for the morrow?
The night slowly descended, the glow of the southern sky grew ever paler on the half-moons of the minarets, till they grew gradually quite dark and the cry of the muezzin resounded from the towers of the mosques.
"Allah Kerim! Allah Akbar! La illah il Allah, Mohammed rasul Allah! G.o.d is sublime. G.o.d is mighty. There is one G.o.d and Mohammed is his Prophet."
And after a few moments he called again:
"Come, ye people, to the rest of G.o.d, to the abode of righteousness; come to the abode of felicity!"
Gul-Bejaze awoke. Halil washed his hands and feet, and turning towards the mehrab[9] began to pray.
But in vain he sent away Gul-Bejaze (for women are not permitted to be present at the prayers of men nor men at the prayers of women); in vain he raised his hands heavenwards; in vain he went down on his knees and lay with his face touching the ground; other thoughts were abroad in his heart--terrifying, disturbing thoughts which suggested to him that the G.o.d to Whom he prayed no longer existed, but just as His Kingdom here on earth was falling to pieces so also in Heaven it was on the point of vanishing. Thrice he was obliged to begin his prayer all over again, for thrice it was interrupted by a cough, and it is not lawful to go on with a prayer that has once been interrupted. Once more he cast a glance upon the darkened city, and it grieved him sorely that nowhere could he perceive a half-moon; whereupon he went in again, sought for Gul-Bejaze, and told her lovely fairy tales which, he pretended, he had been reading in the Talik book.
The next day Halil gathered together in his secret chamber all those in whom he had confidence. Among them were Kaplan Giraj, a kinsman of the Khan of the Crimea, Musli, old Vuodi, Mohammed the dervish, and Sulali.
Sulali wrote down what Halil said.
"Mussulmans. Yesterday, before the Abdestan, I was reading the book whose name is the "Takimi Vekai.""
"Mashallah!" exclaimed all the Mohammedans mournfully.
"In that book the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire is predicted. The year, the day is at hand when the name of Allah will no longer be glorified on this earth, when the tinkling of the sheep-bells will be heard on the ruins of the marble fountains, and those other bells so hateful to Allah will resound from the towers of the minarets. In those days the Giaours will play at quoits with the heads of the true believers, and build mansions over their tombs."
"Mashallah! the will of G.o.d be done!" said old dervish Mohammed with a shaking voice, "by then we shall all of us be in Paradise, up in the seventh Heaven, the soil whereof is of pure starch, ambergris, musk, and saffron. There, too, the very stones are jacinths and the pebbles pure pearls, and the Tuba-tree shields the faithful from the heat of the sun, as they rest beneath it and gaze up at its golden flowers and silver leaves, and refresh themselves with the milk, wine, and honey which flow abundantly from its sweet and glorious stem. There, too, are the dwellings of Mohammed and the Prophets his predecessors, in all their indescribable beauty, and over the roof of every true believer bend the branches of the sacred tree, whose fruits never fail, nor wither, nor rot, and there we shall all live together in the splendour of Paradise where every true believer shall have a palace of his own. And in every palace two-and-seventy lovely houris will smile upon him--young virgins of an immortal loveliness--whose faces will never grow old or wrinkled, and who are a hundred times more affectionate than the women of this world."
Halil listened with the utmost composure till greybeard Vuodi had delivered his discourse concerning the joys of Paradise.
"All that you say is very pretty and very true no doubt, but let your mind also dwell upon what the Prophet has revealed to us concerning the distribution of rewards and punishments. When the angel Azrael has gently separated our souls from our bodies, and we have been buried with the double tombstone at our heads, on which is written: "Dame Allah huti ale Remaeti,"[10] then will come to us the two Angels of Judgment, Monker and Nakir. And they will ask us if we have fulfilled the precepts of the Prophet. What shall our trembling lips reply to them? And when they ask us whether we have defended the true faith, whether we have defended our Fatherland against the Infidels, what shall we then reply to them? Blessed, indeed, will be those who can answer: "I have done all which it was commanded me to do," their spirits will await the final judgment in the cool abodes of the Well of Ishmael. But as for those who shall answer: "I saw the danger which threatened the Osmanli nation, it was in my power to help and I did it not," their bodies will be scourged by the angels with iron rods and their souls will be thrust into the abyss of Morhut there to await the judgment-day. And when the trump of the angel Israfil shall sound and the Marvel from the Mountain of Safa doth appear to write "Mumen"[11] or "Giaour"[12] on the foreheads of mankind; and when Al-Dallaja[13] comes to root out the nation of the Osmanli, and the hosts of Gog and Magog appear to exterminate the Christians, and drink up the waters of the rivers, and at the last all things perish before the Mahdi; then when the mountains are rent asunder and the stars fall from Heaven, when the archangels Michael and Gabriel open the tombs and bring forth the trembling, death-pale shapes, one by one, before the face of Allah, and they all stand there as transparent as crystal so that every thought of their hearts is visible--what then will you answer, you in whose power it once stood to uphold the dominion of Mahomet, you to whom it was given to have swords in your hands and ideas in your heads to be used in its defence--what will you answer, I say, when you hear the brazen voice cry: "Ye who saw destruction coming, did ye try to prevent it?" What will it profit you then, old Vuodi and ye others, to say that ye never neglected the Abdestan, the Guzul, and the Thuharet ablutions, nor the five prayers of the Namazat, that ye have kept the fast of Ramazan and the feast of Bejram, that ye have richly distributed the Zakato[14] and the Sadakato,[15] that you have made the pilgrimage to the Kaaba at Mecca so many times, or so many times, that you have kissed the sin-remitting black stone, that you have drunk from the well of Zemzem and seven times made the circuit of the mountain of Arafat and flung stones at the Devil in the valley of Dsemre--what will it profit you, I say, if you cannot answer that question? Woe to you, woe to everyone of us who see, who hear, and yet go on dreaming! For when we tread the Bridge of Alshirat, across whose razor-sharp edge every true believer must pa.s.s on his way to Paradise, the load of a single sin will drag you down into the abyss, down into h.e.l.l, and not even into the first h.e.l.l, Gehenna, where the faithful do penance, nor into the h.e.l.l of Ladhana, where the souls of the Jews are purified, nor into the h.e.l.l of Hotama wherein the Christians perish, nor into the h.e.l.l of Sair which is the abode of the Heretics, nor into the h.e.l.l of Sakar wherein the fire-worshippers curse the fire, nor yet into the h.e.l.l of Jahim which resounds with the yells of the idol-worshippers, but into the seventh h.e.l.l, the deepest and most accursed h.e.l.l of all, whose name is Al-Havija, where wallow those who only did G.o.d lip-service and never felt the faith in their hearts, for we pray lying prayers when we say that we worship Allah and yet allow His Temple to be defiled."
These words deeply moved the hearts of all present. Every sentence alluded to the most weighty of the Moslem beliefs; the meshes of the net with which Halil had taken their souls captive were composed of the very essentials of their religious and political system, so they could but put their hands to their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, bow down before him, and say:
"Command us and we will obey!"
Then Halil, with the inspiration of a seer, addressed the men before him.
"Woe to us if we believe that the days of threatening are still far off!
Woe to us if we believe that the sins which will ruin the nation of Osman have not yet been committed! While our ancestors dwelt in tents of skin, half the world feared our name, but since the nation of Osman has strutted about in silk and velvet it has become a laughing-stock to its enemies. Our great men grow gardens in their palaces; they pa.s.s their days in the embraces of women, drinking wine, and listening to music; they loathe the battlefield, and oh, horrible! they blaspheme the name of Allah. If among the Giaours, blasphemers of G.o.d are to be found, I marvel not thereat, for their minds are corrupted by the mult.i.tude of this world"s knowledge; but how can a Mussulman raise his head against G.o.d--a Mussulman who has never learnt anything in his life save to glorify His Name? And what are we to think when on the eve of the Feast of Halwet we hear a Sheik, a descendant of the family of the Prophet, a Sheik before whom the people bow reverently when they meet him in the street--what are we to think, I say, when we hear this Sheik say before the great men of the palace all drunk with wine: "There is no Allah, or if there is an Allah he is not almighty; for if he were almighty he would have prevented me from saying, there is no Allah!""
A cry of horror arose from the a.s.sembled Mussulmans which only after a while died away in an angry murmur like a gradually departing gust of wind.