"Who, then, are these walking on the bank of the Danube?"
"Young girls," stammered the Beg.
"And those things spread out yonder."
"Wet linen."
"Dost thou not hear the songs of the girls?"
"Certainly I do."
"Look now, my master, what wonders there are beneath the sun!" said Azrael, turning towards Ha.s.san Pasha; "is it not marvellous that Yffim should see armies when there is nothing but pretty peasant girls?"
"Miracles proceed from Allah, but methinks Yffim Beg must have very bad sight to mistake maidens for men of war."
Yffim Beg durst not say to Ha.s.san Pasha that he also had bad sight; he might just as well have p.r.o.nounced his own death sentence at once.
Ha.s.san wanted to pretend to see all that his favourite damsel pointed out, and she proceeded to befool the pair of them most audaciously in the intimate persuasion that Ha.s.san would not betray the fact that he could not see, while Yffim Beg was afraid to contradict lest he should be saddled with that plaguy Transylvanian business.
Meanwhile, on the opposite bank, Feriz Beg in a sonorous voice was distributing his orders and making his tired battalions rest, galloping the while an Arab steed along the banks of the Danube. The odalisk followed every movement of the young hero with burning eyes.
"I love to hear the songs of these damsels; dost not thou also, my master?" she inquired of Ha.s.san.
"Oh, I do," he answered hastily.
"Wilt thou not sit down beside me here on the soft gra.s.s of the river bank?"
The Pasha sat down beside the odalisk, who, lying half in his bosom, with her arm round his neck, followed continually the movements of Feriz with sparkling eyes.
"Look, my master!" said she, pointing him out to Ha.s.san; "look at that slim, gentle damsel, prominent among all the others, walking on the river"s bank. Her eyes sparkle towards us like fire, her figure is lovelier than a slender flower. Ah! now she turns towards us! What a splendid, beauteous shape! Never have I seen anything so lovely. Why may I not embrace her--like a sister--why may I not say to her, as I say to thee, "I love thee, I live and die for thee?""
And with these words the odalisk pressed Ha.s.san to her bosom, covering his face with kisses at every word; and he, beside himself with rapture, saw everything which the girl told him of, never suspecting that those kisses, those embraces, were not for him but for a youth to whom his favourite damsel openly confessed her love beneath his very eyes!
And Yffim Beg, amazed, confounded, stood behind them, and shaking his head, bethought him of the words of Haji Baba, "Cast forth that devil, and beware lest she give you away!"
CHAPTER XI.
A STAR IN h.e.l.l.
Let the gentle shadows of night descend which guard them that sleep from the eyes of evil spectres! Let the weary errant bee rest in the fragrant chalice of the closed flower. Everything sleeps, all is quiet, only the stars and burning hearts are still awake.
What a gentle, mystical song resounds from among the willows, as of a nightingale endowed with a human voice in order to sing to the listening night in coherent rhymes the song of his love and his melancholy rapture. It is the poet Hariri whom, sword in hand, they call Feriz Beg, "The Lion of Combat," but who, when evening descends, and the noise and tumult of the camp are still, discards his coat of mail, puts on a light grey _burnush_, and, lute in hand, strolls through the listening groves and by the side of the murmuring streams and calls forth languishing songs from the depths of his heart and the strings of his lute, uninterrupted by the awakening appeals of the trumpet.
Many a pale maid opens her window to the night at the sound of these magic songs--and becomes all the paler from listening to them.
The eunuchs steal softly along the banks of the Margaret Island with their long muskets, and stop still and watch for any suspicious skiff drawing near to the island; and the most wakeful of them is old Majmun, who, even when he is asleep, has one eye open, and in happier times was the guardian of the harem. He sits down on a hillock, and even a carrier-pigeon with a letter under its wings could not have eluded his vigilance. He has only just arrived on the island, having previously accompanied Yffim Beg into Transylvania, and therefore has only seen Azrael once.
His eyes roam constantly around, and his sharp ears detect even the flight of a moth or a beetle, yet suddenly he feels--some one tapping him on the shoulder.
He turns terrified, and behold Azrael standing behind him.
"Accursed be that singing over yonder. I was listening to it, so did not hear thee approach. What dost thou want? Why dost thou come hither in the darkness of night? How didst thou escape from the harem?"
"I prythee be quiet!" said the odalisk. "This evening I went a-boating with my master, and a gold ring dropped from my finger into the water; it was a present from him, and if to-morrow he asks: "Where is that ornament?" and I cannot show it him, he will slay me. Oh, let me seek for it here in the water."
"Foolish damsel, the water here is deep; it will go over thy head, and thou wilt perish."
"I care not; I must look for it. I must find the ring, or lose my life for it."
And the odalisk said the words in such an agony of despair that the eunuch was quite touched by it.
"Thou shouldst entrust the matter to another."
"If only I could find someone who can dive under the water, I would give him three costly bracelets for it; I would give away all my treasures."
"I can dive," said Majmun, seized by avarice.
"Oh, descend then into the water for me," implored the damsel, falling on her knees before him and covering the h.o.r.n.y hand of the slave with her kisses. "But art thou not afraid of being suffocated? For then in the eyes of the governor I should be twice guilty."
"Fear not on my account. In my youth I was a pearl-fisher in the Indian Ocean, and I can remain under water and look about me like a fish, even at night, while thou dost count one hundred. Only show me the place where the ring fell from thy finger."
Azrael drew a pearl necklace from her arm and casting it into the water, pointed at the place where it fell.
"It was on the very spot where I have cast that; if thou dost fetch up both of them for me, the second one shall be thine."
Majmun perceived that this was not exactly a joke, and laying aside his garment and his weapon, bade the damsel look after them, and quickly slipped beneath the water.
In a few seconds the eunuch"s terrified face emerged above the water and he struck out for the sh.o.r.e with a horrified expression.
"This is an evil spot," said he; "at the bottom of the water is a heap of human heads."
"I know it," said the odalisk calmly.
The eunuch was puzzled. He gazed up at her, and was astounded to observe that in the place of the sensitive, supplicating figure so lately there, there now stood a haughty, awe-inspiring woman, who looked down upon him like a queen.
"Those heads there are the heads of thy comrades," said Azrael to the astounded eunuch, "whom last night and the preceding nights I asked to do me a service, which they refused to do. Next day I accused them to the governor and he instantly had their heads cut off without letting them speak."
"And what service didst thou require?"
"To swim to the opposite sh.o.r.e and give this bunch of flowers to that youth yonder."
"Ha! thou art a traitor."
"No such thing. All I ask of thee is this: dost thou hear those songs in that grove yonder? Very well, swim thither and give him this posy. If thou dost not, thy head also will be under the water among the heap of the others. But if thou dost oblige me I will make thee rich for the remainder of thy life. It is in thine own power to choose whether thou wilt live happily or die miserably."