Chapter V: Part 5

The game began, and the Mamelukes galloped in succession at the wooden head with their long spears, some carrying it off, and the greater number missing it; and while they were thus employed Hassan entered the arena from the stable entrance mounted on Shèitan. Whether it was that the latter had been left unexercised the preceding day, or that he was excited by the crowd and the galloping and neighing of strange horses, certain it is that his behaviour seemed much more to justify Delì Pasha’s caution than Hassan’s good report. He reared, he plunged, he shook his long mane, and every now and then he bounded into the air as if maddened by anger or excitement. Hassan sat easy and unconcerned, and his usual good-natured smile played over his lips as he patted the horse’s neck and said—

“Shèitan, you are playful this morning.”

“Mashallah! what a noble horseman is that Mameluke of yours!” exclaimed the Kiahia, addressing Delì Pasha; “where is he from?”

“He is not a Mameluke,” replied Delì Pasha; “he is my _khaznadâr_, lately arrived. He was brought up among the Bedouins; in a room he is as quiet and still as a cat, but on a horse he is as mad as the animal he is now riding,” and as he spoke he shouted aloud to Hassan to come under the verandah.

In a second Hassan’s stirrup touched the flank of Shèitan, who bounded into the air, and then came at full speed to within a few yards of the house, when he stopped dead short, while Hassan looked up to inquire the orders of his chief.

“Hassan,” said Delì Pasha, “I told you that it would be impossible for you to play at these games on the back of that wild, unruly beast; had you not better change it for one more manageable? You may ride one of mine if you will.”

“Bakkalum [we shall see], my lord,” was Hassan’s only reply, and wheeling his horse, he charged in full career at the head on the post. Lowering his lance as he approached, he struck the head so full in the centre that the point of the lance entered several inches into the wood, and there it remained, while Hassan, galloping round the arena, came again under the verandah, and, holding up his lance, presented the head, still fixed on it, to Delì Pasha.

“Aferin! [bravo! bravo!] my son!” said the old Pasha, and it was echoed by many a surrounding voice.

The post was now taken away, and the lists were prepared for the jereed. The Mamelukes divided themselves into parties preparatory to the mimic fight, which was indeed nothing more than a succession of single combats. In the centre of the arena were a score of active _sàises_, or grooms on foot, whose duty it was to pick up the jereeds as they fell and hand them to the mounted combatants.

At this moment Osman Bey, Delì Pasha’s wakeel, who thought the preceding game beneath his dignity, entered the arena, followed by several of his Mamelukes. He was dressed in a rich costume which was well calculated to show off the proportions of his strong and muscular figure, and mounted on a grey Arab, which for the first two years of its life had been fed on camels’ milk in the deserts of the Nejd, and though not remarkable for size, was compactly and beautifully proportioned. Osman Aga was a practised horseman—firm in the saddle, strong in the arm, and proud of the reputation that he had gained in the mimic combats of the jereed. With a grave salute to the Kiahia and Delì Pasha, he took his place at the centre of one side of the arena, and the game began.

While Osman Bey and the elder Mamelukes engaged each other in a succession of these trials of skill and speed, Hassan hovered on the outskirts of the combatants, at some distance from the house, apparently engaged in repelling the attacks of half-a-dozen of the youngest of the Mamelukes of Delì Pasha’s household. He was a general favourite with these lads, for whom he had on all occasions a kind word and a good-humoured smile, and the merry youngsters well knew that however they might pursue and torment him with their jereeds, they had no reason to fear his putting out his strength to injure them in repelling their attacks. Thus one would call out to him, “Hassan! Hassan!” and charge him at full speed on the right; and scarcely had he time to catch or avoid the jereed ere another attacked him with similar shouts on the left. Some of them struck him more than one smart blow on the shoulder with a jereed, and they shouted and laughed, while Hassan joined in their merriment.

But it was not only to play with these merry youths that Hassan had withdrawn to a part of the ground at some distance from the place where the older combatants were engaged. His quick eye, which ever and anon roved to a certain lattice high up in the adjoining building, had detected that it was partially opened, and revealed to him half of the lovely face ever in his thoughts peeping out upon the arena; he believed that those eyes followed his movements, and he availed himself of every opportunity, when he could do so unnoticed, to cast an upward glance to meet them. But he was not destined to remain long without more serious employment, for several of the older and more experienced of the combatants in turn challenged him, by shouting his name and charging him at full speed. The first was his friend Ahmed Aga, whose jereed passed close over his back without touching him.

Hassan pursued him in turn, and, pretending to use much force, struck him lightly on the shoulder; next he was charged by the chief of the Kiahia Pasha’s Mamelukes—a very handsome Georgian, and the only one who had this day interchanged several bouts with Osman Bey with nearly equal success.

Hassan prepared for this encounter with more caution. On the charge of his opponent he fled (as is the custom of the game) at full speed, looking back over his shoulder. The Georgian threw his jereed with faultless aim, when Hassan, instead of avoiding, caught it in the air, and, wheeling suddenly, pursued the Georgian, and struck him on the back with his own jereed. This feat, which is one of the most difficult of those practised in the game, elicited a loud “Aferin!” from Delì Pasha.

Osman Bey no sooner heard it than, fired by spite and jealousy, he shook his jereed in the air, shouted the name of Hassan, and bore down upon him at the full speed of his high-mettled Arab. Hassan had barely time to avoid the charge by wheeling Shèitan and striking the spurs into his flanks. Still over his shoulder he watched every movement of his pursuer. At length the Bey’s jereed sped through the air with unerring aim; every one thought that Hassan was fairly hit, but he had thrown himself suddenly over the right side of his horse, hanging only by the left leg on the saddle, and the jereed passed harmlessly over him. Recovering himself instantaneously, he now pursued in turn, and his jereed struck Osman Bey fairly on the shoulder. The bout being over, Hassan was cantering leisurely away, when the Bey, goaded to madness at having been defeated by one whom he considered a boy, galloped again after him, and hurled a jereed with all his force at Hassan’s head.

Hassan, hearing a horse approaching at full speed from behind, had just turned his head to see what it might be, when the jereed flew past him. The movement had saved him from a serious blow, but the stick grazed the edge of his cheek and drew blood as it passed. A loud shout broke from Delì Pasha, “Foul, foul! shame, shame!”[58]

All the fire that slumbered in Hassan’s impetuous nature was kindled by this cowardly outrage. Forgetting the rank of his opponent, and every other consideration but revenging the blow he had received, he snatched a jereed from the hand of a _sàis_ standing by. Striking his sharp spurs into the flanks of Shèitan, he pursued his adversary with such terrific speed that even the grey Arab could not carry its rider out of his reach. Rising in his stirrups, he threw the jereed with all his force, and it struck the Bey full in the back, just between the shoulder-blades. The blow sounded over the whole arena, and having taken effect just in that part of the back which is nearest to the action of the lungs, the unfortunate Bey’s breath was for the time totally suspended. He seemed paralysed, and after swaying backwards and forwards for a few seconds in the saddle, fell heavily to the ground. Had not his docile Arab stopped immediately beside him, his hurts would probably have been much more serious.

After a few minutes, during which water was thrown in the Bey’s face by his Mamelukes, he recovered the power of speech; but he was still faint and weak, and after casting on Hassan a look of concentrated, inextinguishable hate, he withdrew, supported by his servants, from the ground. This accident occurring to a man of such high rank, and universally feared, broke up the sports for the day.

“I am sorry for it,” said Delì Pasha, addressing Mr Thorpe; “but Hassan was perfectly justified, and Osman Bey only got what he deserved.”

The spectators and combatants were gathered into little knots and groups, all uttering similar sentiments, and some adding, “This is an unlucky thing for Hassan—Osman Bey never forgives—’tis a brave youth, but the cup of coffee or the dagger will be his fate.”[59]

After the breaking up of the games, Hassan, having given over Shèitan to the groom to be taken to the stable, before he re-entered the house cast a furtive glance upward at the well-known lattice in the harem. This time he could not be mistaken—a white forehead and dark lustrous eyes were certainly visible at the curtained aperture, but they were hastily and timidly withdrawn when they encountered his eager glance.

“’Tis she—’tis the star of my destiny—the life-blood of my heart,” said Hassan to himself, “whoever and whatever she may be. Well! she has this day seen that, humble and unknown as I am, the proudest bey in Egypt shall not insult me with impunity.” And he strode into the house so completely occupied with dreams of the future that he nearly ran against Ahmed Aga, who was coming to tell him that the Pasha had sent for him. On reaching the upper room where they were assembled, the Kiahia Pasha paid him so many compliments on his uncontested superiority over all his competitors that Hassan looked quite confused; indeed, he had been so much taken up with other thoughts that he had not been aware, until Delì Pasha called his attention to the fact, that the blood was still trickling from the wound he had received in his cheek.

“It is nothing,” said Hassan, smiling, and applying his handkerchief carelessly to it. “I hope Osman Bey’s back will suffer as little.”

“Hassan,” said Delì Pasha, addressing our hero, “the Kiahia informs me that in the course of a day or two our English guests are going to pay a visit to the Pyramids, and that he sends with them a guard of fifty horsemen. They have expressed a desire that you should join their party, as you are already old acquaintances. If you wish to do so, you have my full permission.”

Hassan accepted the invitation readily, for, notwithstanding the latticed window, from which it was difficult to tear himself away, he had an undefined longing to visit a spot connected with his earliest years and the mystery of his birth.

After the departure of the Kiahia and the Thorpe party, Delì Pasha detained Hassan alone and said to him—

“This is a bad business, Hassan; Osman Bey is now your enemy, and he is a dangerous man. I will tell you something of his life. Years ago, when he was in charge of some money to pay the troops, Mohammed Ali discovered that he had appropriated a portion of it to his own use, and forthwith caused him to be severely beaten and thrown into prison; after his release he accompanied Ibrahim Pasha to the war against the Wahabees, where he gained a high reputation—for, to give him his due, he is a good soldier—and regained his Highness’s favour. Since then Mohammed Ali, whose habit is to raise up those whom he has disgraced,[60] has made him a bey, and treated him with much regard. Now he is named to be my wakeel or vice-governor at Siout, and as I know him to be a cruel and revengeful man, I fear he will find some opportunity of doing you an injury.”

“I fear him not,” said Hassan boldly. “I have nothing to do with him; I serve your Excellency, and if he seeks a quarrel with me, let him do so; I am ready.”

“He will not seek a quarrel with you,” said Delì Pasha, smiling at Hassan’s simplicity. “Have you heard of calumny and slander? Have you heard of poison in a cup of coffee? Have you heard of stabbing in the dark? These are the weapons that great men in Egypt use when they wish to get rid of one whom they hate.”

“I fear him not,” repeated Hassan with the same frank boldness. “My life is in the hand of Allah, and neither Osman Bey nor any other man can take it until the predestined day arrives. Let him try his treacherous schemes if he will, he may perhaps learn the truth of our Arabic proverb, ‘He dug a pit for his neighbour, and he fell into it himself.’”

While this conversation was going on between Delì Pasha and Hassan, Amina was sitting in her upper room, to which her slaves had just brought up a tray covered with sweetmeats and fruits. Mansour, the old eunuch, followed, bearing a cool sherbet of pomegranate. The younger slaves being ordered to retire, there remained only with Amina, Mansour and her governess, Fatimeh Khanum, both of whom had witnessed the jereed play—the eunuch from the front building, and the elder lady from another window in the harem, for Amina had not made the latter the confidant of her secret visits to the lattice in the boudoir. With well-assumed indifference Amina asked Fatimeh Khanum and Mansour to relate all the particulars of the games, which she had followed with an eye a thousand times more eager than theirs.

Hassan was a great favourite with them both, and as they expatiated on his noble figure, his grace and skill in the use of the jereed, and his unequalled horsemanship, Amina’s blushes mantled on her cheeks and overspread her neck. Not satisfied with hearing the praises of Hassan from the lips of her attendants, she wished to hear them also from those of her father, and after Mansour had retired to the other wing of the harem, she said to Fatimeh Khanum—

“Fatimeh, I have a great desire to see my father this evening, and to hear from him all about those Franks who were his visitors to-day. Go to him and ask him if he will take supper with his little Amina. I will have prepared for him all the dishes that he best likes.”

Fatimeh, who could never refuse anything to her beloved pupil, and who, from her mature age and position in the harem, was always permitted by the Pasha to come to him in his outer apartments through the private door of communication whenever she had any message from his daughter, willingly undertook this commission. After passing the eunuchs at the curtained door, she proceeded along the narrow passage which led towards the room usually occupied by Delì Pasha, but before reaching it she had to pass through an anteroom, in which, to her surprise, she found Hassan walking up and down alone. She was about to withdraw, when he came forward and said to her, “Lady, do not retire on my account. You were going to seek our Pasha; he will soon be disengaged. A visitor, a Bey whose name I did not hear, has just called, and has something for the Pasha’s private ear. His Highness ordered all the other attendants into the outer hall, and told me to remain here.”

Fatimeh Khanum knew that she ought to retire, but there was something in Hassan’s voice and appearance which detained her in spite of herself. “Am I mad? Am I under sorcery? What is there that draws me to this youth by unknown cords?”

Such were the thoughts which followed each other through Fatimeh’s troubled brain, when her eye happened to fall upon Hassan’s wounded cheek, on which a patch of blood was visible. A woman’s instincts impelled her at once to exclaim—

“Allah! Allah! you are wounded. Why has no one stopped or washed away the blood?” And without waiting for his permission, she caught up one of the porous jugs of water found in almost every Egyptian room and drew near to Hassan.

“It is nothing, my aunt,” said Hassan, calling her by the name of affectionate respect given by the Arabs to elderly ladies; “but I will submit to your kind surgery.”

While she was gently washing off the blood, and afterwards binding up the wound with a fine Turkish handkerchief, a sudden idea seemed to strike Hassan, and scarcely had she completed her simple dressing of his wound than he seized her hand, saying, “Thank you; may Allah prolong your life! I see you have a heart. Have pity on me.”

“What is it, my son?” said Fatimeh in surprise. “Wherein can I serve you?”

“Oh, my aunt, my heart is on fire with love—my liver is roasted[61]—and if you do not find some remedy I shall die.”

“My son,” said Fatimeh compassionately, though unable to repress a smile, “the complaint is not uncommon at your age; but how can I assist you? What is the name of your love, and who is she?”

“I know not her name, nor who she is,” replied Hassan passionately; “but you must know her, for she dwells in the harem with you.”

“In the harem!” said Fatimeh, surprised. “There are doubtless some fair maidens in our Pasha’s harem, but how can you have seen them?”

“Ask me not how,” said Hassan, who would not disclose the secret of the lattice and of the aperture near the roof; “but I have seen her, and she is lovely as a Houri of Paradise.”

“It is strange,” said Fatimeh, musing; “but do not despair. Our Pasha has already married more than one of his favourite Mamelukes to fair maidens from his harem, and if you serve him faithfully you may yet realise your hopes.”

“Inshallah! Inshallah!” replied Hassan; “yet, Khanum, I would like to know her name, that I might whisper it to my heart and in my prayers.”

“Agaib!” (wonderful!) said the Khanum, still in a musing tone. “Can it be Zeinab, the Circassian, who came last year from Stamboul?—she is small, with dark-brown hair and deep blue eyes.”

“No, no, it is not she,” said Hassan impatiently.

The Khanum then proceeded to name one or two others, giving a slight sketch of their features and appearance. But the same “No, no” broke from the impatient Hassan. She was sorely puzzled; for supposing that Hassan had by some accident caught a glimpse of one of the young slaves while attending the Pasha’s wives to the bath or to some visit, the idea of her young mistress, who had not once left the harem since Hassan’s arrival, never entered her head.

“I fear, Hassan, that I cannot help you. Methinks you must have seen some stranger coming to visit at our harem, for I have named all those who are young and attractive within our walls. Cannot you describe her in such a way as to assist my conjecture?”

“Describe her!” said Hassan, lowering his voice to a tremulous whisper. “Every feature, every look, every hair of her head is written in my heart!” He then proceeded to describe the features, the eyes, the looks, the complexion, the hair, with such accurate fidelity that Fatimeh, fairly thrown off her guard, exclaimed—

“Allah! Allah! it is Amina Khanum, our Pasha’s daughter!”

“Amina!” cried Hassan. “Thrice blessed name,[62] henceforth thou art the locked treasure of my breast. I thank thee, Khanum, for giving me the beloved name to think of by day and to dream of by night.”

“Are you mad?” said the Khanum, wringing her hands in agitation and distress. “Do you remember your own position, and who the Lady Amina is? Do you know that the highest and proudest in the land have sued for her hand in vain?”

“I know,” said Hassan with deep feeling. “I know who I am—that I am a poor unknown orphan, without name, without fortune. It is the love that I bear to Amina, not the thought that she is a pasha’s daughter, which prompts me to bow my head and kiss the dust on which she treads. Were she a slave-girl in the harem my worship of her would be still the same. It is herself, her own pure image—not her station or her jewels—that I treasure in my heart of hearts. You say that her hand has been sought by the great and the rich. What are they,” he added, drawing himself proudly up, “that I may not become? Pashas and beys, forsooth—what were they at my age?—‘Mamelukes,’ ‘pipe-bearers,’ and so forth. What was Mohammed Ali at twenty? Let the proudest and the best of them stand forth before me with sword and lance and prove who best deserves her. Will they climb for her as I would to the highest summits of the Kaf?[63] Will they dive for her as I would to the lowest depths of ocean? Will they live for her, toil for her, bleed for her, die for her, as I would? My kind aunt,” he added in a low and pleading tone, “have pity on me, speak to Amina for me; tell her that Hassan’s heart is in her hand, and that it is only for her that he lives and breathes.”

“Alas! alas!” said the kind-hearted Khanum, moved by the young man’s earnest passion. “What misfortune has befallen? There is no refuge but in God, the compassionate. I pity you, Hassan, with all my heart; but you know that I dare not speak to Amina on such a subject. I am the guardian and protector of her youth, and I can name to her no suitor who does not appear with her father’s sanction. Surely she can have no knowledge or thought of this insane passion?” she added in a tone of inquiry.

“I know not,” replied Hassan confusedly. “It seems to me that she has been in my heart and in my dreams from my earliest youth; her image is interwoven with my being, with my destiny; it floats in the very air I breathe, impregnating it with sweetness and with life. I know not ‘whether the zephyrs and the spirit of dreams have wafted the odour of my vows to the pillow on which the roses of her cheek repose.’”[64]

The Khanum was about to reply when the sound of approaching footsteps was heard, and a servant entered to inform Hassan that the Pasha’s visitor had departed and that his attendance was required.

“Khanum,” said Hassan, who had by a strong effort recovered his composure, “if you have business with the Pasha, I pray you enter first; I can await his Excellency’s pleasure.”

Poor Fatimeh, though scarcely able to control the agitation into which the events of the last few minutes had thrown her, adopted the suggestion of Hassan, and entering the Pasha’s apartment delivered the message with which she had been charged by Amina.

“Tell my Morning Star,” said Delì Pasha, “that I will willingly come and sup with her; indeed, I was going to propose it myself, for I have much to say to her. Draw nearer, Khanum,” he added in a lower voice. “I know you are a discreet woman, and that you are much attached to Amina, therefore I may tell you that Hashem Bey (Allah knows what a rich old miser he is) has just been here, and the object of his visit was to propose a marriage between her and his son Selim.”

This sudden announcement was too much for the poor Khanum’s already over-excited nerves; she staggered and would have fallen had not the Pasha started up and supported her to the divan on which he had been seated.

“What is the matter, O Khanum?” he said. “What is there in this news to cause you so much agitation? Is not Selim a youth well-born, well-spoken of, rich, and high in the favour of our lord the Viceroy?”

“Forgive me,” said the Khanum in a broken voice; “a sudden faintness, a giddiness came over me—perhaps—perhaps it was the thought that this marriage would separate me for ever from my beloved child.”

“Nay,” said the rough old Pasha, moved by her grief and the cause to which she had attributed it. “I know the love you bear to my Amina, and you must also know that the separation of which you speak would be yet more hard for me than for you to bear, but some day it must be endured. Amina is now of an age to marry, and it would be difficult to find a husband more worthy of her choice than Selim. But no more at present; compose yourself; say nothing of this to Amina—I will break it to her myself; only tell her that I will come and sup with her at sunset.”

Fatimeh Khanum retired, and as she hurried through the room in which she had left Hassan, he marked her agitated step and caught the words, “Oh, grief! oh, misfortune!” ere she disappeared behind the curtained door that led to the harem.

After her departure Hassan remained for some time with Delì Pasha, receiving orders and writing letters on subjects connected with his private affairs; and when these were concluded he retired, and passed the remainder of the afternoon in finger-talk with his dumb _protégé_, whose intelligence and knowledge of all that was passing at Cairo he found to be much beyond his years. The boy seemed so happy and grateful that Hassan found a real pleasure in perfecting himself in the practice of finger-conversation.

At sunset Delì Pasha proceeded to take his supper with Amina, who, with the instinctive tact of an affectionate daughter, had not only taken care to provide the dishes that he most fancied, but had arranged the cushions of his divan so that they were perfectly adapted to his habitual attitude—they were neither too soft nor too hard, nor too high nor too low, nor too broad nor too narrow; and as she knelt playfully before him, and placed in his hand the gold-thread purse which she had just finished, he stooped to kiss her fair forehead, and meeting the upturned glance of her eyes beaming with affection, he said, “Allah bless thee, my child!” with an earnest tenderness, of which those who had known him in the days of his wild and wayward youth, would not have believed his nature capable.

Fatimeh Khanum was not present. The supper was brought up to the door by eunuchs, and served by the women attendants who usually waited on Amina. Delì Pasha did not fail to praise several dishes which had been prepared expressly for him with unusual care, not that the old soldier was a gourmand, but he recognised and appreciated the affectionate zeal evinced by Amina to please him.

During the supper he talked about the events of the morning and the English strangers, and it was arranged that he should send an invitation to Mrs Thorpe and her daughter to visit his harem. They were to be received by his eldest wife, but Amina might be present, as she would be interested in seeing the Frank ladies’ manners, appearance, and dress. The Pasha also alluded to the jereed game, and to the actors therein, and while so doing, he mentioned Hassan in terms which brought the tell-tale blood into Amina’s cheeks. He spoke of him not only as being unequalled in horsemanship and skill in arms, but as being remarkable for his truth, modesty, and integrity.

“I like the lad,” said the old Pasha; “he is of a kind rarely found nowadays—a hot head, a ready arm, and a warm heart, but no _laf guizaf_ [talk and boasting]. If we had another war with the Wahabees, or with any other nation, that lad might soon be a Pasha; but in these dull times there is no fortune to be won by the sword. So Hassan must remain _khaznadâr_ of a very small _khazneh_.[65] Such is destiny, Amina—all is destiny.”

Little did the unconscious father think that in every word which he was then uttering he was fanning a flame already kindled in his young daughter’s breast.

No sooner was the supper over, and the Pasha had enjoyed his pipe and his coffee, than he called Amina to his side, and pushing back the tresses from her face, said to her, “Morning Star, you are no longer a child—you are a little woman now.”

The fair girl’s heart had lately explained to her this truth in language more expressive and convincing than her father’s.

He then proceeded to relate to her the visit of Hashem Bey and its object, together with the reasons which made him take a favourable view of Selim’s proposal, in words nearly similar to those which he had used when speaking to Fatimeh Khanum in the morning. Had the lights not been at some distance from the divan, and the room itself rather dark, he would have been frightened at the paleness which overspread his daughter’s face, though one little hand strove to cover it. She did not speak, but he felt the death-like coldness of the other little hand, which was clasped in his. “Speak, my child; what ails thee?” he said. “Marriage is the destiny, the blessing of women. What is there to terrify thee in these proposals from a youth who is rich, worthy, and of a condition equal to your own?” She sank on her knees before him and sobbed rather than said—

“Spare me, father! spare me!—save me from this hated marriage.” And as she bowed her head upon his hands, he felt her tears falling hot and fast upon them.

Astonished at this excessive and unexpected emotion, the fond father spoke gently to her, and used all the arguments which he could think of to reconcile her to the proposed match. For some time tears and sobs were her only reply. At length she found strength to say—

“Father, I will obey you in everything. My life is in your hands. But if you do not wish to break my heart and send me to an early grave, save me from this marriage. I do not wish to leave you, father. At least give me a year’s or six months’ delay.”

Delì Pasha could not resist the pleading grief of his beloved child. Secretly unwilling himself to part from her, he consented to the delay for which she so earnestly entreated.

“Be comforted, light of my eyes,” he said; “it is only your welfare and happiness that I wish. Dry up your tears and let me see you smile again. I have not passed my word to Hashem Bey. I will write to him that I wish you to go with me to Siout, and that the time for betrothal is not now opportune. That if after six months he desires to renew the subject, it can be then taken into consideration. Will that satisfy you, Amina?”

Amina did look up, and though her eyes were still bedewed with tears, rays of hope and joy and gratitude shone through them like sunbeams through an April shower. Covering his hands with her kisses, she exclaimed, “Oh, father, you have given me a second life—you are always too good, too kind to your Amina.”

What bright hopes, what sunny visions had the young girl’s sanguine imagination conceived and crowded into the space of six months! Selim would be gone to Turkey or the other world, Hassan would be a bey or pasha!

“My child, it is time for you to go to rest,” said Delì Pasha. “Allah bless you! may your night be happy, and to-morrow let me see my Morning Star shine as brightly as ever.” With an affectionate kiss on her forehead he went across to his own apartments.

Delì Pasha was neither a suspicious nor a reflecting man, but he had a fair share of good sense when he chose to exert it, and the more he mused on the events of the day the more did he feel puzzled and unable to explain them: the strange emotion and agitation of Fatimeh Khanum, usually so staid and tranquil in her bearing, the still more violent emotion and agitation of his daughter on receiving proposals of marriage from a suitor altogether unexceptionable, and whose name he imagined must be unknown to her. “Surely,” he said to himself, “these women must have heard some story against Selim, that he is hateful, or cruel, or brutal. I must inquire of Fatimeh Khanum and find this out.”

While he was indulging in these meditations Amina had locked herself into her boudoir, and having loosened the bands that confined her hair, left it to fall all over her lovely neck and shoulders; then, drawing forth her small praying-carpet, she went through her accustomed prayers, bowing her fair forehead upon it, and thanking Allah for having preserved her from a danger the recollection of which still made her shudder.

She went to the lattice and gently, very gently, opened the side of it. She could see nothing, for the moon was not up, neither could she be seen, though Hassan was watching like a true sentinel of love: the creaking of the half-opened lattice did not, however, escape his quick ear, and ere she retired from it she heard in a half-whispered tone, that seemed to hover in the air, the following verses:—

“Extolled be the Lord who hath endued with all beauty she who hath
enslaved my heart.
I see her not, I hear her not, yet I feel the fragrance of her presence
like concealed spikenard.
My love is the moon, and I am a solitary cloud wandering over the face
of the sky—
A cloud obscure and unnoticed; but let the moon shine upon it, and
straightway it is robed in silver.”[66]

The following morning Hassan was for some time with Delì Pasha explaining to him the results of his examination of his predecessor’s accounts, and pointing out defalcations and deficiencies in some quarters, and certain sums due, but not collected, in others. Delì Pasha hated accounts and business, but he saw so much earnest zeal in Hassan’s desire to render them clear that he forced himself to give them some attention, and even that little sufficed to make it evident that his former _khaznadâr_[67] had complicated them on purpose to cheat him, and that his present one made them as simple as possible, and compensated for his want of experience by his conscientious industry. Scarcely had he got through the summary which Hassan had drawn up, ere he clapped his young treasurer on the shoulder and broke out into a fit of laughter.

“Hassan,” he said, “you are the cream of _khaznadârs_, and I am sensible of all the zeal and industry you have shown, but I cannot help laughing when I see my young Bedouin-Antar doing the work of a Coptic clerk.”

“I grant,” said Hassan, smiling, “that the pen is not so familiar to my hand as the lance; but if I know too little, I see plainly that my predecessor knew too much, and I hope that the _khazneh_ will furnish you with more purses this year than the last. It is my wish and duty to do you good service, and be it with lance or pen, Inshallah! I will do it.”

“Would you like a little exercise for your lance?” said Delì Pasha. “I do not mean a jereed game, but a few sharp thrusts and hard blows in earnest.”

“On my head be it—I am ready,” said Hassan, his eyes brightening. “Where is such occupation to be found?”

“I have this morning received a note from the Kiahia,” said Delì Pasha, drawing it out as he spoke from under a cushion of his divan, “and he tells me that a band of the Sammalous tribe have lately come up on a plundering expedition from their own country, near the Bahirah, and have ravaged several villages near Ghizeh, carrying off money and horses. It is said that they are now not very far from the Pyramids. The Kiahia proposes to send eighty horsemen instead of fifty to escort the English party going to-morrow to the Ghizeh Pyramids: forty can remain to guard them, and the remaining forty can make an excursion into the desert and try to find and capture these Sammalous thieves. He adds in his note that he should be glad if you could accompany that party, as you were trained in Bedouin warfare, and he has formed a high opinion of your skill and courage. What say you to the proposal?”

“Most willingly will I go,” replied Hassan, “to have a bout with those rascally Sammalous, who are the enemies of my old tribe the Oulâd-Ali. The very last fight that I saw among the Arabs was with them, and they wounded my adopted father.”

“El-hamdu-lillah” (Allah be praised), said Delì Pasha, “that the expedition is to your taste. I will write to the Kiahia that you accept, and will advise him to put the horsemen sent after the Sammalous under your command. And now as a chance hurt may befall from lance or bullet, and you might be unwilling to expose a horse not your own, to make your mind easy on that score I make you a present of your friend Shèitan: you have well deserved him, and, to say the truth, I do not believe he would obey any other master.”

Hassan carried the Pasha’s hand to his lips and said, “May your life and happiness be prolonged.”[68]

“Go, then, to-morrow morning,” continued Delì Pasha, “and Allah go with you: the Kiahia’s horsemen will meet you at Ghizeh, where you will also find one or two of those who were plundered by the Sammalous, and who will aid you in tracking the party.”

Hassan took his leave, and as he went to his own room he met his dumb _protégé_. Greeting him kindly, he informed him that he was going on an excursion which might detain him a few days, and at the same time thinking that the boy might be in want of some necessary during his absence, he offered him a few small pieces of silver.

Murad smiled, and declined the money, showing his protector a few coins of similar value in his own possession. In his rapid finger-language he then explained to Hassan that he was now sufficiently recovered to run with messages as before, and that he was already employed in this way at a coffee-house and one or two other houses in the neighbourhood. With a few words of encouragement Hassan left him and went on to his own room, where he busied himself in examining and cleaning his pistols, which he carefully loaded. He took care to see that both his sword and dagger were loose in the sheath, and that the point of his lance was sharp. While busied in these preparations, and in putting into his saddle-bags the few articles of clothing which he meant to take with him, he hummed rather than sung snatches of old Arab songs.

All at once the thought struck him that Amina might be at the lattice. He crept up the ladder and peeped through the aperture, that could not be called a window. There, indeed, was Amina, and the lattice was open, and though the twilight was darkening, Hassan could see that she was weeping, for the snowy Damascus kerchief was often applied to her eyes.

Hassan knew not what to do. He longed to comfort her, to sympathise with her, but he knew that if he showed himself or made her aware of his presence by addressing a word to her, she would immediately close the lattice and withdraw. So he looked on in silence, and partook of her unknown grief till the tears stole into his own eyes.

At length, unable any longer to keep silence, he drew his head away from the aperture so that he could still see her but she could not see him. He began to sing a well-known Turkish love-song in a very low tone. The sound of the air, though not the words, reached her ear; she cast her eyes furtively at the aperture in the opposite wall, but seeing nothing, she did not withdraw. A little louder he sung, and the words reached her ear, and she dried her tears and listened. It was a popular song, about Youssuf and Zuleika, which, even if others could have heard, would not compromise her; but her beating heart told her who was singing, and for whom the song was meant. In the last verse the voice sank nearly to a whisper. Still she caught the words, and the name of Amina was substituted for Zuleika. With a deep blush she disappeared from the casement, and all was silence and darkness.

On the following morning early Hassan set forth, mounted on Shèitan, and crossed the Nile to Ghizeh by a ferry, which then, as now, existed at a short distance to the southward of Boulak. He was accompanied by his _sàis_, who drove before him a donkey carrying our hero’s saddle-bags, and the large cloak and Arab blanket which served him on such occasions for a bed.

On reaching Ghizeh he found the whole Thorpe party, with the horsemen who were to accompany them, already arrived: there were also forty or fifty donkeys laden with tents, bedding, cooking-utensils, and all the creature comforts which Demetri’s foresight had prepared for a residence of several days in the desert.

Hassan saluted them all in turn, and Demetri and Foyster insisted on shaking hands with him in English fashion. After exchanging a few words he turned towards the Kiahia’s horsemen, and was pleased to recognise in their leader the same good-looking young Georgian whom he had seen at the head of the Kiahia’s Mamelukes at the jereed play. Calling him on one side, Hassan inquired whether he had any precise instructions as to the course to be pursued for the discovery and seizure of the Sammalous Arabs.

“Yes,” he replied; “I have a letter to the Governor of this district ordering him to provide one or two villagers well acquainted with the road to guide the English party to the Pyramids,[69] and also to place under our charge two Arabs now waiting here who belong to the villages robbed by the Sammalous, and who are supposed to have some knowledge of the direction in which they have retreated.”

It was deemed advisable that the whole party should proceed towards the divan of the Governor of Ghizeh, which was at no great distance from the spot where they were now assembled. They moved onward accordingly, and as they approached the Governor’s house the Georgian and Hassan rode forward to demand an interview with that personage, while the remainder of the party halted at a short distance from the house. They had not been there long before their ears were saluted by sounds too familiar to all who have passed any time in the neighbourhood of a Government divan in Egypt—namely, the heavy and swiftly-descending blows of a stick, accompanied by shrieks and cries of the victim, “Amân! amân! [mercy! mercy!] I am dead. Mercy! mercy! You may kill me, but I have not a farthing.”

The Europeans stopped their ears to shut out these painful sounds, while Demetri, more accustomed to such sights, went forward to witness the punishment, and ascertain what might be its cause and issue. The cries died away into moans and groans, which soon became altogether inaudible, leaving the Europeans to imagine that the sufferer was dead or had fainted; and Mr Thorpe was virtuously and indignantly inveighing against the barbarous cruelty of the Turkish governors when Demetri arrived.

As he approached they saw that he was convulsed with laughter, which only redoubled Mr Thorpe’s indignation; and he asked the dragoman, in an angry voice, how he could be so brutal as to jest over the agony and torture of a fellow-creature.

“You shall hear, you shall hear, O my master,” said Demetri, still unable to compose his features to a serious expression. “The man whom they were beating is a fellah who occupies some land in the neighbourhood, and though he sells his beans and his wheat like others, he never has any money to pay the taxes on the day that they are collected: either he has been robbed, or the crop failed, or the rats devoured half of it, or he lost his purse on the road as he was coming to pay in the money due to the Government—always some excuse; and though for two successive seasons he has been severely beaten, they never could find a piastre about his person nor extract one from him. This morning, just as your Excellencies came, the same scene had been repeated: he had vowed his inability to pay, and the Governor ordered him two hundred and fifty blows on the feet. The fellow took them all, bawling and screaming and groaning as you heard; and a stranger might well suppose that he was almost, if not quite, murdered. As soon as he had received the number of blows ordered, he was released, and began to stagger out of the Governor’s presence as if he could scarcely stand on his feet. In doing so he nearly ran up against one of the _kawàsses_ standing by, a strong, rough fellow, who struck him a smart blow on the cheek with his open hand. The suddenness of the blow took him so by surprise that it opened his mouth unawares, and there dropped from it to the ground something enveloped in a piece of rag. The _kawàss_ darted forward and seized it. On opening it they found within four gold sequins, being the exact amount of the sum which he owed to the Government. The rascal had come with a full determination not to pay if he could help it, and rather to take any amount of punishment he could conveniently bear: if he found the beating carried to a length that his patience could not endure, he could at any time stop it by producing the money. It seems that the two hundred and fifty which he had received had produced little or no effect on his leathern feet, and he was going off, chuckling at having cheated the Government once more, when that accidental blow on the cheek made him spit out the money.”[70]

It may be believed that this version of the story changed the compassion of the Thorpe party into an inclination to laugh, and shortly afterwards the fellah who had received the beating, and had unintentionally paid his taxes, was pointed out to them by Demetri walking homeward to his village, apparently with as little suffering in his feet as if he had been beaten by children with straws.

While Mr Thorpe was discussing with the Missionary Müller the peculiar features of character exhibited by the Egyptian fellah in the scene which had just occurred, Hassan and the Georgian returned, accompanied by the guides required, so the whole party set off merrily towards the Pyramids.

Mr Thorpe had now reached the goal of wishes long entertained, for although Thebes, Memphis, and other places of antiquarian interest had mingled in his dreams, there was something in the grand and antique simplicity of the Pyramids which had assigned to them a pre-eminence in his imagination. Immediately on arriving he commenced his tour and survey of the Great Pyramid with his daughter and Müller. Hassan went with them also, rightly judging that his services might be necessary not only to interpret for them, but to protect them against the importunity of the Arabs, who had flocked in considerable numbers to see the strangers, and to devise various projects for extracting money from them. There were not then, as now, crowds of Arabs, half Bedouins, half villagers, who make a living at the Pyramids by running up and down them for prizes and assisting the numerous travellers to reach the top; but there was even then a remnant of some tribe located there in tents, who enjoyed a kind of prescriptive right to the custody of the place, and Hassan and the Georgian had agreed to pay a score of these to act as guards or watchmen while the party remained.

Mr Thorpe and Müller were already engaged in a discussion concerning the history of the Pyramids; Emily had fallen a little behind, and was turning to ask some question of Hassan, who had spoken to her a moment before, when she observed him standing on a large stone at the base of the Pyramid, his eyes cast down to the ground in a fit of profound abstraction. There was an air of melancholy in his countenance, so different from its usual expression, that she could not resist the impulse which led her to ask him the subject of his meditations, which she imagined to be something connected with the story of the Pyramids.

“Lady,” he replied in a tone of deep feeling, “the dream of my infancy passed across my mind. This stone on which I stand was once my cradle.”

“Your cradle, Hassan! How mean you?”

“It is now about twenty years ago,” said Hassan, “that my foster-mother was sitting here—perhaps on this very stone, for she said it faced towards Cairo—when a horseman, believed to be my father, placed me—an infant wrapped in a shawl—at her side, and fled at full speed. He has never since been heard of. I know not who he was, nor whether he yet lives. I know not who was my mother—I am a stray leaf blown about by the wind of destiny.”

“Be assured he was no mean or ignoble man—it could not be,” said Emily. “I hope you may yet find him, and be happy with him.”

“May Allah bless you, and grant this and all your other prayers,” said Hassan. “But, lady, do not speak of this matter to others: though known to many, it pains my heart to hear it spoken of.”

After making the tour of the Great Pyramid, and admiring with reverence and wonder the architectural energy and skill which, in the infancy of mankind, had piled upon each other those enormous blocks, brought from a distance of many hundred miles, Mr Thorpe proposed to ascend, and to see from the top the effect of a sunset on the valley of the Nile. A score of Arabs were already on the alert to assist the worthy gentleman and his party in the ascent, and so zealously obtrusive were they in their manner of bestowing their assistance that Hassan was obliged to tell them angrily not to pull and haul the strangers as if they were baskets of dates. When they reached the top, what a magnificent spectacle awaited them! There lay the broad and verdant valley of the Nile stretched out beneath them. Far as the eye could reach were gardens, villages, and palm-groves, among which the Nile, studded with white sails, wound its sinuous course, while beyond its eastern bank rose the Mother of the World,[71] her multitudinous domes and minarets all bathed in the golden flood of the sun’s descending rays. All there felt the softening influence of the hour—the imposing magnificence of the scene. None dared to break the spell by an exclamation of admiration. Emily glided to her father’s side and looked up in his face, and as he returned the silent pressure of her hand, she saw that the heart of the kind and enthusiastic antiquarian was filled with emotions that could not find vent in words. After a while they descended as they had come up, and found that the servants had prepared in their tent a dinner, which, following the fatigues of the day, was far from unwelcome.

No sooner was Hassan free from the charge that he had undertaken, of escorting Emily and her relatives to the Pyramids, than he hastened to the Georgian’s tent to ascertain whether any intelligence had reached him respecting the course taken by the Sammalous.