Chapter III

Thou chastening friend, Adversity! ’tis thine
The mental ore to temper and refine,
To cast in virtue’s mould the yielding heart,
And honour’s polish to the mind impart.
Without thy wakening touch, thy plastic aid,
I’d lain the shapeless mass that nature made;
But formed, great artist, by thy magic hand,
I gleam a sword to conquer and command.

CARAWASH.

Gulbeg, who anxiously observed every thing that passed, concluded that Kazim had been taken into the ranks of the Khan as a guide through the difficult passes towards which their course was now directed. He endeavoured to console Mangeli with the hope that her husband would return again at night; but she, clasping her hands together, like one overwhelmed with sudden despair, appeared to give him up as lost to her for ever. She watched the troopers, as, ascending the mountain side, they followed each other in narrow files, winding in and out through the dark ravines which now concealed them from her view, now permitted them to be dimly seen, their standard tops occasionally reflecting a sunbeam, and marking their course. Long after the last horseman had been out of sight, she listened for the sound of the trumpet, persuading her father that she could still hear its faint echoes;--but he saw that it was a delusion of her senses, and was filled with apprehension, lest the shock which she had received might be productive of fatal consequences. With difficulty he drew her from the door, and resting her head upon his bosom, he appealed to her by every tender feeling--by the thought of what she owed to Kazim, and to the delicate fruit which depended upon her for existence--to dissipate her alarm and to confide in the providence of Allah, who would never fail to protect the virtuous. But she could only call upon the name of Kazim, pressing her temples with her hands, as if she felt that her reason was about to abandon its throne.

“Who can that be?” asked the Khan, pointing to a horseman whom he descried at some distance in a valley which they had now entered. “If he were a friend, he would have waited for us; but I observed that the moment the first standards appeared in sight, he gave the rein to his steed. See, he flies as if for his life!”

The officers thus questioned, could offer no conjecture on the subject. After proceeding through the valley, they entered one of the passes described in the chart which Seirami had shown to Kazim; but it was so narrow and precipitous, that they were frequently obliged to dismount, in order to lead their horses over rugged rocks, and by the edges of tremendous gulphs, which every moment threatened them with destruction. One of the soldiers, who affected to excel his companions in travelling over such dreadful steeps, as those that now lay before them, refused to alight, and dashed forward against a precipice which seemed almost inaccessible. The animal climbed the rock with unflinching spirit, but just as he placed his hoof on the top of the ledge, the mass loosened from the crumbling ruin to which it belonged, and horse and rider rolled backward into a dark abyss, where they instantly disappeared. “Curse upon these defiles,” exclaimed the chieftain, his brow blackening with anger; “one of my bravest followers already lost! I cannot but think,” he added, addressing Kazim in a pointed manner, “that Suleiman might have pointed out a less difficult pass than this, by which we might arrive at his camp. See, we are now quite overhung by precipices, which seem ready to crush us to atoms!”

Kazim assured the Khan that he knew of no other entrance to the valley, where he expected to find Suleiman’s camp. After treading their way slowly through the intricate defile, they at length emerged on a kind of path that conducted them along the side of a river, to the opening of a wild glen, strongly illuminated by the fierce red light of the sun, as it was just descending behind the tops of the mountains, whose snowy peaks were mantled in a purple haze. The glen opened out gradually into an extensive valley, through which the river rolled its deep and rapid current. As the Khan and his followers entered the valley, they were surprised to see the pass they had just left, occupied by a dark mass of troops, who came rapidly after them without any sound of drum or trumpet. He collected his men as quickly as possible, but before they could form into regular array, a shower of arrows fell upon them from the sides of the mountain above.

The division in the pass below rushed forward in a small but compact column, shouting the name of Suleiman. Mirtas called out in a loud voice, that he was the friend of Suleiman and not his foe, and that he came to assist him in the war against Acbar. Upon this, the advancing party halted, and demanded hostages for the truth of his representation. Kazim was summoned, and sent forward to clear up the mystery. He was forthwith arrested by Suleiman himself, and ordered to the rear, while the chieftain and his foremost companions fell on the troops of Mirtas with a wild shout, which called down the men stationed on the declivities. Mirtas and his Moguls, though altogether unprepared for so rude a reception, sustained the shock with great firmness, and the two armies were, in an instant, committed in general battle. The clash of sabre against sabre, and on cuirass and helmet,--the neighing of horses running here and there, deprived of their riders--the groans of the wounded and dying--the uproar of the combatants, reproaching each other with treachery, and calling upon the names of their respective leaders, filled the whole valley with a wild tumult, which shook the stupendous mountains around them.

The horse-tail standards, which had been at first cut down one after another with irresistible rapidity, were thickening in the fight again, and were waving among the lifted sabres, with a triumph that predicted the defeat of Suleiman. That commander, together with the mass of his soldiers, was driven back to the edge of the glen; but like a wave, impelled against the rocky shore, they rebounded on their foes, sending after them, as they retired, a shower of arrows, which, however, broke in most instances upon the cuirasses of the riders, or the mail with which the horses were caparisoned. Suleiman felt that if the enemy had time to form themselves into line, and to press upon him with their spears, in the use of which his followers were less skilful than the Moguls, the battle was lost. Singling out Mirtas, who was somewhat advanced before his troops, as they were returning to the charge, he drew from his quiver a green-tipped barbed arrow; and throwing the rein upon the neck of his horse, he placed the arrow on the notch, with as much coolness as if he had been sporting in the jungle. Then drawing the string right up to his ear, he sent the arrow against the foe, which, penetrating his cap, passed through without doing any injury. The assault was returned by a javelin, hurled with gigantic force, and a fatal aim, from the ranks behind Mirtas. One of Suleiman’s captains, seeing the blood gushing in a stream upon the ground, took hold of the rein of his chieftain’s horse, and leading it toward the river, rushed with it headlong into the water. Mirtas, directing one division of his troops to follow the mass of the enemy, who now endeavoured to find their way back through the glen, led the other in pursuit of Suleiman.

Before Suleiman and his companion could reach the opposite bank, Mirtas and his followers were already plunged in the stream. The horses of both parties soon sank beyond their depth, and several of the men were drowned, who had not taken the precaution to disencumber their steeds of their heavy trappings. Suleiman had already gained upon the enemy by more than the distance of a bow-shot, and reached the bank, which his steed gallantly ascended, when one of the troopers of Mirtas discovered a little farther down the stream a ford, by which they at once crossed the river. Suleiman’s companion, taking off the accoutrements from his own horse, placed the bridle in the hand of his chieftain, who made for the hills, pursued by Mirtas. The steed of the latter, oppressed by the armour it still wore, fell among the crags, which he now began to clamber. Suleiman’s horse also began to falter; but notwithstanding the pain he felt from his wound, he threw himself on the uncaparisoned animal, and gained in safety the nearest ridges of the mountain.

It was now night, the air piercingly cold, when the solitary fugitive, not knowing whither to turn, took shelter from the blast behind an immense rock, which he perceived by the fading light at some distance. The enemy still kept tracking him; and though now reduced to three in number, they were resolved, if possible, to capture him. The pursuers and the pursued spent the night, without knowing that they were within a very short distance of each other. As soon as the first light of morning appeared, one of the Moguls climbed the rock, with the view of making a survey of the country around, when, to his surprise, he found Suleiman already mounted, and tranquilly proceeding towards a pile of loose stones, which had been collected on the top of a steep ridge. The scout informed his comrades of what he had seen, and thinking that they had the warrior already in their grasp, they hastily followed him.

They were at the foot of the steep, when Suleiman, who had reached the summit with great difficulty, deliberately lifting up a ponderous mass of rock, threatened to annihilate the first man who attempted to follow him a single step farther. At the same he assured them, that if they would become his friends, swearing to him the great and awful oath as a pledge for their fidelity, he would raise them to high stations in his empire, besides bestowing upon them other magnificent rewards. The Moguls alarmed on the one hand, by the prospect of destruction which impended over them, and tempted on the other by the splendid offers of Suleiman, after consulting among themselves, replied, that they accepted his terms, and then swore the sacred oath which he demanded.

The difficulty now was how Suleiman should descend the mountain, without coming in contact with any of the followers of Mirtas. Perceiving already a number of men passing at some distance on the plains below, he fled to the hillock, where he had concealed himself the night before, and waited there until the party reached a turn in the road, where they were no longer visible. Being without provisions, he suggested that one of his new comrades should proceed to buy some at the cottages, which were at a distance in a forest, where several wreaths of smoke were seen curling upward above the trees. One of the men went, and returned in about three hours, laden with a few cakes of barley bread, which he purchased for a sabre.

While they were on the brow of the mountain, and lying prostrate, lest they might be discerned from below, they descried something shining at a considerable distance. It approached gradually, until it resolved itself into a man on horseback, clothed in complete armour. Having passed into a ravine, he was lost for a while to their gaze; soon after he emerged again, when Suleiman recognised upon the man his own suit of splendid armour, which he very seldom wore, although it usually formed a part of his camp-baggage. In the man also he discovered one of his own followers, Mirza Kuli, who had been with him in several of his battles, and had hitherto conducted himself with unquestionable fidelity. Suleiman called out to him by name, not doubting that he would be glad to join his commander again. But to his infinite surprise, the traveller, without looking up, answered in a gruff husky voice, altogether unlike that of Kuli, saying that he knew them not, and had no time for compliments. Suleiman, lamenting that his arrow could produce no effect against the recreant, nevertheless sent one after him, which struck the horse, and only spurred the animal to a greater degree of expedition. Suleiman had sometimes been unfortunate in battle before, but he never experienced so gross an instance of ingratitude as this. It convinced him, however, that his cause, of which he had not yet despaired, must have been considered by his followers as totally lost, since Kuli thought proper not only to abandon him, but even to be ashamed of his acquaintance.