Chapter XIII

“What ho? beware! In youthful strength and sport,
The tiger, in the temple’s porch confined,
Has burst his iron cage, and roams at large;
With tail high waving, like a banner, vast
And mighty limb, he stalks among the groves.
From his deep throat he roars in thunder loud,
And men and beasts fly trembling from the echo;
Look to your lives--as best you may avoid him.”

HINDOO DRAMA.

Songs of triumph, aided by pipe and timbrel, acclamations and expressions of boundless joy, greeted Afkun wherever, in the performance of his duties, he moved through Lahore. Crowds of the people watched for his approach, assembled before the house in which he resided, or sought him out on the ramparts, in order to testify by their applause the gratitude which they owed him as their deliverer from the two-fold perils, by which the safety of the town had been menaced on the preceding night. No language, they very truly declared, could exaggerate the praises which he had earned, no reward could adequately compensate the heroic actions which he had performed on that eventful night; and they one and all hailed him as future viceroy of the province, should the fortune of war ultimately enable them to destroy the forces against which they had to contend.

Afkun, in the few and modest words of a soldier, thanked the people for the honours they conferred upon him. “He had adopted,” he said, “the cause of their prince, from a feeling that he was thereby serving the best interests of the empire; and having so determined the line of his duties, he had only to execute them to the best of his ability. He fully depended on the loyalty, and zeal, and bravery of the garrison and inhabitants, but he warned them that treason was secretly at work, which, unless it were actively watched and resisted, might, notwithstanding all their exertions, deprive them of the fruits of the victory which they had already achieved.”

The prince appointed the second day of the truce to hold his court in the splendid palace of the citadel, in order to receive the congratulations of the nobility and merchants, the officers and regiments of the garrison, and the great mass of the people of Lahore, upon the auspicious events which had, to a great degree, repaid him for the calamitous results of the battle on the Sutledge. It was to be a day of universal rejoicing throughout the city, but by the prudent precautions of Afkun provision was made, that no relaxation of discipline should take place on the ramparts, so as to afford to the enemy any chance of advantage during the festival. He had no faith, he declared, in the honour of the man who, unhappily, held Jehangire under his absolute control. If Bochari could find an opening by night or day into Lahore, he would pay no regard whatever to the truce, and the only sure way of causing it to be strictly observed, was to preserve the strictest vigilance at all the assailable points.

The morning was ushered in by a salute of artillery from the citadel, and by peals of trumpets from all the regiments of the garrison, who were drawn out upon the ramparts arrayed in their best attire. The omrahs and wealthy inhabitants were seen moving from all quarters of the town in their palanquins, or mounted on splendidly caparisoned horses or elephants, towards the palace, where they were received by the prince, seated on a jewelled throne. In order to pay peculiar honour to Afkun, it was arranged that fifty of the nobles should attend him on foot from his residence--a large mansion near the Delhi gate--to the citadel, in processional order, and that his palanquin should be borne by them in turn. Afkun would have very much preferred, soldier-like, to have mounted his horse and proceeded, without any show, to the palace; he did not much relish the over-eager zeal in his favour which some of the omrahs about to attend him had exhibited, and who, had he listened to their flattering proposals, would have exalted him in a triumphal car, or rather in a kind of golden cage, which they had decorated for the purpose. The time, however, pressed, and ascending a palanquin, the procession marched forward, followed by an immense crowd of the people, who kept up an incessant shouting as they passed through the streets leading to the citadel.

It happened, as the procession turned the corner of a narrow street, that they met a train of elephants, apparently on their way to the Rawee for a supply of water. The driver urged them forward, without any regard to the crowd before him. Two or three persons had been already trodden to death. The elephants were still goaded on. The procession was thrown into confusion, the palanquin was overturned, and the noble bearers were obliged to fly to save their lives. Afkun, perceiving the danger in which he was involved, drew a short sword, which always hung by his side, and striking the first elephant he met across the root of the trunk, he cut it off at one blow. The animal, turning from him, fell down with an appalling roar, and expired. He then directed the drivers to go back by the way they came, adding that if they did not forthwith obey his orders, he would slay them on the spot. The men, terrified by the unparalleled exhibition of strength which they had just witnessed, were too happy to be allowed to escape on the proposed condition, and the street having been cleared of what many thought to be a premeditated interruption, Afkun, attended only by the people, walked to the palace, where he was received by the vast assemblage already collected, with repeated shouts of exultation, and a royal salute from the guns in the battery. Chusero, rising from his throne, placed the warrior on the highest step, amidst the renewed acclamations of the court and the people.

The whole garrison under arms then passed in review before the prince, with his banners flying, and their drums, and cymbals, and various musical instruments, playing martial airs, to which the people occasionally added the swelling chorus of their triumphant shouts, as the different regiments, especially those which had most distinguished themselves in resisting the late assault of the enemy, appeared in the brilliant line.

When the review was over, the prince was informed that the authorities of the town had prepared a combat of wild beasts to celebrate the day, and that the animals were already about to enter the arena. Chusero, attended by Afkun and the court, immediately adjourned to the amphitheatre of the palace, where those entertainments were usually held. It was an immense circular edifice open to the heavens, with benches of solid marble ranged all round, capable of affording seats to upwards of twenty thousand spectators. The arena was enclosed within a circle of strong wooden palisades, high enough, as it was thought, to prevent any animal, however powerful in limb or enraged by passion, from leaping over it, and endangering the lives of any of the spectators.

The amphitheatre was crowded to the top with every order of the inhabitants. The twelve doors of the arena having been all at once thrown open, a host of wild beasts rushed forward instantly from the dark dens behind them, and meeting in the centre, overthrew, or were overthrown by those they met, in their first impetuous exercise of the freedom allowed them. Like insane creatures, they pursued each other round the arena, taking no notice whatever of the multitude of human beings gazing down upon them from all sides. Panthers, jackals, lions, tigers, bears, wolves, immense antelopes, wild horses, bulls, hyenas, wild dogs, caracals, and buffaloes, were seen in terrible confusion attacking or resisting, pursuing or pursued, each foaming with anger, and uttering in its peculiar cry the sensations of fear, or the impulses of hunger, by which it was actuated.

The horses were soon ripped open by the horns of the wild bulls. The prostrate animals became immediately the prizes for which not only the bulls, but the lions, tigers, dogs, and wolves, contended. The battle was fought with terrible fury. Several of the beasts crouched away from the scene, and waited the result, as if they expected to be the next victims themselves. The horses were torn piecemeal, limb from limb; and as each unsatiated fighter returned for a fresh supply, the combat was renewed with augmented energy. The floor of the arena torn up, streamed with blood. It was sometimes altogether hidden from the spectators by the clouds of dust, which rolled upwards in thick volumes.

The larger animals, at length enfeebled by the loss of blood, from the wounds which they inflicted on each other, or exhausted by the efforts which they made in self-defence, lay down in different parts of the arena; while the lesser beasts crept out from their lurking places, with a stealthy trembling pace, to snatch a portion of the fragments which still remained undevoured. From these enjoyments they were speedily scared by an enormous tiger, who rushed forth, fresh from one of the dens, having been manifestly reserved for the conclusion of the exhibition. There was no antagonist to meet him in the arena. A voice cried out, “Who, among you, will advance singly, and attack this tiger?”

The omrahs, on the benches of the nobles, looked on each other in silence. The people all turned their eyes on Afkun, at once fearful lest, by accepting the challenge, he should expose to danger a life so precious to them at that moment, and yet confident that he would not suffer his valour to be doubted by permitting such a question to pass unanswered.

Three omrahs--three of the very men who had fled from his palanquin, when it was overturned on his way to the palace, starting from their seats, proclaimed their readiness, with the prince’s permission, to try their strength successively against the raging animal, who had already caused considerable alarm, by attempting to leap the barrier. In one of his springs, he actually gained the top of the palisade; but losing his footing, he fell backward. Another bound might be more successful; his destruction became necessary to the safety of the assembly.

The proposal of the omrahs touched the pride of Afkun. They called for the long swords which the gladiators generally used on such occasions, and the first of them was apparently about to descend into the arena, when the Turcomanian, who had derived his title from his celebrated victory over a lion in his early youth, spoke out.

“To attack an animal with weapons,” said he, “is both unmanly and unfair. God has given to man limbs and sinews, as well as to tigers: he has added reason to the former to conduct his strength.”

The omrahs objected, “that all men were inferior to the tiger in strength, and that he could be conquered only by steel.”

“I will convince you of your mistake,” replied Afkun, who, putting down his sword on the bench, jumped unarmed into the arena.

A cry of terror ran through the whole assembly; but the contest becoming now inevitable, all eyes looked down upon Afkun with breathless anxiety. The beasts that had lain feverish and fatigued in the arena, awed by the lustre of his countenance, arose, and retiring to the boundary, made way for this new combatant. The tiger alone seemed unappalled. Backing, as far as he could, he couched to the earth, and gazing fiercely upon his adversary, who stood undaunted before him, sprang upon him with dreadful energy. Afkun, holding both his hands clenched firmly before him, repelled the attack, but not without some loss of blood, the foreclaws of the animal having lacerated the fleshy part of his arms. In the rebound, the tiger fell upon his side. The Turcomanian, well experienced in that species of war, before the animal could recover his position, grasped his hind leg, and turning him on his back, dragged him thrice round the arena, the infuriated creature vainly exerting its utmost power of resistance.

Afkun having thus, in some degree, broken the strength and courage of his antagonist, left him near the barrier. Again the animal couched; but just as he was about to spring, the warrior, taking a slight circuit, ran in upon him with wonderful agility, and struck him with his foot so violently on the left ribs, that he drove three of them into the intestines. The animal howled with agony, but still unconquered he rose and pursued his foe, who retired, his face towards the beast, until he felt his back against the palisades. The tiger, leaping in the air, rushed upon him with distended jaws. Trembling fears, reaching almost to despair, were pictured in every countenance, with the exception of the three omrahs, who seemed to rejoice in the peril which awaited Afkun. But their hopes were short-lived. Afkun elevated himself above the tiger, grasping an upright of the barrier with one hand, then plunging the other into the foaming gulph beneath him, wrenched the tongue from its roots, as if it were but a sapling, and flung it into the middle of the arena. The tiger fell heavily on the earth, the blood gushing from his mouth, and with a groan, that shook the whole amphitheatre, expired. A peal of joy burst from the multitude, who, rising as one man, unbound their girdles, and waving them over their heads, cheered the victor with louder and louder shouts, while he returned to his seat, his features as calm as if he had only been sporting in the meadows with a gazelle.

The three omrahs looked at each other, pale and downcast with disappointment. Chusero, who received his friend with open arms, noticed their feelings towards him, but attributed it to envy of such matchless bravery, strength, and skill combined. Others, however, perceived in their conduct, coupled with what had occurred in the morning, a still baser motive--a motive that would have identified them as the purchased agents of Bochari. The authorities of the city having been questioned as to their preparations for such shows, at a moment when the presence of the enemy might well have absorbed their attention in other matters, replied that they knew nothing whatever of the arrangements that had been made for the arena. Suspicions of treachery arose on all sides against the three omrahs, who would doubtless have been sacrificed to the rage of the people, had they not immediately disappeared.

As Afkun was returning to his house from the amphitheatre, a dervish approached him, and warned him to be on his guard, for that designs were entertained against his life, which it would require the strictest caution upon his part to frustrate. The Turcomanian treated the communication with the indifference of a man to whom the sensation of fear never was known. He was surrounded by no guards--his servants, according to custom, retired at night, each to his own home. After inspecting the ramparts, and desiring that he should be sent for upon the slightest appearance of movement from without, he retired late at night to his couch. He was scarcely asleep, when forty assassins suddenly entered his apartment from an upper room, in which, through the negligence, or co-operation of the porter, they had been enabled to conceal themselves during the early part of the night. Their daggers were about to descend upon him, when, one of the band, a veteran soldier, who had witnessed the battle in the arena, struck with shame, cried out, “Hold! let us behave like men! What? Though we have the imperial orders--though the prize is great--shall forty fall upon one, and that one asleep?”

“Bravely spoken!” exclaimed Shere, who, on the instant starting from his bed, seized his sword, and placing himself in a corner of the room, awaited the attack of the ruffians. In a few minutes, three of them who rushed in upon him, lay weltering in their blood at his feet. Several others were wounded--the rest fled in dismay--the veteran soldier excepted, who confessed that they had been hired by the three omrahs to take away his life, and to deliver to them his head, for which they were to receive three elephant loads of gold as their reward. The omrahs, he added, shewed them a proclamation from the emperor, in which an enormous price was set upon his person, living or dead. Shere took him gratefully by the hand, praised him for his generous conduct, and dismissed him with handsome presents, to relate through the town the particulars of what had just occurred.

In the morning, the intelligence of this new attempt, the third that was made in the course of twelve hours, upon the existence of their gallant defender, filled the garrison and inhabitants of Lahore with the greatest indignation. They assembled in crowds before his house, and entreated him to lead them at once against an enemy, whom no feelings of honour, no respect for the laws of war, no veneration for true heroism could prevent from having recourse to base stratagems, unworthy of the lowest race of mankind. Afkun received their expressions of sympathy and admiration with just pride, but he would disdain, he said, to follow the example of such an enemy, by violating the truce. He would not believe that the proclamation, of which they had heard, was the work of Jehangire. It proceeded, doubtless, from the hand already imbrued in the blood of Fazeel--the most illustrious man whom Hindostan had ever seen.

“May justice strike the murderer!” shouted the multitude.

“Is it to be tolerated,” asked Afkun, “that such a fiend as this should be the ruler of the empire, for he whom that low-born Persian calls emperor, is but a bauble in his hands!”

“Down with Bochari!” they answered: “vengeance on his guilty head--the tyrant--the murderer of Fazeel--the assassin, if he could be, of Afkun!”