Chapter III

Twice forty winters tip my beard with snow,
And age’s chilling gusts around me blow.
In early youth, by contemplation led,
With high pursuits my flattered thoughts were fed;
To nature first my labours were confined,
And all her charms were opened to my mind;
Each flower that glistened in the morning dew,
And every shrub that in the forest grew:
From earth to heaven I cast my wondering eyes,
Saw suns unnumbered sparkle in the skies;
Marked the just progress of each rolling sphere,
Described the seasons, and reformed the year.
At length sublimer studies I began,
And fixed my levelled telescope on man.

INDIAN TALE.

Absorbed in those visionary secrets, which had now become the great charm of her existence, Nourmahal happened, during one of her excursions among the mountains, to stray to some distance from her attendants. Mounted on a padded pony, that was accustomed to climb the hills, she left the rein loose upon his neck, permitting the animal sometimes to browse upon the herbage over which he wandered, sometimes to drink from the crystal springs which leaped down the mountain’s side, full of that joy with which the whole scene appeared to be animated. It was one of those days in the advancing spring, when the valleys and hills and forests of Cashmere were arrayed in all the pride of their beauty, honouring the great festival which our planet holds every year, in thanksgiving to the Omnipotent for ordering his chamberlain, the zephyr, to spread the emerald carpet, and the clouds to foster the infant plants in the cradle of the earth.

“Ah!” said Nourmahal to herself, as the fragrance of the thymy turf, pressed by her pony’s feet, filled her soul with a rush of irresistible emotion, “how true, how beautiful, are the words of the Gulistan:--‘He clotheth the bodies of the trees with verdant foliage, the festal garments of spring, and in celebration of the return of that season crowneth the youthful branches with garlands of blossoms. By his power the juice of the cane is converted into delicious honey; and by his discipline the kernel of the date becometh a lofty tree. Clouds and winds, the moon, the sun and the sky, are all busied, that thou, O man! mayst obtain thy bread. _Eat it not in neglect._ For thy sake all these revolve and are obedient. It is not, therefore, consistent with the rules of justice that _thou only shouldest not obey_.’

“Wherefore rebels this heart of mine against its destiny? Had I been a shepherdess, like that maiden, slumbering yonder beneath the shade of that willow, like her I should have been content to follow my flock wherever it chose to rove; like her I should lie down when fatigued, repose in happiness, and awake to the renewal of that serene enjoyment, which is expressed in her composed and rosy countenance. What evil spirit is this that seems to have taken possession of all my faculties? Honoured by the preference of the greatest warrior in Hindostan, placed at the head of his household, surrounded by all the luxuries which princely rank and opulence can bestow, why is it that my heart denies the interchange of other sentiments, flies away from all the real glowing loveliness spread here at my feet, to ponder upon far distant scenes,--scenes that I, perhaps, never may revisit?”

The grief that came over her soul while she thus yielded to despair, found relief in a shower of tears, which ran unheeded down her lovely cheeks. Her attendants, meanwhile, accustomed to her moods of abstraction, and not imagining that she was likely to wander beyond her usual rides, gave themselves up to all the gladness of the day. They had discovered a small lake, secluded amongst the hills, shaded from the sun by willows and palms, clear as the sky above their heads, its bed composed of fine sand, its surface so unruffled, that when they came in a group upon it, and looked into it, holding each other by the hand, they beheld themselves, and the trees and the hill-sides around perfectly pictured as in a mirror. Although they had already performed their ablutions in the harem, they could not resist the temptation to bathe again. Having thrown off their garments, and loosened the fillets by which their long hair was bound, they plunged into the cool fountain, where they sat down and amused themselves with lifting the water in the hollows of their hands, and then permitting it to fall on the tops of their heads in refreshing streams. “The nightingales,” as Sadi says, “were chanting around them from the pulpits of the trees.” A zephyr gently waved the branches of the palms and willows by which they were shaded, the grasshoppers chirped on the hills, bees murmured among the yellow broom, and butterflies coursed each other from flower to flower, now expanding their ample wings, now closing them up as if afraid of exposing their delicate azure too much to the rays of the noon-day sun.

While the gay maidens were still revelling in the delicious coolness of the fountain, telling each other their dreams of the preceding night, Kanun called their attention to a sound which she thought she had heard. They unanimously proclaimed it to be one of her fancies, and went on with their talk; when she, again hushing them to silence, bade them listen in the direction to which she pointed out. They now perceived at some distance up the hill, almost hidden by plane and poplar-trees, an ancient temple of considerable extent, and near it a round tower so covered with ivy, that it looked to them like a tall cypress. Presently the sound which before was faint, swelled louder on the air, and filling the atmosphere with an undulation of melody, passed away as one of the visions of which they had just been speaking. It was, however, after a short pause repeated; Kanun declared that they must be in one of those enchanted valleys with which Cashmere abounded. They listened with increasing wonder, and while they kept their eyes directed towards the temple, they beheld, emerging from the shade of the trees by which it was encircled, a line of female pilgrims, in the Hindoo attire, preceded by a girl clad in white, her head crowned with white roses, and bearing in her hand a silver wand wreathed with blossoms of the apple-tree.

The moment the procession began to move the music ceased. Each of the pilgrims held the fore-finger of the right hand to her lips, bearing in the left a bunch of various flowers, carefully arranged, and tied with the slender filaments of the vine. Descending slowly towards the lake, they seemed to experience no surprise on finding it already occupied by the bathers, who, hiding their limbs in their hair, watched with curiosity the progress of the religious ceremony. The pilgrims, standing round the lake, repeated, in a voice scarcely audible, a prayer that the flowers which they cast into the water might reach in safety the places for which they were destined--some of those places being, if Kanun rightly heard the names, as distant as Tatta on the Indus, as Benares on the Jumna, and as Patna on the Ganges. It seemed as if a shower of roses and hyacinths, of pansies and jonquils, and tulips, had fallen from the heavens upon the lake, many of them heaped upon the beautiful blushing faces and raven hair of the maidens, to their boundless delight.

The pilgrims having returned to the temple, in the same silent solemn order as that in which they had descended to the lake, Kanun, while she divested herself, with scrupulous diligence, of the fragrant burthen which was partly entangled in her hair, bade her companions to be careful to follow her example, as she was convinced, from what had occurred, that they must be in the celebrated fountain of Send-Brare. Being immediately called upon on all sides to explain the mysteries of this fountain, she said, that towards the middle of the spring, as she had heard, the fountain flowed and ebbed at the dawn, at noon, and at night, for fifteen successive days, and then remained dry until the same period in the following year. Pilgrims flocked to the fountain annually, from all parts of Hindostan, for the purpose of purifying themselves in the sacred stream, and then of worshipping in the neighbouring temple. After their prayers and hymns were over they returned to the spring, and threw into it bouquets of flowers, so arranged as to express their names, as well as those of the persons for whom they were intended; these flowers they prayed might be borne to their native rivers and streams, in order to assure their relatives and friends, who duly watched for the interesting messengers, of the tidings of their happy arrival at Send-Brare, and of their having consummated their devotions. The flowers were sure to disappear with the retiring waters, and to be conveyed through the interior of the earth, by the hands of genii, to the places for which they were designed, however remote those places might be from Cashmere.

While Kanun was explaining this matter to her companions, and answering the thousand questions to which it gave rise, desiring them to be astonished at nothing in Cashmere, for that it was all sacred ground replete with wonders, neither she nor they perceived that the waters had been gaining rapidly upon them from the moment they entered the lake. They were already lifted beyond their depth, and one of them, in attempting to reach the bank, having cried out that she was drowning, the alarm became general. Those who were near the willow grasped the branches in their terror, rending the air with their screams and piteous shouts, which were echoed through the mountains.

Strange yelling sounds were immediately heard on all sides, as of many persons tortured with intolerable agonies; these noises, which were at first distant, seemed every moment to come nearer, until they burst over the heads of the affrighted sufferers, in a shout of horrid laughter that shook the earth to its centre. The waters were still rising, all traces of the flowery banks had disappeared, the pilgrims had come out from the temple and were running about distracted, not knowing what to do in their confusion. Some fortunately hastened to rescue the maidens from their perilous condition, many lay prostrate in fear, others knelt down to appease, by their prayers, the angry gods. The sky assumed a fiery redness, which was succeeded by the darkness of night, and a silence more awful even than the dreadful uproar that had just subsided.

A low murmur proceeded from the ravines of the mountains, followed by flashes of lightning and hurried peals of thunder, each louder than the former, scarcely distinguishable from the countless shouts by which they were re-echoed all round the lurid horizon. Hail, snow, rain, furiously precipitated from the clouds, were succeeded by a tempest of wind that bent the tops of the stoutest pines to the earth. The tower of the temple, struck by a thunder-bolt, was rent in two, and one of the lofty walls fell with a tremendous crash. The dome gave way before the storm, when an enormous globe of fire entered with a hissing sound, and exploding in the sacred building, left it a pile of ruins.

While the battle of the elements was thus raging, Nourmahal, borne rapidly towards the higher ranges of the mountains by the faithful animal on which she was seated, whose sagacity and experience taught it the means of safety on such occasions, escaped from all the dangers of the scene. Above her, the sky was serene as an infant’s smile; beneath, she beheld a sea of black clouds, agitated as if they had been scourged against each other by the lash of some fiend. The lightning was visible through them in zig-zag lines, and forked, as if wielded by the same implacable hand, for the destruction of all things that lived on earth. The clouds rose higher, every moment, with appalling sounds, that urged her companion to greater speed, until his steps were arrested by a voice, louder even than the thunder.

Nourmahal, turning round, beheld standing near her on an isolated rock, the figure of an aged man, his loins girded with a panther’s hide, a goat-skin flung over his shoulder, a pointed woolly cap on his head, his white uncombed beard long and bushy, and in his hand a rude thorny staff, upon which he leant. Looking down on the warring elements below, he seemed not only to enjoy the spectacle with a savage delight, but to direct the conflict with the authority of a commander. He called to the hail, and the rain, and the lightnings, the rolling thunders, and the winds, by names such as a charioteer uses when he urges his horses to their utmost prowess on the course, or in the field of battle. His voice resounded through the sky, as he bade the elements advance, or retreat, or suspend their fury; and when he issued his mandates and saw how well they were obeyed, he cheered his slaves with a roar of laughter awful as the trumpet of the destroying angel.

Pausing for a while, he gazed on Nourmahal, who was trembling through all her frame, and in accents, somewhat softened from their harsher sounds, he assured her that she was out of all danger, as she had no share in the causes that produced it. He then directed her to proceed onwards by a path which he pointed out, which led her to some distance, until it terminated at a splendid portal, the arch and pillars of which seemed to have been carved out of the living rock, and glittered in all the colours of the rainbow. She was met at the entrance by a female attendant, graceful as a sylph, who encouraged her by winning smiles to dismount from her palfrey, and to enter the hall, the sides and roofs of which were composed of porphyry and jasper. From the hall she was led through long galleries to a spacious saloon, where she was conducted to a couch spread with Persian cloth of silver, through a group of virgins, who paid her the homage due only to a reigning sovereign.

Nourmahal summoned all the energies of her mind, to preserve her conviction that she was not the sport of some delusion of her fancy. Her apprehensions were soon set at rest upon this point, by the information which she received from her beautiful attendants, who expressed their astonishment that she had not before heard of the hermit Baba Zeinedeen, to whom was entrusted the guardianship of the three wells, whence spring the Jumna, the Indus, and the Ganges. To his power also, they added, it belonged to control the dreadful tempests which were always called forth among the mountains of that district by any noises in the open air, beyond the ordinary sounds of nature. The peasants, when crossing those mountains, never spoke above their breath; the pilgrims repairing to Send-Brare, never uttered a syllable out of the temple, so well were they aware of the fearful consequences. Not only winds and thunders arose, but fields of ice were separated from the higher declivities of the mountains, and in their descent to the valleys involved whole villages in destruction. On those occasions Zeinedeen was obliged to issue from his tower, and to restrain the warring elements, otherwise the whole country of Cashmere, the paradise of the earth, would be converted into a scene of desolation. His anger was unbounded when thus disturbed from his usual pursuits; but when the calamities of the hour were over, he resumed, with fresh ardour, his sublime studies, and was accessible to all who wished to consult him.

Nourmahal’s fortitude sensibly returned, while this cheering and interesting intelligence was conveyed to her by rosy lips, and amidst sunny smiles. They, moreover, assured her, that she was well known to Zeinedeen, who had often spoken of her. Iced lemonade, with confectionary of the most exquisite flavour, was then served on golden trays; and, by the time she had rested from her fatigue, Zeinedeen returned.

Taking Nourmahal by the hand, the hermit soothed the alarms with which his savage appearance filled her breast, notwithstanding all she had heard of his benevolence. He informed her that the commotions, unfortunately excited by her own attendants, from their ignorance of the nature of the fountain in which they bathed, and of the results by which their loud cries would be followed, were happily terminated, and that, with the exception of the ruined tower and temple, no other mischief had occurred. Her attendants had been saved from their perils by the pilgrims, and had found shelter in a cavern to which one of his slaves should conduct her, as soon as she wished to return to them.

Nourmahal’s terrors having been completely dissipated by the friendly language of the hermit, she prayed permission to revisit him, in order to receive instructions in the lofty walks of knowledge with which he was conversant, to explore the fountains of the great rivers, especially of her own beloved Jumna, and to behold the wonders over which he held dominion. The hermit readily acceded to her wishes, and attending her to her palfrey, which was in waiting at the portal, he led the animal with his own hand, through the more difficult passages of the mountain; then confiding her to the care of an intelligent slave, whom he had sent forward for the purpose, he gave her his benediction, and watched her progress, until distance shut her out from his view.

Nourmahal’s attendants were no less delighted than herself, with their having met again, after a separation so unexpected and so awful during its continuance. Afkun fortunately had spent the day in the capital, where he was much occupied in organizing his troops for the march to Lahore, having been summoned hither by urgent despatches from Chusero. The bustle of military preparations in which all the male inmates of the castle were involved, left them little time for attending to the adventures which Kanun and her companions had to relate upon their arrival. What, with rivetting of armour, whetting of sabres and spear points, polishing of shields and matchlocks, new stringing of bows, packing of quivers with arrows, and trying the mettle of horses destined for the field, it seemed as if nobody had a moment to spare to listen to Kanun. The cooks and servants of the kitchen were all taken up in providing the continual banquets which were kept up in the great hall of the castle, from morning until late in the night, in consequence of the number of Omrahs, and Rajahs, and cavaliers, who crowded to the residence of the subah, to tender their services.

Resolving, as he had done from the beginning, to espouse the cause of the prince, it was highly gratifying to Afkun’s mind, to find that cause so popular throughout Cashmere. The offers of assistance which he received from all sides were so numerous, that within a few weeks he was enabled to muster the whole force of twenty thousand fighting men, with which he had pledged himself to join Chusero’s army. The last letters from the prince informed him, that Jehangire, after remaining for a while at Delhi, had set out with the whole of his troops in the direction of Lahore, and that not a moment was to be lost in making preparations for the general battle, upon which the destinies of the empire depended.

As speedily as the different troops marched into the capital, from the surrounding districts, they were embodied under the command of experienced officers, and directed to proceed to Bember, where they were to wait until the whole contingent should be assembled. A strong garrison was left in the capital of Cashmere. The castle of the subah being raised on an eminence, surrounded by a deep dyke filled with water, which could only be crossed by a drawbridge, and the rocks which formed its walls and the greater portion of its towers, being inaccessible to an invading force, was confided to the care of a small band of veterans, too old to take any part in the expedition.

Afkun deferred to the last moment the painful task of announcing to Nourmahal his departure for a war, from which it might not be his fate to return. His steed was already caparisoned in the court-yard; the officers by whom he was to be attended, were mounted; and his pages were waiting in the great hall, holding his scymitar and shield, when he presented himself to his idolized consort, clad in his chain armour, and plain helmet of steel without plumes. Taking both her hands in his, he looked into her eyes to find there some tokens of that deep passionate love, which could afford him one bright remembrance to dwell upon during his absence. But he could discern in those spheres of unbounded loveliness no impulses, beyond that interest which she unfeignedly felt in his success as a warrior. Kissing her cheeks, while the big tear was gathering from his anguished heart, he hastened to the hall, and girding on his sword, and passing his left arm through the clasp of his shield, he went forth, reckless of a life that he felt to be of such little worth to Nourmahal.