Chapter XII

“But they shall not obtain that for which they have
perpetrated their wicked deed.

“And in place of benefit I will send them wretchedness.

“Lo! they shall meet with retribution.”

PERSIAN PROPHETS.

A general sense of alarm appeared to pervade the population of Agra, upon its being made known that the emperor had returned to his palace, without any of those exhibitions of triumph by which they conceived he ought to have been accompanied on such an occasion. One of the most formidable rebellions which had for many years disturbed the peace of Hindostan, had been completely put down. The arms of Jehangire had not only vindicated his right to the throne, but had been wielded with a degree of valour, worthy of the best days of Acbar. Even to the omrahs, and the troops who had distinguished themselves in the war, a public entry into the capital, upon their return from the northern provinces, was eminently due. But nothing of the kind was now to be expected. The emperor had come back almost by stealth. It was ascertained that he had arrived in a small boat by the Jumna, and landing at a private staircase, that led into the seraglio, was conducted to his apartments as if he had been a captive, instead of a conqueror.

It was soon after further ascertained, that the omrahs, whose duty it was, from their high birth, as well as from official station, to keep guard at the palace, had been already displaced, and that their functions were entrusted to common spearmen, members of that corps of Orcha rajaputs, on whom the commander-in-chief seemed now resolved to lavish all his favours. The very name of these troops was odious in Agra. They were the known--unpunished--detested assassins of the lamented Fazeel. They had taken no part in the late war. They had been sent for by Bochari, while he was upon the march to Cashmere. It was said, that besides their stipend from the treasury, he presented them with double pay from his own purse; that they were, therefore, instruments entirely subservient to his will, and that the late revolt, though completely extinct, was to be made the pretext for new regulations in the government of the most tyrannical nature.

The public audiences, given from time immemorial by the emperors, were discontinued. No person was allowed access to Jehangire, except Bochari, and those specially furnished with his permission--and then he could only be seen surrounded by a guard of the Orcha chieftains. The reason assigned by the Persian for these extraordinary precautions was, that he possessed in his hands undoubted evidence of a conspiracy, in which most of the omrahs, and many of the inhabitants of Agra, were engaged, the object of which was to assassinate the emperor, and to raise Chusero to the throne. One of the chief conspirators, he alleged, was the high-chancellor, against whom proceedings were about to be instituted forthwith.

These tidings, with the many false or exaggerated rumours to which they gave birth, diffused a deep gloom over the whole capital. The occupations and amusements of the people were, in a great measure, suspended. Men were afraid to converse with each other upon any matter relating to the empire, lest they should incur the vengeance of Bochari, whose emissaries, profusely paid out of the imperial treasury, were known to be actively employed in all directions. The prisons were filled with persons of note, who had been apprehended upon the denunciations of these spies, without the slightest proof of any offence being brought against them. Each succeeding morning teemed with mysterious reports of new arrests, and of secret decapitations, carried into effect in defiance of every established form of legal procedure.

This calamitous state of things continued for several months, during which it became manifest that Bochari was the real master of the empire, although the public ordinances were still signed by Jehangire. He did not yet venture to displace the subahs of the provinces, who had been appointed previously to the expedition to Cashmere. It was not concealed, however, that they were all distributed amongst the Orcha chieftains, who were to take possession of their offices as soon as they could be spared from attendance in the capital. As they constituted the principal support of the usurper, he feigned a variety of excuses, from time to time, in order to detain them near his person.

Zeinedeen, who was obliged to act with the greatest circumspection, notwithstanding the sacredness usually attached to his character as a dervish, did not fail to convey to Kazim accurate intelligence of these events, which, he very justly stated, were felt with tenfold severity by the people of Agra, as they were no longer under the protection of the high-chancellor. While he was to be seen, they said, in the seat of judgment, they smoked their chibouques in tranquillity, because they knew that no injustice could reach them, if the administration of the law were in the hands of Kazim Ayas.

The first act of open resistance to the absolute authority exercised by Bochari during a period of more than twelve months, occurred in consequence of an attempt that was made by his order to raze the mansion of the high chancellor to the ground. A private execution might be attended with serious consequences the moment it became known. An open trial might prove equally perilous. In order to feel the public pulse with respect to his desired victim, he instructed his myrmidons to proceed to that officer’s state residence, on the bank of the Jumna, and to demolish it. The design became known, however, and the persons employed to effect it no sooner commenced operations than an immense crowd assembled at the place, and assailed them with bitter reproaches. The men persevered,--troops having in the mean time arrived to their assistance. This was the signal for a general tumult. A part of the building had been already thrown down. The materials were made use of by the people as missiles, which they hurled against their antagonists. The cavalry found it impossible to act, so dense was the crowd by which their movements were impeded. They were slaughtered in detail, and in a few moments the whole of the workmen assembled to execute the orders of Bochari, were compelled to fly from the ground.

This event filled his mind with alarm. It demonstrated to him the very slight foundation upon which his power was based, although it had been suffered to continue so long, without meeting any considerable opposition. He had failed, it was true, to obtain the concurrence of any of the principal omrahs or rajahs in his system of tyranny. But before this occurrence he felt an impression that his authority, armed as it was with all the terrors which his position enabled him to call to his assistance, was too formidable to permit of any serious attempt at resistance. He trembled on his pinnacle.

The long year already spent by Kazim and his family within the walls of their prison, seemed nevertheless likely to be succeeded by another. From an early period the governor of the citadel had been displaced, because he was suspected of being favourable to their interests. The estates bestowed upon Kazim, by Acbar and Jehangire, as rewards for his important services to the empire, had been confiscated. His property of a moveable nature, consisting of money, household furniture, horses, and cattle of every description, had been seized and distributed, as well as his estates, amongst the Orcha rajaputs whose rapacity was insatiable. His office was abolished as no longer necessary in a country, that had ceased to be governed by law. He and his wife and daughter were studiously subjected to every species of privation. No other food was allowed them than that which was daily divided among the meanest prisoners,--rice, barley bread, and water. They were indeed suffered to retain three female slaves, the daughters of a nurse who had formerly lived in Kazim’s family. But no other persons were permitted to enter their apartments, Zeinedeen alone excepted.

These persecutions, accumulated one upon another, and accompanied with every petty circumstance of mortification which the Persian could invent, at first produced a sensible effect upon the health and spirits of Mangeli. But the mild suggestions of her husband, and the affectionate attentions of Nourmahal, whose character now shone out in all its native dignity and beauty, soon beguiled her from the melancholy anticipations in which she was prone to indulge.

“We are, it is true,” he would say, “deprived of station, fortune, and liberty. But we suffer in common with many others, who possess not our resources for rendering these evils tolerable. Disease takes from some the power of enjoyment in the midst of riches. We still have health. As to high station, it can hardly be desirable to any elevated mind in the present state of Hindostan; and the sense of freedom is in our souls, although we are confined personally within these three chambers.

“At all events let us not shadow out new misfortunes before they actually come. When they do arrive, they are seldom so difficult to bear as we imagine. Something altogether unforeseen occurs to limit their duration, or to disarm them of their terrors. By anticipating them, we give them reality so far as mental pain is concerned, when in fact they may never approach us; and when they do, we suffer them over again, thus unnecessarily doubling the affliction, with which they would have been otherwise attended.”

Nourmahal was not long in reducing to practice the resolutions, which had often passed through her mind, as to providing against the pressure of calamity, such as that in which she and her beloved parents were now involved. She found means, through Zeinedeen’s co-operation, of disposing of the jewels and trinkets which she fortunately happened to have about her person, on the night of her escape from the fortress, when she was so suddenly transferred from the ball-room to the hermitage. The produce of these articles enabled her to purchase, not merely the ordinary necessaries, but even some of the luxuries of life, to which her parents had been accustomed; and, moreover, a considerable quantity of brocade, silks, muslins, and other materials, which, with the assistance of her attendants, she converted into dresses of the most elegant description. Those maidens were at first little versed in this sort of employment, but she spared no pains in instructing them. Her patience, in shewing them how to execute their work with the requisite degree of neatness, was admirable.

Never perhaps did Kazim contemplate his daughter with a warmer affection, or, more properly speaking, with a higher degree of gratitude to Heaven, for having given him such a child, than when he beheld her engaged in teaching those young women the very rudiments of needlework, with which they had been before unacquainted, as they had been brought up to the employment of cultivating flowers, destined to be sold in the market of Agra. But they were of docile dispositions, and they soon learned from their young mistress how to perform, with readiness and precision, their assigned tasks, and even to bestow upon them those little graces beyond the reach of mechanism, which flowed so naturally from her own hand.

Nothing could be more beautiful than the flowered muslins which emanated occasionally from this domestic factory. It was Nourmahal’s habit to draw the flowers first, and then when her fancy was pleased, not only with their form, but their variety, to work them herself upon the plain muslin. She did not follow the usual fashion of strewing only one species of flower upon the material. She selected such as in colour and feature best harmonised together, and these she disposed within her tambour frame so tastefully, that the eye was at once struck with the novelty, and captivated with the poetic elegance of her invention. By the industry of her handmaids, these specimens of her art were multiplied. They found a ready sale in the bazaars of Agra, and of Delhi, whither they were conveyed by the care of Zeinedeen, and were speedily so much in vogue amongst the ladies of the two cities, who converted them into turbans, that the supply was seldom adequate to the demand.

In the same manner, the dresses in brocade and rich silks, which were executed by Nourmahal and her gentle companions, were acknowledged, even by persons the most experienced in the manufacture of female apparel, to be inimitable. Even when nothing was done to improve the texture of the material, there was an effect about the fashion of the robe itself, which pronounced it to be fit only for a noble woman. But when to the texture were added ornaments in gold or silver--whether they assumed the resemblance of flowers, or bees, or butterflies, or the insects that illuminate the forest, or the fishes that lighten over the deep,--it was said that none but empresses ought to be allowed to assume such splendid vestments.