CHAPTER XIII
A WILD WOOING
“Well?” asked the Colonel; “what luck?”
“None at all,” growled Allison. “The vizier is as tricky and sly as his master. He assumed a dignified and benevolent air, was very sorry we were discontented, but can do nothing to help us.”
“How about horses?”
“The vizier states it is an ecclesiastical command that no beasts of burden shall be sold to an infidel, under pain of death. His Highness the Khan regrets it; His Excellency the Vizier regrets it. You are referred to Aboullah O’Brien, Grand Mufti of the Mosque of the Angels, who issued the order to the faithful.”
“It iss Aboullah Beyren,” corrected David, meekly.
“How long has this order been in effect?” enquired the doctor.
“Since the day we arrived. It was not aimed at us, by any means. It was a coincidence.”
“That looks bad,” said the Colonel gravely. “How about my interview with the Khan?”
“The vizier will intercede for you. He will go down on his knees to His Supreme Mightiness; he will implore the Star of the Heavens to see you. But he doubts if we ever get within earshot of the Glorious and Magnificent Defender of the Faith, who is otherwise known as Ahmed Khan. It seems he has other fish to fry, and is busy getting them ready. We can do nothing with the scoundrelly vizier, I am certain.”
“Then we must depend upon David to get me an audience with the Khan. Americans are not accustomed to fail in what they undertake. See here, David,” turning to that worthy merchant; “can’t you bribe your way into the royal palace?”
“I will try, most Excellency,” answered David, eagerly. “But de bribe must be great moneys – grant moneys – many golt fillibees! Unt I promise nodding. Maybe I see de Khan; maybe nod. Who can tell?”
“It sounds like a risky investment, David,” remarked the doctor. “We’ll take time to think it over.”
They thought of many things, in the days that followed, but could arrive at no plan that promised to provide a caravan or give them an opportunity to negotiate with the Khan concerning the new railway.
The Colonel went personally to the palace one day, taking along the trembling David as interpreter. The official who met him at the entrance listened to him respectfully, but assured him that no message from an infidel could be carried to the Khan. Hints of money had no effect. It would cost him his head to disturb the Khan on such an errand.
Under these unfortunate conditions the Colonel began to be worried, and even the doctor lost much of his habitual cheerfulness. Aunt Lucy vowed vengeance upon every barbarian in Baluchistan, and promised the United States would wipe this miserable country off the map as soon as she returned and reported their treatment to her friend the senator.
But Allison, to the wonder of all, stopped grumbling and bore his imprisonment with rare fortitude and good nature. Janet also grew brighter and merrier day by day – a circumstance that did much toward reconciling her father to their enforced stay in Mekran. Bessie, always philosophic and gay, made no complaint of any sort. And so the days passed swiftly away and as yet brought no change in the fortunes of the stranded Commission.
One evening David came in greatly excited. A messenger had arrived from the Khan. Although that haughty potentate still ignored the Commission he had placed two saddle horses from his own stables at the disposal of the young ladies. If they would ride at daybreak on the following morning – that hour being the most cool and delightful of the day – the Khan would send a competent guard to protect them. His Most Serene and Magnificent Highness offered this courtesy in order to relieve the monotony of the young ladies’ stay in his capital. He made no mention of the other members of the party, who might exist as monotonously as ever. And the messenger awaited an answer.
This was, indeed, a startling proposition. Eastern women did not ride, yet the Khan seemed to know that nothing could be more acceptable to American girls than a dash across country on the back of a spirited horse. They were very glad to accept the favor, and the Colonel hoped it might lead in some way to more friendly relations between them and the ruler of Mekran, and perhaps result in the interview he so ardently desired.
“But who’s going to chaperon them?” enquired Aunt Lucy. “It seems I’m not invited.”
The Colonel thought the khan’s guard would be sufficient.
“But it’s a heathen country, and they’ll have to bandage their faces,” declared the old lady.
“We’ll wear veils until we are out of Mekran,” said Bessie. “Then there will be no masculine eyes to see us, and we’ll take them off.”
So at daybreak Janet and Bessie were ready for their ride, and soon a grizzled Baluch warrior rode up to the house leading two magnificent bays from the famous stables of Mehmet. The one that Janet rode was the very animal that had carried Ahmed on his swift journey from the monastery, and Bessie’s horse was but little inferior.
The warrior saluted and assisted the ladies to mount. It was Dirrag. He led them through the streets, around the palace enclosure and out at the south gate. A beautiful country lay spread before them, and as the keen morning air saluted their nostrils, brightened their eyes and flushed their cheeks, the girls dashed away at a canter with Dirrag silently following a few paces behind.
After their long confinement within the walls of a city dwelling this free, invigorating exercise was a great delight to the two girls, and they enjoyed the ride thoroughly. Passing through the city on their return they closely veiled their faces, yet were evidently objects of curiosity to those of the natives who were abroad so early.
Dirrag held the stirrups for them to dismount and then silently touched his cap and led the horses back to the khan’s stables. But next morning he was again at their door with the mounts, and their ride became a daily event to the girls.
Dirrag knew no English, but Janet and Bessie had come to understand many of the Baluch words – a dialect evidently founded upon Arabic – and could even speak a few simple sentences, learned by contact with the native servants and somewhat puzzling explanations from David. So the silence of their first rides began to be broken by laconic observations on the part of the battered old warrior, who seemed not to object to acting as escort to the charming infidel women. Occasionally they passed the house of Agahr the Vizier and Maie, who was informed of all that occurred in the capital, watched from her latticed window the graceful forms of the American girls riding by and on several occasions when they neglected to arrange their veils caught glimpses of their fair faces.
It was enough to set the vizier’s daughter wild with envy and chagrin. Why should the Khan favor these outcasts-these women of another world? Was it for them the harem was being prepared, despite her father’s protestation that Ahmed had never seen the foreign women nor ever would see them? The girl well knew that their beauty could in no way compare with her own in the eyes of any true Baluch. The Americans were deformed by being laced and belted at the waist and wearing heavy, close-fitting draperies that must not only be uncomfortable but were decidedly ugly in appearance. But Maie could not deny they sat their horses gracefully and with rare self-possession, and men have queer ideas of beauty. Perhaps Ahmed Khan might admire the novelty of their white faces, their queerly arranged hair and the pink finger nails that lacked any trace of the beautifying henna.
Maie was jealous, and with good reason. She had abandoned her handsome cousin Kasam for the more powerful and scarcely less handsome Ahmed Khan, and if fate destined her to lose them both she was surely to be pitied.
But her father declared he had no such fears. Ahmed was difficult to understand, it was true; but Ahmed was a man, and he had seen and admired Maie. Was he not beautifying his harem? and what place could these stiff Americans have amid the luxuries of the perfumed baths, the gardens of the Court of the Maidens, or the musk-scented cushions of the oriental divans? It would be as absurd as putting a frog in the jar devoted to gold-fish. Add to this argument the fact that Maie was the most beautiful maiden the world had ever known, and none but a fool could fail to read the lines of destiny.
One morning Dirrag turned to the west, and led his fair companions across the valley and up the curve of the long hill that enclosed it. The country was more wild and unsettled here than at the south or east, and when finally they mounted the brow of the hill and gazed down into the next valley Dirrag pointed out a cluster of white dots showing far away against the green of the fertile plains.
“Kasam,” said he.
The girls looked with eager interest.
“Is it a camp?” asked Bessie, twisting her tongue into the Baluch dialect.
Dirrag seemed to understand.
“Kasam is a rebel,” he said, looking calmly at the tents. “Many traitors to our great khan have joined him. His army grows daily. It will be battle, some day, and Kasam and his host will disappear like snow before the sun.”
“Has the Khan also an army?” asked Janet.
Dirrag smiled, proudly.
“The warriors of Mekran are as numerous as the leaves in the forest. Our mighty khan does not mind Kasam, for the buzzing of a bee against the window-pane is not annoying. But when the time comes he will crush the rebel in a day.”
“That may not be so easy,” exclaimed Bessie, while her eyes sparkled indignantly. “Prince Kasam is no child I’ll bet he knows very well what he’s about!”
Dirrag shrugged his shoulders. He did not understand, for in her excitement she spoke in English. But other ears heard the words, and a young man rode out from a clump of trees that had concealed him and advanced toward the ladies with a bow and a smile.
It was Kasam himself, mounted upon a magnificent gelding that was black as night. He wore a native costume, sparkling with jewels, and looked as handsome and manly as any prince in a fairy tale.
Dirrag, frowning and alert, drew his terrible curved cimeter and prepared to defend his charges. But the girls were pleased at the encounter, and Bessie managed to cry out in Baluch: “Don’t strike, Dirrag! It is Prince Kasam.”
“Good reason to strike,” growled the warrior; but he stood at attention, awaiting the outcome of the adventure and admiring secretly the enemy’s boldness.
“I thank you, fair ladies, for your protection,” said Kasam, speaking gaily and in English. “Not that I particularly fear your doughty champion, but because it affords me the opportunity I have longed for to talk frankly with you, and explain why I seemingly abandoned you on the eve of your arrival in Mekran.”
“And also why you carried away our entire caravan,” added Janet, severely.
Kasam laughed.
“All is fair in love and war,” he rejoined. “You did not need the caravan any longer, and I needed it badly. It was natural I should take advantage of your good nature and my own necessities. Look!” pointing proudly to the plain below; “it is the encampment of my army – the host that is to win for me the throne of Mekran!”
“Are our horses and dromedaries there? And our escort of Afghans?” asked Janet.
“All are there. For the money loss you have sustained I can easily recompense you. As for my own desertion, I agreed to guide your party to Mekran, and I kept my promise. Really, I cannot see that you have just cause for complaint.”
“We have no way to leave the city,” replied Janet. “Your act has made us prisoners in Mekran.”
“That was part of my plan,” declared the young man, eyeing the girl with open admiration. “I do not want you to leave Mekran until I am khan.”
“Why?” she asked.
He hesitated, and glanced at Dirrag.
“Let us ride on,” he said, “and, if you will kindly pace beside me, Miss Janet, I will confide to your ears alone my hopes and ambitions.”
He reached out and caught the rein of her bridle, drawing the horse beside his own, and then he rode slowly down the hill toward the city. Dirrag, puzzled by the action and marvelling that the Prince should venture so near the khan’s headquarters, followed a few paces behind Kasam, with Bessie at his side. The girl’s face had flushed red at Kasam’s evident preference for her friend, and her lips were pressed ominously together. She nodded approval as she saw that the warrior beside her still held his drawn cimeter tightly clasped in his hand, for the stern look upon his grim features boded no good to the rebel prince.
For a few paces Kasam rode in silence; then, glancing behind to make sure they were not overheard, he said:
“Miss Moore – Janet! the conditions that surround me oblige me to be frank with you, and to discard all foolish formalities. Although I have been educated in London you must not forget I am a native Baluch, and that we of the East are children of impulse, obeying the dictates of our hearts spontaneously and scorning that cold formality so much affected by your race. I have neither the time nor the opportunity to woo you in the dignified Western fashion. But I love you; and, after all, that is enough for a man to say!”
“Prince Kasam!”
“Since you must hear me, pray rob your voice of its scorn, my love. Be sweet and fond as a woman should. Let your real soul peep out of your beautiful eyes – let your heart bound wild and free in unison with my own. We are man and woman, fitted to sweet communion one with the other and destined to be happy in the passionate union of our lives.” His voice was broken and excited; his eyes sparkled with fierce intensity; the conventionality of the Western civilization he had once known was all forgotten. “I love you – I adore you, my Janet! And I am a prince – soon to be Khan of all this great land. Speak to me, dear one! Promise to leave all else and cling to me alone – to follow my fortunes until I can place you in the palace where you shall be queen!”
“You have taken me by surprise, Prince Kasam,” said Janet, gravely. “I am sorry you have spoken in this way.”
“And why?” he cried. “Can love be denied when it clamors at the door of an eager heart? Why should I not love you? Why should you not accept my love?”
She looked into his animated face and smiled sadly.
“Because I do not belong to myself,” she answered, trying hard, as a true woman will, to soften the blow. “Can I give you what another claims as his right?”
She should have said more, or not so much; but she did not know the Baluch temper.
He drew a quick breath at her words and reined his horse to a sudden halt. Her own horse stopped at the same time, and for one long moment Kasam gazed steadily into the fair face she turned pleadingly upon him.
With an exclamation and a passionate gesture he spurred forward. The black gelding was off like the wind across the plain, and Janet was left to stare wonderingly after him.
Dirrag swore heartily; but the native oaths, lacking translation, did not offend the ears of the American girls. The warrior dared not leave his companions to pursue the prince, who circled around and made straight for the hillside in the direction of his encampment.
An embarrassing silence fell upon the three as they again rode forward. Dirrag was plainly suspicious of Janet’s secret conference with the rebel, and Bessie’s sweet face was masked with a grieved and despondent expression that was new to it.
But Janet was too preoccupied to notice her friend’s distress, nor did she deign to explain, even with a word, her strange interview with Kasam.
CHAPTER XIV
THE VEILED WOMAN
“What does it mean?” demanded Maie, stamping her small foot in passion. “Tell me at once, my father – what does it mean?”
The vizier sat doubled up in his chair a picture of abject humiliation and despair. His chin lay inert against his chest; the white beard streamed to his waist, where long and bony fingers clutched it and dragged at the meshes nervously; his eyes refused to meet the glowing orbs his incensed daughter turned upon him like searchlights baring the soul.
“Will you speak?” she asked, scornfully. “Will you speak, most sublime and magnificent Vizier – if only to proclaim yourself an ass?”
“Have peace – have peace!” muttered Agahr, moving uneasily. “How was I to know that Merad the Persian would return?”
“Oh trusting and childlike servant – thou one innocent in all the world of guile!”
“Ahmed tells no one of his plans,” the vizier went on, heedless of her jibes; “nor can I be expected to probe the secret thoughts of the Khan. When Merad departed there was no hint of his mission or that he expected soon to return. My spy waits in Ahmed’s private chamber; my spy serves his every meal; my spy listens to the secret conferences he holds with sirdars and officers of the household. If the Khan sneezes, I know it; if he stirs abroad my eyes follow his every step. But his thoughts, being known only to himself and to Allah, baffle my efforts, and the jargon he speaks to the foreign physician is a language none else can understand.”
Maie clutched at her silken scarf and rent its folds in twain, twisting and tearing the tender fabric until its threads lay scattered in all directions.
“I hate him! I have hated him from the first,” she said. “Aye, even as I clasped his clammy form in my arms, and knew that water rather than blood flowed in his veins, I loathed the man and guessed he would strive to ruin me!”
“You did this?” asked the vizier, sternly. “You clasped the Persian in your arms – a man so old that he might call you daughter? You played the wanton with this stranger?”
“Even so,” she answered, mockingly. “I would have sacrificed anything, at that time, to have cut old Burah’s thread of life. But, elai! your cold Persian would not respond. He spurned me from him. I was very safe in his presence, my father.”
Agahr’s brows did not unbend. He eyed his daughter with a look of smouldering fury.
“Hear me, Maie,” he commanded; “you are the child of my heart, my best beloved. With you I have plotted and intrigued until my very soul is stained with evil in the Prophet’s sight; but all for your future glory and pride, and with no thought of my own advantage. But if you disregard your own purity, if I find that you give yourself to strange men or humble me in the sight of Allah, I swear to kill you as quickly as I would a dog of an infidel! Aye, my own slaves shall cut you down like a noxious weed.”
She laughed then, showing her dimples and her pearl-like teeth; but the laugh rang hard in Agahr’s ears.
“What man has knowledge to teach a woman?” she asked, with a careless gesture. “Is your wisdom so little, my father, that you judge me lacking in worldly cunning? Bah! have comfort, then! Never can you plot so well for Maie as Maie can plot for herself. And when I fall the heavens shall follow in my wake. Enough of this. We face a real trouble. The Persian has returned to Mekran, bearing in a splendid palanquin a woman veiled and closely guarded, who is received into the harem of the khan after he had embraced her form in the sight of many servants. In this we read my own rejection, the failure of all our clever plotting. The harem, then, was not made beautiful for me, but for this strange woman whom the Persian brings to warm the cold heart of Ahmed Khan. Is she beautiful? Is she young and winning? Has she charms to delight the senses? Then why should she be chosen before me – the daughter you yourself have declared to be incomparable? Answer, you man of spies – spies so impotent that they cannot penetrate the secrets of the harem!”
“It is all a deep mystery, my Maie,” sighed the vizier, solemnly stroking his beard. “But let us not be disheartened. There is room in the khan’s harem for more than one woman.”
“Unless Maie is first, there is no room for her in any man’s harem,” she retorted, proudly. “Have done, my father, with thoughts of Ahmed Khan. Our Kasam is assembling an army. Perhaps it is not too late to bargain with him for our support.”
“Not long ago,” said the vizier, slowly, “we rejected Kasam.”
“The more reason that he will be eager to make a compact with us. We can open to him the gates of Mekran.”
“A day or two ago,” continued the vizier, “the Prince came out from his camp and met the American women who ride with Dirrag each morning. He conversed long and tenderly with the dark haired one. My spy saw all from a thicket on the hillside.”
Maie’s dainty face became grave and thoughtful.
“It is difficult to estimate the power of these American women,” she said, after a pause. “Only yesterday I feared they might win the favor of Ahmed Khan; yet it seems I was wrong, for another has been received into his harem. Kasam’s interest in them may be equally unimportant. He saw many such creatures in England, and cared nothing for them. Besides, he has a throne to win, and with it he may have – ”
She stopped abruptly, and rising from her cushions approached a large mirror, where she examined her reflection with much care. Then she returned slowly to her divan.
“You are right, my father: no woman that I have ever beheld can compare with me in beauty of form or face – in grace or in womanly loveliness. The Americans could not amuse Kasam as I can. Let us think of them no longer, but send messages at once to the camp of the Prince. Without doubt he will accept our terms eagerly.”
“I will do as you wish,” returned the vizier, but with evident reluctance. “There is little doubt we can do better with Kasam than with the Khan, but by allying ourselves with the rebel we place our own necks in danger. I wish the Prince had a share of Ahmed’s compelling will and cool judgment. When the armies meet Kasam may not win the battle.”
“But the armies must not meet!” returned the girl. “With our aid Kasam can accomplish his ends by strategy. In battle the khan would crush him to the earth, but in cunning our Prince will prove the victor. Select your messenger with care – one whose death will not cause you to mourn, for we must trust no one with our secret. When he is ready to depart I will give him instructions.”
“It shall be done,” said the vizier.
“And now it grows late, and I will retire.”
She made him a dutiful obeisance and left the room to go to her apartment.
An hour later, while the vizier slumbered, Maie stole away to the end of the garden and by the Gate of the Griffins came upon Allison, who clasped her fondly in his arms.
Next day David brought to the house of Colonel Moore the gossip of the city, telling of the return of Merad the Persian. The physician had been to Quettah for the most beautiful woman in the world, whom he had purchased for the price of ten thousand fillibees to grace the harem of the young khan.
The ladies received this wonderful tale with various comments. Aunt Lucy was very indignant that any female, however depraved, should be bought and sold like so many goods and chattels. Bessie wondered if the girl was really beautiful, and whether she was proud to have brought so large a sum of money. Janet said nothing, but listened with downcast eyes and flushed cheeks.
Somewhere or other Allison had also heard this gossip, and he took pains to quietly impress his sister with the fact that the incident fully proved them to have been mistaken in thinking they recognized the Persian on the day he had left Mekran.
“The doctor we knew in New York was an impertinent meddler,” he said, when they could not be overheard; “but he wasn’t the man to purchase women for the harem of a barbarian, you may be sure. We probably had our scare for nothing.”
“Scare?” she exclaimed. “What do you mean, Allison? Why should you fear to meet – ”
“Hush!” he interrupted, nervously glancing around. “They may hear you; and it isn’t best, on your own account, to mention that name. I didn’t mean that we need fear to meet him, but that he would be afraid to meet us. Is it not so?”
“You are talking riddles,” she answered, coldly, and left the room to avoid discussing the matter further.