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The Prince of India; or, Why Constantinople Fell, a novel by Lew Wallace |
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Book 4. The Palace Of Blacherne - Chapter 19. The Prince Builds Castles For His Gul Bahar |
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_ BOOK IV. THE PALACE OF BLACHERNE CHAPTER XIX. THE PRINCE BUILDS CASTLES FOR HIS GUL BAHAR The words between Demedes and his courier may have the effect of additionally exciting the reader's curiosity; for better understanding, therefore, we will take the liberty of carrying him from the Hippodrome to the house of Uel the merchant. Much has been said about the Prince of India's affection for Lael; so much indeed that there is danger of its being thought one sided. A greater mistake could scarcely be. She returned his love as became a daughter attentive, tender and obedient. Without knowing anything of his past life except as it was indistinctly connected with her family, she regarded him a hero and a sage whose devotion to her, multiform and unwearied, was both a delight and an honor. She was very sympathetic, and in everything of interest to him responded with interest. His word in request or direction was law to her. Such in brief was the charming mutuality between them. The night before he started for Plati, Lael sat with him on the roof. He was happy of his resolution to stay with her. The moonlight was ample for them. Looking up into his face, her chin in a palm, an elbow on his knee, she listened while he talked of his plans, and was the more interested because he made her understand she was the inspiration of them all. "The time for my return home is up," he said, forgetting to specify where the home was, "and I should have been off before this but for my little girl--my Gul Bahar"--and he patted her head fondly. "I cannot go and leave her; neither can I take her with me, for what would then become of father Uel? When she was a child it might not have been so hard for me to lose sight of her, but now--ah, have I not seen you grow day by day taller, stronger, wiser, fairer of person, sweeter of soul, until you are all I fancied you would be--until you are my ideal of a young woman of our dear old Israel, the loveliness of Judah in your eyes and on your cheek, and of a spirit to sit in the presence of the Lord like one invited and welcome? Oh, I am very happy!" He kept silence awhile, indulging in retrospect. If she could have followed him! Better probably that she could not. "It is a day of ease to me, dear, and I cannot see any unlawfulness in extending the day into months, or a year, or years indefinitely, and in making the most of it. Can you?" he asked, smiling at her. "I am but a handmaiden, and my master's eyes are mine," she replied. "That was well said--ever so well said," he returned. "The words would have become Ruth speaking to her lord who was of the kindred of Elimelech... Yes, I will stay with my Gul Bahar, my most precious one. I am resolved. She loves me now, but can I not make her love me still more--Oh, doubt not, doubt not! Her happiness shall be the measure of her love for me. That is the right way, is it not?" "My father is never wrong," Lael answered, laughing. "Flatterer!" he exclaimed, pressing her cheeks between his hands.... "Oh, I have it marked out already! In the dry lands of my country, I have seen a farmer, wanting to lead water to a perishing field, go digging along the ground, while the stream bubbled and leaped behind him, tame and glad as a petted lamb. My heart is the field to be watered--your love, O my pretty, pretty Gul Bahar, is the refreshing stream, and I will lead it after me--never fear!... Listen, and I will tell you how I will lead it. I will make you a Princess. These Greeks are a proud race, but they shall bow to you; for we will live amongst them, and you shall have things richer than their richest--trinkets of gold and jewels, a palace, and a train of women equal to that of the Queen who went visiting Solomon. They praise themselves when they look at their buildings, but I tell you they know nothing of the art which turns dreams into stones. The crags and stones have helped them to their models. I will teach them better--to look higher--to find vastness with grace and color in the sky. The dome of Sancta Sophia--what is it in comparison with the Hindoo masterpieces copied from the domes of God on the low-lying clouds in the distance opposite the sun?" Then he told her of his palace in detail--of the fronts, no two of them alike--the pillars, those of red granite, those of porphyry, and the others of marble--windows which could not be glutted with light--arches such as the Western Kaliphs transplanted from Damascus and Bagdad, in form first seen in a print of the hoof of Borak. Then he described the interior, courts, halls; passages, fountains: and when he had thus set the structure before her, he said, softly smoothing her hair: "There now--you have it all--and verily, as Hiram, King of Tyre, helped Solomon in his building, he shall help me also." "How can he help you?" she asked, shaking her finger at him. "He has been dead this thousand years, and more." "Yes, dear, to everybody but me," he answered, lightly, and asked in turn: "How do you like the palace?" "It will be wonderful!" "I have named it. Would you like to hear the name?" "It is something pretty, I know." "The Palace of Lael." Her cry of delighted surprise, given with clasped hands and wide-open eyes, would have been tenfold payment were he putting her in possession of the finished house. The sensation over, he told her of his design for a galley. "We know how tiresome the town becomes. In winter, it is cheerless and damp; in summer, it is hot, dusty and in every way trying. Weariness will invade our palace--yes, dear, though we hide from it in the shady heart of our Hall of Fountains. We can provide against everything but the craving for change. Not being birds to fly, and unable to compel the eagles to lend us their wings, the best resort is a galley; then the sea is ours--the sea, wide, mysterious, crowded with marvels. I am never so near the stars as there. When a wave is bearing me up, they seem descending to meet me. Times have been when I thought the Pleiades were about to drop into my palm.... Here is my galley. You see, child, the palace is to be yours, the galley mine." Thereupon he described a trireme of a hundred and twenty oars, sixty on a side, and ended, saying: "Yes, the peerless ship will be mine, but every morning it shall be yours to say Take it here or there, until we have seen every city by the sea; and there are enough of them, I promise, to keep us going and going forever were it not that the weariness which drove us from our palace will afterwhile drive us back to it. How think you I have named my galley?" "Lael," she answered. "No, try again." "The world is too full of names for me. Tell me." "Gul Bahar," he returned. Again she clasped her hands, and gave the little cry in his ears so pleasant. Certainly the Prince was pleading with effect, and laying up happiness in great store to cheer him through unnumbered sterile years inevitably before him after time had resolved this Lael into a faint and fading memory, like the other Lael gone to dust under the stone at Jerusalem. The first half of the night was nearly spent when he arose to conduct her across the street to Uel's house. The last words at the head of the steps were these: "Now, dear, to-morrow I must go a journey on business which will keep me three days and nights--possibly three weeks. Tell father Uel what I say. Tell him also that I have ordered you to stay indoors while I am absent, unless he can accompany you. Do you hear me?" "Three weeks!" she cried, protestingly. "Oh, it will be so lonesome! Why may I not go with Syama?" "Syama would be a wisp of straw in the hands of a ruffian. He could not even call for help." "Then why not with Nilo?" "Nilo is to attend me." "Oh, I see," she said, with a merry laugh. "It is the Greek, the Greek, my persecutor! Why, he has not recovered from his fright yet; he has deserted me." He answered gravely: "Do you remember a bear tender, one of the amusements at the fisherman's fete?" "Oh, yes." "He was the Greek." "He!" she cried, astonished. "Yes. I have it from Sergius the monk; and further, my child, he was there in pursuit of you." "Oh, the monster! I threw him my fan!" The Prince knew by the tremulous voice she was wounded, and hastened to say: "It was nothing. He deceived everybody but Sergius. I spoke of the pestilent fellow because you wanted a reason for my keeping you close at home. Perhaps I exacted too much of you. If I only knew certainly how long I shall be detained! The three weeks will be hard--and it may be Uel cannot go with you--his business is confining. So if you do venture out, take your sedan--everybody knows to whom it belongs--and the old Bulgarian porters. I have paid them enough to be faithful to us. Are you listening, child?" "Yes, yes--and I am so glad!" He walked down the stairs half repenting the withdrawal of his prohibition. "Be it so," he said, crossing the street. "The confinement might be hurtful. Only go seldom as you can; then be sure you return before sunset, and that you take and keep the most public streets. That is all now." "You are so good to me!" she said, putting her arm round his neck, and kissing him. "I will try and stay in the house. Come back early. Farewell." Next day about noon the Prince of India took the galley, and set out for Plati. The day succeeding his departure was long with Lael. She occupied herself with her governess, however, and did a number of little tasks such as women always have in reserve for a more convenient season. The second day was much more tedious. The forenoon was her usual time for recitations to the Prince; she also read with him then, and practised talking some of the many languages of which he was master. That part of the day she accordingly whiled through struggling with her books. She was earnest in the attempt at study; but naturally, the circumstances considered, she dropped into thinking of the palace and galley. What a delightful glorious existence they prefigured! And it was not a dream! Her father, the Prince of India, as she proudly and affectionately called him, did not deal in idle promises, but did what he said. And besides being a master of design in many branches of art, he had an amazing faculty of describing the things he designed. That is saying he had the mind's eye to see his conceptions precisely as they would appear in finished state. So in talking his subjects always seemed before him for portraiture. One can readily perceive the capacity he must have had for making the unreal appear real to a listener, and also how he could lead Lael, her hand in his, through a house more princely than anything of the kind in Constantinople, and on board a ship such as never sailed unless on a painted ocean--a house like the Taj Mahal, a vessel like that which burned on the Cydnus. She decided what notable city by the sea she wanted most to look at next, and in naming them over, smiled at her own indecision. The giving herself to such fancies was exactly what the Prince intended; only he was to be the central figure throughout. Whether in the palace or on the ship, she was to think of him alone, and always as the author of the splendor and the happiness. Of almost any other person we would speak compassionately; but he had lived long enough to know better than dream so childishly--long enough at least to know there is a law for everything except the vagaries of a girl scarcely sixteen. After all, however, if his scheme was purely selfish, perhaps it may be pleasing to the philosophers who insist that relations cannot exist without carrying along with them their own balance of compensations, to hear how Lael filled the regal prospect set before her with visions in which Sergius, young, fair, tall and beautiful, was the hero, and the Prince only a paternal contributor. If the latter led her by the hand here and there, Sergius went with them so close behind she could hear his feet along the marble, and in the voyages she took, he was always a passenger. The trial of the third day proved too much for the prisoner. The weather was delightfully clear and warm, and in the afternoon she fell to thinking of the promenade on the wall by the Bucoleon, and of the waftures over the Sea from the Asian Olympus. They were sweet in her remembrance, and the longing for them was stronger of a hope the presence of which she scarcely admitted to herself--a hope of meeting Sergius. She wanted to ask him if the bear-tender at the fete could have been the Greek. Often as she thought of that odious creature with her fan, she blushed, and feared Sergius might seriously misunderstand her. About three o'clock she ordered her chair brought to father Uel's door at exactly four, having first dutifully run over the conditions the Prince had imposed upon her. Uel was too busy to be her escort. Syama, if he went, would be no protection; but she would return early. To be certain, she made a calculation. It would take about half an hour to get to the wall; the sun would set soon after seven; by starting home at six she could have fully an hour and a half for the airing, which meant a possible hour and a half with Sergius. At four o'clock the sedan was set down before the merchant's house, and, for a reason presently apparent, the reader to whom vehicles of the kind are unfamiliar is advised to acquaint himself somewhat thoroughly with them. In idea, as heretofore observed, this one was a box constructed with a seat for a single passenger; a door in front allowed exit and entrance; besides the window in the door, there was a smaller opening on each side. For portage, it was affixed centrally and in an upright position to two long poles; these, a porter in front and another behind grasped at the ends, easing the burden by straps passed over the shoulders. The box was high enough for the passenger to stand in it. Lest this plain description should impose an erroneous idea of the appearance of the carriage, we again advert to its upholstery in silk-velvet orange-tinted; to the cushions covering the seat; to the lace curtaining the windows in a manner to permit view from within while screening the occupant from obtrusive eyes without; and to the elaborate decoration of the exterior, literally a mosaic of vari-colored woods, mother-of-pearl and gold, the latter in lines and flourishes. In fine, to such a pitch of gorgeousness had the Prince designed the chair, intending the public should receive it as an attestation of his love for the child to whom it was specially set apart, that it became a notoriety and avouched its ownership everywhere in the city. The reader would do well in the next place to give a glance at the men who brought the chair to the door--two burly fellows, broad-faced, shock-headed, small-eyed, sandalled, clad in semi-turbans, gray shirts, and gray trousers immensely bagged behind--professional porters; for the service demanded skill. A look by one accustomed to the compound of races hived in Constantinople would have determined them Bulgarians in extraction, and subjects of the Sultan by right of recent conquest. They had settled upon the Prince of India in a kind of retainership. As the chair belonged to Lael, from long employment as carriers they belonged to the chair. Their patron dealt very liberally with them, and for that reason had confidence in their honesty and faithfulness. That they should have pride in the service, he dressed them in a livery. On this occasion, however, they presented themselves in every-day costume--a circumstance which would not have escaped the Prince, or Uel, or Syama. The only witness of the departure was the governess, who came out and affectionately settled her charge in the chair, and heard her name the streets which the Bulgarians were to pursue, all of them amongst the most frequented of the city. Gazing at her through the window the moment the chair was raised, she thought Lael never appeared lovelier and was herself pleased and lulled with the words she received at parting: "I will be home before sunset." The carriers in going followed instructions, except that upon arrival at the Hippodrome, observing it already in possession of a concourse of people waiting for the Epicureans, they passed around the enormous pile, and entered the imperial gardens by a gate north of Sancta Sophia. Lael found the promenade thronged with habitues, and falling into the current moving toward Point Serail, she permitted her chair to become part of it; after which she was borne backward and forward from the Serail to the Port of Julian, stopping occasionally to gaze at the Isles of the Princes seemingly afloat and drifting through the purple haze of the distance. Where, she persisted in asking herself, is Sergius? Lest he might pass unobserved, she kept the curtains of all the windows aside, and every long gown and tall hat she beheld set her heart to fluttering. Her eagerness to meet the monk at length absorbed her. The sun marked five o'clock--then half after five--then, in more rapid declension, six, and still she went pendulously to and fro along the wall--six o'clock, the hour for starting home; but she had not seen Sergius. On land the shadows were lengthening rapidly; over the sea, the brightness was dulling, and the air perceptibly freshening. She awoke finally to the passage of time, and giving up the hope which had been holding her to the promenade, reluctantly bade the carriers take her home. "Shall we go by the streets we came?" the forward man asked, respectfully. "Yes," she returned. Then, as he closed the door, she was startled by noticing the promenade almost deserted; the going and coming were no longer in two decided currents; groups had given place to individual loiterers. These things she noticed, but not the glance the porters threw to each other telegraphic of some understanding between them. At the foot of the stairs descending the wall she rapped on the front window. "Make haste," she said, to the leading man; "make haste, and take the nearest way." This, it will be perceived, left him to choose the route in return, and he halted long enough to again telegraph his companion by look and nod. Between the eastern front of the Bucoleon and the sea-wall the entire space was a garden. From the wall the ascent to the considerable plateau crowned by the famous buildings was made easy by four graceful terraces, irregular in width, and provided with zigzag roads securely paved. Roses and lilies were not the only products of the terraces; vines and trees of delicate leafage and limited growth flourished upon them in artistic arrangement. Here and there were statues and lofty pillars, and fountains in the open, and fountains under tasteful pavilions, planted advantageously at the angles. Except where the trees and shrubbery formed groups dense enough to serve as obstructions, the wall commanded the whole slope. Time was when all this loveliness was jealously guarded for the lords and ladies of the court; but when Blacherne became the Very High Residence the Bucoleon lapsed to the public. His Majesty maintained it; the people enjoyed it. Following the zigzags, the carriers mounted two of the terraces without meeting a soul. The garden was deserted. Hastening on, they turned the Y at the beginning of the third terrace. A hundred or more yards along the latter there was a copse of oleander and luxuriant filbert bushes over-ridden by fig trees. As the sedan drew near this obstruction, its bearers flung quick glances above and below them, and along the wall, and descrying another sedan off a little distance but descending toward them, they quickened their pace as if to pass the copse first. In the midst of it, at the exact point where the view from every direction was cut off, the man in the rear stumbled, struggled to recover himself, then fell flat. His ends of the poles struck the pavement with a crash--the chair toppled backward--Lael screamed. The leader slipped the strap from his shoulder, and righted the carriage by letting it go to the ground, floor down. He then opened the door. "Do not be scared," he said to Lael, whose impulse was to scramble out. "Keep your seat--my comrade has had a fall--that is nothing--keep your seat. I will get him up, and we will be going on in a minute." Lael became calm. The man walked briskly around, and assisted his partner to his feet. There was a hurried consultation between them, of which the passenger heard only the voices. Presently they both came to the door, looking much mortified. "The accident is more than I thought," the leader said, humbly. By this time the chill of the first fear was over with Lael, and she asked: "Can we go on?" "If the Princess can walk--yes." She turned pale. "What is it? Why must I walk?" "Our right-hand pole is broken, and we have nothing to tie it with." And the other man added: "If we only had a rope!" Now the mishap was not uncommon, and remembering the fact, Lael grew cooler, and bethought herself of the silken scarf about her waist. To take it off was the work of a moment. "Here," she said, rather pleased at her presence of mind; "you can make a rope of this." They took the scarf, and busied themselves, she thought, trying to bandage the fractured shaft. Again they stood before the door. "We have done the best we can. The pole will hold the chair, but not with the Princess. She must walk--there is nothing else for her." Thereupon the assistant interposed a suggestion: "One of us can go for another chair, and overtake the Princess before she reaches the gate." This was plausible, and Lael stepped forth. She sought the sun first; the palace hid it, yet she was cheered by its last rays redly enlivening the heights of Scutari across the Bosphorus, and felicitated herself thinking it still possible to get home before the night was completely fallen. "Yes, one of you may seek another"-- That instant the sedan her porters had descried before they entered the copse caught her eyes. Doubt, fear, suspicion vanished; her face brightened: "A chair! A chair!--and no one in it!" she cried, with the vivacity of a child. "Bring it here, and let us be gone." The carriage so heartily welcomed was of the ordinary class, and the carriers were poorly clad, hard-featured men, but stout and well trained. They came at call. "Where are you going?" "To the wall." "Are you engaged?" "No, we hoped to find some one belated there." "Do you know Uel the merchant?" "We have heard of him. He has a stall in the market, and deals in diamonds." "Do you know where his house is?" "On the street from St. Peter's Gate, under the church by the old cistern." "We have a passenger here, his daughter, and want you to carry her home. One of our poles is broken." "Will she pay us our price?" "How much do you want?" Here Lael interposed: "Stand not on the price. My father will pay whatever they demand." The Bulgarians seemed to consider a moment. "It is the best we can do," the leader said. "Yes, the very best," the other returned. Thereupon the first one went to the new sedan, and opened the door. "If the Princess will take seat," he said, respectfully, "we will pick up, and follow close after her." Lael stepped in, saying as the door closed upon her: "Make haste, for the night is near." The strangers without further ado faced about, and started up the road. "Wait, wait," she heard her old leader call out. There was a silence during which she imagined the Bulgarians were adjusting the straps upon their shoulders; then there came a quick: "Now go, and hurry, or we will pass you." These were the last words she heard from them, for the new men put themselves in motion. She missed the cushions of her own carriage, but was content--she was returning home, and going fast. This latter she judged by the slide and shuffle of the loose-sandalled feet under her, and the responsive springing of the poles. The reaction of spirit which overtook her was simply the swing of nature back to its normal lightness. She ceased thinking of the accident, except as an excuse for the delay to which she had been subjected. She was glad the Prince's old retainer had escaped without injury. There was no window back through which she could look, yet she fancied she heard the feet of the faithful Bulgarians; they said nothing, therefore everything was proceeding well. Now and then she peered out through the side windows to notice the deepening of the shades of evening. Once a temporary darkness filled the narrow box, but it gave her no uneasiness-- the men were passing out of the garden through a covered gate. Now they were in a street, and the travelling plain. Thus assured and tranquil, maiden-like, she again fell to thinking of Sergius. Where could he have been? What kept him from the promenade? He might have known she would be there. Was the Hegumen so exacting? Old people are always forgetting they cannot make young people old like themselves; and it was so inconvenient, especially now she wanted to hear of the bear tender. Then she adverted to the monk more directly. How tall he was! How noble and good of face! And his religion--she wished ever so quietly that he could be brought over to the Judean faith--she wished it, but did not ask herself why. To say truth, there was a great deal more feeling in undertone, as it were, touching these points than thought; and while she kept it going, the carriers forgot not to be swift, nor did the night tarry. Suddenly there was an awakening. From twilight deeply shaded, she passed into utter darkness. While, with her face to a window, she tried to see where she was and make out what had happened, the chair stopped, and next moment was let drop to the ground. The jar and the blank blackness about renewed her fears, and she called out: "What is the matter? Where are we? This is not my father Uel's." And what time an answer should have been forthcoming had there been good faith and honesty in the situation, she heard a rush of feet which had every likeness to a precipitate flight, and then a banging noise, like the slamming to of a ponderous door. She had time to think of the wisdom of her father, the Prince of India, and of her own wilfulness--time to think of the Greek--time to call once on Sergius--then a flutter of consciousness--an agony of fright--and it was as if she died. _ |
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