Chapter V

Baïla felt her confidence vanish; a single revelation from the prisoner would be a decree of death to her, and concealing her paleness beneath the redoubled folds of her veil, she awaited the examination with a palpitating heart, fixing her curious gaze upon the prisoner.

“Why did I risk my life to listen to a sermon from this mournful preacher?” she said to herself. “Why did they not kill him when I commanded? Why did he not fall beneath the blow of the guard?”

Seeing him, however, with his body furrowed by bluish stripes, his flesh swollen and bloody, standing in that saloon as if he had never left it to be handed over to executioners, as he did before the arrival of the pacha, with the same air, the same timid look, which he dared not raise toward her, she felt an emotion of pity.

“Christian,” said the pacha, “what motive brought thee hither?”

“Her salvation,” replied the captive, turning his eyes for a moment to the sofa on which the odalisk was seated, and then letting them fall on Djezzar, he added, “and thine, perhaps.”

“What, dog, and son of a dog, as thou art, didst thou think to make a vile Nazarene of me, and to convert me to the sect of the accursed, by taking advantage of my absence?”

“I have said the truth,” replied the young man, “as true as that Jesus Christ is the redeemer of the world.”

“Thou liest,” replied the pacha, “as true that there is no God but God, and that Mahomet is his prophet.”

After this outbreak he appeared to endeavor to restrain his anger. He replaced himself more at his ease upon the knees of his favorite, passed his hand, as a motion of caress, through the mane of his lion, and when he had taken two or three whiffs of his batakie, resumed.

“See that thou art sincere, and do not aggravate thy crime. Thou knowest well that a Mussulman cannot become a Christian, as a Christian cannot become a Jew. The law of Moses paved the way for that of Jesus; that of Jesus was but the precursor to that of Mahomet. On this ladder men never descend—they mount upward.”

“I had hoped, at least,” said the captive, “to render thee more favorable to my brethren.”

“Are, then, all those bands of rascals who gnaw each other—all those races of infidels, who are forgetful of their own law, thy brethren? Of what do they complain? Of some I have made good Christians by martyrdom; of others, good Musselmen by persuasion. Besides, art thou one of their priests? No, far from that. Thou art but one of those frivolous Europeans, who seek to propagate their impious usages among us. Lay aside trick and falsehood. Thou hast heard of the beauty of this slave, (turning his head toward Baïla,) and thou hast desired to satiate thy eyes at the price of thy life. Is it not so?”

The young man made a sign of negation; the pacha heeded it not, and proceeded.

“Well, art thou satisfied? Thou shouldst be, for thou hast seen her. Are your women of Europe so to be disdained, that you must come among us to carry off ours? Until now you have coveted our horses only. How didst thou find means to correspond with her? Who was thy guide? How did she first see thee?”

Like a tiger, which with eye and ear watches for the least cry, the least motion of the prey it is about to seize, Djezzar watched for a word of avowal—a denunciatory sign on the part of him whom he interrogated. He obtained none from him, but he felt the knees of Baïla tremble.

“Christian,” he resumed, “I repeat to thee, be sincere. Tell me what hope thou hast conceived; tell me who introduced thee into this place; name thy accomplice, and whatever may be thy fault I will place in the other scale thy youth and thy consular title, although thy presence in the midst of my harem at night gives me a right to forget it. But I will consider what thou hast already endured, and, like Allah, I will be merciful. Speak; I listen.”

He inhaled again the odorous smoke of his pipe, and appeared to await a reply; but the captive remained silent and motionless.

“Speak, Christian, speak! There is yet time. At this price alone canst thou purchase thy life—by abjuring thy idolatry, of course.”

At this last sentence the young man raised his head—a noble blush mounted to his face.

“To denounce and apostatize,” said he; “is such thy clemency, pacha? Have thy executioners forgotten to tell thee who I am? Art thou, who hast thyself honored me with the title of Christian, ignorant of the duties which this title enjoins? Dost thou think that the disciples of Christ care so much for this mortal life, as to plunge their souls twice into ineffaceable pollution?” and his eye sparkled, and his whole countenance assumed an expression of sublime beauty.

“It is said,” said Djezzar, forming, from his apparent imperturbability, a fine contrast with the exaltation of the young Frank. “Thou wishest to die, and thou shalt die. But dost thou know for what an end I reserve thee?”

“Be it what it may, I am ready,” replied the captive.

“Then thou regrettest nothing of this mortal life?” and the pacha followed his look attentively, which he thought he would fix on Baïla.

“Nothing,” said the young man, with his eyes cast down, “but the not being assisted at my last moments by a priest of my religion.”

Djezzar appeared to reflect; a slight smile then contracted his lips.

“If thy wishes go no farther,” he said, “they shall be gratified.”

The Mangrebian reappeared at his call. A few moments afterward an old man, with a bald head, a long white beard, and a severe countenance, entered. He trembled violently at the sight of the pacha, as if he thought his last hour was come.

He was a poor Maronite monk, sent recently by the patriarch of Mount Libanus to replace the superior of the convent of Perkinik, who was dead. The pacha had, whilst passing on that day through this Catholic village, in the environs of Shivas, wished to make an exaction on this miserable convent, in which a few monks, covered with rags, lived by the labor of their hands, in the midst of a population as miserable as themselves. Djezzar, unable to extort the money which they had not, had carried off their superior with him, to detain him as a hostage until the sum demanded was paid.

“Kaffer,” he said to him, “thou hast refused to pay the taxes of Miri and Karadj.”

“The Christians of Libanus are exempt from them since the capitulation of the holy King Louis,” replied the unfortunate man, whose voice betrayed a violent emotion. “The Vice Roy Mehemet Ali regarded us as exempt.”

“To hell with the old rascal!”

“But the sultans themselves have recognized this law, your highness.”

“There is no law here but my will,” replied the pacha.

“What can I do to disarm thy severity,” blubbered out the old man, fixing his terrified look upon the lion crouched beside Djezzar, and of which he already considered himself the prey. “I have nothing in the world which thou canst take from me, but my life.”

“Which I will do if thou dost not obey me at once.”

“But, to acquit this impost—”

“By the koran, who is now speaking to thee of imposts? Of Karadj and Miri I hold thee acquitted, thou and thine, forever, and thou art free, and shalt leave here carrying with thee more piastres than I demanded of thee; but before we separate thou must call down the curses of thy God on that dog there.” Then, turning to his other captive, he continued: “Yes, thou art about to die, and die accursed by a priest of thy religion. Inch Allah, wilt thou speak now?”

With an heroic resignation Ferdinand, as his only reply, kneels and bows his head, devoted at once to the sabre and anathema, when he hears the old Cenobite of Libanus, raising his trembling hands above his head, say to him, in a soft voice,

“If thou art a Christian, I bless thee, my son.”

These holy words were scarcely pronounced when the old man fell, shot dead. Baïla fell backward with a movement of horror, and the pacha, with unbounded impassibility, replaced his pistol in his belt. He interrupted this movement suddenly to restrain his lion by the mane, which, animated by the sight of blood, was about to spring with a roar on the body of the Maronite.

“Carry off that corpse,” said Djezzar to the Mangrebian, “and leave us.”

The dead body carried off, the Mangrebian gone, turning to the lion, which, with open mouth and thirsty and trembling lips, was uttering low growls and darting his brilliant glance toward the prey which was carried from him, Djezzar, restraining him by voice and gesture, said:

“Be patient, Haïder; thy part shalt soon come—thou shalt not lose by the exchange.”

He then resumed his first position, and whilst the lion, restrained by him, continued its low roaring, with its eyes fixed on a large spot of blood on the carpet, and addressing Baïla, without appearing to notice the emotions of terror by which she was agitated, said:

“Yes, the giaour is for us three—for each a part. For me, his head; for the lion, his body; and for thee, my beautiful rose of Incour—my faithful, for thee, his heart. Has he not given thee that heart? Well, go take it.”

Baïla, undecided, troubled with horror, knew not what meaning to attach to his words.

“Go, take it,” repeated Djezzar. “look, behold! powerless to defend himself, does he not appear himself to offer it to thee? Go, my soul, and if thy dagger is not enough for the work, use mine.”

The odalisk bent toward him—“Thou art sporting with me, Ali—is it not so?” she murmured in his ear.

“Dost thou not hear me, or art thou unwilling to understand me?” he replied, in a formidable tone. “This man dies—dies at once, by thy hand, or I shall believe thee to be his accomplice, and thy head shall fall before his. I swear it, by Mahomet and the four caliphs.”

Baïla, having to choose between inflicting or receiving death, felt an icy coldness in her veins; her forehead became lividly pale.

“Thou hesitatest!” said the pacha.

She carried a trembling hand to her dagger.

“Take mine,” he said.

The hand of Baïla fell on the shoulder of Djezzar, and remained there as if paralyzed; her troubled eyes were raised furtively toward the young Frank, even on that very evening the object of her reveries of love; toward that young martyr, who by a word could destroy her, and who was about to die—to die for her, for being unwilling to pronounce that word.

“Wilt thou obey?” said the executioner, with a gesture of impatient rage.

The hand of Baïla descended from the shoulder of Djezzar and played inquisitively among the arms which formed an arsenal at his belt.

“Thou tremblest—thou art unwilling to do it? Thou lovest him then!” he exclaimed at last.

“Yes, I love him,” replied the Mingrelian, and bounding suddenly forward she sheathed the blade of the yataghan full in the breast of the pacha. Though mortally wounded he still made an effort to seize his other pistol, but, at a gesture from Baïla, the lion Haïder, excited anew by the sight of the flowing blood, springing on his master did his part.

Whilst Ferdinand, alarmed at what was passing, was closing his eyes, stretching out in terror his bound arms, the Mingrelian, endowed with wonderful presence of mind, gathered quickly into one corner of the saloon the light furniture and stuffs which were in it; she set them on fire, and seizing the young Frank, who was more dead than alive, by his bonds, led him toward a secret outlet, which conducted them to the sleeping chamber of the Abyssinian negress.

The palace of Kizil-Ermak, which was of Turkish construction—that is, built of wood—was almost entirely consumed.

On the next day the news mongers of Shivas endeavored to define the causes of this great event. Some said that the pacha had been strangled by his lion, and that, in the struggle between these two fierce beasts a torch was upset, which was the cause of the fire. Others, reasoning from the usage of the ancient Ottoman regime, and claiming to be better informed, said that a man, wearing the dress of a Frank, after having sojourned in the city long enough to avert suspicion as to the object of his secret mission, had introduced himself into the presence of the pacha in the very interior of his harem; when the latter had ordered his slaves to behead him, the pretended Frank, who was no other than the capidgé-bechi of the sultan, had shown his katcherif, and that the head of Djezzar had alone fallen. The fire had broken out in the midst of the disorder, and the capidgé-bechi, taking advantage of the great crowd attracted thereby, had escaped, in a new disguise.

Twenty other versions were in circulation, almost all of which were repeated by the journals of Europe.

Whilst in Shivas, Rocata, and other cities of the pachalick, they were thus indulging in explanations more or less truthful, Baïla and Ferdinand, who had been enabled to escape in disguise from the palace, thanks to the confusion and the crowd, concealed themselves at first in the mountains to the south of Shivas, where some Kurdish brigands took them under their protection, exacting a very moderate ransom; they then found an asylum in a convent, then twenty others in the caverns or depths of the woods of Avanes, always, however, continuing their path steadily up the Red River. Having finally entered the dominions of the Shah of Persia, they returned to France in the train of the last embassy.

In these wanderings Ferdinand lost some of his ardor for proselytising. He had traveled across mountains and valleys by day and by night, carrying temptation with him; Baïla had really become to him the demon which he had fancied her.

With the beautiful Mingrelian, his liberator, and the companion of his flight, walking at the same pace, in the same pathway, sleeping under the same shelter, cared for and watched over by her, it had been difficult for him to prevent his heart from beating under other inspirations than those of divine love. Ferdinand was twenty-five years old, and gratitude has great sway over a generous soul.

Still in the first days of their common flight he had converted his schismatic companion, who, from her indifference to matters of religion, was easy to persuade; but it was said that in her turn she had soon converted him. What is positively known about it is, that the young man did not return to France alone, but that when his passport was exhibited at Marseilles, it provided for M. Ferdinand Laperre, consular cadet, traveling with his sister.

My friend, the illustrious traveler, had already furnished me with all the details of the history I have recounted; but my curiosity was not yet fully satisfied. I wished to know the fate of the lovers after their arrival in France. I pressed him with questions on this point, and at first uselessly. We were breakfasting in the open air, on the lawn at the Butard, and my botanist, in an exultation difficult to describe, was fully occupied with a godsend he had found beneath the table we had used. It was a small plant with shaggy and lanceolate leaves, with flowers of pale yellow, marked with a violet spot at the base of their five petals.

“Cistus guttatus! Helianthemum guttatum!” he exclaimed, with cries and gestures impossible to describe to any one who has not the heart of a botanist. “I thought it only existed in the mountains of Anti-Taurus, from whence I brought away so carefully an unique specimen. It was my finest vegetable conquest, and lo I find it here at the Butard at Luciennes, a suburb of Paris, beneath the table of a tavern. How can this be? Taurus and the Butard rivals in their productions? I am nonplussed! Do you believe in Asia Minor?”

“But of Asia Minor?” said I, interrupting him with tenacity, with obstinacy; “you have related to me a story, the parties to which interest me strongly—I beseech you tell me more of them!”

“They are perfectly well, I thank you,” he replied.

“I do not inquire after their health, but their fate.”

“Ah! what has become of them? Yes, I comprehend;” then looking at me with an air of mockery, and laughing loudly, he continued, “as they have, like us, a habit of chatting much when eating, they breakfast near by.”

“How! What!” I exclaimed, “those people at the fountain of the priest?”

“Truly. You now discover that you are no diviner. The alledged confectioner, the lemonade seller, is no other than my friend, Ferdinand Laperre, our Christian martyr; and his companion, by you so lightly qualified as a chambermaid, or a countess without prejudices, is Baïla, the ex-favorite of Djezzar, the pacha of Shivas; Baïla, the Mingrelian, the rose of Incour, the dove in the talons of the hawk.”

After having inflicted this mockery upon me, which was doubtless well merited, my friend determined finally to finish the story.

“Having arrived in Paris, events of a more vulgar nature than those which had signalized their sojourn in Shivas, proved the young Frenchman and the Mingrelian. Their money gave out. The ornaments, presents from Djezzar, which the odalisk had carried off in her flight, were, most of them, false. Pachas even are no longer to be trusted. Ferdinand must, above every thing, seek for a lucrative employment. He entered the royal printing office as a proof-reader of Oriental works. This resource being insufficient for the wants of the household, Baïla sought also to be useful. Having never handled a needle, she could not become a seamstress or an embroideress, or a dressing-maid, or a female companion. She has a charming voice, and might, at a pinch, challenge all the Italian, French, and other singers, in warbling and trilling; but understanding none of the European languages, she could only sing Arabian mouals or Turkish gazels. Fortunately she dances also; and dancing is a language spoken and understood in all countries. She now figures in the ballet corps of the opera, where she is remarkable for her lightness, her mildness, and her modesty.”

As my illustrious friend finished his recital, we saw Ferdinand Laperre and his handsome companion walking arm-in-arm toward the Butard. Now, better informed, I admired the rare beauty of the Mingrelian, and the wonderful and graceful suppleness of her figure. My eyes were directed curiously toward the lower extremities of the ex-consular cadet, to examine the form and dimensions of his feet, so as to verify one of the details of this history. I found them much as usual. He had doubtless confided to Baïla the connection of friendship existing between him and my companion, for when we again met, she made him a slight wave of the hand, saying, “Bojour mocha.”

“Salem-Alai-k,” replied my illustrious traveler.

I saluted her profoundly.