CHAPTER VIII
THE PEN OF MAHMOUD
When, during the reign of Mahmoud II., the caravan of Meccan pilgrimswas plundered by the Vechabites, lying in ambush, the Sultan orderedthe rulers of Mecca and Medina to immediately send to the lair of theVechabites and buy back the dervishes with ready money.
The Vechabites gave up the captives in exchange for the ransom sentthem, but they adhered so rigidly to the terms of the bargain wherebythey were to surrender the captives only, that they even kept forthemselves the garments that happened to be on the captives, and letnothing go but their bare bodies, on which account Mahmoud was obligedto give his rescued subjects raiment as well as freedom.
Amongst those who were so liberated was a dervish of the Nimetullahitaorder, who, after this incident was over, arose, sought out the Sultanand said to him, "Thou art a poor potentate. Thou art the most sorryof all the caliphs. Thou art the greatest son of suffering[10] amongall the sultans who have gone before thee, or shall come after thee. Ithank thee for delivering me from the hands of the Vechabites,[11]and as a reward, therefore, I bring thee a gift which, even when theyleft me without any raiment, I was still able to conceal from them."
[Footnote 10: _I.e._, patient of insult.]
[Footnote 11: The Vechabites are accounted heretics by the orthodoxMussulmans.]
And with that he produced a writing-reed and gave it to the Sultan,and when Mahmoud asked him in what way he had concealed it from theeyes of the robbers, he explained how he had cunningly thrust it intohis thick black beard, where nobody had perceived it.
Mahmoud accepted the gift of the dervish, and put it where he put hisother curiosities; but he did not think of it for very long, andgradually it escaped his memory altogether.
One day, however, when one of his favorite damsels, moved bycuriosity, had induced him to show her the treasures of his palace,and they came to the spot where lay the pen of the dervish, the damselsuddenly cried out, and said that she had seen the pen move.
The Sultan looked in that direction, and, observing nothing, treatedthe whole affair as a joke, and went on showing the damsel theaccumulated relics and curiosities of centuries which thirteensuccessive Sultans had stored up in the khazne or treasury, and thengave the damsel permission to choose for herself whichever of thesetreasures might please her most.
Many costly things were there covered with gems, and worth, each oneof them, half a kingdom; there were also rare and precious relics, andantiquities rich in historical associations. But the Sultan's petdamsel chose for herself none of these things; to the amazement of thePadishah, she only asked for this simple black pen.
Mahmoud was astonished, but he granted the damsel her wish, and makinglight of it, he gave her the writing-reed which was fashioned out of asimple bamboo cane, and was nothing very remarkable even at that.
The odalisk took the pen away with her to her room, and waited frommorning to night to see it move. But the pen calmly rested where shehad placed it all day long and all night too, and the odalisk began tobe sorry that she had not rather selected for herself some other moreprecious thing instead of the object of her curiosity; but oneevening, when the Sultan was visiting her in her flowery chamber, andthey were holding sweet converse together, they suddenly heard in theroom, where nobody was present but themselves, a faint sound as ifsome one were writing in great haste, the scratching of a pen on theextended parchment was distinctly audible.
They both looked in the direction of the sound, and words failed themin their astonishment, for behold! the writing-reed was half raised inthe air, just as when one is holding it in his hand, and it seemed tobe writing of its own accord on the parchment extended beneath it.
The damsel trembled for terror, while the Sultan, who was a strangeralike to fear or superstition, imagining that perhaps a spider had gotinto the upper part of the reed, and consequently made it move up anddown, and anxious to convince his favorite thereof, approached thetable, and took up the pen in order to shake the spider out of it.But there was nothing at all there, and the pen went on writing of itsown accord.
The Sultan himself began to be astonished at this phenomenon. What thepen seemed to be so diligently writing remained a hidden script,however, for its point had not been dipped in ink. Wishing, therefore,to put it to the test, the Sultan dipped the point of the reed in alittle box full of that red balsamic salve with which Turkish girlsare wont to paint their lips, and then placed it on a smooth, cleansheet of parchment, whereupon it again arose, and wrote in bright,plainly intelligible letters these words, "Mahmoud! Mahmoud!"
The Sultan's own heart began to beat when he saw his own name writtenbefore his eyes, and he inquired with something like consternation,"What dost thou want of me?"
The pen immediately wrote down again these two words, "Mahmoud!Mahmoud!" and then lay still.
"That is my name," said the Sultan; "but who then art thou. Oinvisible spirit?"
The pen again arose and wrote beneath the name of Mahmoud this namealso, "Halil Patrona!"
Mahmoud trembled at this name. It was the name of a man who had beenmurdered by one of his ancestors, and if the apparition of a spirit beterrible in itself, how much more the spirit of a murdered man!
"What dost thou want here?" exclaimed the terrified Sultan.
The pen answered, "To warn thee!"
"Perchance a danger threatens me, eh?" inquired the Sultan.
"'Tis near thee!" wrote the pen.
"Whence comes this danger?"
And now the pen wrote a long row of letters, and this was the purportthereof, "A great danger from the East, a greater from the West, agreater still from the North, and here at home the greatest of all."
"Where will the Faithful fight?" asked the Sultan.
"In the whole realm!" was the reply.
"Near which towns?"
"Near every town and within every town."
"How long will the war last?"
"Nine years."
It was now the year eighteen hundred and twenty, and there was not asign of danger at any point of the vast boundaries of the Turkishempire.
The Sultan permitted himself one more question: "Tell me, shall Itriumph in these wars?"
The pen replied, "Thou wilt not."
"Who will be my enemies?"
There the pen stopped short, as if it were reflecting on something; atlast it wrote down, "Another time."
The Sultan did not understand this answer, so he repeated hisquestion, and now the pen wrote, "Ask in another place!"
"Where?"
"Alone."
Evidently it would not answer the question in the presence of theSultan's favorite. It did not trust her.
The Sultan almost believed that he was dreaming, but now his favoritedamsel also drew near and, leaning on Mahmoud's shoulder, stammeredforth, "Prithee, mighty spirit, wilt thou answer me?"
And the pen replied, "I will."
The woman asked, "Tell me, will Mahmoud love me to the death?"
The Sultan was somewhat offended. "By the prophet!" cried he, "thatthou shouldst put such a question!"
But what is not a living woman capable of asking?
The pen quivered gently as it wrote down the words, "He will love theetill thou diest."
"And when _shall_ I die?"
To this the pen gave no answer.
In vain the favorite pressed her question. How many years, how manymonths, how many days had she to live? The spirit answered nothing.
"And how shall I die?" asked the woman.
The Sultan shivered at this senseless question, and would have madethe girl withdraw; but, in an instant, the pen had written out theanswer, "Thou shalt be killed."
The woman grew as pale as a wax figure, and stammered, "Who will killme?"
Both of them awaited in terror and with baited breath what the penwould answer, and the pen, taking good care not to form a singleillegible letter, wrote on the parchment, "Mahmoud!"
The favorite fell unconscious i
nto the arms of the Sultan, who,carrying her away, laid her on the divan, watching over her till shecame to herself again, and then comforting her with wise saws.
An evil, mocking spirit dwelt in the reed, he said, consolingly, whoonly uttered its forebodings to agitate their hearts. "Did it not sayalso that I should love thee to the death? How then could I slay thee?A lying spirit dwelleth in that reed!"
And yet the Sultan himself was trembling all the time.
That night no sleep visited his eyes, and early in the morning he tookthe reed from his favorite by force, telling her that he was going tothrow it into the fire.
But he did _not_ throw it into the fire. On the contrary, the Sultanfrequently produced it, and, inasmuch as he sometimes convicted thespirit of a false prophecy, he began to regard the whole thing as asort of magic hocus-pocus, invented by the kindly Fates to amusemankind by its oddity, and he frequently made it serve as a playthingfor the whole harem, gathering the odalisks together and compellingthe enchanted pen to answer all sorts of petty questions, as, forinstance, "How old is the old kadun-keit-khuda?" "How many sequins arein the purse of the Kizlar-Agasi?" "At what o'clock did the Sultanawake?" "When will the Sultan's tulips arrive?" "How many heads werethrown to-day into the sea?" "Is Sadi, the poet, still alive?" etc.,etc. Or they forced the pen to translate the verses of Victor Hugointo Turkish, Arabic, and Persian. And the pen patiently accomplishedeverything. At last it became quite a pet plaything with the odalisks,and the favorite Sultana altogether forgot the evil prophecy which ithad written down for her.
Now it chanced one day that the famous filibusterer Microconchalys,who had for a long time disturbed the archipelago with his cruisers,and defied the whole fleet of the Sultan, encountered in the open sea,off Candia, a British man-of-war, which he was mad enough to attackwith three galleys. In less than an hour all three galleys were blownto the bottom of the sea, nothing of them remaining on the surface ofthe water but their well-known flags, which Morrison, the victoriousEnglish captain, conveyed to Stambul, and there presented them to theDivan.
Boundless was the joy of the Sultan at the death of the vexatiousfilibusterer, and there was joy in the harem also, for a feast oflamps was to be held there the same night, and Morrison was to bepresented to the Divan on the following day to be loaded with giftsand favors.
At night, therefore, there was great mirth among the odalisks. TheSultan himself was drunk with joy, wine, and love, and the hilariousSultana brought forth the magic pen to make them mirth, and compelledit to answer the drollest questions, as, for instance, "How many hairsare there in Mahmoud's head?" "How many horses are there in thestable?" and "How many soldiers are there on the sea?" And, finally,laughing aloud, she commanded it to tell her how many hours she had tolive.
Ah, surely a life full of joy lay before her! But the Sultan shook hishead; one ought not to tempt God with such questions.
The pen would not write.
Then the favorite cried angrily, "Answer! or I will compel thee tocount all the drops of water in the Black Sea, from here to Jenikalein the Crimea!"
At these words the pen, with a quivering movement, arose, andscratching the paper with a shrill sound, as if it would weep andmoan, wrote down some utterly unintelligible characters, with thenumber "8" beneath them, and surrounded the whole writing with acircle to signify that there was nothing more to come.
Everybody laughed. It was plain that the spirit also loved its littlejoke, and was angry with the Sultana for torturing it with so manysilly questions.
It was then the third hour after midnight, all the clocks in the roomhad at that moment struck the hour. After that the odalisks fella-dancing again, and the eunuch-buffoons exhibited a puppet show on acurtained stage, which greatly diverted the ladies of the harem. Butthe number "8" would not go out of the head of the favorite, and asall the clocks in the room, one after the other, struck four, she tookout the pen, and with an incredulous, mocking smile on her face, butwith horror in her heart, she asked, "Come, tell me again, if thouhast not forgotten, how many hours have I got to live?"
The pen wrote down the number "7."
Those who stood around now began to tremble. But Mahmoud treated thewhole affair as a joke, and assured them that the pen was only makingthem sport. And again they went on diverting themselves.
An hour later the clocks, in the usual sequence, struck the hour offive. And now the favorite stole aside, and placing the reed on atable repeated her former question. And the pen wrote down the number"6."
Thus, with each hour, the number indicated was lesser by one than theprevious number. The Sultan observed the gloom of his favorite, and todrive away her sad thoughts, compelled her to retire to herbedchamber, where she enjoyed two hours of sweet repose, leaning onthe Sultan's breast; whereupon the Sultan arose and went into hisdressing-room, for he had to hold a divan, or council.
The first thing the favorite did on awaking was to look at the time,and she perceived that it was now seven o'clock. She immediatelyhastened to interrogate the pen, and asked the question of it withfear and trembling; and now the pen wrote down the number "4."
* * * * *
The Sultan himself sent for Morrison.
The English sailor was proudly conscious of owning no master but thesea. During his long roamings in the East and South he had always madeit a point of visiting all the barbarous chiefs and princes who camein his way. He regarded them simply as freaks of nature, whose absurdrites and customs he meant to thoroughly investigate in order that hemight make a note of them in his diary, and he even went the length ofadopting for a time their manners and customs, if he could not getwhat he wanted in any other way.
A summons to appear before the divan was scarcely of more importancein his eyes than an invitation to a wild elephant hunt, or initiationinto the mysteries of Mumbo Jumbo, or an ascent in the perilous aerialship of Montgolfier. He donned a dark-blue-colored garment and aplumed three-cornered hat, and condescended to allow himself to beconducted by the ichoglanler specially told off to do him honor to thesplendid canopied, six-oared pinnace, which was to take him to thepalace.
They escorted him first to the Gate of Fountains, and left him waitingfor a few moments in the Chamber of Lions, allowing him in themeanwhile to draw a pocket-book from his breast-pocket and make arapid sketch of all the objects around him. They then relieved him ofhis short sword, as none may approach the Sultan with arms, and threwacross his shoulders an ample caftan trimmed with ermine. He did notreflect for the moment what a distinction this was. His only feelingwas a slight surprise that he should be dressed in green down to hisvery heels, as, with the dragoman on his left hand, he was conductedinto the Hall of the Seven Viziers, where the Sultan sat in the midstof his grandees.
Morrison greeted the Padishah very handsomely, just as he would havegreeted King George IV. or King Charles X., perhaps.
"Bow to the ground--right down to the ground, milord!" whispered thedragoman in his ears.
"I'll be damned if I do!" replied Morrison. "It is not my habit to godown on my knees in uniform!"
"But that was why they put the caftan on you," whispered the dragoman,half in joke. "'Tis the custom here."
"And a deuced bad custom, too," growled Morrison; and, afterreflecting for a moment or two, he hit upon the idea of letting hishat fall to the ground, and then bent down as if to pick it up again.But, by way of compensation, immediately after righting himself hestood as stiff and straight as if he were determined never to bend hishead again, though the roof were to fall upon him in consequence.
The Sultan addressed a couple of brief words to the sailor,metamorphosed by the dragoman into a floridly adulatory rigmarole,which he represented to be a faithful version of the Sultan'sineffable salutation. In effect he told the sailor that he was aterrible hippopotamus, an oceanic elephant, who had ground to deathcountless crocodiles with his glorious grinders, trampled them topieces with his mighty hoofs, and torn them limb from limb with histrunk
, and had therefore merited that the sublime Sultan should coverhim with the wings of his mantle. Let him, therefore, ask as a rewardwhatever he chose, even to the half of the Padishah's kingdom. I mayadd that if any one had in those days actually asked for half of theSultan's kingdom, he would probably have got that part of it whichlies underground.
Morrison thanked the Sultan for his liberal offer, and asked that hemight see the favorite wife of the Grand Signior.
At these words the dragoman turned pale, but the Sultan turned stillpaler. The convulsive twitching of the muscles of his face betrayedhis strong revulsion of feeling, and, lowering his heavy, shaggyeyebrows, he dashed at the sailor a look of deadly rage, while a heavysigh escaped from his deep chest.
The Englishman only regretted that he could not acquit himself ascreditably in this play of eyebrows. His own were small, of a brightblonde color, and somewhat pointed.
The dragoman, however, could read an ominous meaning in this deepsilence.
"O glorious giaour, rosebud of thy nation!" whispered he, "fleetwater-spider of the ocean, ask not so senseless a thing from the GrandSignior! Behold his wrathful eyes, and ask for something else; ask forhis most precious treasure; ask for all his damsels, if thou wilt, butask not to see the face of his favorite. Thou knowest not the meaningthereof."
Morrison shrugged his shoulders. "I want neither his treasure nor hisdamsels. I only want to see his favorite wife."
Mahmoud trembled, but not a word did he speak. Two tear-drops twinkledin his dark eyes and ran down his handsome, manly face.
At this the Viziers leaped to their feet, and it was evident fromtheir agitated cries that they expected the Sultan to order thepresumptuous infidel to be cut down there and then.
The dragoman, in despair, flung himself at the seaman's feet.
"O prince of all whales!" he cried. "O unbelieving dog! Thou seest me,a true believer, lying at thy feet. O wine-drinking giaour! Why wiltthou entangle me with the words which the Sultan said to thee throughme? Art thou not ashamed to place thy foot on the neck of the lord ofprinces? Ask some other thing!"
In vain. The sailor changed not a muscle of his face. He simplyrepeated, with imperturbable _sang-froid_, the words:
"I want to see his favorite wife."
The Viziers rushed at him with a howl of fury, but Morrison merelythrew back the caftan which had been folded across his breast,revealing his dreaded uniform and the decorations appendedthereto--memorials of his services at Alexandria and Trafalgar. That,he thought, would quite suffice to preserve him from any violence.
But the Sultan leaped down from his throne, beckoned with his hand tothe Viziers, and whispered some words in the ear of the Kislar-Agasi,who thereupon withdrew. This whispered word went the round of theViziers, who straightway did obeisance and disappeared in threedifferent directions through the three doors of the room, their placesbeing taken by two black slaves in red fezes and white robes, withbroad-bladed, crooked swords in their hands. Only the Sultan remainedbehind there with the sailor.
* * * * *
The clocks in the rooms of the Seraglio struck a quarter to ten. Thepen of the dervish in reply to the question of the favorite as to howmany hours she had to live now wrote down "1/4."
At that moment the Kislar-Agasi entered. The favorite went to meethim, trembling like a lost lamb coming face to face with a wolf.
The Kislar-Agasi bowed deeply, and beckoned to the serving-women ofthe Seraglio standing behind him to come forward.
"Has the Sultana accomplished the prescribed ablutions?" said he.
"Yes, my lord!"
"Gird her round the body with a triple row of pearls; fasten on herturban the bird of paradise with the diamond clasp. Put on her goldembroidered caftan."
The favorite let them do what they would with her without saying aword.
The waiting-woman, covering the favorite's face with a light fan,thickly sewn with tiny gold stars, conducted her to the door which ledto the Porcelain Chamber, and there the Kislar-Agasi left her, afterindicating whither they had to go next.
Guards stood in couples before each one of the doors; the last doorthey came to was only protected by a curtain. This was the door of thecupola chamber where the Sultan had received the sailor.
The favorite could not see the sailor because of the lofty projectingwings of the throne; she only saw the Sultan sitting on a divan. Shehastened up to him, and when she stood before him she suddenly caughtsight of the stranger regarding her with coldly curious eyes.Shrinking away with terror, she screamed out "Giaour!" and, wrappingher veil more closely around her, turned to the Sultan for protection.Then Mahmoud seized the damsel's trembling hand with one of his, andwith the other raised the veil from the face of his dearest wife inthe presence of the stranger.
The girl shrieked as if her face had been bitten by a serpent; thenshe fell at the knees of the Sultan, and looked at the face of theGrand Signior with an appealing glance for mercy. In the eyes of thecaliph of caliphs the moisture of human compassion sparkled. PoorSultana! who would not have pitied her?
Morrison made a courtly bow, and the dragoman not being present, heexpressed his thanks by using the well-known Turkish salutation,"Salam alakuem!" The extraordinary charms of the damsel made no moreimpression upon him than the sight of any ordinarily pretty lady at acourt presentation at home would have done.
The damsel meanwhile writhed in torments at the feet of the Sultan,who, having had enough of it himself, covered her with her veil, andbeckoned to the Kislar-Agasi. He raised the damsel, and carried herbehind the curtains that surrounded the throne; the same instant thetwo eunuch guards standing beside the throne also disappeared.
The Sultan listened and covered his eyes.
After a few moments of deep silence, it seemed to the sailor as if heheard a long sigh behind the curtains. The Sultan shivered in everylimb, and immediately afterwards the clocks in the Seraglio began tostrike; they struck eleven.
Then the Sultan arose from his place and said, with a deep sigh:
"'Twas the will of Allah!" Then he descended from the divan and saidto Morrison in the purest Italian, "Thou didst see her; was she notbeautiful?"
Morrison, astonished to hear Italian spoken by the Sultan, who, as arule, never spoke a word save through an interpreter, in his amazementcould not find an answer to this question quick enough.
"Come now and see her once more," continued the Grand Signior, andwith these words he went towards the curtains.
Morrison fell back confounded. The rosy-red damsel of a few momentsbefore lay there pale, lifeless, at full length, her lips and eyesclosed, her bosom motionless. A thin red line was visible round herbeautiful white neck--the mark of the silken cord!
"But this is brutal!" exclaimed the sailor, beside himself withindignation.
The Sultan coldly replied, "Whenever a Christian man beholds the faceof one of our women, that woman must die." He then signified to thesailor that he was dismissed.
Morrison hastened from the room, immediately hoisted his anchor, andthe same night sailed out of the Golden Horn, everywhere pursued bythe memory of the beautiful Sultana, whom he had killed with a glanceof his eyes.
* * * * *
"Behold, behold!" cried the Sultan, pressing the cold, murdered limbsto his bosom; "the _dzhin_ told the truth. Mahmoud loved thee to thedeath, and yet Mahmoud slew thee!"
These words he repeated two or three times to the dead woman, andthen, descending the steps of the throne, rent his garments across hisbreast, and looking up to heaven with tearful eyes, exclaimed:
"And now let the rest come too!"
And the rest did come. It came from the east and from the west, fromthe north and from the south--four empire-subverting tempests, whichshook the strong trunk of Osman to its very roots, and scattered itsleaves afar.
Ali Pasha of Janina was the first to kindle the blood-red flames ofwar in the west, and soon they spread from the Morea
to Smyrna. In thenorth the crusading banners of Yprilanti raised up a fresh foeagainst Mahmoud, and the cries of "the sacred army" re-echoed from thewalls of Athens and the banks of the Danube and the summits ofOlympus. In Stambul the unbridled hosts of the Janissaries shedtorrents of blood among the Greeks of the city on the tidings of everydefeat from outside. And when the peril from every quarter had reachedits height, the Shah of Persia fell upon the crumbling realm from theeast, and captured the rich city of Bagdad.
And still Mahmoud had the desire to live--to live and rule. A pettierspirit would have fled from the Imperial palace and taken refuge amongthe palm-trees of Arabia Felix when it recognized that an endless warencompassed it on every side, that to conquer was impossible, and thatthe nearest enemy was the most dangerous. A mine of gunpowder had beendug beneath the throne, and around the throne a mob of madmen werehurrying aimlessly to and fro with lighted torches. And yet it wasMahmoud's pleasure to remain sitting on that throne.
Frequently he would steal furtively at night from his harem. Alone,unattended, he would contemplate the flight of the stars from the roofof the Seraglio, and would listen to the nocturnal massacres and theshrieks of the dying in the streets of Stambul. He would watch how theconflagrations burned forth in two or three places at once, both inPera and Galata their lordships the Janissaries were working theirwill. And he felt that cruelly cold piercing wind which began to blowfrom the north, so that in the rooms of the Seraglio the shiveringodalisks began to draw rugs and other warm coverings over theirtender limbs. Never had any one in Stambul felt that cold wind before.Whence came it, and what did it signify?
Mahmoud knew whence it came and what it signified, and he had thecourage to look steadily in the face of the future, in which hediscerned not a single ray of hope.