Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers Part 65

"He is son to the nurse of your Majesty's august spouse. I was bringing him to your Court, with the view of procuring him a place."

After these two unfortunate men had received proper food, the King returned to his palace. He flew instantly to Chamsada, to give her an account of what he had seen, of the return of her slave with a young man, and of the loss of her treasure. When the Queen learned that they had been thrown into a well, grief took possession of her soul. She tried to hide her disorder, which was, however, betrayed by the visible alteration of her countenance under the mask of apparent tranquillity. The King, who was looking at her, and perceived the efforts she employed to restrain herself, wished to penetrate into the cause of her trouble.

"What is the matter with you, Chamsada?" said he. "Are you afflicted at the loss of your treasure? Is not mine at your disposal?"

"I swear by your life, O glorious Sultan," replied she, "that I am less sorry for the loss of my treasures, than for the sufferings of the poor slave, of which I have been the cause. I have a feeling heart, and you know how much I am affected by the misfortunes of others."

However, as the King continued to relate the adventure of the well, and as she learned that the slave and the young man had been drawn up from it, she recovered her tranquillity, and at the end of her husband's relation her feelings were entirely calm.

"Be comforted, my dear Chamsada," said he to her. "If all that I possess is not sufficient to make up for the loss of your treasure, think that you have one that is inexhaustible in the affection of a heart which is yours for life."

Having said this, he retired.

As soon as Chamsada was alone she called for her slave. He gave her an account of the manner in which he had got information of the Prince's adventures; of the means which Providence had employed in saving him from the cruelties and snares of his uncle; of the barbarity of the Infidels; and even of his too great confidence, when, having escaped being dashed to pieces by the fall, from which no Mussulman before him was ever saved, he was about again to deliver himself into the power of the barbarous Balavan. He continued his recital even to the moment when, drawn up from the well, the young Prince had been seen by the Egyptian monarch, whose curiosity he had excited.

The Queen then interrupted him.

"Ah!" said she to him, "what answer did you make to the King when he asked you who this young man was?"

"Alas!" replied the slave, "I told a lie, and I beseech you to pardon it. I told him that he was the son of your nurse, and that he was intended for his Majesty's service."

"Wise and faithful friend!" exclaimed Chamsada, her eyes bathed in tears, and still moved with what she had heard, "what grat.i.tude will ever repay the service you have rendered to the most tender mother?

Watch over my son. I trust him to your zeal and prudence. Never shall I forget the obligation I am under for what you have already done for him, and for what your attachment may still be able to do."

"Queen! the recommendation is unnecessary. I know what I owe to the posterity of my Sovereigns, and there is no sacrifice I am not ready to make for your Majesty."

These were not empty promises; the slave was no courtier. Considering what care and precaution would be necessary to repair the health and const.i.tution of the young Prince, wasted by sufferings and fatigue, he made this his only study. A salutary and light diet, the use of the bath, and moderate exercise, gradually succeeded in renewing his strength. Nature resumed her empire; his body and mind regained their energy and every external charm, restored at length to the fairest of Queens the most beautiful Prince in the world.

A happy similarity of disposition gained him the monarch's heart, who distinguished this page above all the rest. He soon became so necessary to his service, that he alone was admitted into his private apartment. The monarch boasted continually of his virtues, and praised this new favourite to the grandees of his Court, endeavouring to render him as dear to them as he was to himself.

Amidst these flattering praises, which resounded in the ears of Chamsada, what conflicts of tenderness did not this feeling mother experience in the loss of her own son! She often perceived him, but durst not cast upon him one affectionate look. She was forced to restrain the affection of her heart, and give no visible tokens of her regard. Every day she observed his steps, and secretly longed for the moment when she might pour out her soul in his embraces. As he pa.s.sed one day before the door of her apartment, and when she presumed no one would perceive her, she suddenly yielded to a mother's transports, threw herself on his neck, and in that happy moment forgot many years of sorrow.

While this fond mother was indulging the sweetest feelings of nature, danger surrounded her. One of the King's ministers, coming accidentally out of the neighbouring apartment, was the unintentional witness of this scene. He was uncertain what to think of it. As Chamsada was veiled he might have mistaken her. But having asked of the eunuchs the name of the lady who inhabited the apartment before which he had pa.s.sed, he came trembling to his Majesty, eager to discover the mystery of which chance had made him a witness. The charming page had already gone before him to the throne.

"August Majesty," said the minister, "you see me still in horror at the crime which has just now been committed, and of which I have been a witness. Pardon me, sire, if I am under the necessity of discovering to you the conduct of a spouse whom you have loved too dearly, but as I pa.s.sed before her apartment, I saw her embracing the vile slave who is at your side."

He knows not the power of the pa.s.sions who cannot figure to himself the sudden revolution which this report occasioned in the soul of the enamoured Sultan. The confusion of Shaseliman seemed still to increase it, and to remove every doubt concerning the truth of the fact. The Sultan instantly ordered the young man and the slave who had brought him from Persia to be thrown into a dungeon.

"What abominable treachery!" exclaimed he. "What! was this pretended treasure nothing but a slave?" And running hastily into Chamsada's apartment, "What has she become," said he, addressing himself to Chamsada, "whose prudence, wisdom, and love were the glory of my Court and the pattern of wives? How has this mirror of perfection been tarnished in a moment! How has she become my shame after having been my true honour, and a subject of reproach to the world after having been its admiration! How, alas! have appearances deceived me!

Henceforward, every woman shall be dishonoured in my eyes, from past and present to all future generations."

Having said this, the King went out, his soul struggling betwixt love and jealousy, fury and grief.

Chamsada was astonished at the reproaches she had just heard, and tormented by the false suspicions to which her husband, whom she loved, was abandoned. But how could she remove them? She had always confirmed to the Sultan the false report of her son's death intentionally spread by her father Selimansha, and she could not venture to discover him at present without exposing him to the utmost danger. Alas! when one has so long wandered from truth, is it possible to return? Could one regain confidence who has not known how to deserve it by a sincere and timely confession?

"No, no," would she say, "it was my inclination, and, without doubt, my duty, to spare the reputation of my uncle, and to-day I would in vain attempt to sully it. O Sovereign Wisdom! Divine Goodness! only resource of the innocent, to Thee I lift my hands and my heart. By invisible means you formerly s.n.a.t.c.hed my unfortunate son from the snares of death with which he was on all sides surrounded. He falls into them still, notwithstanding his innocence. The fatality of his star draws along with him my faithful slave and myself, and even the Sultan my husband, who is weighed down by the too well-founded presumption of our crime. Deliver us, O Allah, from the horrors of suspicion! And thou, great Prophet! if thou bearest in thy heart thy faithful followers--if all thy prayers in their behalf are heard--make mine ascend before the G.o.d of Justice! And since all the wisdom of the world could not untie the fatal knot in which we are bound, be pleased to employ in this work thy omnipotent power."

After this invocation, she placed her confidence in Allah, and waited the event with resignation.

In the meantime the irresolute soul of the Sultan was abandoned to the greatest uncertainty. His pa.s.sion for Chamsada seemed to acquire new strength in proportion as he attempted to destroy it. He knew not what step to take. How should he take vengeance on the guilty? How could he discern if they were both equally so? How could he know which of the two he ought to spare? How could he strike two objects who were so dear to him? Hara.s.sed by these painful and afflicting considerations, he lost his repose and his health, and his nurse, who still remained in the seraglio, was alarmed at this change. This woman, whom age and experience had rendered prudent, having deserved the confidence of her masters, had acquired the right of approaching them whenever she thought proper, and accordingly she went to the Sultan.

"What is the matter with you, my son?" said she to him. "You are not as you used to be. You shun the amus.e.m.e.nts which, till now, appeared agreeable to your inclinations. Riding, walking, and hunting, please you no more. You do not now a.s.semble your Court, nor give feasts and entertainments. I well know that you scarcely take food. What secret grief consumes you? Open to me your heart, my son. You know my tender attachment, and you ought to fear nothing from my indiscretion. We often allow ourselves to be prepossessed by phantoms, and perhaps I may be able to dissipate, in a moment, those which disturb your imagination. Trust me with your affliction, my son, and I hope to soothe it."

Whatever confidence this Prince had in his good nurse, and notwithstanding the great estimation in which he held her excellent qualities, he did not think it proper to disclose his grief to her. He must speak against Chamsada, and this remembrance would make the wound bleed afresh which she had made in his heart. The sage old woman was not discouraged by the ill success of her first attempt: she watched every opportunity of being seen by her master; and the tender looks which she cast upon him seemed to say, "O my dear son! speak to me, unfold your heart to your good nurse." But all her cares were fruitless.

Finding that she could not succeed by this method, and presuming that Chamsada must have been informed of the Sultan's grief, and conjecturing, moreover, that a woman would more easily reveal the secret which she wished to know, she flew to the Queen, whom she found plunged in sorrow apparently as deep as that which consumed the Sultan. She employed every method which address and experience could furnish her, in order to deserve the confidence of Chamsada.

"But why this cruel reserve with me?" said the good nurse. "Look, my daughter, upon my grey hairs! If age and time have furrowed my brow with wrinkles, they have also given me experience. I am no more the sport of pa.s.sion, and my counsels will be dictated by prudence."

Chamsada, shaken but not convinced by these arguments, replied to her,

"My secret is very weighty, my dear nurse; it weighs down my heart; but it is impossible it should ever come out of it. In trusting you with it, I must be well a.s.sured that it will remain for ever shut up in your breast."

"Your wishes shall be fulfilled," said the old woman. "I am discreet, and never shall my lips divulge your secret; but let it be no more one with her who takes so lively an interest in your happiness."

At length Chamsada could resist her no longer: she related to her all her adventures, and informed her that the young man of whom the Sultan was become jealous was her son Shaseliman, who had been supposed to have been dead.

"O great Prophet, I thank you!" exclaimed the nurse. "Praised be Mahomet! we have nothing to struggle with but chimeras! Be comforted, my daughter: every cloud will disappear: I behold the rising of a bright day."

"O my good mother, we shall never, never reach it. Never will this young man be believed to be my son. We shall be accused of falsehood, and I would prefer the loss of his life, and of my own, rather than be suspected of this infamy."

"I approve of your delicacy," said the nurse; "but my precautions shall prevent everything that might hurt it."

Upon this she went out, and immediately entered the Sultan's apartment, whom she found in the same state of dejection and sorrow in which she had left him; she embraced him and took him by the hand.

"My son," said she to him, "you are too much afflicted. If you are a true Mussulman, I conjure you by the name of the great Prophet to reveal to me the true cause of the grief which afflicts you."

Unable any longer to withstand the force of this intercession, the Sultan was forced to reveal all his distress.

"I loved Chamsada with my whole heart," said the Sultan. "Her graces, her wisdom, her virtues, all the charms, in a word, with which she was adorned, appeared to me a delicious garden, where my thoughts wandered with delight. All is now changed into a frightful desert, where I see nothing but hideous monsters and dreadful precipices. Chamsada is faithless. The false Chamsada whom I adored, and whom I love still, has betrayed me. She has given her heart to a vile slave. I am fallen from the height of an imaginary happiness into a h.e.l.l where every evil torments me. The two criminals must perish: nothing remains for me but to proportion the punishment to the crime, and endeavour to distinguish on which of the two my severest justice ought to fall.

But, alas! what will it cost me to execute this fatal sentence! The same weapon which pierces the heart of my adorable Chamsada, will wound my own with a deadly stroke."

"My son! do nothing rashly," said the nurse. "You may expose yourself to eternal repentance. Those whom you think guilty are in your hands: you will always have time to punish them: allow yourself time to examine them. 'Time,' says the proverb, 'is the wisest of all counsellors: many things are brought to light by time and patience.'"

"Ah! my good nurse, what explanation can I expect? Is there any that could destroy an attested fact? Chamsada loves this young man; and pretending that she had a treasure in Persia, she abused my confidence and affection to obtain from me an order to go in search of him."

"My dear son, be calm," said the old woman. "I have a method of laying open to you the soul of Chamsada. Cause your hunters to bring me an egret.[17] I will tear out the heart of this bird, which I will give to you, and as soon as Chamsada shall be asleep, you must bring it near hers, and it will be impossible for her to conceal from you the smallest secret."

[Footnote 17: Egret. A bird with a tuft upon its head.]

The King, delighted with having it in his power to discover so easily the mystery which kept him in such perplexity, instantly ordered his officers to go and catch an egret in his gardens. One was brought to him, which he immediately gave to the old nurse. She tore its breast, accompanying this action, extremely simple in itself, with a magical charm, and the Sultan was put in possession of its reeking heart.

While the Prince was reflecting on the surprising virtues of this method, the nurse had gone secretly to the apartment of Chamsada.

"Everything goes well," said she to her. "Let your heart be filled with hope, and let your mouth be prepared to disclose the truth, without any reserve. Expect this night to receive a mysterious visit.

It will be from the Sultan himself, with the heart of an egret in his hand. As soon as you perceive that he brings it near yours, feign to be asleep, but answer with precision all the questions which he may put to you, and let truth flow from your mouth, unsullied by the slightest scruple."

Chamsada tenderly thanked the nurse, and prepared herself to second this innocent stratagem, beseeching the favour of the holy Prophet to carry conviction to his heart who was endeavouring to discover the truth.