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 | III. The complete works of N.P. Willis |  |
3. III.
We kept up the valley of Sweet Waters, tracing
the Barbyses through its bosom, to the hills; and then
mounting a steep ascent, struck across to the east, over
a country, which, though so near the capital of the
Turkish empire, is as wild as the plains of the Hermus.
Shrubs, forest-trees, and wild grass, cover the apparently
illimitable waste, and save a half-visible horse-path
which guides the traveller across, there is scarce
an evidence that you are not the first adventurer in the
wilderness.
What a natural delight is freedom! What a bound
gives the heart at the sight of the unfenced earth, the
unseparated hill-sides, the unhedged and unharvested
valleys! How thrilling it is — unlike any other joy —
to spur a fiery horse to the hill-top, and gaze away
over dell and precipice to the horizon, and never a
wall between, nor a human limit to say “Thus far
shalt thou go, and no farther!” Oh, I think we have
an instinct, dulled by civilization, which is like the
caged eaglet's, or the antelope's that is reared in the
Arab's tent; an instinct of nature that scorns boundary
and chain; that yearns to the free desert; that would
have the earth, like the sea or the sky, unappropriated
and open; that rejoices in immeasurable liberty of foot
and dwelling-place, and springs passionately back to
its freedom even after years of subduing method and
spirit-breaking confinement! I have felt it on the sea,
in the forests of America, on the desolated plains of
Asia and Roumelia; I should feel it till my heart
burst, had I the wings of a bird!
The house once occupied by Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu stands on the descent of a hill in the little village
of Belgrade, some twelve or fourteen miles from
Constantinople. It is a common-place two-story affair,
but the best house of the dozen that form the village,
and overlooks a dell below that reminds one of the
“Emerald valleys of Cashmeer.” We wandered
through its deserted rooms, discussed the clever woman
who has described her travels so graphically, and
then followed Maimuna to the narrow street, in search
of kibaubs. The butcher's shop in Turkey is as open
as the trottoir to the street, and with only an entire
sheep hanging between us and a dozen hungry beggars,
attracted by the presence of strangers, we crossed
our legs on the straw carpet, and setting the wooden
tripod in the centre, waited patiently the movements of
our feeder, who combined in his single person the
three vocations of butcher, cook, and waiter. One
must have travelled east of Cape Colonna to relish a
dinner so slightly disguised, but, once rid of European
prejudices, there is nothing more simple than the fact
that it is rather an attractive mode of feeding — a traveller's
appetite subauditur.
Our friend was a wholesome-looking Turk, with a
snow-white turban, a black, well-conditioned beard, a
mouth incapable of a smile, yet honest, and a most
trenchant and janissaresque style of handling his
cleaver. Having laid open his bed of coals with a
kind of conjurer's flourish of the poker, he slapped the
pendent mutton on the thigh in a fashion of encouragement,
and waiting an instant for our admiration to subside,
he whipping his knife from its sheath, and had out
a dozen strips from the chine (as Job expressed it in
Vermontese) “in no time.” With the same alacrity
these were cut into bits “of the size of a piece of
chalk” (another favorite expression of Job's), run
upon a skewer, and laid on the coals, and in three
minutes, more or less, they appeared smoking on the
trencher, half lost in a fine green salad, well peppered,
and of a most seducing and provocative savor. If you
have performed your four ablutions A.M., like a devout
Mussulman, it is not conceived in Turkey that you
have occasion for the medium of a fork, and I frankly
own, that I might have been seen at Belgrade, cross-legged
in a kibaub-shop, between my friend and the
gipsy, and making a most diligent use of my thumb
and fore-finger. I have dined since at the Rocher de
Cancale and the Traveller's with less satisfaction.
Having paid something like sixpence sterling for
our three dinners (rather an overcharge, Maimuna
thought), we unpicketed our horses from the long
grass, and bade adieu to Belgrade, on our way to the
aqueducts. We were to follow down a verdant valley,
and, exhilarated by a flask of Greek wine (which
I forgot to mention), and the ever-thrilling circumstances
of unlimited greensward and horses that wait
not for the spur, we followed the daring little Asiatic
up hill and down, over bush and precipice, till Job
cried us mercy. We pulled up on the edge of a sheet
of calm water, and the vast marble wall, built by the
sultans in the days of their magnificence and crossing
the valley from side to side, burst upon us like a scene
of enchantment in the wilderness.
Those same sultans must have lived a great deal at
Belgrade. Save these vast aqueducts, which are splendid
monuments of architecture, there is little in the
first aspect to remind you that you are not in the wilds
of Missouri; but a further search discloses, in the recesses
of the hidden windings of the valley, circular
staircases of marble leading to secluded baths, now
filled with leaves and neglected, but evidently on a
scale of the most imperial sumptuousness. From the
perishable construction of Turkish dwelling-houses, all
traces even of the most costly serai may easily have
disappeared in a few years, when once abandoned to
ruin; and I pleased myself with imagining, as we
slackened bridle, and rode slowly beneath the gigantic
trees of the forest, the gilded pavilions, and gay scenes
of oriental pleasure that must have existed here in
place for the enchantments of the “Arabian Nights”
to have been realized.
I have followed the common error in giving these
structures in the forest of Belgrade the name of aqueducts.
They are rather walls built across the deep
valleys, of different altitudes, to create reservoirs for
the supply of aqueducts, but are built with all the
magnificence and ornament of a facade to a temple.
We rode on from one to the other, arriving at last at
the lowest, which divides the valley at its wildest part,
forming a giddy wall across an apparently bottomless
ravine, as dark and impracticable as the glen of the
Cauterskill in America. Our road lay on the other
side, but though with a steady eye one might venture
to cross the parapet on foot, there were no means of
getting our horses over, short of a return of half a mile
to the path we had neglected higher up the valley.
We might swim it, above the embankment, but the
opposite shore was a precipice.
“What shall we do?” I asked.
Job made no answer, but pulled round his beast,
and started off in a sober canter to return.
I stood a moment, gazing on the placid sheet of
water above, and the abyss of rock and darkness below,
and then calling to Maimuna, who had ridden
farther down the bank, I turned my horse's head after
him.
“Signore!” cried the gipsy from below.
“What is it, Carissima?”
“Maimuna never goes back!”
“Silly child!” I answered, “you are not going to
cross the ravine?”
“Yes!” was the reply, and the voice became more
indistinguishable as she galloped away. “I will be
over before you!”
I was vexed, but I knew the self-will and temerity
of the wild Asiatic, and, very certain that if there
were danger it would be run before I could reach
her, I drove the stirrups into my horse's sides, and
overtook Job at the descent into the valley. We ascended
again, and rode down the opposite shore to the
embankment, at a sharp gallop. Maimuna was not
there.
“She will have perished in the abyss,” said Job.
I sprang from my horse to cross the parapet on foot
in search of her, when I heard her horse's footsteps,
and the next moment she dashed up the steep, having
failed in her attempt, and stood once more where we
had parted. The sun was setting, and we had ten
miles to ride, and impatient of her obstinacy, I sharply
ordered her to go up the ravine at speed, and cross as
we had done.
I think I never shall forget, angry as I was at the
moment, the appearance of that lovely creature, as
she resolutely refused to obey me. Her horse, the
same fiery Arabian she had ridden from Sardis (an
animal that, except when she was on his back, would
scarce have sold for a gold sequin), stood with head
erect and panting nostrils, glancing down with his
wild eyes upon the abyss into which he had been
urged — the whole group, horse and rider, completely
relieved against the sky from the isolated mound they
occupied, and, at this instant, the gold flood of the setting
sun pouring full on them through a break in the
masses of the forest. Her own fierce attitude, and
beautiful and frowning face, the thin lip curled resolutely,
and the brown and polished cheek deepened
with a rosy glow, her full and breathing bosom swelling
beneath its jacket, and her hair, which had escaped
from the turban, flowing over her neck and shoulders,
and mingling with the loosened fringes of red and gold
in rich disorder — it was a picture which the pencil of
Martin (and it would have suited his genius) could
scarce have exaggerated. The stately half Arabic,
half Grecian architecture of the aqueducts, and the
cold and frowning tints of the abyss and the forest
around, would have left him nothing to add to it as a
composition.
I was crossing the giddy edge of the parapet, looking
well to my feet, with the intention of reasoning
with the obstinate being, who, vexed at my reproaches
and her own failure, was now in as pretty a rage as
myself, when I heard the trampling of horses in the
forest. I stopped mid-way to listen, and presently
there sprang a horseman up the bank in an oriental
costume, with pistols and ataghan flashing in the
sun, and a cast of features that at once betrayed his
origin.
“A Zingara!” I shouted back to Job.
The gipsy, who was about nineteen, and as well-made
and gallant a figure for a man as Maimuna for a
woman, seemed as much astonished as ourselves, and
sat in his saddle gazing on the extraordinary figure I
have described, evidently recognising one of his own
race, but probably puzzled with the mixture of costumes,
and struck at the same time with Maimuna's
excessive beauty. Lovely as she always was, I had
never seen her to such advantage as now. She might
have come from fairy-land, for the radiant vision she
seemed in the gold of that burning sunset.
I gazed on them both a moment, and was about
finishing my traverse of the parapet, when a troop of
mounted gipsies and baggage-horses came up the bank
at a quick pace, and in another minute Maimuna was
surrounded. I sprang to her bridle, and apprehensive
of, I scarce knew what danger, gave her one of the
two pistols I carried always in my bosom.
The gipsy chief (for such he evidently was) measured
me from head to foot with a look of dislike, and
speaking for the first time, addressed Maimuna in his
own language, with a remark which sent the blood to
her temples with a suddenness I had never before
seen.
“What does he say?” I asked.
“It is no matter, signore, but it is false!” Her
black eyes were like coals of fire, as she spoke.
“Leave your horse,” I said to her, in a low tone,
“and cross the parapet. I will prevent his following
you, and will join you on your own before you can
reach Constantinople. Turn the horses' heads homeward!”
I continued in English to Job, who was crying
out to me from the other side to come back.
Maimuna laid her hand on the pommel to dismount,
but the gipsy, anticipating her motion, touched his
horse with the stirrup, and sprang with a single leap
between her and the parapet. The troop had gathered
into a circle behind us, and seeing our retreat
thus cut off, I presented my pistol to the young chief,
and demanded, in Italian, that he should clear the
way.
A blow from behind, the instant that I was pulling
the trigger, sent the discharged pistol into the ravine,
and, in the same instant, Maimuna dashed her horse
against the unguarded gipsy, nearly overturning him
into the abyss, and spurred desperately upon the parapet.
One cry from the whole gipsy troop, and then
all was as silent as the grave, except the click of her
horse's hoofs on the marble verge, as, trembling palpably
in every limb, the terrified animal crossed the
giddy chasm at a half trot, and, in the next minute,
bounded up the opposite bank, and disappeared with
a short of fear and delight amid the branches of the
forest.
What with horror and wonder, and the shock of the
blow which had nearly broken my arm. I stood motionless
where Maimuna had left me, till the gipsy, recovering
from his amazement, dismounted and put his
pistol to my breast.
“Call her back!” he said to me, in very good Italian,
and with a tone in which rage and determination
were strangely mingled, “or you die where you stand!”
Without regarding his threat, I looked at him, with
a new thought stealing into my mind. He probably
read the pacific change in my feelings, for he dropped
his arm, and the frown on his own features moderated
to a steadfast and inquisitive regard.
“Zingara!” I said, “Maimuna is my slave.”
A clutch of his pistol-stock, and a fiery and impatient
look from his fine eyes, interrupted me for an instant.
I proceeded to tell him briefly how I had obtained
possession of her, while the troop gradually
closed around, attracted by his excessive look of interest
in the tale, though they probably did not understand
the language in which I spoke, and all fixing
their wild eyes earnestly on my face.
“And now, Zingara,” I said, “I will bring her back
on one condition — that, when the offer is fairly made
her, if she chooses still to go with me, she shall be
free to do so. I have protected her, and sworn still
to protect her as long as she should choose to eat of
my bread. Though my slave, she is pure and guiltless
as when she left the tent of her mother, and is
worthy of the bosom of an emperor.”
The Zingara took my hand, and put it to his lips.
“You agree to our compact, then?” I asked.
He put his hand on his forehead, and then laid it,
with a slight inclination, on his breast.
“She can not have gone far,” I said, and stepping
on the mound above the parapet, I shouted her name
till the woods rang again with the echo.
A moment, and Job and Maimuna came riding to
the verge of the opposite hill, and with a few words
of explanation, fastened their horses to a tree, and
crossed to us by the parapet.
The chief returned his pistols to his girdle, and
stood aside while I spoke to Maimuna. It was a difficult
task, but I felt that it was a moment decisive of
her destiny, and the responsibility weighed heavily on
my breast. Though excessively attached to her —
though she had been endeared to me by sacrifices, and
by the ties of protection — though, in short, I loved
her, not with a passion, but with an affection — as a
father more than as a lover — I still felt it to be my duty
to leave no means untried to induce her to abandon
me, to return to her own people and remain in her own
land of the sun. What her fate would be in the state
of society to which I must else introduce her, had
been eloquently depicted by Job, and will readily be
imagined by the reader.
After the first burst of incredulity and astonishment
at my proposal, she folded her arms on her bosom,
and, with the tears streaming like rain over her jacket,
listened in silence and with averted eyes. I concluded
with representing to her, in rather strong colors,
the feelings with which she might be received by my
friends, and the difficulty she would find in accommodating
herself to the customs of people, to whom not
only she must be inferior in the accomplishments of
a woman, but who might find, even in the color of that
loveliest cheek, a reason to despise her.
Her lip curled for an instant, but the grief in her
heart was stronger than the scorn for an imaginary
wrong, and she bowed her head again, and her tears
flowed on.
I was silent at last, and she looked up into my face.
“I am a burthen to you,” she said.
“No, dearest Maimuna! no! but if I were to see
you wretched hereafter, you would become so. Tell
me! the chief will make you his wife; will you rejoin
your people?”
She flung herself upon the ground, and wept as if
her heart would break. I thought it best to let her
feelings have away, and walking apart with the young
gipsy, I gave him more of the particulars of her history,
and exacted a promise that, if she should finally
be left with the troop, he would return with her to the
tribe of her mother, at Sardis.
Maimuna stood gazing fixedly into the ravine when
we turned back, and there was an erectness in her attitude,
and a fierte in the air of her head, that, I must
acknowledge, promised more for my fears than my
wishes. Her pride was roused, it was easy with half
a glance to see.
With the suddenness of oriental passion, the young
chief had become already enamored of her, and, with
a feeling of jealousy which, even though I wished him
success, I could not control, I saw him kneel at her
feet and plead with her in an inaudible tone. She had
been less than woman if she had been insensible to
that passionate cadence, and the imploring earnestness
of the noble countenance on which she looked.
It was evident that she was interested, though she
began with scarce deigning to lift her eyes from the
ground.
I felt a sinking of the heart which I can not describe
when he rose to his feet and left her standing alone.
The troop had withdrawn at his command, and Job,
to whom the scene was too painful, had recrossed the
parapet, and stood by his horse's head waiting the result.
The twilight had deepened, the forest looked
black around us, and a single star sprang into the sky,
while the west was still glowing in a fast purpling gold
and crimson.
“Signore!” said Maimuna, walking calmly to my
hand, which I stretched instinctively to receive her,
“I am breaking my heart; I know not what to do.”
At this instant a faint meteor shot over the sky, and
drew its reflection across the calm mirror whose verge
we were approaching.
“Stay!” she cried; “the next shall decide the fate
of Maimuna! If it cross to the east, the will of Allah
be done! I will leave you!”
I called to the gipsy, and we stood on the verge of
the parapet in breathless expectation. The darkness
deepened around us, the abyss grew black and indistinguishable,
and the night-birds flitted past like audible
shadows. I drew Maimuna to my bosom, and
with my hands buried in her long hair, pressed her to
my heart, that beat as painfully and as heavily as her
own.
A sudden shriek! She started from my bosom, and
as she fell upon the earth, my eye caught, on the face
of the mirror from which I had forgetfully withdrawn
my gaze, the vanishing pencil of a meteor, drawn like
a beam of the sunset, from west to east!
I lifted the insensible child, impressed one long kiss
on her lips, and flinging her into the arms of the gipsy,
crossed the parapet, and rode, with a speed that tried
in vain to outrun my anguish, to Constantinople.
| III. The complete works of N.P. Willis | |