CHAPTER XXVI.
How slowly and wearily night passes when a sense of impending eviloverpowers sleep, and renders every faculty sharply sensible to soundsand impressions otherwise of ordinary occurrence,--when a thousandvague phantasies flit before the imagination hardly more definite thanthe keenly-painful thoughts they awaken! How difficult thus to enduredelay or uncertainty, and to account for causes of either, so as togain consolation or assurance to one's self, far less to impart comfortto others whose fears and apprehensions are perhaps greater than ourown.
Thus heavily was hour after hour counted by Afzool Khan and his fairdaughter in the apartment we have already described. The Khan busiedhimself, or seemed to do so, with a pile of Persian papers, on someof which, from time to time, he made notes: but it was easy for hisdaughter to see that his eye often followed vacantly the lines of thewriting, and that his thoughts wandered far from the subjects beforehim.
The Khan's wife, Lurlee, had come, and been dismissed with aninjunction not to interrupt him, and that he should be late. Zynadid not disturb her father, and found a partial occupation in someembroidery, which helped to dispel for a time her fears for herbrother; gradually, however, as the night wore on, it was easy for herto see that her father's anxiety increased. It was true that Fazil'sreturn was not expected till after midnight; but that, under thethought of his perilous errand, brought no consolation with it, and shesat watching the expression of her father's countenance, yet not soas to be observed, and withdrawing her eyes when he looked up. A fewcareless words fell from time to time from both, and a few entreatiesby the Khan to his daughter that she would take rest, were met byrequests that she might be allowed to share his watch, for that she hadpromised her brother to await his return.
Thus midnight came, and with it sleep to the young girl, that wouldnot be denied. She had folded her scarf about her person, and lay downwhere she was; and her father now watched his sleeping child, almostwondering at her beauty, as the light fell upon her, and projected ashadow from the long eyelashes upon her soft downy cheek. So, with theimage of the dead before him--for he remembered her mother even suchan one as her child--Afzool Khan's thoughts wandered far back intothe past,--far back to the time when, with life before him and easycompetence, the servant of a noble and united kingdom, the future hadnot concerned him, save only to wish that the happiness he possessedmight endure.
But that bright future was long past. The present was dark, uncertain,menacing. Had there been any one to listen, the bitter sob of the oldKhan--a sob of exquisite pain as his thoughts alternated between thehappy past and a gloomy future--might have been heard,--such pain asthose alone can know whose affections and memories of the past arisemost vividly to augment any new suffering that may be present. Theyears of happiness in his home, which might have been his lot had hiswife been spared to him, rose to the mind of Afzool Khan as a sadmockery; for though the grave had long held her whose fair form seemedrenewed before him, it appeared almost as if she were again present tohim in all her beauty.
"Thou art a fair blossom. May God love thee! May the holy saints keepthee! May thy mother watch thee, my child!" murmured the Khan, as hebent over his sleeping daughter. "Even such was thy mother in thosefirst days, as guileless and as beautiful. Nay, thou art but the copy,Zyna. And had she but lived to see thee and thy brother as ye are itwould have been well. Yet why not well as it is?" he resumed after apause; "surely Fate is good whatever it be. If my heart warns me ofcoming ill--nay, if he too be gone from me, well; he is with her, andthe old man will soon follow, and there will be peace, peace, peace!Yet I would live still a little for thee, my child--only for thee! elsethe first shot or keen sword-cut were welcome to Afzool Khan."
So he thought and watched, and at times gently fanned his child withthe papers in his hand that her sleep might be the lighter, and againresumed his occupation of reading. All was silent, but the night windsighed mournfully through the open trelliswork of the window, andseemed rising; and as he listened, there were mutterings of a comingstorm.
Opening one of the small casements, he looked out. The city was darkbeneath him, and still; even the dogs seemed to have gone to sleep.Far distant, the wailing howls of a pack of jackals came upon his earfitfully, and again ceased as the sound was blown away by the wind.Over the face of the sky the wild dark clouds were now hurrying ragidlyalong, disclosing here and there a star, which was again as instantlyhidden. In the west, the horizon was black and threatening, and theedges of a heavy bank of cloud, now fast rising, pile over pile, wereillumined like burnished silver, as lightning flashed rapidly throughthem, lighting up the city, and the bold domes and tall minarets ofthe mosques and mausoleums, with a sickly glare for an instant, todisappear as rapidly as a thought. One of the night-storms of theseason was evidently approaching, and the cool fresh wind was gratefulto the Khan, as he leaned forth and looked into the void of darknessabstractedly.
The papers he had been perusing had been the subject of consultationthat day at the court between the King, his Secretary, and himself.They were reports from the governors of the west and north-westprovinces--a country which Afzool Khan had governed some years before,and knew perfectly--and related to a growing disaffection and a risingspirit among the people of the mountain valleys, which could not beaccounted for save by the intrigues and machinations of Sivaji Bhoslayand his adherents. Sivaji, as a restless youth, had before risen inpetty insurrection, and had resisted small forces sent against him,but had renewed his fidelity to the State, and had been pardoned.Notwithstanding, however, he was believed to be active in evil designs;and report assigned to him constant communication and intrigue with theMoghul emperor Aurungzeeb, as well as endeavours, on his own account,to excite the people.
Afzool Khan was no indifferent spectator of these events. He was oneof those who, with others of his rank, had received profuse promisesfrom the Emperor during his first invasion of the kingdom; and thoughAurungzeeb's intentions had not been finally declared, yet Afzool Khanknew that if he favoured his cause, even secretly, for the present, hewas certain hereafter, should the Emperor prevail, of high rank andrewards far beyond those which he now possessed, and also that theweight and influence of a few men like himself would at once turn thescale against Beejapoor, which already trembled in the balance.
The Moghul party, he well knew, was strong in the city. Many who hadbeen disappointed of court influence almost openly professed it:they had nothing to lose and everything to hope for. But there wereothers--like the prime-minister, Khan Mahomed, for instance--who, inthe enjoyment of large estates, high commands, and immense wealth,still desired more; nay, even the partition of the kingdom, that theymight hold what they possessed as independent princes.
Again, Aurungzeeb's zeal for the cause of his faith was a well-knownelement of his character. He was a strict Soonnee, who held theheretical belief of the Sheeas in hereditary hatred; and the sight ofthe noble domes of the mosques at Beejapoor filled him with a fervourof bigotry even stronger than the lust of territorial dominion, tosubvert the royal house which held those detested tenets.
Afzool Khan was also an orthodox Soonnee. He looked with abominationupon the Sheea ceremonies at the great mosque. He could not join inprayer there, nor could he enter save with the certainty of beingoffended and insulted by the religious ceremonies of his King. It wasequally certain that the doctrines he professed belonged to a strongparty in the city, who on all possible occasions urged amalgamation ofthe country with the empire of Delhi, in order to insure the supremacyof their own creed. Yet he was true.
Like him, the minister Khan Mahomed had been faithful through manytemptations; but of late, though he still preserved a fair and honestappearance with the young King, rumour had become busy with his name,and, intimate as was their friendship, the old Khan's trust in himwas much shaken under an accumulated mass of suspicion, though, asyet, nothing definite had transpired. Hitherto also the minister'sapparently unflinching adherence to what was feared to be a fallingdynasty, and t
o a government which, under foreign invasion, andinternal disunion and distraction, had become weakened, had retainedAfzool Khan's respect and affection; for this, combined with KhanMahomed's professed devotion to the young King, who, with excellentdispositions and a fair promise of ability, was yet without experience,formed a strong bond of union between them.
Private friendship, and the free intercourse of camps andbattle-fields, had existed for many years; and as their children grewup together, and the beauty of Zyna became notorious, the minister'sson, whom we have already mentioned, pressed upon his father, veryimportunately, the necessity of formally asking her in marriage. Butunder his own secret hopes of the eventual ascendancy of the Moghuls,and his convictions that the obstinate fidelity of Afzool Khan wouldsooner or later lead to a serious breach between them, the minister hadas yet refrained from taking any steps in the matter; and on his ownpart Afzool Khan had been equally guarded.
The events of the night, however, would disclose the real tendencyof the Wuzeer's conduct; and the thought that there were grounds ofmore than ordinary suspicion, could not fail to increase the feelingthat he was actually guilty, which for some time past had lain atAfzool Khan's heart. He had fancied, too, a growing coldness on thepart of the Wuzeer towards him, unlike the spirit of their formerfree and unrestrained intercourse; and he could not fail to observe,in his visits to his court, that men to whom rumour attached the samesuspicions as to the Wuzeer, were preferred as counsellors to himself.
All this, however, had as yet produced no personal disagreement: it wasonly mistrust, arising from suspicion on both sides; but the Wuzeerwell knew that, if his designs were discovered for certain in anydegree, he should find in Afzool Khan a powerful and bitter enemy,whose fiery temper and habit of prompt action would make him a farmore dangerous enemy than the young King himself. No one, also, knewbetter than the Wuzeer the temptations to which Afzool Khan had beenexposed, and through which he had come as yet unsullied. He knew thatin the Moghul army many ties of clanship and acquaintance existed forthe Afghan, which the service of Beejapoor did not afford, and that theEmperor, desiring to gain one so faithful, brave, and skilled in thefield, who was also a Soonnee, had offered rank, titles, and estates,with his personal friendship and confidence, as yet in vain.
There had been times when Afzool Khan, wearied by petty slights,uncertain as to the future existence of Beejapoor as a kingdom, andcomparing the wide field of honour in the imperial service with thenarrow circle of Beejapoor, had felt tempted to accept these offers.But the thought had been as often repelled, and had led to a moresteadfast and more healthy attachment to the young King; and when AliAdil Shah, who had but recently succeeded his father Mahmood, displayedthe possession of vigour and manly thought, and his disposition andtalent appeared really equal to the maintenance of his dignity,--AfzoolKhan's fidelity was no longer doubtful, and his openly-evincedconfidence in his King had rallied the wavering attachment of many.
A more than ordinary proof of this had been that day given by the Kingin public Durbar. The Wuzeer was then absent from Beejapoor on service,watching the frontier, with a force to oppose Moghul incursions;and the King had, as an unusual act, invited Afzool Khan into hisprivate chamber, to discuss the contents of the letters of which wehave already seen the Khan in possession. They were many, and on manysubjects; and the King's trust in the old noble could not have beenmore heartily evinced than by permitting him to take them home forperusal alone.
They were a tangled skein of intrigue, alarm, and disaffection, ofexaggerated rumour and detail of actual occurrences, which werenot without signification in the aggregate. If, in reliance on thegradually increasing ability of the King, Afzool Khan had no longerhesitated, but, with the sincerity of an open and faithful heart,showed that he for one no longer doubted, and that his allegiancewould be true--others as high in rank, and holding equal or greaterterritorial possessions, were not so; and, as we have already stated,there was much disaffection, not only in the city, but in the army, andalso in the provinces.
So long as the Moghuls had beleagured Beejapoor, men of all parties,and, we may add, creeds also, had united in the common bond ofself-preservation; well knowing the plunder and devastation whichwould ensue if the city were taken by storm or in the course of actualwar. This also had been foreseen by the Emperor; and his advices fromthe traitors within, at the head of whom was the Wuzeer, led him tothe conclusion that nothing was to be gained by open force at present.Enough that the seed of disaffection had been sown, which he trustedwould, in a comparatively short period, bear the fruit he desired.On these considerations, Aurungzeeb had raised the siege, and lay ata distance in seeming inaction; nevertheless watching the course ofevents not only with eagerness, but with astute foresight and untiringintrigue. Emissaries were busy in the city, and among the waveringand discontented gained many converts. Money, promises and assurancesof protection were freely lavished, not only among the courtiers, butamong the frontier chieftains, powerful tributaries, feudatories, andzemindars, who possessed influence over the people, and wherever elseit was possible. Village authorities were also canvassed; hereditaryrights and immunities guaranteed, with confirmation of former grantsfrom the Beejapoor princes.
All such were openly encouraged to revolt, to withhold payment ofrevenue, and to harass the government of the State by every means intheir power. During the confusion attendant upon the Moghul invasion,many districts had been wrested from the State which could not beregained except at great cost and by the employment of separateforces, which weakened the general efficiency of the army. In someinstances, those who had recovered and held such districts, hadthemselves retained possession of them, fortifying the village ghurreesor castles, occupying and repairing hill-forts, under pretence ofassisting the King's cause, but in reality to strengthen their ownpositions. Of such, was the Mahratta prince, Sivaji Bhoslay.
The letters which Afzool Khan was perusing were of the tenor consequentupon such events. They were chiefly from governors of provinces,forwarding reports from their subordinates to make their own viewsmore intelligible. Most applied for the assistance of fresh troops,permission to raise local levies, and funds to pay them; while theygave accounts of opposition and imperial intrigue, which were onlytoo certain and progressive. Others detailed plots and rumours, orpreparations for revolt which should be checked.
Around Beejapoor itself there was perhaps no apprehension; buteverywhere at a distance the same confusion existed, and it seemedto Afzool Khan as though it were impossible to provide against thespread of growing disaffection which, if he had before only partiallyguessed, was here developed in all its hideous and most perplexingdetail. Letter after letter was thus read and thrown aside, till, wearyof the subject, and sick at heart with apprehension, unable also todetermine upon any definite course of state policy, he had put asidethe correspondence, and was reviewing the detail in his own mind as helooked out on the city from the window.
The question to be determined in particular was as regarded thecondition of the country to the west and north-west, which heretoforehad given no cause for alarm. When Afzool Khan himself had governed it,he found the people, if ruder in manner than those nearer the capital,yet peaceable and industrious farmers; and beyond checking local feuds,there was little need for exertion or apprehension of any kind. Nowthe governor wrote of large assemblages of armed men, of habitualindifference to the authority of the officers of the State, and of thegrowing influence of Sivaji Bhoslay, before which he felt it next toimpossible to maintain his own position or collect the revenue, muchless to bring him to subjection.
The latest letters, too, described emissaries from the imperial camphaving been traced in disguise to Sivaji's strongholds among themountains, and an increasing belief among the people that he wasdestined to become a great prince for the subversion of all Mahomedans;while it was very evident that, by some secret means, they were beingorganized either to revolt for Sivaji himself, or in the cause of theEmperor.
The writer was
a personal friend of Afzool Khan's--one whom he had noreason to believe would write either from fear or from an incorrectview of existing circumstances; and on this account his recent lettershad not only become more important, but in a higher degree moreinteresting. He had forces at his disposal sufficient to repress anyoutbreak, but his knowledge of the people and the country, and the usethey might be put to by the Emperor against the State at any criticalmoment, had confirmed apprehensions under which he had written,temperately but firmly, to the King, not to neglect or underratethose signs of the times; and to seek among the counsellors andnobles at Beejapoor such advice in respect to the prevention of localdisaffection as might be practicable.
"If Fazil is right," murmured the Khan to himself, as he revolved thesequestions in his mind, "we may obtain confirmation of the designs ofthe Mahrattas and the Emperor, which will assist the comprehensionof these letters. But it is strange that they have any common cause,or that such discordant elements should unite, even with the hope ofmutual assistance."
A low cry from his daughter aroused him from his reverie. As he drewhimself within the lattice, Zyna had raised herself, and was lookingabout scared and half awake. "Fazil!" she said. "O father, I dreamed Isaw him laying before me, looking as though he were dead, and then heseemed to change to you; and I was terrified and screamed out."
"Be calm, Zyna," he replied, supporting her tenderly; "thou hast beenmuch excited, and needest rest, and no wonder that an evil dream cameto thee. Fear not; he is safe, and I am beside thee."
"Safe, father? then he is returned, and I have been sleepingcarelessly."
"No, daughter, he is not come yet. He has most likely taken refuge fromthe storm, which was severe."
"In my dream I heard the thunder, father, but it seemed as though itwere cannon. I marvel that I slept through all."
"And soundly too, Zyna; but look, the morning will be fair for theirreturn," and he opened the casement.
The black pall of clouds which had hung over the city had passed away,and the wind had fallen, except a cool gentle breeze which blew freshlyin at the window, and rustled among the foliage of the garden. Hereand there the silence was broken by a gentle and distant murmur in thecity, for, early as it was, some were already astir.
"I will watch now, father," said Zyna; "surely you have not slept atall. I am quite rested, and will wait for Fazil."
"It is near the third watch of the night, Zyna; thou art not afraid tobe alone if I sleep? If Fazil come not before dawn, I will mount thePaigah, and we will soon bring him to thee; but I have no fear now,and say this only to content thee. I will try and rest my head fora while, daughter; for it is weary, and these papers have caused memuch thought." So saying, he lay down on the divan where he had beensitting, covered his face with a shawl which Zyna gently cast over him,and at once fell into a deep slumber.
Tara: A Mahratta Tale Page 28
