IN this state of abstraction, the King was perceived by a groupe of natives, who had come to the strand, in hope of plundering such vessels as they might find wrecked there; it cost them no trouble to make him their prisoner; the formidable Sebastian had not then any care for himself.—having explained to them as well as the difference of their provincial Moresco would permit, that he had been cast on their shore by the late storm, and was consequently too much enfeebled for great exertion, they were induced to let him walk slowly.
They led him towards some mean houses, which lay at a distance up the country; there they left him, and ran off again to the wreck. Barémel, though beaten away by those surly Africans, had still returned and followed his master’s steps, but plunged in profound grief, Sebastian ceased to think of his faithful dog, and entered a hut, unconscious that clubs and stones were then driving the poor animal far away.
An old woman within offered him some coarse provisions, and pointed to a miserable bed of dried weeds, where she said he might sleep off his fatigue: Sebastian threw himself down in silence, and the woman quitting him, bolted the door on her charge.—
The certainty of being again a slave, made little impression on a heart already exhausted of its capability of suffering. There are periods in our existence, when we seem able to refuse any further sacrifices to grief; in these moments a species of sullen resignation succeeds the transports of despair, and life or death appears equally a matter of indifference.
Such were the feelings of Sebastian; he lay on his rude bed, gloomy and tearless, careless of the passing hours which were to bring back his new masters.
It was evening when these men returned: they brought with them many things from the wreck, which they greedily shared. Their captive’s silent acquiescence in his destiny, moved them to promise that they would sell him only to a good master, and that in the mean time he should be well fed and kindly treated.
While tempting him to eat part of their hard fare, some one opened the outer door, and Barémel rushing in, sprung to his master’s feet: one of the Moors would have thrust him out, had not Sebastian besought the comfort of retaining his only friend: after a short demur, consent was granted; and having devoured some scanty fragments of the supper, Barémel was suffered to retire to rest in the same corner with his master.
As the King put aside his doublet and vest, he observed on the back of them the deep indents of teeth; the miracle of his preservation was then shewn to him; grief mixed with gratitude, and a sentiment nearly amounting to tenderness, swelled from his heart to his eyes; it burst forth in tears, while hastily glancing from his clothes to his mute friend, he exclaimed, “Ah Barémel, what a life hast thou preserved?”
The feelings once melted are not soon restored to their former state; Sebastian wept silently a long time; for he thought of Kara Aziek, and wished that Barémel had saved her only.
Vain were these wishes, these poignant regrets; the hollow blasts sweeping over the roof which sheltered him, and the hoarse waves resounding from afar, seemed to repeat again and again that Aziek had been their victim.
It was now that Sebastian felt conscious of having loved that generous Being, her loss had torn away the veil of self-delusion, and convinced him that what he believed but solicitude for her happiness, was in reality anxiety for his own.—Ah wretched condition of humanity! no sooner do we begin to feel the full value of our possessions, than they are wrested from us!—is it the law of our being that we are never to possess and to enjoy at the same moment?
Providence had consigned the unfortunate monarch to merciful men; they tried to cheer his melancholy, and did not urge him to any services: if he would but share their meal and submit to confinement, they were satisfied.—’Tis true, it was interest they chiefly consulted in this conduct, (for on his healthful looks depended their expected profit) yet ignorant men do not often calculate remote advantages.
The first day after a new moon, these people set off with their captive for the town of Mesa, where repairing to the house of a slave merchant, they encountered an aged man in want of a servant, who purchased Sebastian.
Something of his former fierceness blazed in the eyes of the proud King when he found himself the object of degrading traffic, but the gentle image of Kara Aziek glided before his fancy, and absorbed every other sentiment in that of regret; he paused, sighed profoundly, and tears stole down his cheek.
The old man looked at him with an air of compassion; that look encouraged Sebastian to ask if Barémel might share his destiny, the request was granted, and soon after these inseparable companions were removed to a comfortable abode in the town of Mesa.
Tefza, Sebastian’s master, was a native of the kingdom of Fez, and having made a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, bore the title of Hadgé; (a religious distinction conferred only on such as have visited the birth-place, and the tomb of their prophet) far advanced in life, and naturally averse to domestic cares, the Hadgé had neither wives nor children, so that all the occupations of Sebastian were to work in a little garden, and assist in charitable offices.
The latter part of his duty was one to which his benevolent nature yielded with delight, and by sharing in it, he learned to esteem his master, and to obey him in other matters without reluctance. Assuredly there can be no degradation in serving the good.
These humane employments softened the bitterness of Sebastian’s regrets, but though he complained no more, raved no more, an austere sadness settled on his character: the virtues and the love of Kara Aziek had penetrated the utmost depths of his heart, and now devoured with vain remorse at having ever preferred another to her, he abandoned every other wish, and every other source of enjoyment.
His docility and his dejection, but above all, that dignity which the divine hand had stamped upon his lineaments, interested the Hadgé; he would frequently endeavour to draw him into conversation about his past life and condition, and would often urge on him what he believed the only true religion: but Sebastian contrived to elude his questions, and silence his arguments.
A month had not elapsed, when Tefza informed his slave that they were on the point of commencing a long journey; he had a brother in Fez, dying of a lingering disorder, who had sent to beg he would come and close his eyes; he was therefore about to set forward on the morrow.
What a tumult of sweet and maddening remembrances did not the prospect of this journey awaken!—Fez had been the scene of Sebastian’s principal misfortune; it was once the residence of Kara Aziek; he was going again to tread that ground, bathed in the blood of his bravest warriors, and sacred to the memory of Stukeley; he was going to revisit as a slave, the place which he had left only two or three months back, with love and a kingdom before him!—How would the worthy Tefza have been amazed, could he have seen all the movements of that heart, which to him was so mysteriously reserved!
Accompanied by Barémel, sometimes travelling on camels or on mules, the Hadgé and his companion quitted the territory of Tarradunt, crossed the range of Atlas, and journeying over the plains of Morocco, penetrated through the passes of the Green Mountains into the kingdom of Fez; directing their course westward, they came at length to the dwelling of the Hadgé’s brother, a solitary house near the town of Riffa.
Death had already sealed the eyes of the sick man; but as his property devolved to the nearest relative, after providing for his widows, the good Hadgé resolved upon spending the remnant of his own days in his native place: they returned therefore no more to Tarradunt.
Days and weeks now revolved in the same wearisome round of trifling employments and complete retirement; Sebastian almost wished for laborious tasks which might distract his attention by fatiguing his body; his attention alas! was occupied with past events. Regret assuming the form of remorse, preyed on him incessantly, reminding him of the worthless woman for whose sake he had slighted happiness when he might have secured it with Kara Aziek.
With this regret was mixed some repining at the hard destiny which had never presented him to Aziek but under circumstances of humiliation; he wished she had seen him in his prosperous days, surrounded by pomps and pleasures, yet disdaining their caresses, and emulous only of fame! he wished she had beheld the man she loved in the full plenitude of power; his preference then, might have appeared a distinction!
Fruitless were these wishes! that proud heart could now never be gratified by laying worldly honours at the feet of one chosen object. Once a frightful apprehension suddenly sprung out of these meditations; Kara Aziek might have perished doubting the reality of his rights, surely their strange rencontre on the ocean might authorize such a suspicion!
Not even the pang inflicted by her death could equal that which now wrung Sebastian; he imagined himself to have been suspected an impostor; the thought was maddening to honour.
It was many moments ere that impatient spirit could calm itself sufficiently to silence so preposterous a fear: gradually it was tranquilized by the recollections of Aziek’s ingenuous looks, where respect ever mixed itself with love.—But the vanquished alarm had left behind it some thoughts which roused the slumbering energies of Sebastian: he felt that Kara Aziek’s memory required that he should endeavour to restore the man she adored to the rank and the duties allotted him by Providence.
Often when plunged in deep fits of gloom, during which his faculties seemed benumbed and his feelings callous, an inward voice would cry out to him, “Awake! arise Sebastian! days of glory yet await thee!” then the blood would pour in tides of fire through his veins, he would start from his desponding posture, and look round with an inflamed countenance, as if on the point of breaking the bonds which held him.
Had they been real bonds how soon would his powerful arm have burst them asunder! but they were the bonds of gratitude and honour!
The Hadgé confided in him implicitly, treated him like a son, ceased to exact his attendance; save where humanity demanded their united cares, evinced the liveliest interest in his salvation, in short, offered him every thing, granted him every thing except his freedom.—Could he then basely turn these benefits into engines of ingratitude?
At liberty to go whithersoever he pleased, Sebastian was more a prisoner than when shut up within the cells of El Hader’s residence: the generosity of his present master was a wall of adamant in his eyes.
Unable to use stratagem, he tried the effect of entreaties; he combatted his unsocial melancholy, and spoke unreservedly to Tefza of his desire to quit Barbary: Tefza’s questions forced him to confess that he had neither parents nor dear connexions to whom he wished to be re-united, that he was a solitary wretch going to cross the Atlantic in the forlorn hope of finding a lost friend.
“I love thee too much poor youth, to grant thy foolish suit,” said the Hadgé, one day to him; “thou hast owned that death and perfidy have swept away all thy possessions, where then wouldst thou seek happiness? believe me it is only placed in piety. Stay contented with me, listen to my instructions; it will be impossible for such a soul as thine to remain long in darkness; I shall convert thee at last to the religion of our holy prophet; then, thou wilt bless thy misfortunes which brought thee to covet the bread of life. No, no, thou shalt not go; I am interested for thy soul.”
This vain idea had fixed itself so firmly in the good mussulman’s mind that no protestations of Sebastian’s could shake it: the more the one resisted arguments the more the other redoubled them; and when he found his slave resolute in rejecting every persuasive for him to be present at one of their religious ceremonies, he merely shook his head, telling him the time would come when he would look back upon his present obstinate blindness with shame and compunction.
Neither the indulgence, nor the good intention of Tefza, moderated that mixture of sorrow and resentment with which the still-impatient monarch of Portugal received this decision: disdaining further solicitation, and resolved never again to reveal his rank while it was in the power of adverse accident to give an air of doubt to such an assertion, he withdrew once more within himself; and like the proud steed newly brought under man’s subjection, who champs his bit, and paws the ground with indignation, he performed the duties of a slave with the haughty air of a prince.
Adversity hardens some hearts, and melts others: Sebastian’s unfortunately did not soften from the grasp of calamity: his eyes, not yet opened to his own character, had not observed how inevitably some lines of conduct produce certain misery. Had he reflected dispassionately, he might have been convinced, that to his romantic wilfulness and contempt of counsel, all the disasters of Alcazar were attributable; that rash enterprize, together with his blameable attachment to the betrothed wife of De Castro, had prepared the hearts of his subjects for future indifference about his fate.
There were times, indeed, when Sebastian severely censured parts of his own conduct, but for want of steadily tracing actions and their consequences through the whole of their course, he remained self-deluded, believing Providence, not himself, responsible for his heaviest calamities. Often did he exclaim, “What have I done to merit ruin like this!”
Remote from any social intercourse, (for he abhorred the society of the Moors) and almost abandoned of hope, his spirit was gradually contracting a severity bordering upon hardness: that soft being was gone who alone knew how to melt him into tenderness; that soft being, who ever possessed a charm capable of awakening him to philanthropy and to delight.
Deprived of Kara Aziek, he was likely to lose all that was amiable in his character, and to retain only the sterner virtues: sometimes he sighed over this changing character, and felt sorrow at the alteration; but except his faithful dog, whose attachment always affected him, he possessed no object for tender solicitude. Was it wonderful then, that he should become cold and unsocial?
The short winter of that sultry climate had now passed away, and the almond trees were already covered with their bright, rosy blossoms; one of the Moresco feasts was approaching, at which the Hadgé urged his slave to be present: from such a proposition Sebastian started with horror, hastening to redouble his devout prostrations before a wooden cross which he had shaped for himself, and kept within his own chamber. The Hadgé left him disappointed.
It was evening when he returned: the captive monarch was alone on one of those terraces which the Moors raise upon the flat roofs of their houses, and plant with odorous shrubs; he was stretched out under the shade of a citron-tree, whose branches enveloped him, and plunged in a reverie, did not hear the Hadgé utter the following words.
“Fabian, I have brought home a venerable traveller for rest and refreshment, see that you prevent all his wants; I must go out again, and trust him awhile to your care.”
The noise Tefza made in closing the door that opened on the terrace, roused Sebastian, he started round, and beheld with rising emotion, an aged man clad in a dark-brown garment, whose silver beard descended to his girdle: the mildly-intellectual look, assured him it was Abensallah.
Uttering an exclamation of joy, Sebastian pressed forward to kiss his hand; the dervise put his finger on his lip, they were both silent: at length, venturing to believe Tefza beyond hearing, he stretched out his arms, and pressing him within them, shed some tears, “We meet at last, my son,” he said, in a low feeble voice, “the gracious Mahomet has heard my prayers, and repaid me for this pilgrimage in search of thee.”
“In search of me!” repeated Sebastian, “surely, father, you have not been wandering throughout Africa in pursuit of me, ever since the day we parted.”
A benign smile gently moved the old man’s lips. “No, my son, I have not; for I knew not then, whether thy departure had not been voluntary: since that period I have heard the whole of thy sufferings; they have been severe—but I come to thee now with comfort—I bring thee a strange present from a hand deservedly dear.” As the old man spoke, he put aside the foldings of his mantle, and drew out of his breast a milk-white dove which nestled there.
“This bird,” he continued, “is destined to convey intelligence of thy safety and my success, to one who scarcely values life preserved, till——”
The violent emotion of Sebastian interrupted him: pale, trembling, oppressed with sudden hope almost to agony, the King vehemently seized one of Abensallah’s hands in both his, while his eyes only articulated the name of Aziek: the dervise hastily replied to them.
“She lives, my son—she sends me to thee.”
At these life-giving words, Sebastian’s transported countenance might be said to emit visible rays; he dropt the hand of Abensallah abruptly, and raising his own to heaven, uttered with his heart the acknowledgment his lips could not pronounce.
When this rapturous disorder of the senses would allow him power, he exclaimed, “She lives—you say she lives, Abensallah!—how saved?—where sheltered?—This bird, soft and tender like herself, (ah, fit emblem of Kara Aziek) why is it sent?—assure me that she lives—you would not deceive me.”
The impetuous agitation of youth was here gracefully contrasted by the majestic calmness of age: Abensallah listened with mildness to these broken and fluctuating sentences, then exhorting him to be composed, began to detail the circumstances of Kara Aziek’s escape.
At the dreadful moment in which she was swept away from the arms of Sebastian, Providence ordained that a large wicker basket should be swept off also; by an instinctive action she snatched at it for support, and borne up by its elasticity, continued floating forward.
The tide was flowing in, so that every surge impelled the basket, and its precious freight, nearer shore: one wave stronger than another, lifted them to a prodigious height, and then precipitated them upon the land; Aziek had just life enough left to feel the possibility of preserving life, and the fond idea that perhaps Sebastian was with her, gave her strength to move among the ledges of the rock on which she was cast, and to secure herself in a chasm: there she sunk down wholly exhausted, no longer sensible of danger, though the foaming billows alternately lashed and receded from the projection which sheltered her.
The same morning air that had revived her distant lover, brought her back to a sense of existence; but she was incapable of motion, and remained two whole days undiscovered by any one, even while she heard people on the shore below, whom her feeble voice could not reach. She called on Sebastian, but her doleful accents alone returned on the echo.
Some sea-fowl’s eggs deposited in the cleft that hid her, sufficed to keep nature from perishing; but grief, and the wounds her tender body had received while beaten against the rocks, had nearly terminated her short life, when a Moorish child clambering up in search of birds’ nests, descried her, and ran off to tell his parents.
As her complexion, dress, and language, assured them she was a native of Barbary, these people carried her to their fishing-boat with great care; she fainted ere they reached it, reviving at last only to a state more like death than life.
In this situation she was taken to their hut some miles further down the coast, and remained there many days, almost expiring; at length the hand of Heaven raised her, and she was able to tell her name and rank.
Deprived of her soul’s treasure, Kara Aziek believed that she should not tarry after him on earth, but she was willing to die on the bosom of her parent, and to receive the consolations of religion in her parting hour. She therefore gave orders for being conveyed to the Alcayde of the province, who deeming it his duty to forward her to her father, supplied her with guards and a physician, under whose protection she was moved in a sort of litter, by easy stages, from the kingdom of Suz to that of Fez.
At this part of his narrative, the dervise suddenly broke off, “alas my memory!” he exclaimed, “this bird was to have been dispatched with tidings if I found thee—I see Tefza approaching along the road—thou hast no time to write—the sight of her bird will suffice—”
“Stay Abensallah!” cried Sebastian, catching his arm as it was extended to give the dove liberty;—the dervise paused, while the King hastily pulled from his head a lock of hair, and pushing aside the loose sleeve of his habit, untwisted a braid of Kara Aziek’s, which from its length surrounded his wrist several times.
The sight of that lovely-soft hair, revived the memory of her lovelier form, and Sebastian’s emotions now assumed a more passionate cast; his eyes sparkling with vehement wishes, floated in a kind of rapturous dizziness; half-closing them, he leaned for support against the shoulder of Abensallah: an ardent sigh burst from his oppressed heart.
“Moderate this transport, my son!” said the dervise gravely, “or turn it towards that God to whom thou owest so much.”—
Sebastian blushed, and roused himself. “My heart does overflow with gratitude;” he replied, “Heaven reads it: but surely I may be permitted to feel the value of what that Heaven restores?”—
As he spoke, he was weaving the locks of hair together, intending them to convey to Kara Aziek the sentiment of their inseparable union,——the gentle dove scarcely fluttered in Abensallah’s grasp, while Sebastian fastened the precious knot under her wing; no sooner was it fixed, than running to the furthest edge of the terrace, he unloosed the bird, which shot away with the velocity of light.
Her white pinions, rendered visible by the darkening twilight, enabled them long to trace her course through air, but at length she diminished to a mere speck, and the next moment disappeared wholly.
The eyes of the King remained fixed upon that part of the sky where she had vanished; Abensallah had just time to whisper that he would finish his story on the morrow, before Tefza joined them.
When the Hadgé found that the stranger had not partaken of any refreshment, he was going to rebuke his slave, when Abensallah turned his wrath into pleasure, by assuring him the young man had done better by attending to his discourse.
Concluding that so pious a personage could only have talked upon one topic, Tefza smiled graciously, and leading his guest down to a covered apartment, ordered a dish of kusscason, and dried fruits.
During supper, Sebastian discovered that Abensallah had introduced himself in the chief mosque to the Hadgé, and proclaiming himself the hermit of Benzeroel, had immediately received an invitation to rest for the night under his roof: he was to set off again the ensuing day.
“A charitable errand brought me to Riffa,” he said, addressing Tefza, “our blessed prophet has allowed me to fulfil it: by sun-rise to-morrow I must return to my mountain, for many unfortunates are now perhaps waiting for me there to ask my feeble prayers,—let this Christian accompany me a little on my way.”
Tefza joyfully consented, and they separated for the night.—There was no sleep in the breast of Sebastian, agitated by anxiety to learn more of Aziek’s situation, and thrilling with a multitude of sweet anticipations, he left his bed, and traversed his room: sometimes he stopt and embraced Barémel, thanking him for having preserved a life now unspeakably dear to him; but still oftener he prostrated himself before the cross, and yielded up his whole soul to the delightful duty of gratitude.
It was in these moments that the proud spirit which had rebelled against its trials, and dared to question divine justice, became soft and malleable, and melted into penitence: how was he touched and overcome when he reflected, that at the very time he was resisting the almighty hand, that bounteous hand was preparing for him the most miraculous blessing!
Struck, penetrated with remorse, he wept his fault; and never was the imperious monarch of Portugal more humble, more impressed with a sense of human dependance, than at this period when happiness seemed to woo his embrace.