by Mór Jókai
CHAPTER XVI
EMINAH
The vanquished lion was shut up within a space six yards square; anarrow tower into all four windows of which his enemies were peepingwas now his sole possession! There he sits in that octagonal chamber,in which he had passed so many memorable moments. Perhaps now, as heleaned his heavy head upon his hand, the remembrance of those momentspassed before his mind's eye like a procession of melancholy shadows.Around him lay his treasures in shining piles; heaps of gold andsilver, massive gold plate, the spoils of sanctuaries, sparkling gems,lay scattered about the floor higgledy-piggledy, like so much sand orgravel.
Of all his kinsfolk, of all his warriors, not one was present withhim; all had fallen on the battle-field, fighting either with him oragainst him. Of the seventy warriors who had taken refuge with him inthe tower, sixty-four had deserted him. Kurshid had promised a pardonto the renegades, and only six remained with Ali. Why did these sixremain? Ali had not told them not to leave him.
These faithful ones were keeping guard in his antechamber, and forsome little time they had been whispering together.
At last they went in to Ali.
Tepelenti looked them every one through and through. He could readwhat they wanted in their confused looks and their unsteady eyes. Hedid not wait for them to speak, but said, with a wave of his hand:
"Go! leave me; you are the last. Go where the others have gone; saveyourselves. Life is sweet; live long and happily. I will remain here.Tepelenti can die alone."
Sighing deeply, the soldiers turned away. They durst not raise theireyes to the face of the gray-haired veteran. Noiselessly, without aword, on the tips of their toes, five of them withdrew. But the sixthremained there still, and, after casting about for a word for sometime, said, at last, to Ali:
"Oh, sir, cast the fulness of pride from thy heart, suffer not thyname to perish! The Sultan is merciful; bow thy head before him and hewill still be gracious to thee!"
The soldier had scarce uttered the last word of this recommendationwhen Ali softly drew a pistol from his girdle and shot him through thehead, so that he spun round and fell backward across the threshold.This was all the reward he got for advising Ali to ask for mercy.
And now Ali is alone. His doors, his gates stand wide open; anybodywho so pleases can go in and out. Why, then, does nobody come to seizethe solitary veteran? why do they fear to cross the threshold of thevanquished foe?
But hearken! fresh footsteps are resounding on the staircase, andthrough the open door, guarded by the corpse of the last soldier whomAli slew, a strange man entered, dressed in an unusual, new-fangleduniform; he was Kurshid Pasha's silihdar.
Tepelenti allowed him to approach within five paces of where he sat,and then beckoned him to stop.
"Speak; what dost thou want?"
"Ali Tepelenti," said the silihdar, "surrender. Thou hast nothing leftin the world and nobody to aid thee. My master, the seraskier, KurshidPasha, hath sent me to thee that I might receive thy sword and escortthee to his camp."
Tepelenti, with the utmost _sang-froid_, drew forth from the folds ofhis caftan a magnificent gold watch in an enamelled case set withdiamonds.
"Hearken!" said he, in a low, soft voice. "It is now twenty minutespast ten; take this watch and keep it as a souvenir of me. GreetKurshid Pasha from me, and point out to him that it was twenty minutespast ten when you spoke with me, and let him take notice that if aftertwenty minutes past eleven I can see from the windows of this tower asingle hostile soldier in the court-yard of the fortress, then--Iswear it by the mercies of Allah!--I will blow the fortress into theair, with every living soul within it. Inform Kurshid Pasha of thiswhen you give him my salutation."
The silihdar hastened off, and at a quarter to eleven not a soul wasto be seen in the court-yard of the fortress of Janina. Alive in hiscitadel sits Ali Tepelenti, the tyrant of Epirus, mighty even in hisfall, who has nothing and nobody left, save only his indomitableheart.
Night descended upon the fortress of Janina, but sleep did not descendupon the eyes of Ali.
He sat in that red tower where he had perpetrated his crimes, in thatchamber where his victims had breathed forth the last sighs of theirtortured lives, and all round about glittering treasures looked uponAli as if with eyes of fire--all of it the price of robbery, fraud,treason. What if these things could speak?
Everything was silent, night lay black before the eyes of men, onlyAli saw shadows moving about therein, phantoms with pale, phantomswith bloody faces, who rose from the tomb to visit their persecutorand announce to him the hour of his death.
Ali trembled not before them; he had seen them at other times also. Hehad slept face to face with the severed head that spoke to him, he hadlistened to the enigmatical words of the _dzhin_ of Seleucia, and hecalled them to mind again now. Calmly he looked back upon the currentof his past life, from which so many horrible shapes arose and glaredat him with cold, stony eyes. He recked them not, Allah had so orderedit. The hare nibbles the root, the vulture devours the hare, thehunter shoots the vulture, the lion fells the hunter, and the wormeats the lion. What, after all, is Ali? Naught but a greater worm thanthe rest. He has devoured much, and now a stronger than he devourshim, and a still greater worm will devour this stronger one also.
Everything was fulfilled which had been prophesied concerning him. Hisown sons, his own wife, his own arms had fought against him. If onlyhis wife had not done this he could have borne the rest.
"One, two," the decapitated head had said, and the last moments ofthe two years were just passing away. "The hand which wipes out thedeeds of the mighty shall at last blot out thy deeds also, and thoushalt be not a hero whom the world admires, but a slave whom itcurses. Those whom thou didst love will bless the hour of thy death,and thy enemies will weep, and God will order it so to avert the ruinof thy nation."
So it is, so it has chanced; the hazard of the die has gone againsthim, and he has nothing left.
If only his wife had not betrayed him!
At other times also Ali had seen these phantoms of the night arise. Hehad seen them rise from the tomb pale and bloody; but in his heartthere had always been a sweet refuge, the charming young damsel whosechildlike face and angelic eyes had robbed the evil sorcery of all itspower. When Tepelenti covered his gray head with her long, thick,flowing locks, he reposed behind them as in the shade of Paradise,whither those heart-tormenting memories could not pursue him. Whyshould he have lost her? She was the first of all, and the dearest;but Fate at the last would not even leave him her.
Even now his thoughts went back to her. The pale light of that face,that memory, lightened his solitary, darkened soul, which was asdesolate as the night outside.
But lo! it is as if the night grew brighter; a sort of errant lightglides along the walls and a gleam of sunshine breaks unexpectedlythrough the open door of the room.
The pasha looked in that direction with amazement. Who could hisvisitor be at that hour? Who is coming to drive the phantoms ofdarkness from his room and from his heart?
A pale female form, with a smile upon her face and tears in her eyes,appears before him. She comes right up to the spot where Tepelenti issitting on the ground. She places her torch in an iron sconce in thewall and stands there before the pasha.
Ali looked at her sadly. He fancied that this also was only a dreamshape, only one of those apparitions created by a fevered mind, likethose which walked beside him headless and bloody. It was Eminah, atwhose word the devastating tempest had been unchained against themightiest of despots.
Tepelenti believed neither his eyes nor his heart when he saw her thusbefore him. The damsel took the old man by the hand and called him byhis name, and even now the pasha believed that the warmth of that handand the sweetness of that voice were only part of a dream.
"Wherefore hast thou come?" he inquired in a whisper, or perchance hedid not ask but only dreamed that he asked.
Yet the gracious, childlike damsel was sitting there at his feet as atothe
r times, and she had pillowed his gray head upon her breast andcovered his face with the tent of her long tresses, as she had donelong, long ago in the happy times that were gone.
Oh, how sweet it would be to still live!
"Oh, Ali Tepelenti, let go the hand of Death from thy hand and graspmy hand instead! See how warm it is! Oh, Ali Tepelenti, rise up fromamong these barrels of gunpowder, and rather lay thy head upon mybreast; hearken how it beats! Oh, Ali Tepelenti, ask mercy from theSultan! See, now how lovely life is!"
Only at these words did Ali recover himself. His enemies had soughtout this woman, the only being that he loved, and sent her to him tosoothe away the rage of his soul and soften his heart with hercaresses. Oh, how well they understood his heart!
"Kurshid Pasha swore to me that he would obtain the Sultan's favor forthee," said Eminah, in a tone of conviction. "He wrote a letter underhis seal that thou shouldst never die beneath the hands of theexecutioner; that thy death should not be a violent one, unless itwere in an honorable duel or on the field of battle. Behold, here isthe letter!"
If at that moment Ali had listened to his heart, he must have extendedthe hand of submission without any letter of amnesty, but, like anescutcheon above a crown, pride was perched higher than his heart andspurned the offer.
"Allah may humble Ali, but Ali will never humble himself."
"Then thou wilt not live with me?" asked Eminah, fixing her piteouslyentreating eyes upon her husband.
Ali shook his head in silence.
"Then I will die with thee!" cried the damsel, with a determinedvoice.
The pasha regarded her in amazement.
"I swear," cried Eminah, "that I will either go back with thee or diewith thee here! Dost thou hear that noise? They are slamming to theiron gates from the outside. At this moment every exit is closed, sothat even if I wished to escape from hence I could not. These doorscan only open at a word from Ali, and they will only open once more.Either thou wilt go with me from hence or I will remain here withthee."
Ali pressed the damsel to his bosom. She lay clinging there like atender blossom. He pressed his lips to that pale brow, and coveringher gently and gradually with his silken caftan, he whispered in ascarcely audible voice:
"Be it so! be it so! Here we will die together!"
Early next morning a flourish of trumpets awoke the Lord of Janina,the Lord of the last tower of Janina. The herald of Kurshid Pasha wasstanding beneath the round windows, and delivered in a loud voice thegeneral's message to Ali Pasha, whereby he summoned Tepelenti tosurrender voluntarily on the strength of the solemn assuranceconfirmed by oath to his wife.
Tepelenti appeared at the window with Eminah reclining on his bosom.
"Go back to your master," he cried to the messenger, "and tell himthat Ali and his wife have resolved to die here together. The momentan armed host enters the court-yard of this fortress I willimmediately blow up the tower."
In half an hour the messenger returned and again summoned Ali to thewindow.
"Kurshid Pasha sends thee this message," cried he. "If thou dostsurrender, it is well, and if thou dost not surrender, it is wellalso. Thou hast still half an hour wherein thou mayest choose betwixtlife and death. After that thou mayest, if thou wilt, throw thy torchinto thy powder barrels and blow the fortress into the air. As tothyself, Kurshid Pasha troubles himself but little. As to thytreasures they will not remain in the air, and when they come to theground it will be easy to pick them up. If, however, thou dost delaythy resolution beyond the half-hour, then Kurshid Pasha himself willhelp thee in the matter, and will blow up thy tower for thee, to savethee the trouble of blowing it up thyself. Do as thou wilt, then, andhoist either the white or the red flag as seemeth best to thee, for inhalf an hour the fortress of Janina shall see thee no more."
Ali listened solemnly to this ultimatum, and let the messenger departwithout an answer.
Eminah lay down on a sofa in a corner, all trembling. Ali paced thevast chamber to and fro with long strides; but his strides became moreand more uncertain. If only this woman were not here! If only he mightbe spared seeing her before him; might be spared half an hour'sdeliberation as to what he was to do! Nevertheless minute after minutesped away, and still Tepelenti could not make up his mind. Twice hishand seized the burning torch; he had but to bend over the nearestbarrel of powder and all would be over; but on each occasion his eyefell upon the trembling woman who lay there looking at him without aword, and the death-bearing match fell from his hand. No, no; he wasincapable of doing the terrible deed. And now the hour struck; thetime had passed. Ali felt a pressure about his heart. Would Kurshidaccomplish his dreadful threat?
At that instant a report sounded outside the fortress, and half amoment later a red-hot steel bullet burst through the metal roof andthe massive vault of the tower with a violent crash. Falling heavilyon the marble floor, it rebounded thence, and, passing between thepowder-barrels, describing a wide semicircle as it went, ricochetedonce more and struck the wall opposite, in which it bored a deep hole,whence it flashed and gleamed with a strong red glare, forcing bluesparks from the nitrous humidity of the walls.
Ali was now convinced that the enemy was quite capable of keeping hispromise.
The scared woman, mad with terror, flung herself at his feet, andsnatching the white veil from her head, forced it into the pasha'shand.
Tepelenti hastily seized the veil, and, hanging it on the point of alance, hoisted it out of the round window.
Outside the besiegers set up a shout of triumph. Eminah, kissing Ali'shands, sank down at his feet. Tepelenti had given her more thanmanhood can bear to give: for her sake he had humbled his pride to thedust. If only he could have died as he had lived!
"Go, now," he said to the woman, with a sigh; "go and tell my enemiesthat they may come for me. I am theirs!"