Hussein: An Entertainment

by Patrick O'Brian

  Ram Narain stood up and shook his head. ‘I thought I was gone that time,’ he said, smiling at Hussein; he very rarely smiled.

  ‘I am ashamed for Jehangir,’ said Hussein unhappily.

  Ram Narain smote him on the shoulder, and said, ‘He is the noblest elephant I have ever seen.’

  They swam across and rested on the other side. They were utterly weary, and very cold; Hussein was past hunger.

  ‘I believe there is a village about two hours east from here,’ said Ram Narain, breaking a long silence; ‘we will go near to it, and I will go in and get food.’ They did not speak again until they were in sight of the fields.

  Hussein waited a long time among the trees; a man passed along a path fairly near. The sun came up, and with it a white mist that shook every joint in Hussein’s body. When the mist was going away and the sun was warm again Ram Narain came back. He bore food and some old clothes. They ate their fill in the sun, and their hearts expanded; they talked, and there was no tension between them. Jehangir fed with a continuous crunching noise as he tore up tender green shoots. When they had wiped their lips, Ram Narain said, ‘We must go on as quickly as possible to Punait, which is in the Sirkar’s country; there I can telegraph, and all will be well: we should be able to do it in three days. I think it would be unwise to travel by night, as we must go through the jungle, and I do not know this country very well.’

  They slept for a few hours in a hidden spot, and then pushed on, keeping always away from the villages.

  They had again enough food to eat, but by the evening they were hungry. They skirted about the fields of a village, and smelt the cooking of food on the wind. Ram Narain sniffed longingly, and said, ‘If we were to leave the elephant, do you think that we should find him again — you have no chains here?’

  Hussein laughed. ‘If I told Jehangir to stay here until I came back, he would stay quite still, and if I could not return for many days, we should find him dead exactly where he was told to stay. But I shall bid him remain about here, so that he can feed while we are gone.’

  ‘It is undoubtedly a fine thing to hear that,’ said Ram Narain; ‘we must alter our appearances, however, and go into the village as travelling soothsayers, or some such thing. I have it — you can relate a tale; that will be most convincing.’

  It was dusk when they walked into the village. They were dressed in other clothes, and they looked exactly like travelling story-tellers. The men of the village were squatting in a group about a fire, discussing some matter. Hussein hailed the headman and the priest, giving an account of himself and of his companion, as the custom is. The headman greeted them in return, and the people made room about the fire.

  ‘What is the truth of this tale concerning the Rajah of Kappilavatthu?’ asked the headman of Hussein. ‘You have come from those parts, I believe you said.’

  News travels with extraordinary rapidity in India, and although they had journeyed as quickly as men might, it had gone before them. Hussein was seized with a fit of coughing before he answered.

  ‘We heard something of it, but I do not know how much truth there is in it — how was it told here?’

  ‘Oh, they say that the Rajah was attacked by a band of dacoits as he walked in the night, and his great ruby was taken from his finger, and an old councillor who was with him was found dead from no other cause but dread, so it may be that they were ghouls and not common badmashes.’

  ‘Is the prince dead?’

  ‘By no means; his ring finger is cut off, but he was found alive by his guards — or so it is said.’

  ‘We heard much the same tale, only they told us that he was dead, and that there was disruption in the state: however, if you permit, I will tell for your delectation the tale of the Maharajah of Oudh, and of the Maharani, who was a ghoul —’

  The tale was very well received, and they filled a great dish with the most noble cous-cous for the wayfarers, pressing them to remain the night. Hussein felt his heart swell with the joy of a teller of tales whose story is well rounded, exactly delivered, and fully appreciated, but looking at Ram Narain he refused, saying that they were to meet some people at a certain place a few miles away.

  ‘Mirza Shah must have taken the ruby,’ said Ram Narain as they went away, ‘if it is true that it is gone — yet I could have sworn that I killed him.’

  They went on until the moon rose, and then they rested. They slept rather far into the next day, for they were very weary. Ram Narain was furious when they awoke. By the evening they were near a small town where there was a market. Leaving Jehangir about five miles away, they went into the town, and there they fed at a small eating house. After they had filled themselves they walked out into the open market. Two men followed them. One of them asked the distance to a village in Kappilavatthu. Ram Narain gave a vague answer, but the strangers walked along with them, conversing about this and that, frequently questioning Ram Narain and Hussein about themselves and about their movements; they returned smooth indefinite answers for the most part, saying that they were story-tellers. One of the men asked several shrewd questions about the people of various districts, asking what kind of tales they desired, and to what extent they gave to the teller. Hussein was able to answer them aptly.

  ‘You have not been here long?’ asked the stranger. ‘No, we came within the hour.’

  ‘Then doubtless you will tell a tale this evening, while all the people are here for the market?’

  ‘By all means,’ replied Hussein, very much troubled within, but smooth and natural without. ‘That is our purpose in coming here.’

  ‘This is very pleasant; I am very much minded to hear a tale — one perhaps of the death of princes, or some such matter; it would blend with the talk concerning the Rajah of Kappilavatthu.’

  The strangers looked very keenly upon Ram Narain and Hussein when this was said. Hussein noticed a little artery pulsing on Ram Narain’s temple, but his face seemed perfectly calm, and rather bored. With hardly a pause Hussein assented. ‘Yes, yes; such a tale would be most fitting,’ he said.

  The two men drew away to the other side of the market square. As they stood by some horses they continued to watch, appearing to be engaged in casual converse with a syce. Two of the horses were fine blood stallions; they seemed almost ridden to death.

  ‘They suspect us fairly strongly,’ said Ram Narain, speaking softly in Pushtu, and laughing as if he recounted a jest. ‘It is possible that they may have traced Jehangir; our only chance is to carry this through. Can you tell some tale that will serve? Everything depends upon it.’

  Hussein laughed, as though he savoured the jest; the laugh was a little false, because his throat seemed half choked with terror. He could hardly stop himself from looking over his shoulder. He twitched his eyes from the men by the horses.

  ‘Do you mean that they may have found Jehangir?’ he asked.

  ‘No. But we may have been seen as we slept this morning. I had a half-fear that I saw a man as I awoke, or they may have sent out to every place within possible reach to watch for us; that is the more probable thing. He would give fifty elephant loads of gold for this little piece of paper. I feel practically certain that Jehangir is not found. See those horses, and how those men walk; they have been here less than an hour, and therefore they were here before we began walking, because we took well over an hour coming.’

  This comforted Hussein very greatly. While there was still a chance of getting away with Jehangir and the gold, and thereby of gaining Sashiya, he was of high courage.

  ‘Have you any opium pills?’ he asked.

  Ram Narain produced a little box, and they both swallowed some. There was a man near-by with a great huqa; they paid their pice and squatted, each with a mouthpiece. Ram Narain spoke to the man in Pushtu; he was deaf, and he did not understand the tongue, so Ram Narain continued talking to Hussein. In the box with the pills there was a little compartment with three or four pills of a slightly different size and colour.

 
‘If they take us', said Ram Narain conversationally, ‘swallow that. You will be dead within the minute.’

  ‘Would there be no other hope if they did?’

  ‘Practically none. There are seven of them here, of whom those two are the chief. Five are minor agents, having other avocations, living in the town, but they are all dangerous, and we are in their country. We might run for the horses — it would be a slight hope, but it would be worth trying. If you see me tap three times upon the ground, rush for them — if you cannot get there, well, the pill is better than what would happen otherwise.’

  ‘That is true,’ said Hussein, blowing out a cloud of smoke, ‘but I may be able to manage.’

  They took up a position quite near to the horses, spreading a cloak upon the ground. Hussein raised his professional cry, and presently there was a sufficient audience. The two men who had spoken to them squatted in the front of the crowd.

  Nineteen

  ‘When the Prince of Kathiawar was a young man,’ he began, having got through the inevitable prelude of self-praise and exhortation to generosity — it was a long poem that came to his mind — ‘he was much given to the reading of the works of poets, and to the hearing of tales; he was a high-minded youth with innumerable merits, not the least among which was his amiable habit of filling a story-teller’s mouth with gold when the tale pleased him. He was also a youth of surpassing beauty; his eyes were large and black like black pearls on the finest porcelain; they lay beneath exquisitely arched brows, which rose a little at the ends in the form of a bat’s wing; his lips, large and full, but by no means sensuous, were of the texture of jade and of the colour of rubies; his cheeks were fairer and more delicate than those of a Circassian virgin; his neck slender and rounded, but firm; his fingers tapered long and smooth, they were tipped with nails like the finest slips of agate; his feet were high-arched and in every way perfect. Indeed, his whole body was of an indescribable excellence, and his skin gleamed as though it were powdered with the dust of pure gold.

  ‘His mind, too, was of the loftiest mould, wholly befitting such an habitation; a mark of his surpassing excellence was his munificence towards those most deserving of all the humble people, the tellers of tales.

  ‘Now by reason of his perfection, the Prince was much desired by many of the most exalted of his father’s court, particularly by the wazir, who was a wicked man, and by the Maharajah’s third concubine, a woman of great power, who had been a dancer.

  ‘But the Prince joyed in none of these delights, applying himself both day and night to reading in all the tongues of the world, in hearing tales, and in playing chess.

  ‘The wazir endeavoured to corrupt the youth with inconceivable guile. He hired base poets to recite works of the most dubious nature, and caused beautiful singing boys to act plays before him of a nature that was not even dubious in its depravity. But although the Prince sometimes admired the metre and the cadence of the poems, and although he admired, as an onlooker, the beauty of the singing boys, yet he was never moved in the least degree from his high-souled and distant attitude towards the bodily aspect of love.

  ‘As time went on, the wazir’s lechery and ambition, turning to nought in this instance, soured him against the Prince, so that from desiring him he turned to hating him.

  ‘At the same time the delight of the Maharajah’s life, his favourite concubine, endeavoured to seduce the Prince; at first by the usual devilish ways of women, with sighs, with complaints to him of the lack of understanding of those about her, with praise, with rollings of the eyes, giggles, and sensual movements of the body; then, these failing signally, by notes delivered in the night, by love philtres, by aphrodisiacs, privily administered by corrupt servants, and eventually by even more disgraceful methods. But the young man disregarded all these matters, and applied himself still more to literature in all its forms, and to chess.

  ‘After the failure of one particularly seductive plan, the concubine had seven of the Prince’s story-tellers poisoned, and within two days — the weather being hot — three of his poets were found in a well.

  ‘Then, like the wazir, the concubine begat on her love a loathing for the Prince, and she worked to do him evil. The underground gossip of the palace had long acquainted each of the Prince’s lovers with the desires of the other, so one day the concubine sent for the wazir, and being without shame, she came straight to the matter which was uppermost in their minds without preamble. The wazir, having ascertained that there were no witnesses other than a deaf-mute eunuch, opened his heart, and they spoke together for a long while.

  ‘It was plain that the Prince could be dangerous to both of them; they were both afraid of his influence with the Maharajah, and, moreover, they hated him for his temperance, which, they concluded, was due to indulgence in some curious vice of which they did not know.

  ‘Within a few days the Maharajah sent for the Prince, and, addressing him kindly, as was his wont, he enquired into the state of his studies. The Prince answered dutifully, and at considerable length, but his father interrupted him, saying that the time had come for him to thrust these pursuits into the background, and to learn statecraft.

  ‘“I have been assured,” said the Maharajah, “that your delight in these matters is very bad for you, and that it will unsuit you wholly for the task that will be yours. Now, tell me briefly, how would you govern an unruly, obstinate, and well-nigh untaxable people?”

  ‘ “By love,” answered the Prince.

  ‘His father directed an expressive glance at him, and made a singular noise with his lips. Then he dismissed him, bidding him bear in mind that which he had said. The Prince was much exercised in his mind by these things, but he escaped, by means of poetry and tales, into a world where all matters were translucent, and love a pure flame.

  ‘The concubine knew that she was ageing, and in the bitterness of this knowledge, and her bitterness against the Prince, she had become filled with an insensate lust for power. Aided thereunto by the wazir, who had procured her for his master in the first place, she strove to isolate him from all other influences.

  ‘With the passing of time another summons came to the Prince from the Maharajah. He was received in full audience: the councillors were ranged about the leopard throne, chief among them the wazir, whose eyes sought the ground; behind the throne a curtain moved.

  ‘ “My eldest son”, said the Maharajah, “is now of a marriageable age: since the union which we had contemplated for him cannot take place now — (she to whom he had been betrothed when he was five had died early in that year) — we have contracted another, and even more politic, match. He will marry the eldest daughter of our cousin of Dharmapali …”

  ‘His voice went on, but the Prince did not hear it. The Princess of Dharmapali was almost an idiot with a dribbling mouth and a body whose ugliness was almost legendary, but she would bring wealth beyond measure in dower. He returned inaudible answers to the congratulations of the wazir and the other councillors, and went away as soon as he could.

  ‘Sitting by himself in deep thought, he resolved in his mind the ways in which the people of his other world would conduct themselves under similar circumstances. Eventually he roused himself, and collected a number of jewels and some money; then he put on his most ordinary clothes, and bade a horse be brought to a little courtyard by the peach garden. The concubine and the wazir were watching from a window as the Prince rode away; in their deep cunning they had foreseen all this, and evil men followed the Prince.

  ‘But these men, as they followed him, disputed among themselves, saying, “'If we kill him, then assuredly the wazir will kill us, for we should then hold his head in our hands: if we do not, then equally he will kill us for disobedience. Therefore, we must flee.” So they ceased from following the Prince, and scattered to distant lands.

  ‘He rode on for many days, until at length he came to the desert called Qarazim; he intended to travel to the court of the Shah of Persia, for he was an accomplished poet, and th
e Shah loved poets.

  ‘But as he passed through the acrid desert, he came to a village, where the men dwelt in black tents, made from the hairs of camels, and the women walked with bare faces. As the Prince paused by the well, one came thereto, bearing a pitcher, and she was of so exquisite a beauty that he blushed and cast down his eyes for fear that the desire that leapt naked from them should scorch her modesty. Her name was Sashiya, and she was as a gazelle in the moonlight, or a spotted sand quail in the shadow of a leafless bush. Her face gleamed with the splendour of the full moon; all words would sully her perfection. Her hands moved as golden grain flows from a full sack. She spoke in a voice like the ring of rubies upon hanging green jade, but the Prince could utter no word. His knees almost failed him, and his heart stopped his throat, such was his extremity.

  ‘She turned with the laden pitcher, and the sun was gone from the sky.

  ‘He stood in an amazement while a man might tell a thousand. Then he sighed profoundly, mounted his horse, and turned back into the desert.

  ‘He rode with a slack rein, still in a dream, but he guided his horse away from the village, and his purpose was clear, for he was a poet, and he knew that he must not seek to prolong that fortuitous moment, but that he must keep it perfect, enshrined, if he could encompass it, in words, but never changed, for it was the absolute, and anything added to it would take away from it.

  ‘For many hours he rode, seeking vainly the words of the poem that he felt, and presently he became aware of a great city gleaming among the dunes before him. He spurred his horse, which responded but feebly, and rode towards it. He rode along, yet it seemed always the same distance away; he could see the people moving to and fro therein. Suddenly the city vanished, and in its place there appeared a sandstorm; in the midst of the swirling dust there was a djinni of the most malevolent aspect, who, riding on a camel, waved a lance tipped with fire. The djinni was a considerable distance away, and the Prince was minded to escape by flight. But he reflected that if he were to fight only his body might come to harm, whereas if he fled and escaped his honour would undoubtedly be irreparably harmed. So he drew his sword and charged, proclaiming the unity of God.