Julian Hawthorne

“ Man knows little, and sometimes lies. Your words, Meryon Pasha, may be truth or not You wish to live; you also wish, I think, to marry my daughter; but whether you desire the good of my kingdom is as yet hidden from me. But there is a way, if you choose, to prove it."
"Yes." returned Meryon in an indifferent tone.
"Yes. This morning I have news that the Prince, my nearest neighbour, is going to make war on me. I am unprepared, and need help. Beyond the country of my enemy lies another kingdom, whose king is my ally. ”

“ Hatipha, hearing from without this combined uproar of mirth, uttered a scream of despair and waddled frantically away to his the harem, where he rent his robes and boxed the ears of whomsoever was not active enough to get out of his reach.
Ceasing at length and wiping the tears from his cheeks with the gold-embroidered satin cuff of his caftan, his Highness panted out: "And now, what have we been laughing at?"
Meryon did not at once reply. He took cigarette-case from his pocket, selected a cigarette, and said to the Nubian of the nargileh: "Boy! a light." ”

“ Thus did the young American go forth to battle. In one way the fight was an unequal one, and no one knew it better than he. But in the East (and perhaps in other places) nothing is to be gained by a timorous or apologetic attitude. And Meryon was conscious, moreover, of possessing certain resources which, if not immediately substantial, might yet serve him in good stead. With wit, knowledge, insight, and courage even a single man may make headway against a multitude.
He strolled with an insouciant air towards that part of the Palace buildings in which the Prince's apartments lay. ”

“ He entered the royal presence close upon Hatipha's footsteps, thus depriving the latter of the opportunity of relieving his heart of the venom which the ear-incident had set boiling there. He salaamed with easy courtesy, and quietly elbowed the eunuch aside as he wished his Highness "Good morning!"
Meryon had, as has been intimated, been permitted great freedom in the palace, and was accustomed to observe little ceremony in approaching the Prince; but the difference at a Court between a man in favour and out of it is as great as between a musk-rose and a skunk-cabbage. ”

“ Meryon said to himself, "eloping with an Oriental Princess, under the nose of her father and the head eunuch, isn't the easiest thing in the world. I never said it was; but a bonanza like that is worth the risk. The boldest way is the best: bribe Musreddin again; wait with horses at the back door in the alley; she comes in to buy a new ring; frightful row in the street at the front between two camel-drivers; Hatipha mounts guard at the front door; Terah slips into rear room and a suit of boy's clothes, and so out at the back, mounts, and we're off. ”

“ No; the Princess was safest in her own harem for the present.
The moon mounted to the apex of the dome of heaven.
In another hour or two dawn would begin. It became chilly. The stillness was broken only by the low gurgling of the spring, a sigh from the camels, or the sound of the horse cropping the herbage. The artist thought he would turn in for an hour's nap. Hark!
A noise like a faint pulsation afar off. It grew stronger, but he could not yet fix its direction. It came nearer. It was approaching from the city. A horse—a single horse. Ebal alone—he had not brought Terah. "Confound him!" ”

“ Seeing something was wrong, Meryon recognised the need of restoring Ebal's confidence by preserving a bold front.
"Commands it, does he? Isn't the old man overstraining himself a little? But, of course, you meant to say that he begs to supplicate the privilege of my company. Well, tell him to keep his caftan on, and I'll be around in the course of a day or two."
"Do not speak so, beloved Lord! Hatipha has found us out and told his Highness. Oh, if they kill you, I will kill myself!" ”

“ Allah is great!"
"I wish some of your brains would get into Horace's skull," sighed Meryon, relapsing on his cushion. "If he'd followed my directions in the first place, the thing would have been cleared up and I should have been a well man by this time. I knew there was something there, and naturally supposed that it was a bullet. But there's no arguing with a man who can't see further than his nose. ”

“ Meryon set her down on a pile of rugs beside the spring. He got a bottle of wine and some food, and made her as comfortable as he could. "You look like an angel," said he, "though not like a male one, in spite of that rig. You're feminine, my dear, inside and out. Luckily, that Arab streak in you, wherever you got it—Ebal has it too—keeps you from being so plump as most of them; and that burnous doesn't tell much. Still, the sex is written all over you, and whoever takes you for a boy is an ass. But what about Ebal? ”

“ But you, Meryon Pasha, could go in safety, for there is no war with your country; and, since you are a sovereign, as you say, and able to destroy all who injure you, you have nothing to fear. I will give you a message to my ally, which will tell him that you are my friend and are to be my son-in-law, and that my kingdom is in danger. Now, Meryon Pasha, will you do this thing to win the Princess and save the kingdom?"
The American reflected a moment. The Prince was ingeniously beating him with his own stick, so to say. The threat of war was probably a fact ”

“ Where, then, was the Hollow Ruby now? Hatipha was not only searched outwardly, but fed for a day or two on a diet of castor-oil and soap-suds, to no purpose. Meryon's clothes, he being still unconscious in the delirium of fever, were examined; and they even sent back and searched the cell in the rock; the ruby was not to be found. At this juncture Meryon came to himself, learned from his friend Chase what had been going on, and spake. It should be premised that the English had brought their prisoners to a city of the hostile country; and that Terah had become an object of general admiration. ”

“ Black as night were the great eyes which met Meryon's blue ones, and radiant the smile of greeting which revealed his flashing teeth.
The ensuing dialogue, though carried on in an Oriental tongue, shall, for the sake of uniformity, be here given in the English equivalent.
"The top of the morning to you, Ebal, my beauty!" said the American. "You're a sight for sore eyes. Did anyone ever tell you that you look surprisingly like the divine Princess Terah—God bless her! Maybe only an artist who has painted your portrait as often as I have could see it in you in your present rig ”

“ Am I to be told by the filth that oozes beneath my feet that I understand not? Retire instantly, or that foul hide of thine shall be stripped from thy carrion carcase and serve as a mat for dogs to sleep on! ”

“ When Meryon went to the Prince for his farewell interview, he was half minded to proclaim and put himself at the head of a revolution, depose his Highness, and assume his throne. The odds were in favour of such a move being successful. Meryon finally resolved against it, from reluctance to be left with a kingdom on his hands so far from New York, and with the home policy still so strong against annexations. ”

“ Again, supposing all to turn out well, what sort of a figure would his Oriental bride cut in the drawing-rooms of the Four Hundred, and at Newport, Lenox, and at Bar Harbour?
"She'll cut a swathe, that's what she'll do!" said he to himself, with a chuckle. But the chuckle died away. How about his being hanged for a spy?
Would Ebal succeed in bringing her to-night? The lover hoped ardently that he would; then the man of the world took a hand and hoped he would not. The adventure was as near being desperate as it could be already ”

“ Someone must be impaled
By the time Meryon, Chase, and the others arrived, the young monarch was well settled on his throne, and was showing himself a wise, skilful, and merciful administrator. He welcomed the artist with heartfelt joy, and they told all their adventures to each other. Meryon was given a suite of rooms next to the Prince's own, and they were always together, with Chase in the chair as moderator. The Prince expressed regret at the miscarriage of the Terah affair ”

“ Meryon, greatly touched, expressed it in his American way by a loud laugh.
"Don't you fret, Ebal my jewel! neither of us is going to quit this sinful and hollow life for sixty or seventy years to come, at least. You don't half know me yet. I have but to clap my hands and say 'Galah' and the President of the United States would march into the Palace at the head of the Army, Navy, and New York Police department, and snatch up the whole court by the scruff of the neck and dump it down hard on Blackwell's Island. Yes, they would! ”

“ But he no longer attempted to address the meeting.
"Qui factit per alium facit per se," the American continued. "You are to blame for the crimes of your head eunuch, for you ought to have known better than to entrust such a clumsy beast with such delicate responsibilities. Either from brute carelessness or worse, this fellow Hatipha the other day suddenly sprang Terah on me, with her countenance in a condition which I shudder to describe. It—she—I——. In short, her veil was down!"
Here Meryon bowed his head upon his knees, and tremors shook his frame. ”

“ Ebal, on hearing the result of the interview, had declared that it meant mischief, and begged to be taken along to share his master's fate. Meryon had a half-formed scheme to profit by the confusion in the harem caused by the disgrace of Hatipha, to carry off the Princess; but the only way to effect it was to have her join him that night beyond the boundary of the principality, which was not more than twenty miles distant. By the connivance of Senuah and the help of Ebal, this might be accomplished, and the latter eagerly agreed to attempt it. ”