return to Eastern tranquillity after tasting the feverish scramble of your wonderful, boastful, mistaken civilization. There is no healing for the rabies of hurry that has infected the blood, and if my soul linger for the purpose of a tale about Khorassan, I will henceforth remember that the fingers and the pen are hastening in London. It was with no thought of such association with it that the spy gazed at Selim's masterpiece. In the East, as in the West, there are men with whom every conceivable thing has its one value in money. He was a merchant in many things that for eign traders valued, and though a cruel and unscrupulous man, had the gift of always having the law and its minions on his side; the result perhaps of his accurate assessment of their money value. After a while Selim became uneasily aware of his presence, and looked up swiftly; disappointment filling his face as he realized the bearded and ill-omened countenance that gloated over his work. “Has Allah made the day too short for you, O Selim! that you labor in the time of rest?" said the merchant, stewing down his eager look into a sodden smile. Selim's answer was given like the throwup of the head with which a well-bred steed tosses away a caress from an unaccustomed hand. "There is no rest to be found, O merchant, in spying into what other men would keep hidden, which concerns you as little as whether I work or rest at midday." Selim had a cloth beside him, in which he would have concealed his work had not the merchant perceived it before he was aware of him. He did not hide it now, but paused in his hammering and looked to the other to go. This the merchant evidently did not intend to do without the perfume-holder, at which he continued to cast greedy glances. He offered a price for it, which Selim refused; he raised his offer and the craftsman told him that this work of his was not for sale. Still the merchant lingered incredulous; telling a tale of a rich islander from far in the northern seas, for whom his friend Marco the Venetian was buying such examples of Eastern craftsmanship as this piece of Selim's. That artificer was proof against even the wealthy islander; in whom, by the way, he no more believed, than the importunate merchant did that a piece of unsold brass-work was not for sale. Selim, wrathful at his perseverance, drove him away at last by wrapping and locking up the perfume-holder and successively pressing on him every other piece of work - and they were not many that he pos sessed. The would-be customer at length departed, saying aloud that he would come again when Selim might be more in the mind to do business. And Selim, opening his shop, set to work again on the lantern that had occupied him in the morning. The merchant paused for a few minutes, when out of Selim's sight, but still in the confines of the brass-workers' bazaar, and, with a lowering and perplexed face, seemed to call on unseen powers to attest a mental vow. The Egyptian lad watched from the steps of the big shop the merchant's pantomime of irrepressible passion, and seemed to ponder the possibility of profit following such observation. In spite of his simple attire there was a suggestion of wealth about the merchant's person, for, however artfully disguised, the rich man stands revealed to him who lusts for gold. A strident voice from outside the brass market proclaimed that the noonday rest was ended. Unhurrying the workers returned to resume the day's task. The measured body of clattering sound rose again; halfway towards silence in its soporific influ ence on the ear, like the continual busyness of insects and birds in a wood. Then came a buyer, and there was one hammer the less at work and two tongues the more; then more buyers, buyers' friends, and sellers' friends; and gradually the chattering gained upon the clattering. Selim, so intent when all had been resting, seemed more thoughtful and less active now. The mere workaday lantern that he labored at appeared to grow distasteful to him; the blows of his hammer followed one another with less eagerness; once he covered his eyes with his hand, clasping his forehead convulsively as though it ached. It was a glaring hot afternoon and the bazaar was full of noise. Presently through the din of trading penetrated other sounds from outside the market. The shouts of a moving crowd and the sound of their feet, the beating of drums and gongs, and, from time to time, loud trumpet blasts. Loiterers decamped to join the throng outside, buyers were carried away by their curiosity to see what was happening in the street, and some of the sellers followed them; first charging their friends who remained to keep a protecting eye on their wares. The news diffused itself through the market that it was the marriage procession of a great man—no tried this upon a shred of brass, Selim shielding with his own the little hand that held the tool, lest she should miss her stroke with the hammer and crush her tiny fingers. Once and again she did miss her aim and the hammer fell smartly on Selim's hand, so glad to be wounded to protect the precious little fingers it surrounded. Having finished this sport she relinquished the die to Selim, and he swore he would use it for no other work than for a gift for her. Smiling, and not seeming to believe in his earnestness, she told him where an old relative dwelt at whose house he might leave the present for her. Then with the playfulness of a child she took the shred of brass and bent it round Selim's finger like a ring, and with the pincers brought the ends tightly together and folded them over, looking mischievously in the strong man's face to see if she could make him wince. less than a son of the late king, dignified | die that dinted a tiny whorl pattern. She by the present shah with the title of the Shadow of the Sultan's Hand, though the low rank of his beautiful mother prevented his having any claim on the throne. Selim hardly heard the gossip that buzzed about him, he was too much occupied with his own thoughts; the shouted news that interested his neighbors made his head ache, that was all. Nobody asked him to mind their goods for them, his reserve had made him condemned as unsociable, and if he had cared to go, there was no one he could ask to protect his little store of brass lanterns and the like. He had no wish to leave his shop; what was a prince's wedding to him that he should rejoice at it? But he was relieved by the emptiness of the bazaar and the comparative quiet about him. He laid aside the incomplete lantern, and looked at his left hand. Round the little finger of it was wrapped a piece of rag; Selim unwound it, revealing a little strip of ham. mered brass that circled the finger like a ring. It had been twisted together whilst on the finger, and pressed it so tightly that the flesh was red and inflamed on each side of it. It must have hurt him constantly, and the rag-wrapping, which he presently soaked in water and replaced, was necessary as a bandage. His thoughts went away to her whose present to him was this little circle of pain -to the hour when she had carelessly given it to him, and then back to the moment when he had first seen her; the moment when his soul was born. And again at the recollection, as then at the reality, his breath paused and his heart stood still with wondering delight at her loveliness and the depth of her eyes. Except those eyes her face was always veiled, as she used to pass through the brass-workers' bazaar almost daily on her way into the market. But when she came to appreciate the homage of Selim's obeisance, to return his salutation, even to linger for a few moments beside his little stall, the veil would yield to view some rounded contour of olive cheek or dimpled hint of the neighborhood of lips. One day one of such days as come perhaps twice in a happy lifetime - she came to make a purchase of Selim, and lingered for an hour; playfully making him teach her the way he wrought in brass, asking the use of the grounds of lead or of pitch and of all the little punches and dies with which he impressed the ductile metal. One little die, freshly made and never yet used, Selim showed her; a After this a few words were exchanged, Selim's happy, modest soul feasting the while on the lustrous eyes that told him the whole story of Paradise. Then, too suddenly, too soon, the combination unknit itself, and he was left with a never-dying image in his soul. On that day he had named her for himself the Star of his Heart, and had projected and begun the perfume-holder, laboring at it ever since in all spare hours. He had seen her again as she passed, less frequently of late, not at all the last two weeks, but the exquisite interview had never been repeated. Selim took out the little punch-like tool that dinted the whorl pattern, and, reaching his largest file, slowly defaced the die, casting the remainder of the tool out into the market. The harsh scraping of the file had made his head ache the more; he pressed his hand to his brow, and then with a sigh took up the lantern again. In the moment of beginning to work he fell asleep. He was sitting on his heels, his head fell forward until the chin rested on his breast; his left hand was curved round the incomplete brass lantern that lay on his lap, the hand of his slack right arm lay on the ground beside him holding his hammer. Far away flew his soul into the warm and kindly world of dreams to meet her he had so often met there without her knowledge. And now it seemed, with the strangeness so usual in a dream, that the unconsciousness was his, that she was the seeker and he was - where? He could not tell, but he thought he or some one saw that she found the perfume-holder, and caressed it for him, touching it with the fruit velvet of her cheek; letting the silk of her hair fall over it like the blessing of Allah. For a moment the hammered brass became the soul and the senses of Selim, and felt and thrilled at her touch. The moment passed, and then voices said, "But Selim, where is Selim?" and the dreamer- but it appeared to Selim that it was another, not himself, set out to look for him, saying to her and to the voices, "I will find Selim, I know him by the ache in his finger; and wandered among all the sorrows and pains of the world until he came to a pain that he knew. And beginning with that he toiled and worked in a strange dream process half piling of things that would fall and crumble as they were piled, half creation by mere will to build up Selim. And, when the building process was finished, there for one moment was Selim complete, sitting in his shop in the bazaar with a hammer in his hand, and an unfinished lantern on his lap; and no Star of his Heart anywhere, but the bazaar full of people discussing the marriage procession, and some laughing about a ridiculous fellow who had fallen asleep. In a moment the bazaar vanished, as a glimpse of the street through a doorway when the dark curtain falls across; and there again was the lovely lady. There too was Selim now; he remembered himself by the pain in his finger. He had a great mace in his right hand, and was armed like the mighty Rustem, and the hand that ached rested on his shield. A company of devils roared against him, and among them were two Satans, fierce and hideous as the white demon that Rustem vanquished. But the sweet lady, who loved him too much to fear for him, bent and kissed his wounded hand, and the two white Satans roared with scorn, and Selim heaved up his mace and prepared for battle. And suddenly he woke, and was in his little shop in the bazaar again. A satirical crowd were gazing at him, for he had muttered and moved in his sleep. In the midst of the throng smiled the crafty merchant, and a little behind him grinned the big boy from Cairo, watching both him and Selim. "O my Selim," said the merchant, "do you spin your dreams from the juice of the poppy-head, or the wine of Shiraz; or are you an eater of hashish, that you go through in this little booth more adventures than Firdusi has ever sung?" The crowd laughed, and as Selim collected his senses to reply, the merchant continued, "A poor old man such as I can dream too; not of ladies' lips and of battle, but of mere buying and selling. As I slept after my bread at midday, I dreamt that Selim had a rare perfume-holder to sel! me, and that I bought it, and sold it again to Marco the Venetian, to the great profit of my Selim and myself. Have I stumbled on the truth in a dream, my friend?" "I have no perfume-holder to sell you," said Selim, I have but the things you see on my shop-board." This the merchant made him repeat so that all could hear it; and even then began at him again. 66 "But dreams are sent from Allah "Some dreams are from Allah, merchant, but not yours; there is my merchandise; if you will buy I will give you good worth, for I need money to-morrow; if not, leave me, in the name of him on whom be peace.' The merchant did at length buy of Selim's delicate handiwork, which he seemed as covetous to possess as he was loth to part with his own coin. When he took his leave the brassworker, richer by a handful of silver coins, had little other stock for his shop than the unfinished lantern. At that he fell to work with fierce intensity, as if he bid thought to cease whispering and time to mend his pace. He was the latest worker in the bazaar, and, when the market gates were about to close, with what care did he secure the locker where lay the perfumeholder, and fasten the shutters of his little booth! He had never feared for the safety of his treasure until now that it was complete, and he knew that another lusted for it. This one night seemed more fraught with danger than all the hundred nights and more that it had lain in that chest in the deserted market. About the winding streets of Naishápúr he wandered that night, coming again and again to the gate that opened into that part of the market where his treasure lay. Between the heavy palisades he looked into the moonlit brass-workers' bazaar; a baying horde of dogs made a fierce jostling leap against the gate he stood outside of, yelping as if they would tear the life from him. Attracted by their tumult, a market watchman, with lantern and stick, strolled to look at him, and recognizing his face, passed on. The dogs sprang away to sa. lute some other sound with their fierce and fiendish din, and left Selim alone gazing through the bars of the gate at the shadow that covered the front of his little shop. When, towards morning, he lay | Then she returns, replaces his unopened down to rest, he seemed, in a feverish, gift in his hands, and tells him that the lady half-wakeful sleep, again to wander the was yesterday married to the Shadow of city streets, more winding and more the Sultan's Hand. strangely interlaced than they had been in reality, and to approach the market with a fierce anxiety at the heart whose occasion he could not remember. Hardly did he feel himself safely awake until he had opened his shop, hammered a tedious hour at the lantern, and having carefully wrapped his treasure from sight, returned home to dress in the finest array he had. There the perfume-holder too was wrapped in, and tied with silk. Selim had a scented billet to accompany it, containing rhymes that he had linked in cool midnights, written out for him by a skilled caligrapher and adorned with a flowery edge. There is little need to await the coming of a catastrophe. The long, hopeful preparation; the sudden smiting-such combination occurs frequently in human affairs. But I wish you for an instant to see the man of whom I am telling you, whilst he still holds the present about to be entrusted to the care of a wise old lady, the essential medium of communication in Persia of such an affair. So the blow falls, and Selim is struck with the dull insensibility that precedes bitterest pain. As he walks towards the market with the wrapped present under his arm he repeats philosophic consolation to himself. A Western poet has said, — Time and the hour runs through the roughest day; and a poet of Selim's own town has versi- And Selim held on for reason's sake to the thought of his daily work to make the long miserable days pass. That halfcomplete lantern seemed a frail shelter to him from madness. When he found himself at the market he realized that he had not changed his holiday garb; but the jests that were flung at him on this count seemed to matter little, though they an noyed him. It worried his longing for The full fresh turban of white hand- loneliness that grinning faces should surwove stuff, with a meandering maize-col-round him as he plodded heavily to his ored line in its fabric, is wound tightly over a tall cap of yellow felt, beneath this a linen skull-cap makes a tiny line of delicate white against the dark face and hair. Selim holds the head thus enwound with the grace of a steed; his eyes are lustrous as a steed's, with the same nervous possibility in them of excited movement. His delicate features are aquiline, his abundant hair curls crisply, his lips are proudly set. The rest of his dress is of the same white striped with maize-color that gleams golden here and there; a knife-case is stuck in the shawl so carefully wound about his waist. He holds the gift under his arm and looks at the messenger who is to take it. The colors of the street about him are of bleaching and dusty wood-work, of dust itself, and of yellowish stone lit up with here and there a line of glazed tile of a turquoise blue. The look on Selim's face as he yields into the messenger's grasp the gift for the Star of his Heart I will not describe. Say that I look ahead and would spare you the pain of feeling too acutely for him. Or say that I cannot. Selim stands there and loiters whilst his ambassador remains away for some hours. little shop. The more ill-natured of the mockers kept with him to the end, to see how this unsociable gentleman would take a little surprise that was there ready for him. The booth was plundered. The few pieces of completed work had been taken, and, worse than that, all Selim's tools, little matters some of them, but dear almost as his fingers; worth so much to him, so little to the cruel thief. Only the unfinished lantern remained, and that was defaced, as though the plunderer, having left it behind as worthless, had come back to crush it out of shape in sheer malice. This ruin flashed suddenly on Selim out of his maze, and rage flamed red in his veins his brain seeming to boil with anger. He breathed unwonted maledictions, and drawing the knife from his waist, rushed to the large shop where the Egyptian lad had been employed. His wrath was cumbered by loiterers who hung about him; it was cooled at the shop by calm expostulation. The sus pected lad, it was explained, had just started with a caravan; his ultimate destination Cairo. Selim understood of all this only that his revenge was baulked, that the world, grinning or indifferent, was all against him. He went back and sat for a long while insations of pain, and one heavier blow that his little shop without motion, almost with- seemed to end it. out thought a crushed man. Then, in a little cool interval when he could think, he made out that the returned gift was his only possession that he must have bread and tools that he had better take the perfume-holder to the merchant who had bid so high for it. She whom Selim had called the Star of his Heart passed into the silken seclusion of Persian wifedom. She was the second wife of the prince whom the sultan called the Shadow of his Hand, and for a while she reigned unrivalled over the heart of that fierce fighter. In the zenana she received full homage; the preceding wife, not yet past her beauty, showed her all courtesy, biding her time for a change of fortune's favors. Whilst unoccupied the Shadow of the Sultan's Hand was courteous and devoted, but the soft-eyed girl soon found that he had many thoughts that he had no care to share with her. He expected as tribute a devotion whose depth he could not sound. The preparations for a lion-hunt occupied his interest with an entirety that her charms and affection could not equal; the thought of a raid into Afghanistan would absorb him to the forgetting of her existence. Tender-hearted, she pondered that if her love had been untitled she might have been all in all to him, instead of a part, sometimes, to this son of a king. The life of the zenana did not agree with her as with the more tranquil creatures who chattered and squabbled and grew plumply comely about her. He wandered out into a blurred confusion of sights and sounds, and his thoughts only came clearly to him again when he was facing the merchant, and unwrapping his handiwork to show it to him. The place he was in looked rich, on shelves there were pieces of delicate brass-work like his own, rich tiles, armor, and silken fabrics abounded. Other faces looked at him that were coarser than the merchant's and as unscrupulous; servants well fitted with a master. Poor Selim, of the little that he could think, thought again that all the world was against him. For this man, who yesterday was so eager to buy, was deliberate now. He disparaged the piece of work, and, asking Selim's immediate necessity, suggested that he might provide him and take the brass vase as a pledge. Selim told him sadly that his want was tools and materials for his work. Watching him, and with a sinister smile, the merchant brought out a bundle, which unpacked, proved to be a brass-beater's paraphernalia. Selim started and clutched; the things were his. The dimness seized upon him again in a different manner; he felt very cold; everything seemed, not blurred, but very small and far away. He could not be sure if he were telling the merchant quite calmly how those tools had been stolen from him, and whom he suspected; or if he were standing stupid, frozen, and dumb. Suddenly the merchant's face came near him, huge and terrific; two great hands seized the perfumeholder, bore it away into the distance, and placed it on the shelf with the other work like it. Then the hot fit came again, red rage flamed in Selim's veins, and the merchant's servants fought with him. After a space he heard people, whose faces he knew though they were so far off, tell some one in authority one after another that the perfume-holder could not be Selim's-that they knew all his works, and this was not one of them that, only yesterday, he had affirmed that he possessed At early nightfall the company started nothing of the kind. Then he was seized that escorted her. There were tents and and dragged away struggling, raving, and servants and necessaries on strong bagstriking; and everything was blurred but gage - camels, and a score of warlike dust and pressure, anger and despair. guards; each sitting king-like on the Blows fell on him that kindled keen sen-throne that the camel bears on his back Her distress culminated when the prince brought back from an Afghan foray a captive who became the favorite of the hour. The poor superseded wife, whose husband hardly realized her regret at his neglect, pined and grew pale. It was partly by the wish of those about her that she should have the wisest advice, and partly by her own longing to learn something that might make her life more purposeful, that a journey was planned for her to a renowned astrologer who abode two days' journey from Naishápúr, past the turquoise-mines and across the dreary desert. Poor lonely star of a lonely heart whose love she never thought of, though the longing for such devotion filled her soft dark eyes with wistful sadness! She was glad of the few days' change from the routine of the zenana, and not without hope that a wise word might make smoother the rough places of her young life. |