The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, Alain René le Sage [most read books .txt] 📗

times as much

as the curmudgeon her master would demand for my ransom, put me

into conceit with. the intention of trying my luck at a venture,

whatever risk might be incurred in the experiment. I went on with

my gardening, but always harping on the means of getting into the

apartment of Farrukhnaz, or rather waiting till she opened a door

of communication; for I was clearly of opinion that she would not

stop upon the threshold, but meet me half way in the career of

love and danger. My conjecture was not altogether without

foundation. The same eunuch who had led me into this amorous

reverie passed the same way an hour afterwards, and said to me:

Christian, have you communed with your own determinations, and

will you win a fair lady, by abjuring a faint heart? I answered

in the affirmative. Well, then, rejoined he, heaven sprinkle its

dew upon your resolutions! You shall see me betimes to-morrow

morning. With this comfortable assurance, he withdrew. The

following day, I actually saw him make his appearance about eight

o’clock in the morning. He made a signal for me to go along with

him: I obeyed the summons; and he conducted me into a hall where

was a large wrapper of canvas which he and another eunuch had

just brought thither, with the design of carrying it to the

sultana’s apartment, for the purpose of furnishing a scene for an

Arabian pantomime, in preparation for the amusement of the

bashaw.

 

The two eunuchs unrolled the cloth, and laid me at my length on

the proscenium; then, at the risk of turning the farce into a

tragedy by stifling me, they rolled it up again, with its

palpitating contents. In the next place, taking hold of it at

each end, they conveyed me with impunity by this device into the

chamber devoted to the repose of the beautiful Cashmirian. She

was alone with an old slave devoted to her wishes. They helped

each other to unroll their precious bale of goods; and

Farrukhnaz, at the sight of her consignment, set up such an alarm

of delight, as exhibited the woman of the East, without for

getting her prurient propensities. With all my natural bias

towards adventure, I could not recognize myself as at once

transported into the private apartment of the women, without

something like an inauspicious damp upon my joy. The lady was

aware of my feelings, and anxious to dissipate the unpleasant

part of them, Young man, said she, you have nothing to fear.

Soliman is just gone to his country-house: he is safely lodged

for the day; so that we shall be able to entertain one another

here at our ease.

 

Hints like these rallied my scattered spirits, and gave a cast to

my countenance which confirmed the speculation of the favourite.

You have won my heart, pursued she, and it is in my contemplation

to soften the severity of your bondage. You seem to be worthy of

the sentiments which I have conceived for you. Though disguised

under the garb of a slave, your air is noble, and your

physiognomy of a character to recommend you to the good graces of

a lady. Such an exterior must belong to one above the common.

Unbosom yourself to me in confidence; tell me who you are. I know

that captives of superior condition and family disguise their

real circumstances, to be redeemed at a lower rate; but you have

no inducement to practise such a deception on me; and it would

even be a precaution revolting to my designs in your favour,

since I here pledge myself for your liberty. Deal with sincerity,

therefore, and own to me at once that you are a youth of

illustrious rank. In good earnest then, madam, answered I, it

would ill become me to repay your generous partiality with

dissimulation. You are absolutely bent upon it, that I should

entrust you with the secret of my quality, and commands like

yours are not to be questioned or resisted. I am the son of a

Spanish grandee. And so it might actually have been, for anything

that I know to the contrary; at all events, the sultana gave me

credit for it, so that with considerable self-congratulation, at

having fixed her regard on a gentleman of some little figure in

the world, she assured me that it only depended on herself,

whether or no we should meet pretty often in private. In fact, we

were no niggards of our mutual goodwill at the very first

approaches. I never met with a woman who was more what a man

wishes her to be. She was besides an expert linguist, above all

in Castilian, which she spoke with fluency and purity. When she

conceived it to be time for us to part, I got by her order into a

large osier basket, with an embroidered silk covering of her own

manufacture; then the two slaves who had brought me in were

called, to carry me out as a present from the favourite to her

deluded lord; for under this pretence it is easy to screen any

amorous exports from the inspection of the officers entrusted

with the superintendence of the women.

 

As for Farrukhnaz and myself, we were not slack in other devices

to bring us together; and that lovely captive inspired me by

degrees with as much love as she herself entertained for me. Our

good understanding was kept a profound secret for full two

months, notwithstanding the extreme difficulty in a seraglio of

veiling the mysteries of love for any length of time from those

uninitiated, whose eyes are jaundiced by their own

disqualification. Neither was the discovery made at last by the

means of envious spies. An unlucky chance disconcerted all our

little arrangements, and the features of my fortune were at once

aggravated into a frown. One day when I had been introduced into

the presence of the sultana, in the body of an artificial dragon,

invented as a machine for a spectacle, while we were parleying

most amicably together, Soliman, to whom we had given credit for

having gone out of town, made his unwelcome appearance. He

entered so abruptly into his favourite’s apartment, as scarcely

to leave time for the old slave to give us notice of his

approach. Still less was there any opportunity to conceal me.

Thus therefore, with all my enormities on my head, was I the

first object which presented itself to the astonished eyes of the

bashaw.

 

He seemed considerably startled at the sight; and his countenance

flashed with indignation on the instant. I considered myself as a

wretch just hovering on the brink of the grave; and death seemed

arrayed in all the paraphernalia of torture. As for Farrukhnaz,

it was very evident, in good truth, that she was miserably

frightened; but instead of owning her crime and imploring pardon,

she said to Soliman: My lord, before you pronounce my sentence,

be pleased to hear my defence. Appearances, doubtless, condemn

me; and it must strike you that I have committed an act of

treason, worthy the most dreadful punishments. It is true, I have

brought this young captive hither; it is true that I have

introduced him into my apartment, with just such artifices as I

should have used if I had entertained a violent passion for him.

And yet, I call our great prophet to witness, in spite of these

seeming irregularities, I am not faithless to you. It was my wish

to converse with this Christian slave, for the purpose of

disengaging him from his own sect, and proselytising him to that

of the true believers. But I have found in him a principle of

resistance for which I was not well prepared. I have, however,

conquered his prejudices; and he came to give me an assurance

that he would embrace Mahometanism.

 

I do not mean to deny that it was an act of duty to have

contradicted the favourite flatly, without paying the least

attention to the dangerous predicament in which I stood: but my

spirits were taken by surprise; the beloved partner of my

imprudence was hovering on the brink of perdition; and my own

fate was involved with hers. How could I do otherwise than give a

silent and perturbed assent to her impious fiction? My tongue,

indeed, refused to ratify it; but the bashaw, persuaded by my

acquiescence that his mistress had told him the whole truth and

nothing but the truth, suffered his angry spirit to be

tranquillized. Madam, answered he, I am willing to believe that

you have committed no infidelity towards me; and that the desire

of doing a thing agreeable to the prophet has been the means of

leading you on to risk so hazardous and delicate a proceeding. I

forgive, therefore, your imprudence, on condition that this

captive assumes the turban on the spot. He sent immediately for a

priest to initiate me. [These wandering priests are at present

known in Africa by the name of Marabut. The first gymnosophists

of Ethiopia most probably were nothing more. — TRANSLATOR.] My

dress was changed with all due ceremony into the Turkish. They

did just what they pleased with me; nor had I the courage to

object: or, to do myself more justice, I knew not what was

becoming of me, in so dreadful a disorder of all my faculties and

feelings. There are other good Christians in the world, who have

been guilty of apostatizing on less imminent emergencies!

 

After the ceremony, I took my leave of the seraglio, to go and

possess myself, under the name of Sidy Hali, of an inferior

office which Soliman had given me. I never saw the sultana more;

but an eunuch of hers came one day to look after me. He brought

with him, as a present from his mistress, jewels to a very

considerable amount, accompanied with a letter, in which the lady

assured me she should never forget my generous compliance, in

turning Mahometan to save her life. In point of fact, besides

these rich gifts, lavished upon me by Farrukhnaz, I obtained

through her interest a more considerable employment than my

first, and in the course of six or seven years became one of the

richest renegadoes in the town of Algiers.

 

You must be perfectly aware, that if I assisted at the prayers

put up by the Mussulmen in their mosques, or fulfilled the other

observances of their religion, it was all a mere copy of my

countenance. My inclination was always uniform and determined, as

to returning before my death into the bosom of our holy church;

and with this view I looked forward to withdrawing some time or

other into Spain or Italy with the riches I should have

accumulated. But there seemed no reason whatever against enjoying

life in the interval. I was established in a magnificent mansion,

with gardens of extent and beauty, a numerous train of slaves,

and a well-appointed equipage of pretty girls in my seraglio.

Though the Mahometans are forbidden the use of wine in that

country, they are not backward for the most part in their stolen

libations. As for me, my orgies were without either a mask or a

blush, after the manner of my brother renegadoes. I remember in

particular two of my bottle companions, with whom I often drank

down the night before we rose from table. One was a Jew, and the

other an Arabian. I took them to be good sort of people; and,

with that impression, lived in unconstrained familiarity with

them. One evening I invited them to sup at my house. On that very

day a dog of mine died — it was a pet; we performed our pious

ablutions on his lifeless clay, and buried him with all the

solemn obsequies attendant on a Mahometan funeral. This act