The Thief of Bagdad/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII
The garden was a sweet and charming spot.
Here the dark-hued tamala trees, bearded to the waist with grey and greyish-blue moss, served as a foil for the crimson glory of the pippal and pepper trees, the elfin-green and emerald-green exuberance of the cinnamon palms, and the majestic, columnar aisles of the banyan figs. From trunk to trunk, like bridges for the tiny, chattering, rust-red monkeys to pass across, stretched cordages of tough-stemmed, waxen orchids; while the ground was a rich mosaic of scarlet asoka flowers, cliterias of palest pastel blue, daks orange-yellow as the harvest moon, madhavis as white as the snows of the Himalayas, purple star flowers, and perfumed cascades of red and white jasmine. Farther on were trellised walks closely roofed with heliotrope creepers, the golden, heavy blooms of the mango trees, and enormous, sweet-scented clusters of chambela blossoms.
There were few sounds. Only gently, softly, the humming of the bees plying their task amidst the flowers; and from time to time the dulcet notes of a kokila bird or the sobbing, minor wail of a turtle-dove deeply hid in its leafy bower.
Peace and happiness.
Peace and happiness, too, in Ahmed’s heart as he walked through the garden, a song on his lips.
And then, quite suddenly, without reason, he became conscious of a feeling, not exactly of terror, but of a vague uneasiness; and the very next second he perceived the cause of it. For it seemed to him that, as he walked, the garden was walking with him, each tree and flower and bush, each orchid-laden creeper and tiniest blade of grass moving with him in a parallel line so that, for all his steady walking, he really did not move an inch.
Was it his imagination?
He decided to find out. He stopped dead in his tracks, and stared straight and hard at an enormous cluster of purple orchids spotted with tawny orange a few feet away from him, at the exact height of his eyes. Never for a second looking away, he walked on. Swiftly he walked, with a full, free swing of arms and hips. He ran, faster and faster and faster; and—yes, there was no doubt of it—the cluster of orchids remained where it was, in front of his eyes; the whole Enchanted Garden was keeping step with him.
Again he stopped. He scratched his head, deliberating what he had better do. He repeated the experiment with the same result. Once more the garden moved in a parallel line with him.
“Allah!” he exclaimed. “What miracle be this?”
The next moment, as if in answer, he heard mocking, ironic laughter issue from a gnarled tamala tree. The tree laughed so heartily that its long beard of grey moss shook and its leaves trembled and danced, while all the other trees, all the flowers and bushes and blades of grass took up the laughter in a mad, whirling chorus.
The merry sounds flowed on, pouring about Ahmed’s ears like the murmur of a stream through summer fields; and, as he shook his head, wondering what to do, the tamala tree which had laughed first spoke words—in excellent, fluent Arabic with hardly a trace of foreign accent:
“Ah—my Ahmed! Ah—my clever, clever Thief of Bagdad! let us see if your wisdom be as vast as ours and your wit as sharp as ours. Let us see if you will be able to solve the secret of the Enchanted Garden. How, my darling Ahmed, are you going to get out of here? Tell me! Tell me!” And again the tree laughed loudly and mockingly: “Ho—ho—ho!”
“Ho—ho—ho!”*echoed the Enchanted Garden.
Almost at once, quickly as the shadow of a leaf through summer dusk, an idea came to Ahmed.
For let us recall that, born and bred in Bagdad’s coiling streets, having made his living in bazar and marketplace as one of the foremost members of Bagdad’s Ancient and Honorable Guild of Thieves, he had learned there many subtle skills and twists of brain, had learned to he gliding of thought and tongue so as to find a shift with any man’s wiles.
Years ago, when Bird-of-Evil had been the master thief and he a mere beginner, the other had taught him that in a tight corner silence was the sharpest weapon in the world, and that the listener has all the advantage over the talker. For the more the latter speaks, the more he becomes involved and tangled in his own web of words and the more anxious he grows to receive an answer, be it in agreement or in contradiction, from the other; until finally, should the listener in spite of all provocation keep his tongue between his teeth, the talker is liable to lose his patience and to blurt out the very things he meant to conceal: valuable secret or gossip or information.
“A fool plays the flute before the buffalo,” Bird-of-Evil used to say. “But the buffalo continues to sit and ruminate.”
Ahmed smiled as he decided to put his friend’s theory into practice. His first surprise over, he made believe that he was not at all aware of the tree’s laughter and mocking words. He yawned elaborately, stretched his arms as if he were tired with walking, and sat down in the shade of the loquacious tree, leaning against the trunk, while above him the tree continued to jabber and jeer and blabber like an old spinster cackling over the cook pots.
“How are you going to get out of here?” demanded the tree.
No answer. Only a loud, rude yawn.
“Ho—ho!” sneered the tree. “You may have to live forever in this garden until your beard sprouts, young man, and grows to be as long as this moss of mine!”
Still no answer. Once more Ahmed yawned; blinked his eyes sleepily.
“Thief!” exclaimed the tree. “Thief of Bagdad! Are you listening to me?” And, a little more impatiently: “Ahmed! Answer me! Are you listening?” And, still more impatiently, with a slight growl of anger that caused his bark to wriggle like the hide of an old elephant: “Are you deaf? Answer me! I demand an answer!”
Ahmed rubbed his eyes. Then he whistled to himself, softly, negligently, while the tree began to shake with rage, to stammer and stutter:
“Behold me this fool! This idiot! This half-wit! A clever man, he calls himself! He boasts of it! And there he sits, silent, deaf, dumb! By Allah! A fool indeed! The sort of fool who fasts for a whole year—and then breaks his fast with an onion!”
Still Ahmed kept as silent as the desert at noon, thinking to himself: “Expect good from the wicked; drain the swallow’s milk; pluck a hog’s wool; cause the sand to yield pomegranates; fix a pump in the middle of the sea; put a male elephant in the nest of a humming-bird—then make the silent talk!” Until the tree, utterly exasperated, broke into a perfect storm of hysterical vituperations, cursing Ahmed’s ancestors for seven generations, cursing his problematical descendants, and winding up with:
“An Arab he calls himself! But I think he lies! He cannot understand the Prophet’s language! He is a Jew! A Christian! Perhaps a Chinese! Or a woolly-haired, thin-shanked one from Africa! Deaf he is, and dumb! Why—even if I told him right now that, to get out of the Enchanted Garden, all he has to do is to pronounce three times the name of Allah and touch the little brown spot on my green trunk which conceals my heart with the second finger of his left hand—even then he would not understand—the fool—the idiot—the half-wit—the dunce—the dolt! Brothers and sisters!”—addressing the whole garden—“I am afraid that this Ahmed will have to stay here until he dies! And what a dreadful bore that will be for the lot of us!”
“Don’t worry, O wise tree!” laughed Ahmed, jumping up.
He looked for the brown spot on the trunk, found it, and touched it with the second finger of his left hand, while three times he pronounced the Creator’s name. Then, at once, the tree seemed to change its shape. The foliage dropped away as did the bark; and, instead of a tree stood a very old man, with long green, hair, a long green beard, green eyes, green skin. His very toe nails were green, and green was his voice—if voice can be said to have a color—as he said to Ahmed:
“Fool you may he, but I am the greater fool. For you fooled me to the Sultan’s taste with your cursed silence. See”—he pointed at the Enchanted Garden and at an opening in its wall of trees beyond which was a sun-bathed clearing—“you have broken the spell. The road is yonder—the road down which you must step on your search for happiness!”
“Shall I find the silver chest on this road, the magic chest, the greatest treasure on earth?”
“I am not sure,” replied the tree-man. “You have done well so far. You have conquered your pride, your envy, and your jealousy. You have shown courage. You have accepted the blessed faith of the Prophet Mohammed—on Him the salute! And—” with a rather self-conscious laugh—“I personally can testify to your wisdom and wit. But I cannot tell you a thing about the silver chest. You will have to ask the Old Man of the Midnight Sea.”
“Where does he live?”
“Over there!” The other pointed vaguely to the East and, before Ahmed could ask another question, he changed back into a tree—a very silent tree this time, just as maddeningly silent as the Thief of Bagdad had been a few minutes before.
So Ahmed went on his way, meeting with various, incredible adventures, until finally he met the Old Man of the Midnight Sea—“The Sea of Resignation to Fate,” as the ancient Arab chronicle interprets it.
But speaking about Resignation to Fate, here was one virtue in which the Prince of Mongols was decidedly lacking.
“I am my own Fate!” he used to exclaim; and, at least where the Princess Zobeid was concerned, he tried his best to make this boast come true.
For by this time, traveling down the great Central Asian overland road in the guise of peaceful merchants, the pick of his Tartar, Manchu and Mongol fighting-men had entered Bagdad. They had taken up their living quarters in various caravanserais within easy reach of the Caliph’s palace in case of sudden mobilization and attack. During the day they squatted in their bazar booths, exchanging the mellow produce of the Far East for Arabistan’s silks and scents and forged steel; in the evening they met in a deserted cemetery outside of Bagdad’s walls, where Wong K’ai, the Mongol Prince’s confidential adviser who had remained behind, supervised their drill by their red-faced, silver-capped war captains.
Too, the spies who had watched the Prince of Persia and the Prince of India had made report to their master who was now on his way to the mysterious and most extraordinary Island of Wak, so called for a reason lost in the mists of antiquity—a reason to which even that grandiose and ponderous Mandarin classic, “The Book of the Yellow Emperor,” gives not the slightest clue.
The Prince and his retinue took ship from the Manchurian coast. Came two days’ pitching and rolling and, if the truth be told, seasickness, as the ship bored through the turbulent grey-green channel. Then one morning the sun rose in the East behind lowering clouds that were like mountains of gold-glowing lava. There was a gossamer fog which lifted suddenly, and minute by minute the Island of Wak peaked more sharply into the focus. Nearer and nearer it came until the Prince of the Mongols, seated on top deck, could see all the details.
Seen from the distance, the place looked like some delicate and exquisite Chinese painting drawn and brushed by a master-craftsman of the Ming dynasty. There were charming pagodas, tinkling with silver and porcelain bells; quivering bamboos; towering pine trees; waters eddying round a tangle of tall reeds; narrow rivers spanned by audaciously curved bridges. There were vivid bits of life: a peasant tilling his small patch of soil; a maiden sitting in a garden and weaving brocade at the loom; a scholar in front of his house, pouring over a learned scroll; an old man bearing a great bundle of fire wood; a fisherman rocking in his skiff—and, hovering over all, the serenity of quiet, intense, never tiring labor which is the message and the blessing of the Chinese.
For Wak had been colonized by the Chinese. After the manner of their race, not through the sword but through work and industry, they had vanquished the original inhabitants: Tunguz tribesmen. The latter had died. Today there was only one of them left, Yuqluq, the medicineman to whom the Prince had sent word of his coming and who even now was climbing up the ship’s ladder.
The Prince gave a little exclamation of disgust when he saw the medicine-man. For Yuqluq looked like a savage. He was tall and thin and dark. His hair, dyed red with henna, had been carefully trained in the shape of an immense helmet, and was ornamented with antelope horns. From his shoulders floated a magnificent cape of hawks’ feathers. He wore many-coiled brass-wire anklets which reached from his feet to his knees, and broad brass bracelets on both his forearms. His naked body was smeared with a bizarre design of ochre and crimson clay, while his face was tattooed to resemble a devil mask. Innumerable necklaces of beads were strung around his throat. From his girdle hung a large collection of witch charms, which flittered and rattled with every gesture and movement; and, dangling from a tall stick in his right hand, was something which resembled a dried cocoanut, but which on closer inspection turned out to be a human head, carefully smoke-cured, preserved, and shriveled, after the bones had been removed.
An unsavory savage. But there was something ominous, something wildly superb in the poise of his tall body. And a few moments later it appeared that, whatever the outer man, the inner man was both shrewd and fearless.
“I heard word, Yuqluq,” said the Prince, “of a certain dread fruit which you possess—a fruit which holds instantaneous power over life and death.”
“You have been truly told,” replied the medicine-man.
“I want this fruit. Bring it.”
“No!”
“No …?” The Prince raised an eyebrow. “You mean—you refuse to obey?”
“Exactly!” Yuqluq crossed his arms over his broad chest.
“You realize,” purred the Prince, “what refusal means?”
“Death?”
“Indeed, dog! But—ah”—with a thin, cruel smile—“slow death—death both lengthy and humorous! Humorous—I mean—from the onlooker’s point of view.”
“I am not afraid of death. Nor am I afraid of tortures.”
Both men were silent. They stared at each other, like two fencers. Finally the Prince inclined his head.
“You spoke the truth,” he said. “You are not afraid. To kill you would be useless. To torture you would be a waste of time. On the other hand, I want the magic fruit. I need it. I intend to have it. Tell me—how much do you want?”
“The fruit is not for sale. Gold is of no value to me.”
“I shall make you Duke of Wak.”
“I do not care for titles. I”—Yuqluq drew himself proudly—“I am a medicine-man! What greater title is there?”
“Mine own—possibly,” smiled the Prince.
“Possibly!” came the arrogant rejoinder.
The Prince laughed.
“By the Buddha!” he said. “I like you!”
“And I like you, O Majesty!”
And both men meant it. Both men laughed.
“You might give me the fruit for love of me?” suggested the Mongol.
“I do not love you enough—for that.”
“Then—how can I pay you? What can I do for you? All men have their price. What is yours? What do you want?”
“I want a wife,” came Yuqluq’s simple reply. “I want children—preferrably men-children. For I am the last of my race. With me—unless I have children—the Tunguz nation is finished.”
“Well—then—why don’t you marry?”
“There is no Tunguz woman left in all the world.”
“Marry a Chinese girl. Some of them are quite pretty—and all of them are obedient.”
The medicine-man’s eyes flashed with hate.
“These Chinese pigs look down on me,” he said. “They will not give me one of their women in marriage.”
“I shall give orders. You will have a dozen Chinese wives if you like.”
“Majesty,” replied Yuqluq, “it would do no good. You can order—yes—and they will obey. But they will treat me as they have always done, and my wife, though of their own blood, will be an outcast amongst them.”
“What can we do?” puzzled the Prince.
“There is only one way.”
“Name it!”
“You are the Great Lord, the Great Dragon, the Supreme and Exquisite Majesty! If one of your own blood should become my wife, even the proudest of these Chinese pigs will kowtow to me and kiss my feet!”
The Prince of the Mongols was silent. He was not angry at the other’s demands. Why—he smiled thinly—his father had been a much-married potentate. Twelve wives he had; seventeen sons; and nine daughters. He himself—“for reasons of peace and political unity,” as he expressed it—had had his brothers beheaded when he had mounted the throne. But he had permitted his sisters to survive. For they were valuable pawns, articles of political trade, to be given as wives to chiefs and khans and minor princelings who desired the shining glory of imperial connection. And right here was a case in point!
He turned to the medicine-man.
“My youngest sister will make you an excellent wife,” he said, “and you will doubtless make me an excellent brother-in-law—ah—a generous brother-in-law.”
“Yes,” smiled Yuqluq. “Within the hour I will bring you the magic fruit of life and death.”
“Harmonious and exquisite thanks!”
They went ashore.
A few miles inland were vast ruins where once, before the peaceful Chinese invasion, had stood the main temple—rather a cluster of temples—of the Tunguz tribesmen. The ruins’ sinister reputation was such that the very Chinese, most practical and irreligious of men, refused to convert the acres into fields or building-sites, and even to set foot on them.
Here a curved stairway led into a valley.
Following Yuqluq, the Prince of the Mongols picked his way carefully down; for there were large cracks and fissures between the marble steps where fig and banyan seeds had found foothold amongst the slabs and, through the centuries, had grown into huge, gnarled trees that heaved the stone work apart like so much sand a child piles up at play.
Finally they arrived at the bottom of the valley.
“Careful!” admonished Yuqluq. “Step gently. For the snake folk live here in peace.”
The very next moment a low, thick, unmistakable hiss came almost directly from beneath the Prince’s feet. At once his sword flashed free and descended with a steely swish. The head of the snake landed on a flat rock to the left with a dull thud.
In the middle of the ruins there had once been an artificial lake dammed by stone embankments. But the dams had shivered and burst. The lake had risen. In the lower dip of the valley, scarlet-necked cranes had their homes in the half submerged arcades of the temples while blunt-nosed, pig-eyed crocodiles nuzzled the carved, broken pillars.
They walked up a steep street where wild peacocks strutted proudly on the shivered house tops, spreading their tails under the golden splendor of the sun, and where countless blue pigeons with yellow topknots whirred and cooed. A little mongoose sat in the empty window of a deserted house, staring at them, and scratching its tiny, furry ears.
It seemed that here, in the city of the dead Tunguz race, the world had stood still, that it was still standing still to hear the centuries race past on dusty, purposeless wings.
On they walked, past deserted pavilions, past broken screens of fretted pink and green marble, half buried in the dirt, past brass-studded gates whose hinges were eaten out with rust, past walls plumed and choked with grass, past little shrines which were gems of tracery and inlay, past masses of luxuriant plant life. For trees were everywhere. They grew between the square, massive stones of the pavement, splitting them open like ripe cocoanuts.
The medicine-man stopped in front of a large building springing out of the scarped rock.
“We have arrived,” he said. “Here my ancestors, before they were drowned in the swill of these Chinese pigs, prayed to their gods and brewed their ancient craft. Here I, the last of my race, having inherited the craft of my ancestors, fashioned with my own hands and brain and soul the magic fruit which kills—and which grants life. No”—as the Mongol Prince was about to follow him across the threshold—“wait here. It is not safe inside.”
He entered the temple and returned a few minutes later, carrying, tied to a long bamboo pole, a small object.
“I give it to you, Majesty,” he said solemly. “May it mean death to your enemies! May it mean life again—renewed life springing from my loins—to my race when your sister, my future wife, shall bear me children! May they be men-children! May they be as many as there are hairs on my head!”
The Prince of the Mongols took the pole and looked at the magic fruit. It was round, the size and shape of an apple, but made of a substance which he did not recognize, combining the shimmer and glisten of polished gold, the soft texture of Mandarin velvet, and the icy chill of frozen snow. Its color was of mingled milk flames beneath the golden shimmer, and it exhaled a strong, cloying scent.
“How do I use it?” asked the Prince.
Then the medicine-man showed him that on one side of the apple was a tiny green point, like the point of a needle, and on the other side a similar point, but purple in color.
“The touch of the green point, when it scratches the skin with a quick, criss-cross motion, means death. The touch of the purple point, applied with the same motion, means life.”
“Life”—demanded the Prince—“to whoever has died—and of whatever causes?”
“No. It cannot restore life to those who have died by the sword, by wounds, or mutilations. But it does give life to those who have died of an ailment or of poison—any poison at all—or by the touch and scratch of the apple’s green point. Come!” laughed the medicine man. “Let us put this darling little apple to the test!”
They left the ruins and returned to the harbor where, at the water’s edge, a Chinese was fishing. The man was intent upon his catch. He did not hear the footsteps behind him, nor the Prince’s whisper:
“Here is your chance, Yuqluq!”
The latter moved noiselessly toward the fisherman; he reached out with the pole and, quickly, suddenly, touched and scratched the man’s naked shoulder with the green point of the magic fruit.
The Chinese felt the scratch; imagined that a mosquito had bitten him; raised his hand to slap it away. Then, with his hand still in midair, he dropped as if struck by lightning. He lay there, stark, stiff, lifeless, while, gradually, as the Prince of the Mongols looked on, the body became bloated and turned a terrible, grey-green color, as though he had been killed by bubonic plague.
“Ah”—smiled the Prince calmly—“one less Chinese in the world!”
“Not yet!” laughed Yuqluq.
Again he reached out with the pole; again scratched the fisherman’s shoulder, but this time with the purple point. And at once the grey-green color of the skin changed to a healthy, ruddy flush, the bloated body assumed its ordinary proportions, and the man sat up nowise hurt, except for a great fear which had swept over his soul which caused him to run away as fast as his legs would carry him.
“The greatest rarity in the world,” admitted the Prince of Mongols. “There is no doubt of it. More precious than the Prince of Persia’s flying carpet, more marvelous than the Indian’s crystal! And yet …” he slurred; paused.
“And yet—what?” asked the medicine-man.
“Will Zobeid think so?”
“How can she help herself. Majesty?”
“There is beauty and romance in a rug that can cut through the air like a swallow; beauty and romance, too, in a crystal globe that mirrors the motley scenes of life. But is there beauty in this—a thing which gives life—yes—but which also gives death? Zobeid is a woman, soft-hearted. The thought of this grim thing might make her shudder. Perhaps she will fear and hate it—and fear and hate the giver.”
“Decidedly,” came Yuqluq’s insolent answer. “It is lucky for you that I am going to be a member of your family. My brain will be of great help to you through the years to come. Majesty”—he lowered his voice—“use this magic apple!”
“Use it? What do you mean?”
“Send a confidental messenger to Bagdad as quickly as you can. Doubtless the Princess has amongst her servants one whose hand can be greased with gold?”
“Yes. There is Fount-in-the-Forest, a Mongol slave girl who wishes me well.”
“Good. Send her word to poison her mistress.”
“Poison her?” Even the Prince’s tough Mongol hide squirmed at the suggestion. “What for? What is a dead woman to me?”
Yuqluq smiled as he might at a babbling child.
“Have her poisoned slowly,” he continued, “so that by the time you reach Bagdad she will be at every door of death. Then you, with the help of this magic apple, will bring her back to life. And there will be no argument as to which of the three of the Princes has brought back the greatest rarity. Life itself? Is there a finer gift on earth?”
The Prince laughed.
“Exquisite and harmonious thanks,” he replied. “I am glad indeed to have you for a brother-in-law. Your time and talents are wasted in the Island of Wak. As soon as I return from Bagdad with my bride, I shall appoint you Chief Judge of the Imperial Circuit Court, Prime Minister, Moderator of the Buddhistic Faith, Supervisor of the Imperial Eunuchs, and a Knight Commander of the Order of the Five-Clawed Dragon.”
That same afternoon a messenger was sent to Bagdad with the necessary instructions, while the Prince with the rest of his retinue returned to the mainland on the next day. They traveled quickly, by relays of horses and camels, toward the rendezvous with the other two Princes at Terek-el-Bey. For it was now drawing close to the end of the fifth moon, and there was not much time to spare.