"My Lord's request is general--perhaps he framed it with design. Left thus to my own judgment, I will be brief, and choose from the ma.s.s of my life."

There was not the slightest sign of discomposure discernible in the look or tone of the speaker; his air was more than obliging--he seemed to be responding to a compliment.

"I began walk as a priest--a disciple of Siddhartha, whom my Lord, of his great intelligence, will remember as born in Central India. Very early, on account of my skill in translation, I was called to China, and there put to rendering the Thirty-five Discourses of the father of the Budhisattwa into Chinese and Thibettan. I also published a version of the Lotus of the Good Law, and another of the Nirvana. These brought me a great honor. To an ancestor of mine, Maha Kashiapa, Buddha happened to have intrusted his innermost mysteries--that is, he made him Keeper of the Pure Secret of the Eye of Right Doctrine. Behold the symbol of that doctrine."

The Prince drew a leaf of ivory, worn and yellow, from a pocket under his pelisse, and pa.s.sed it to Mahommed, saying, "Will my lord look?"

Mahommed took the leaf, and in the silver sunk into it saw this sign:

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"I see," he said, gravely. "Give me its meaning."

"Nay, my Lord, did I that, the doctrine of which, as successor of Kashiapa, though far removed, they made me Keeper--the very highest of Buddhistic honors--would then be no longer a secret. The symbol is of vast sanct.i.ty. There is never a genuine image of Buddha without it over his heart. It is the monogram of Vishnu and Siva; but as to its meaning, I can only say every Brahman of learning views it worshipfully, knowing it the compression of the whole mind of Buddha."

Mahommed respected the narrator's compunction, and returned the symbol, saying simply, "I have heard of such things."

"To pursue," the Prince then said, confident of the impression he was producing: "At length I returned to my own country enriched beyond every hope. A disposition to travel seized me. One day, pa.s.sing the desert to Baalbec, some Bedouin made me prisoner, and carrying me to Mecca, sold me to the Scherif there; a good man who respected my misfortune and learning--may the youths ever going in Paradise forget not his cup of flowing wine!--and wrought with me over the Book of the One G.o.d until I became a believer like himself. Then, as I had exchanged the hope of Nirvana for the better and surer hope of Islam, he set me free.... Again in my native land, I betook myself to astrologic studies, being the more inclined thereto by reason of the years I had spent in contemplating the abstrusities of Siddhartha. I became an adept--something, as my Lord may already know, impossible to such as go about unknowing the whole earth and heavens, and the powers superior, those of the sky, and those lesser, meaning Kings, Emperors, and Sultans."

"How!" exclaimed Mahommed. "Is not every astrologer an adept?"

The Prince answered softly, seeing the drift was toward the professor in the young Turk's service. "There is always a better until we reach the best. Even the stars differ from each other in degree."

"But how may a man know the superior powers?"

"The sum of the observations kept by the wise through the ages, and recorded by them, is a legacy for the benefit of the chosen few. Had my Lord the taste, and were he not already devoted by destiny, I could take him to a college where what is now so curious to him is simple reading."

The hard and doubting expression on Mahommed's face began to soften, yet he persisted: "Knowing the superior, why is it needful to know the inferior powers?"

"My Lord trenches now upon the forbidden, yet I will answer as his shrewdness deserves. Never man heard from the stars in direct speech-- that were almost like words with G.o.d. But as they are servants, they also have servants. Moreover what we have from them is always in answer. They love to be sought after by the diligent. Some ages ago an adept seeking this and that of them conjecturally, had reply, 'Lo! A tribe of poor wanderers in the East. Heed them, for they shall house their dominion in palaces now the glory of the West, and they shall dig the pit to compa.s.s the fall of the proud.' Is it this tribe? Is it that? But the seeker never knew. The children of Ertoghrul were yet following their herds up and down the pastures they had from Ala-ed-din, the Iconian. Not knowing their name, he could not ask of them from the decree-makers?"

The Mystic beheld the blood redden Mahommed's open countenance, and the brightening of his eyes; and as he was speaking to his pride, he knew he was not amiss.

"The saying of the stars," he went on, "descended to succeeding adepts.

Time came to their aid. When at length your fathers seated themselves in Broussa, the mystery was in part revealed. Anybody, even the low-browed herdsman shivering in the currents blowing from the Trojan heights, could then have named the fortunate tribe. Still the exposure was not complete; a part remained for finding out. We knew the diggers of the pit; but for whom was it? To this I devoted myself. Hear me closely now--my Lord, I have traversed the earth, not once, but many times--so often, you cannot name a people unknown to me, nor a land whither I have not been--no, nor an island. As the grandson of Abd-el-Muttalib was a Messenger of G.o.d, I am a Messenger of the Predicting Stars--not their prophet, only their Interpreter and Messenger. The business of the stars is my business." Mahommed's lips moved, and it was with an effort he kept silent.

The Prince proceeded, apparently unconscious of the interest he was exciting: "Here and there while I travelled, I kept communication with the planets; and though I had many of their predictions to solve, I asked them oftenest after the unnamed proud one for whom thy Ottomanites were charged to dig a pit. I presented names without number--names of persons, names of peoples, and lest one should he overlooked, I kept a record of royal and notable families. Was a man-child horn to any of them, I wrote down the minute of the hour of his birth, and how he was called. By visitations, I kept informed of the various countries, their conditions, and their relations with each other; for as the state of the earth points favorably or unfavorably to its vegetation, so do the conditions of nations indicate the approach of changes, and give encouragement to those predestined to bring the changes about. Again I say, my Lord, as the stars are the servants of G.o.d, they have their servants, whom you shall never know except as you are able to read the signs their times offer you for reading. Moreover the servants are sometimes priests, sometimes soldiers, sometimes kings; among them have been women, and men of common origin; for the seed of genius falls directly from G.o.d's hand, and He chooses the time and field for the sowing; but whether high or low, white or black, good or bad, how shall a Messenger interpret truly for the stars except by going before their elect, and introducing them, and making their paths smooth? Must he not know them first?"

A mighty impulsion here struck Mahommed. Recurring rather to what he had heard from Mirza of the revelation dropped by the strange person met by him during the pilgrimage, he felt himself about to be declared of the elect, and unable to control his eagerness, he asked abruptly:

"Knowest thou me, O Prince?"

The manner of the Mystic underwent a change. He had been deferential, even submissive; seldom a teacher so amiable and unmasterful; now he concentrated his power of spirit, and shot it a continuing flash from his large eyes.

"Know thee, Lord Mahommed?" he answered, in a low voice, but clear and searching, and best suited to the conflict he was ushering in--the conflict of spirit and spirit. "Thou knowest not thyself as well."

Mahommed shrank perceptibly--he was astonished.

"I mean not reference to thy father--nor to the Christian Princess, thy mother,--nor to thy history, which is of an obedient son and brave soldier,--nor to thy education, unusual in those born inheritors of royal power--I mean none of these, for they are in mouths everywhere, even of the beggars nursing their sores by the waysides.... In thy father's palace there was a commotion one night--thou wert about to be born. A gold-faced clock stood in the birth chamber, the gift of a German King, and from the door of the chamber eunuchs were stationed.

Exactly as the clock proclaimed midnight, mouth and mouth carried the cry to a man on the roof--'A Prince is born! A Prince is born! Praised be Allah!' He on the roof was seated at a table studying a paper with the signs of the Zodiac in the usual formulary of a nativity. At the coming of the cry, he arose, and observed the heavens intently; then he shouted, 'There is no G.o.d but G.o.d! Lo, Mars, Lord of the Ascendant--Mars, with his friends, Saturn, Venus, and Jupiter in happy configuration, and the moon nowhere visible. Hail the Prince!' And while his answer was pa.s.sing below, the man on the roof marked the planets in their Houses exactly as they were that midnight between Monday and Tuesday in the year 1430. Have I in aught erred, my lord?"

"In nothing, O Prince."

"Then I proceed.... The nativity came to me, and I cast and recast it for the aspects, familiarities, parallels and triplicities of the hour, and always with the same result. I found the sun, the angles and the quality of the ambient signs favorable to a career which, when run, is to leave the East radiant with the glory of an unsetting sun."

Here the Jew paused, and bowed--"Now doth my Lord doubt if I know him best?"

CHAPTER XIV

DREAMS AND VISIONS

Mahommed sat awhile in deep abstraction, his face flushed, his hands working nervously in their own clasp. The subject possessing him was very pleasurable. How could it be else?

On his side the Prince waited deferentially, but very observant. He was confident of the impression made; he even thought he could follow the young Turk's reflections point by point; still it was wisest to let him alone, for the cooling time of the sober second thought would come, and then how much better if there were room for him to believe the decision his own.

"It is very well, Prince," Mahommed said, finally, struggling to keep down every sign of excitement. "I had accounts of you from Mirza the Emir, and it is the truth, which neither of us will be the worse of knowing, that I see nothing of disagreement in what he told me, and in what you now tell me of yourself. The conceptions I formed of you are justified: you are learned and of great experience; you are a good man given to charity as the Prophet has ordered, and a believer in G.o.d. At various times in the world's history, if we may trust the writers, great men have had their greatness foretold them; now if I think myself in the way of addition to the list of those so fortunate, it is because I put faith in you as in a friendly Prophet."

At this the Prince threw up both hands.

"Friendly am I, my lord, more than friendly, but not a Prophet. I am only a Messenger, an Interpreter of the Superior Powers."

Much he feared the demands upon him if he permitted the impression that he was a Prophet to go uncontradicted; as an astrologer, he could in need thrust the stars between him and the unreasonable. And his judgment was quickly affirmed.

"As you will, O Prince," said Mahommed. "Messenger, interpreter, prophet, whichever pleases you, the burden of what you bring me is nevertheless of chiefest account. Comes a herald, we survey him, and ask voucher for his pretensions; are we satisfied with them, why then he gives place in our interest, and becomes secondary to the matter he bears. Is it not so?"

"It is righteously said, my Lord."

"And when I take up this which you have brought me"--Mahommed laid a hand upon his throat as if in aid of the effort he was making to keep calm and talk with dignity--"I cannot deny its power; for when was there an imaginative young man who first permitted ambition and love of glory to build golden palaces for their abiding in his heart, with self-control to stop his ears to promises apparently from Heaven? O Prince, if you are indeed my friend, you will not laugh at me when you are alone!...

Moreover I would not you should believe your tidings received carelessly or as a morsel sweet on my tongue; but as wine warms to the blood coursing to the brain, it has started inquiries and anxieties you alone can allay. And first, the great glory whose running is to fill the East, like an unsetting sun, tell me of it; for, as we all know, glory is of various kinds; there is one kind reserved for poets, orators, and professors cunning in the arts, and another for cheer of such as find delight in swords and bossy shields, and armor well bedight, and in horses, and who exult in battle, and in setting armies afield, in changing boundary lines, and in taking rest and giving respite in the citadels of towns happily a.s.saulted. And as of these the regard is various, tell me the kind mine is to be."

"The stars speak not doubtfully, my Lord. When Mars rises ascendant in either of his Houses, they that moment born are devoted to war, and, have they their bent, they shall be soldiers; nor soldiers merely, but as the conjunctions are good, conquerors, and fortunate, and Samael, his angel, becomes their angel. Has my Lord ever seen his nativity?"

"Yes."

"Then he knows whereof I speak."

Mahommed nodded affirmatively, and said, "The fame is to my taste, doubt not; but, Prince, were thy words duly weighed, then my glory is to be surpa.s.sing. Now, I am of a line of heroes. Othman, the founder; Orchan, father of the Janissaries; Solyman, who accepted the crescent moon seen in a dream by the sea at Cyzicus as Allah's bidding to pa.s.s the h.e.l.lespont to Tzympe in Europe; Amurath, conqueror of Adrianople; Bajazet, who put an end to Christian crusading in the field of Nicopolis --these filled the East with their separate renowns; and my father Amurath, did he not subdue Hunyades? Yet, Prince, you tell me my glory is to transcend theirs. Now--because I am ready to believe you--say if it is to burst upon me suddenly or to signalize a long career. The enjoyment of immortality won in youth must be a pleasant thing."

"I cannot answer, my Lord"

"Cannot?"

And Mahommed's eagerness came near getting the better of his will.