Eve's Daughters

Front matter

BY TilE SAME AUTHOK. Ill One Vol. 800. Price 10s. Gd. SORTIES FROM "GIB," IN QUEST OF SENSATION AND SENTIMENT. In One Vol. 8vo. Price 7s. 6<Z. MILITARY MEN I HAVE MET WITH TWENTY ILLUSTBATIONS BY E. LINLEY SAMBOUENE. BY E. DYNE FENTON, AUTHOR OF SORTIES FROM ' GIB,' IN QUEST OF SENSATION AND SENTIMENT " MILITARY MEN I HAVE MET," ETC. " J'ai joui plus que personne de l'eclat du soleil Tenant reveler au monde sa celeste origine; je suis reste en extase devant les montagnes couronnees de neige ; j'ai admire la tempete lan«;ant l'ecume sur les promontoires : mais la merveille de l'univers m'a paru le beau visage d'une jeune femme." — Forbin. LONDON: TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND 1873. All rights reserved. TO LILLY. Do you remember some lines of poetry that in the days of our friendship we used to be so fond of?

They are by Alfred de Musset, and begin thus : — " Le temps emporte sur son aile," Et le printemps et rhirondel'e . . . " Many a summer flight of swallows, many, many a day of bright spring sunshine have gone by since then, and only a few deserted nests, some scat tered, withered leaves remain to tell of their having passed. Amidst the ruins of tiny . bird-homes fresh broods ha\*e appeared ; from branches made bare ) by the winter, new flowers have burst, but the daj*s I speak of are gone for ever. This book is dedicated to you in the hope that it may serve to recall some of the memories which are to me so full of happiness. Yours still, with much affection, " DYNE." 3, Pall Mall Place, London. CONTENTS. PAGE I.— Emma Box 1 II. — The Story of Gulabie of the Gazelle Eyes 49 III. — Bell Brown, and how it was I didn't Propose to her 139 IV. — Azzeezie the Slave Girl ; a Tradition of the Cashmere Valley . . . 173 V. — An Episode in the Life of Anne Fludyer 257 VI. — Miss Sprauleverer Poe 415 VII. — A Substance and a Shadow .... 445 To Critic and Reader I EMMA BOX The best and most beautiful part of life, as of most other things, lies nestling amidst its first unfolding leaves.

Thus, when our children are grown up we do not love them for what they are, so much as for what we can remember them to have been. The bearded egotist, the slim, lover-haunted girl, represent in our eyes little cherub-like forms, with clinging arms, to whose happiness our love alone suf ficed. Childhood, before self-consciousness sets in, is a dew rained straight from heaven that it may refresh the drooping spirits of age, the light in a dark house ; often it is viewed as a bright dawn, the glowing sunset of a past love predicted. The dew dries up, the light may become a blinding glare, the clear sunrise merge into a day of clouds, but the pleasant memory remains of their early freshness : a vague, haunting memory like that of B EVE'S DAUGHTERS. 2 some happy dream which makes us on waking long to sleep again.

Chapter I

In the world's garden of Cashmere, where his small atom of life had germinated, a sickly old man named Womeen toiled on through an un cheered weary existence. Happily he was un conscious of the contrast his own poor lot and ragged aspect afforded to the brightness around him. Otherwise he might have thought, that where Nature clothes the most gnarled branches so bountifully with a gay covering of leaf and flower up to the moment of their decay, it was hard that humanity should go hungry and naked ; that where even the unfilled earth yields rich produce in luxuriant profusion, surely suffering and sor row are the more hard to bear ; where sunshine makes golden the landscape, that it also ren ders poverty's blot in the fair scene still more abhorrent. But, as he himself would have said, who may strive with Destiny?

And, wearily paddling his N boat — the only home he knew — over the lakes, rivers, and canals surrounding the chief city of Siranugger, the old man, happy in his ignorance, drank uncomplainingly his cup of sorrow even to the very dregs. The taste of cooked food was unknown to him. In the summer his meals were composed of fruit ; during the winter, unparched grain ; and these, to gether with any small store of nuts collected in autumn time from the water plants, sufficed to keep life in his decrepit old body. Any [small sums of money he was sometimes lucky enough to receive for rowing strangers about the lakes, from his fishing, or when he would help to collect the tangled roots of lotus and other water plants to make foundations for floating orcfiard islands, had to be hoarded up for the payment of Government taxes, and to purchase the materials ne cessary for keeping his small skiff in repair.

Such a fate was no worse than that of most men of his caste, but it left little power of enjoyment in his work-worn frame ; even the cooling breeze which tempers the sun's heat in his native valley, fell unnoticed on his withered, weather-beaten form. Beneath the^ mat awning that sheltered him from the midday heat and the night dews there was AZZEEZIE. 179 yet another inmate : Womeen's daughter, Azzeezie, shared his poverty in that floating home, helping also in the daily routine of hard work. She could take charge of the paddles when the old man, suffering in autumn from jungle fever, was unequal to the task ; and during the summer months, by collecting bright-coloured pebbles in dried-up tor rent beds, to sell to the engravers of name signets in the bazars, she managed to make a small addition to the sum needed for the payment of their yearly tribute.

The girl was as beautiful as the valley's flowers. Hands, feet, and face were tanned by exposure to the sun ; but her skin was naturally as white as the mountain snow, and blushing in her cheek there was a tint as rosy as that on the hill-tops when they reflect the last red gleams of sunset. The budding beauties of her young form were scarcely disguised by the one coarse garment of loosely hanging folds which she wore, girt in at the waist by a leathern belt. Her hair was gathered off her forehead and woven into one long plait. Her hands, in spite of constant rough work, were small and shapely, as though her fifteen years of life had been passed in seclusion behind the cm-tains of a harem. n2 No wonder her father had been offered large sums to consent that she should be taken from that poor home, and trained in the accomplishments with which the slave merchants enhanced their yearly speculations in the beauty so plentiful in that favoured valley.

But nothing would ever tempt the old man to lose sight of the one ray of hap piness in his dreary existence ; so the girl remained with him, rowing among the water lilies which strew the rippling waves, as graceful in her beauty as their delicately curved white and pink petals. It seemed as though Nature, after having lav ished all her choicest gifts on the child, had then, to guard her favourite from the curse which beauty so often entails, hidden her under the guise of poverty in that remote region. Azzeezie's chief happiness lay in swimming through the clear waters so familiar to her from earliest childhood. During the midday heat, when the world was sleeping, and silence and solitude reigned undisturbed over the waters, she would moor thenboat under the trailing branches of some willow clump on an island bank.

Then throwing off her one light garment— which after being washed in the lake was left on the mat awning to dry she would spring into the cool waves with a loud cry AZZEEZIE. 181 of delight. As lazily floating with the current, or holding with one hand by the branches of lotus plants, the eddies rippling over her, while pink and white blossoms were scattered from the island orchards over her young face as it appeared among the shining leaves of lilies and waving rushes, she enjoyed the one happiness of her fife. If by any unusual chance at that hour of the day a boat came gliding near her retreat, she would dive like a water-fowl, and be lost to sight. At times, swinging by the boughs of overhanging trees, she would with childish glee splash the water of the still pools that lay in shaded nooks.

Had there been any truth in the legends of water sprites haunting the Dal Lake, surely they would, claiming kindred with so fair a mortal, have borne her away as a fitting mate for then king. When thus engaged in her favourite sport, her beauty was such as rarely blesses the sight of poor mortals in their waking hours. Her face glowed with bright colour. Her hair, loosed from its plait, and bound round her head in thick folds, looked like a turban of rich silk tissue. As she swam through the water, her young bust just appearing above its surface, her neck and head moved as gracefully as a white swan's crest. Each of her pliant and outstretched limbs was plainly visible in all its whiteness, as with decided and fearless precision they bore her through the liquid crystal of the lake — now in tbe full glare of sunshine ; now her body mottled with patches of trembling shadows, as she floated beneath foliage that waved gently over the stream.

Was it surprising that the slave merchants should long to see their wealth increased by the sale of such peerless beauty as that of the old boatman's daughter ? When in the summer months the city and the serais were filled to overflowing with the retinues of the Delhi Emperor and his nobles, Womeen would send his daughter for safety up the mountains, to a hut where some of his family dwelt, amid the lofty heights of the Rothan Pir. He knew the luxurious Hindostanis would never be tempted to climb over the narrow tracks, impas sable to horse or mule, which alone lead to that mountain eyry. The life led by those gorgeous butterflies of the south during then* yearly summer visit to the vale was one of joyous idleness. They would sit all day idling and smoking fiookahs on bright carpets that were spread beneath the chunar trees AZZEEZIE. 183 of the many gardens, or glide in gilded barges over the waters, lazily listening to the music and songs of their attendants, while they dropped garlands of flowers on the mirror-like surface of the lakes as they were rowed slowly along.

Each moment these pleasure boats would be seen issuing from beneath the canal bridges ; and the old boatman had no fear that their careless crew of revellers, for all the treasures hidden under the Tukt-i-Sulimaun, would forsake, even for a few hours, that career of sen sual enjoyment amidst odorous flowers and the smiles of beauty, to confront the cold blasts of the mountain breeze. The armlets of the nautch girls might be heard tinkling from night till morning, from morning till night, and every variety of en ticing pleasure filled to overflowing the usually quiet streets of Siranugger. But the chief torment of the life of Womeen the boatman — one existing all the year round, and from which he was never free — was the old one eyed tailor and embroiderer, Khoda Buchs of the Sudha Bazar, who was well known to be in the pay of the slave merchants beyond the Passes.

His business it was to select for them among the valley's daughters those most likely to prove valuable in the markets of Hindostan. This man's hiding-places, it was said, were well stocked in consequence with a goodly store of gold mohurs, which enabled him, if once roused to exertion, to be as dangerous as he was deter mined. Both his ears had been cut off in early youth, in punishment for some villany, but this was before he had amassed sufficient wealth to make him independent of justice. The mutilation, be sides adding to his natural ugliness, by no means tended to produce feelings of confidence in Khoda Buchs of the one eye. Both Azzeezie and her father, though obliged to treat him so that his enmity should not be in curred, looked upon him as the embodiment of a foul corpse-eating Djinn.

Of late, since the girl's beauty had become more developed, scarcely did a week pass without the cunning tailor employing father and daughter to row him down the canals when he took his stock of embroidery to the shawl makers in the bazars. On such occasions the plausible old Hindoo would never fail to be provided with sweetmeats or a handful of parched grain, which he would offer in addition to the cowries he gave as the fare. He would endeavour also to inspire confidence by AZZEEZIE. 185 speaking of himself as a poor, harmless, and lame old man (by-the-by, this lameness was generally supposed to result from holes having been bored through his feet, as another punishment for the villanies of his youth) ; but Azzeezie could never believe in him, and never did she see him come hobbling down to the ghat without pressing her neck amulet, and wishing he might die some dreadful death.

" Rose of Roses, Pearl of Delight, and Musk of my Soul," began the tailor one day, after settling himself comfortably under the boat awning, " why does the Empress of Beauty work, her fingers un tinged with henna, at the hard paddles of slavery ? Rather should she seek the arms of awaiting Rajahs, who would hang coins of gold on her hair plaits, and place rubies in her nostrils. And the old man" (turning to fawn on Womeen), " would not his breath be perfumed, and make the ah fragrant after the savoury repasts that his daughter's good fortune might procure for him ?" " May your beard be as a talisman to your friends, oh king of all tailors," replied the humble boatman; "your words are like drops of attah. I am indeed a poor man, to whom no money-lender will advance a cowrie. I am old too, and if my child were to desert me, who would cook the repasts that your wisdom so beautifully describes, even if I had them ?

No ; all I possess is thine, oh Kalifa, but my daughter I destine as a wife for one of the young men of her own caste ; and when she leaves her father's skiff, it shall be to float for the remainder of her days in that of her husband : they will save my white beard from being scoffed at, and so shall we all know the salt of happiness." " Son of a dog-devoured water-rat ! " was the muttered reply ; but on arriving at his destination the wily Cashmerie presented a larger handful of grain than usual, saying, " Friend Maunji jee, wise boatman, be happy with thy daughter. May she and her children be to thee a dome of shelter. The poor tailor is for ever thy friend — farewell ; may you both be as happy as you are virtuous." And the cripple limped on his way, cursing his ill luck that the governor of the province for the time being was a man who punished severely any violence used in taking away slaves from the valley.

The embroiderer was, however, as cunning as the mountain ibex, and he made a vow not to be balked of his prey ; especially when the demand was so great, and prices so favourable as they were in the slave trade. AZZEEZIE. Womeen, spitting on the ground, threw his enemy's nuzzur on shore for the carrion birds. " Would not the waves of our beautiful blue lake have been defiled by it!" he exclaimed; and his daughter, shuddering, touched the soles of her feet in token of contempt. Soon after this interchange of pleasant civilities Azzeezie was in her retreat on the hills, for the Great Mogul and his people had put the barrier of the Cashmere Passes between themselves and the hot winds of Hindostan, and were filling the valley with gay revellers. Again the kiosks on the islands resounded with music and song.

Even the beau tiful moonlight was not sufficient to illumine the scenes of pleasure, and as the boatman's daughter looked down at night from her still sanctuary, she could see the glare of myriads of torches shining at the banquets and nautches of the unwelcome disturbers of the valley's peacefulness. Nothing can be thought of more beautiful than those night views of the lakes as seen from that distance. Brightly torch-decked boats moved like fireflies, bearing freights of gay nobles from one islet garden to another. Often after a day of labour among the saffron and poppy fields, the young girl would sit for hours watching the distant illumination of her water home, trying to picture to herself how emperors and emirs passed the hours, and what was "pleasure," a word un known to her caste, excepting as regards the doings of the great and wealthy.

It was while sitting alone at night on the brink of a precipice, whence she looked down over the gay scenes of the illuminated valley below, that Azzee zie found herself suddenly surrounded by a body of men, whose turbans and attire showed them to be foreigners. Her veil was bound over her mouth ; she was then placed in a carpet fitter slung upon a bamboo pole, and soon found herself being carried rapidly away into the mountains in a direction contrary to that of her home. She had however recognized one Cashmerie form and voice among her ravishers — those of her enemy, the one-eyed tailor, Khoda Buchs. AZZEEZIE.

Chapter II

When the unhappy boatman knew he was bereaved of all that made life bearable to him, and when after a vain search no news could be discovered of his daughter's fate, he abandoned himself to such hopeless grief, it was a marvel that fife, of which he so deplored the evils, still remained to him. Bareheaded did he lie all day on one of the bridges, sprinkling himself with dust, bewailing his misfortune in a loud voice and with passionate gestures. Taking no food, and refusing any little comfort that was offered him, he remained there a picture of hopeless grief. One day the Prince Governor passing with his followers, Womeen threw himself under the feet of the great man's horse. Crawling in the mud he drew all eyes on himself, and his well-known story being told, the Viceroy was pleased in his condescension to express pity and promise assistance.

Men furnished with purwannahs, or search warrants, were sent to every Thanadar of town and hamlet in the province. But all to no purpose ; the fate of Azzeezie continued a mystery, and her face was seen no more reflected on the blue waters, or smiling through the mountain mist like a benignant Peri from the world of spirits. Old Womeen continued to row his boat about the canals, but his meagre form and haggard features were as those of one whom a holy man has caused by prayer and incantation to arise from the grave. He was avoided even by those of his own caste (though of this he took but little heed), for Khoda Buchs, who was daily adding to his hoard of mohurs, spread a report about the Boat men's bazar, that the old man was possessed by a demon, and cursed with the evil glance. So people touched then talismans, or passed their prayer beads through their fingers as he floated by, spitting on the ground when he was well out of sight, as no little fear mingled with thendislike.

It was noticed how on the lakes he held his life secure amid storms and hurricanes which others dared not encounter. His was the only boat not put in to shore for shelter when the winds rushed in squaUs down the mountain gorges. In the midst of the greatest danger he would be AZZEEZIE. 191 seen through the haze of spray floating on calm and fearless, even on the storm-lashed waters of the largest lake, where danger is so rife. Only for his secret enemies he would have been held as a holy and heaven-protected man; but these ascribed the impunity with which he met the storm fiends to an unhallowed alliance formed between them (it even got whispered about that he had sold his child to the mountain Djinns), and con sequently the utterance of his name and exploits were avoided as carefully as was his presence.

But still, unruffled in the midst of all this exe cration, the boat and its spectral-looking inhabitant traversed the waters. The light of cooking fire never shone from it, nor was the glow of a hookah ever seen beneath the mat awning. So silent and death-like was the skiff's progress, that jungle animals fled not from the river bank as it passed, and no savoury odour of food, as from the barges of the wealthy, was wafted from it to the hungry jackal in the recesses of ravines, rendering it more impatient of the night forage in his half famished repose. For years it was the fate of the old man to live thus in his unsmiled-on home, as thougheither death or hope were impossible to him. Early in the second division of the year (four summers had passed since his daughter's disappearance), Womeen had moored his boat at the ghat nearest to Islamabad, and proceeded to offer his orisons at one of the many shrines of the Sacred City; when, on returning to the landing place, what was his surprise at finding that his prayers had indeed ascended.

Awaiting his return near the boat was a young man, a foreigner, who having heard in the bazar that it belonged to an inhabitant of Siranuggur, and that city being his own destination, offered him self to the astonished boatman as a fare — and this too undeterred by all the marvellous stories that had been whispered to him, to beware of the " Jungali Maunji," the Spectral Boatman. The stranger's bargain was soon made, and the boat unmoored. After a prayer and prostration Mecca-wards for a prosperous journey, they floated down with the current, little thinking how the bazars' gossips were watching and speculating on the few chances the traveller had of safely reaching the capital. " For is he not under such guidance destined as a prey for the water spirits !" the crowd exclaimed with pitying glances.

AZZEEZIE. 193 After many pleasant compliments, these were the words spoken by the stranger : — "Listen, old man and father," he began; "is not my fortune very great in meeting thee ? It is news of one of thy caste that I am about to seek in the water streets of Siranuggur, and may thy days be prosperous if thou aidest my search. The man I would see is old, like thee, my father, and he also plies a boat for his living. His daughter, may her name be blessed " " Stay, unknown" Prince of Travellers," here interrupted the boatman, forgetful of all decorum ; "it once was my own fate to have a daughter sitting in my boat, and, Wallah ! Wallah ! was she not as beautiful as the pink lotus ? Her hands were indeed skilful in rowing ! Now, alas ! I see her no more. And my eyes weary of the daylight." But the traveller knewthat theobject of his search was before him, and tidings of Azzeezie, the long mourned for, again gladdened her father's ears.

" The lady, who is great and powerful," said the traveller, " sends her servant to bear greetings and presents to the feet of her parent. Far off is her abode, but her heart is still in the valley of beauty. Rajahs seek the shade of her protection, offering nuzzurs of gold and gems ; but a flower o plucked from these waters would be more pro pitious of her favour. Oh, man ! born on a day of great luck, raise thy head as the rice stalk springs up again after days of rain. Pray, give alms, and perform pilgrimages to holy places, that thy days may be prolonged, for not only does thy daughter live, but ere many snows have melted on these mountain passes she will be at thy feet." The trusty messenger added further, that hidden round his waist and in his turban folds were jewels that, if beheld by the merchants of the city, would make the gold to flow from their coffers, if he desired to sell them, till those of the wealthiest should be exhausted.

The exiled Azzeezie sent all these to her father, praying him to conceal them in safety until the happy time when she hoped again to see the islet-dotted lakes, again to float amid the tangled water plants in the beautiful land so dear to her heart. Gold and silver pieces were also given to the old man, till he was so overwhelmed with wonder and delight that he thought his senses must be leaving him. At last, however, he quieted down, and could stroke his beard calmly and say, " Allah Hucbar ! but it is indeed wonderful ! " AZZEEZIE. 195 Instead of going down to Siranuggur, the boat was moored by the river bank, a fire lighted to scare away wild animals, and fine flower cakes with butter were produced from the stranger's wallet. The two men were of the same religion, and no idol worshippers, so together they ate and then smoked from the same hookah, until the cold dews sent them back to spread their bedding under the boat's awning, where Azzeezie herself had so often slept in her days of poverty.

The treasure sent by Azzeezie was buried near to a wide-spreading acacia at the foot of the hills ; and then, after the two new-found friends had em braced, and the boatman had agreed to be in waiting each year on the same day at the ghat of the holy city, the young stranger went on his way to return to the feet of her who had sent him, leaving Womeen to deposit the gold pieces in his under girdle of netted string, and slowly to recover as best he might from his amazement at the adven ture which had befallen him. It was soon known all through the boatmen's bazar at Siranuggur that a gold piece had been sold to the Schroff by the mysterious boatman. No doubt he would not have gained in reputa tion by this, but that he fortunately thought of o asking all the chief men of his craft to eat at his expense; and consequently the report spread of his having found some treasure that the melting snows had washed down from the Throne of Solimaun.

By degrees the once-despised and forlorn wan derer on the waters rose in the esteem of good men, till even the head moonshees of the govern ing Prince would return his salute as they were borne past his boat down the river bank in their luxurious palanquins. The old man's dress now became clean and free from patching or rags ; a warm light of fire and a pleasant odour of cooking issued every even ing from his floating home ; and when he joined any group of friends in pleasant converse, he had always a piece of tobacco folded in a comer knot of his waistband to place on the common pipe, which it now became quite the custom to offer first to him. The rickety old boat was exchanged for a newer and more comfortable one : but though its owner gave up plying for hire, he still lived on board as before, refusing all offers of help or sen-ice from a crowd of applicants there were for the honour of taking the toil of the paddles out of his now weakening hand, getting their food and AZZEEZIE. 197 the satisfaction of being useful to a rich man in exchange.

He was still denounced by his enemies in all manner of secret ways, but had been sufficiently wary to forestall evil whispers to those in autho rity by a judicious administering of presents ; and he could laugh — which he sometimes did now — in tranquillity, and get fat on the best of sweetmeats and clarified butter. He bought a house of burnt bricks, too, near the river side, and when the storms broke OA*er the valley, he no longer faced their fury on the lake in his lonely boat, but retired to await beneath the shelter of his own roof-tree till the sky was again peaceful, and the rushing clouds had hurried past to rage elsewhere. When the winter snows cut the valley off from all communication with the countries beyond its rampart of hills, anxiously did the worthy Wo meen await the thawing in the Passes, together with the arrival of the time agreed upon with that welcome traveller of good fortune.

He lived to see the messenger again ; and the store beneath the old acacia was added to in jewels that were brilliant enough to tempt even the spirits of the caverns themselves, and to make the bright eyes of their serpents to pale before them. Three times more came that mysterious agent of the distant Azzeezie, bringing tokens and words of love to her father. The third time, the faithful servant arrived at the trysting place on the river bank accompanied by a palanquin, from which a woman closely veiled descended, whom he led to the boat, and who fell sobbing at the feet of the old boatman. The old man again beheld his daughter — but, Allah ! how changed ! Fine muslins, rich silks and velvets rarely embroi dered, small shoes all covered with silk and seed pearls ; a veil so fine that it looked like a morning mist, and armlets, necklace, earrings, and head ornaments glittering like glowworms in the dim ness of the approaching night.