Shireen and her Friends Part 9

"Silence, child! Silence! You are intended for the court of the Shah.

The touch of unbelieving fingers, nay, even the glance of a foreigner's eye would defile my daughter's caste. No longer then would she be fit to stand before the king of kings, our great lord and master, the Shah."

"Father, father, I will not be bride to the Shah!"

"What! This to me?"

He sprang up as he spoke, and I trembled lest he should strike my little mistress to the earth. He towered above her, as the poplar tree towers above the linden.

But he only strode to the arched and curtained doorway. He turned round as he went out, holding the drapery in his left hand.

"Adieu!" he said. "Adieu! My daughter must obey me, or--"

"Or what, father?"

Once more her hands were extended pleadingly, prayerfully towards him.

"She _dies_!"

The drapery fell. Beebee's father had gone, and she had thrown herself on the ottoman cus.h.i.+ons to weep.

I walked softly towards her, I sung to her; I licked her little white fingers. Then she ceased to weep.

"Oh, s.h.i.+reen! s.h.i.+reen!" she cried, "this is a bitter, bitter day to me.

And I wanted to love father so. I could love him so. I have no mother. I--"

She threw herself down once more, and sobbed aloud.

I felt that I could have suffered anything to comfort and solace my beautiful mistress.

But what could I do?

I was only a cat.

Poor Beebee, she fell asleep there at last, and the red sunset clouds were in the sky before she awoke once more.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

LIFE IN A TURRET HIGH.--STRANGE ADVENTURE IN THE FOREST.

Beebee's father was gone, and peace and quiet reigned once more in the palace. But the poor child fell ill. Now the house or palace where Beebee lived was a somewhat lonesome one, and many, many miles from the town, though not a great way from the village. It stood on elevated ground, surrounded by splendid gardens, in which grew the rarest of tropical fruits and flowers. Away behind it was the everlasting forest, and behind that the snow-capped mountains, raising their jagged summits into the blue ethereal sky.

But from the turrets high, away to the west, glimpses of the sea could be had, and almost every evening Beebee and I went up to see the sunset.

It was glorious, Beebee said, to look upon the ocean at any time, but to behold it lit up with the reflections of the gold and the crimson clouds, was like having a glimpse of Paradise.

A physician was now sent for from the distant town, and his words to Beebee were words of wisdom.

"It is not medicine I will give my fair young patient," he said. "It is not medicine that she needs. It is the soul that is sick, not the body.

But if the body is strengthened the soul will become calm. My patient grieves for an absent father, perhaps."

Beebee sighed, and the tears stole into her eyes.

"She must seek for surcease of sorrow every day in the forest,"

continued the physician. "Let her go with armed attendants, for wild beasts are many, deep in the dark woodland recesses."

Then Beebee smiled through her tears.

"In the turret high," she said, "one can catch glimpses of the ever-changing sea."

"Yes, yes, my patient may go there often."

"I would sleep there."

"Good. My patient shall. So now adieu! I will come again."

"You are wise and good," said Beebee innocently. "I shall pray for you."

"Ah! then," he replied, "all good fortune will attend me. If one so young and guileless prays for poor me, the G.o.ds will not forget me.

Adieu!"

"Adieu!"

Miss Morgan entered softly when the physician went away. She was Beebee's English teacher. Beebee flew to meet her, and told her all the doctor had said.

"It is what he likewise told me," said Miss Morgan, "and your studies are to be interrupted for a time. Your teacher of Sanscrit shall come no more for months. You will have a long holiday, and I am to read you books that will amuse instead of instructing you."

"And I am to have a chamber in the turret?"

"Yes, dear, it is already being draped."

"Oh! now indeed I begin to feel well and happy."

And in the exuberance of her joy Beebee hung around Miss Morgan's neck and danced up and down like a little child.

It was very pleasant up there in that turret, high above the swaying trees.

Although so high above everything the room was by no means a small one.

Like those below, too, it was beautifully draped and tapestried, and the floor was of mosaics, crimson and blue and yellow, while the cus.h.i.+ons that surrounded the walls were soft and delightful.

And all around the broad balcony the autumn roses cl.u.s.tered and clung, while the sweet odour of orange blossoms was wafted up from the gardens below. It was like new life to Beebee to dwell up in this turret high.

There was so much to be seen that would never have been visible in the lower rooms.

The trees in themselves were a study, and that too, a very beautiful one. Probably no country in the world has more lovely woods than those of Persia. Here they were in all shapes; some on cliff tops, looking like n.o.ble pillared temples encanopied with dark ma.s.ses of foliage; some like waves of the great rolling ocean itself; some like clouds of living green; while trees near at hand were seen to be hung and festooned with wild flowers, rich and rare, with which the sward itself was patched, and painted, and parterred. And every flower seemed to have a specially coloured moth or b.u.t.terfly, or swift-winged dragon fly, that flew or floated or darted in the suns.h.i.+ne above it. And every bush seemed to contain a bird, the music of their voices as they answered each other in love songs, being, Beebee told me, ravis.h.i.+ng to the ear, though I fear that I, being but a cat, and a young one, did not sufficiently appreciate the melody, and viewed the songsters themselves more from an epicurean and edible point of view than any other. Some of the birds were most lovely, and brighter in wing than the rainbow, that in more gloomy weather hung over the distant woodlands.

Strange as it may seem to you, Tabby, and to you, Mr Warlock, the birds around my Persian home were very tame indeed. The reason for this is not far to seek. They were neither hunted nor worried, and even the peasantry, in the mud villages, looked upon them as sacred, and their songs as G.o.d-gifts.

"G.o.d's poets, hid in foliage green, Singing endless songs, themselves unseen; May we not dream G.o.d sends them there, Mellow angels of the air?"

No, they were not hunted and killed, nor were their nests robbed and rent in pieces by village rustics, and so they were tame, and seemed to love the people among whom they dwelt.