Lord Byron's Novel (32 page)

T
HUS THE TALE
is ended—love and daring in two souls conjoin’d, and two swift horses, and all’s told. Where they may go—how live—how love, against the world’s conspiring—how grow old, and still be as they
were
—none of that is, as a usual rule, to be recounted. Yet if this tale is to be
like life
—which, I have hoped, it may a little be—tho’ perhaps more filled with interesting Incident, and less dimmed by doubts, and rankling wants unmet, hours of Boredom, &c., &c.—then in
one
way at least it might—and that’s to come to
no
end, for that is the way of Life, to begin (or continue) one tale, even as another runs out—even as wave follows wave, and wave returns on wave.

Therefore observe now upon the heights of the bare knobs that look down upon the Sea, where a man of no ordinary shape leads a weary mount—now and again he stops, alert to sounds that are not those of the unpeopled hills—eagle’s shriek, or wind’s moan—but he hears none, and so goes on. He knows well for whom he seeks, for he has followed their progress, though unknown to them—he lately fell behind, that he might not himself be discovered, and now has lost his way—yet sure he is that somewhere nearby, in a Cave of these heights, they whom he follows have taken refuge—as would he, he thinks, were he in their case. And now as he rounds the sharp flank of a vasty yellow slab of stone he
sees
what he was sure he
heard:
a horse, as weary as his own, at a dark cave’s mouth: and there, in the hot shade of that same slab, out of view, he sits him down—as though he there kept a Guard over them—or waited to catch them as they emerged—it could not be known which—and, silent and still though he sits, he cannot
hear
them within.

What say they, then, those weary ones, who have fled so far, and still know themselves to be in danger—who lie near each other on the Cave’s cool floor, and take each other’s hands? Why does she weep, now, after riding so many miles with him, matching him hardship for hardship, without complaint?

‘I cannot tell thee why,’ she whispers to him, in answer to his plea. ‘Ask me no more.’

‘Is it the wrong we have done? I say we have done none.’

‘We have not done wrong—no, we have not.’

‘Do you wish, now, I had
not
returned—that all things might now be as they
were
—that I had not come to disturb all?’

Iman answered nothing to this, but arose from her place beside him, to sit at a distance from him—she lowered her eyes, and from the grey earth took up a handful of dust—that dust such as we all name our first Ancestor, and our own last State—and let it pass through her fingers unregarded. ‘I cannot tell,’ said she, ‘if the greatest grief to me, was that you were reft from me when we were children—or if a greater grief would have been to have you stay by me.’

‘Why say you so? Did I not do all I could that you might be
mine
when we were of age? When I was taken by the Pacha’s horseman I heard you cry out—I know my own heart cried—therefore why say you so?’

‘My Ali,’ said she, and lifted her eyes again, all pity and trepidation. ‘There is a thing you know not—one fatal thing—that I came to know as I lived on there alone—one thing you might have come to know too, by thought, if you had bent your thought that way—a thing that was long buried, but that I pluckt out, and then could not put away from me again.’

‘Tell me,’ Ali said, though her eyes warned him that it were better he did not.

‘Know you, my dearest, onliest, how we two came to these lands, and this people?’

‘For myself,’ Ali said, ‘I know
to-day
. I did not then. I know that my father was an Englishman, who ravish’d the wife of a Bey of this clan, and sired myself. My mother was slain by the Bey, and I sent away.’

‘ ’Tis just so,’ said Iman. ‘And I too along with thee, to go whither thou went, and live where thou lived’st. Ali! That poor woman, thy mother, had not one only child! I was her daughter, as you were her son!’

The dark of that cave is relieved by but a single light, Sun that through an aperture of stone in the deep backward casts a narrow Beam, which over the hours has crossed the rough walls, and now looks directly upon the two, two unmoving and apart—and it may be that what she has told him, he knew—for that aged Herdsman had long ago so said to him—and though he had refused to understand, perhaps in truth he
had
—and what he knows
now,
he had always known.

‘Tell me which is the greater sin,’ Ali said. ‘That you break your vow of Chastity, and lie with a man—or that you lie with your own brother?’

‘Both are fatal. Do the one, what matters the other?’

‘Then come to me—as you fled
with
me.’

‘We shall lie in Eblis, then, if anywhere.’

‘If it be with you, I care not.’

‘Nor I!’

Love may claim much—it may not with perfect right claim
all
—so this Tale of mine hath firmly asserted, and supplied good examples thereof—and here the last. No love such as they were ready to lose all the world for can the world allow—for that which was perforce commanded to Adam’s children was forbid ever after to
theirs
—never ask why, for it is inscribed upon the fabric of Earth and Sky and the substance of our mortality, as the Ten were upon Stone—so it is—and so it must ever be; and the Fates (in the form of men, and women too, armed with pens as with swords, and guns as with Law-books) will not rest, till any
instance
be erased, as if it had not been.
Vide:
Toward that cave, from whose precincts that odd Watcher (before noted) has slipt away, there now proceed over the hills certain other men, mounted men, well-armed, fired by Outrage and Indignation and the spirit of Vengeance, who have, unresting, pursued the fading trail of the sinners, and now make close approach. Only their firing of weapons into the air, to alert one another to their whereabouts, reveals them to the two within the cave—for the pursuers knew not how close they were—and Ali and Iman mount, two upon one horse, for the horse that Iman took for hers at the first was abandoned in the flight, unable to proceed. They had intended to make for the Coast, and thence to that port where first Ali set foot on his return—but their Pursuers are several, and the pursued are driven before them, away from their destination, though Seaward still. He urging that steed—she with arms about him, cheek upon his shoulder—a day and a night, with but little rest—and they have eluded Pursuit! The Fates are after all not
omnipotent
—or perhaps now and then they change their minds—and think to let one caught soul go—as an Angler might, who
need
not, but
may
—for it more gratifies him, and flatters his Power, to
give
life, as well as take it.

So the Sea is in sight, though no human settlement near, and wide and blue as it is, it is both escape and final obstacle. And—though I have just asserted otherwise—there is in fact
one
strong fellow of their clan who has
not
fallen behind, given up and turned back—who all unnoticed has come closer—tireless—silent as a cat—and as Ali and Iman stand there upon the shore, clinging bewildered and outwearied each to other, he creeps through the grasses toward them.

‘Ali,’—so speaks she, hanging upon his shoulder—and the word, as she would have chosen, could she chuse, was her last: for that single curséd man of infinite Righteousness has now stood up, but a few yards off, and has put the brace of his Mousquet in the sand, and taken his aim—Ali sees not, till all at once he feels his beloved give way within his arms, as though struck a fearsome blow by some invisible foe—and only
then
does he hear the shot, sound following after sight. As an arch may instantly tumble at the removal of its keystone—a watchtower at the harbour’s side slide all at once beneath the water that has undermined it—a flock of doves turn in mid-air all at the same moment, to descend—so Ali in that instant knew that every hope, a lifetime’s worth, all the store Heaven had reserved or ever would reserve for him, was
gone
—indeed, had never been but a snare! He let fall the lifeless girl—unable to support her—laid her as gently as he could upon the earth—and sees, upon the dune, her Slayer now preparing another shot, as coolly as may be—for his work’s unfinished! Ali steps toward him, arms open and empty, and awaits the shot meant for himself—impatient for it—and indeed the fellow has now readied himself,—but now instead of firing he
turns,
for he has heard a sound from behind him, below the dune’s height. What is it he sees? He lifts his gun, and turns it away from Ali, and toward that lone Spy we have before
observed
—yet did not
understand
. It is he! His horse climbing with great persistence the shifting sand, he has nearly reached the bemused Gunman, and he has a long Pistol in his hand, which without a moment’s hesitation he discharges fully in the other’s face, propelling him feet over head down the slope—dead!

All this Ali has observed unmoving—unmoving, he watches the horseman pick his way down to the beach toward him—and sees something of the
familiar
in his shape—which is not as other men’s—but is a shape that Ali knows, that has haunted his imaginings—unless this be only a further Apparition, despite the
actuality
of the dead Albanian display’d upon the sand, and the snorting of the near-spent steed. All this arising within him, as water or oil comes to seethe, Ali at last draws from his belt his sword—and, as the mounted man approaches, he rushes to him, drags him from the horse’s back, throws him with superhuman strength upon the shingle, and lays the edge of his sword upon the Stranger’s throat—no stranger to him now.

‘Why, what do you do?’ says that one calmly enough—and the voice is the voice Ali has expected. ‘Have I not slain your enemy, and am I to be repaid thus?’

‘Upon thy life, tell me now who thou art, and why thou hast pursued me over half the world!’

‘Tell me you know not,’ said the one beneath his sword. ‘Deny me if you are able.’

‘I know you not,’ said Ali, ‘but as the Shadow that I cannot avoid, who dogs my steps, who hates me, who seeks my ruin, who has now saved my life—when
that
is the greatest harm he may do me! I say
I know you not!
’

‘I am Lord Sane,’ said the other.

‘Do not dare to mock me,’ cried Ali. ‘I saw him dead. You are not he.’

‘Not he—but his heir.’

‘How! His heir! What claim have you? Prove it and you shall have all! Think you I care for the name?’

‘Put up your sword. You do not desire my death. I tell you I am Lord Sane:
For I am his son, your brother, and the elder
.’

At this, he knew not how or why, a conviction broke upon Ali’s mind, that the man told naught but the Truth—that he looked into the eyes of his brother. Still he moved not, nor relented—the edge of his blade still against the other’s throat.

‘Release me,’ said that one—his
brother
. ‘There are sad obsequies to make now. I will aid you in them, if you will have my aid. When those are done, you shall have my tale. It is one you may profit from—and if not—then kill me after—as Scheherezade was destin’d to be killed—though my tale’s no fable.’

Ali in despair arose—he threw his sword upon the sands. True, true it was—he desired not this stranger’s death. If the man was mad, or inhabited by an evil spirit, or if he spoke the truth—Ali cared not—he cared for nothing save for the figure lying upon the rocks, her heedless limbs uncradled, her face still and pale whence the light had fled. From his own limbs the strength drained, and he fell upon his knees beside her, and laid himself across her stiffening breast. The knot tied within his spirit, tied by his father in the beginning of his days of life, seemed likely now to strangle him, deprive him of breath, so that—and it was all he desired—his starved and desiccated heart should
break
at last.

‘Look,’ said his foe, or friend—‘see here, upon this Strand, the dry limbs of fallen trees, and the ribs of some stove vessel—the harsh Thorn-bush—let us pile them together, for a Pyre. Is this not the manner of your people?’

Ali spoke not in return, and yet he rose. ‘Come,’ said the other, ‘while day is still light, and word of what has passed here has not reached the places of men. Put your sharp sword to this use—bring down yon thorn-bush, throw it upon the pile!’

So he did—yet still without a word spoken. The two laboured through the day, until they had built a place for Iman to lie; Ali wrapt her in her man’s capote, and then in his own too, even her face and hands, for he would not look upon them consumed by flame. Around her bier they threw the grey and twisted Drift-wood plentiful there, and the thorns that Ali cut. Side by side they laboured, until the mass was tall, so that the fire would be high, and quick. Then the other produced from his pack a tinder-box, and in a short time produced a blaze of sea-grass and twigs, which Ali would not permit him to thrust within the pyre—that duty he did, with a loud cry, that was all the mourning that he would make for her—and indeed his heart
had
broken, and he knew it not, for he was neither slain, nor blinded, nor relieved: but thus it is with hearts, despite the Poets’ claims—they will go on beating in our breasts, and burst not with our Griefs, and yet still lie broken within us, never to be healed.

From eve to midnight they stood or knelt upon the sand. The towering blaze was seen from a village nearby, and a few brave souls came by night to see what was the matter, and why there was a fire by the sea—but having seen, and seen the two still figures there, withdrew in fear and awe, with signs against the Evil One. At need the two piled the fire high again, until the inferno at its centre had done all it must, and there was but Ash, wherein the ruddy embers shimmered in heat, trembling with what seemed
life,
and was not. When the night was at an end and all was black, all consumed, all spent, the two mourners—celebrants—attendants—howsoever they may be named who have performed such ceremonies, and done such labours—turned from the remains, and faced the Sea, over which the Sun would rise—if it would—and they shared what bread and drink they had.