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Chapter Five
Chosroës and his Queen Shireen
Though Chammy talks about having been up in those days, said Shireen, when everybody was once more comfortably settled in his place, I don’t really believe it, you know. For I think Chammy falls asleep and dreams things. Besides, Queen Shireen lived far longer ago than one thousand years. More nearly thirteen hundred years ago, my dear mistress Beebee told me. (Chosroës Parveez commenced his second reign Anno Domini 591.)
“You must know, dear Shireen,” Beebee said as she smoothed my back and brow, “that in olden times Persia was a far grander country, and far more rich and warlike than it is now, and old King Chosroës the First, the grandfather of Shireen’s husband, reigned for fifty years in Persia, his wonderful palace being at Ctesiphon.”
“Tse, tse, tse!” interrupted Dick.
Yes, Dick, said Shireen, I daresay you find that a hard word to remember. Well, the acts of Chosroës during the closing years of his long life are wonderful, for he not only expelled the Turkish hordes that had deigned to cross the Persian frontiers, but led an army against the greatest fortress that the Romans had in the south-east, and after tremendous fighting, that lasted for nearly six months, he captured it, and compelled the enemy to pay an indemnity of forty thousand pieces of gold.
I relate this story with conscious pride, my children, because, remember, I am a soldier’s cat.
Well, Warlock, I daresay there were no Scotch terriers in those days, for while Persia was in the height of its glory, Britain was inhabited by a race, or rather many races, who knew very little indeed of civilisation. Don’t be angry, Warlock. Well, children, the old king was succeeded by his son, Hormazd, who celebrated his coronation by putting all his brothers to death. This was certainly not very humane, but it was the common practice in those days, and it probably saved the reigning king’s life, for poisoned cups and daggers were much used in olden times as an easy way of securing accession to estates and thrones.
(The author begs to say that he believes Shireen may be wrong about the Scotch terriers, for in a hotel in Surrey there is a beautiful engraving of a picture by one of the old masters – he can’t say which old master – called “Noah alighting from the Ark.” Well, Noah is surrounded by his family, and accompanied by two Scotch collie dogs, good enough to win a prize anywhere. Question: If there were Scotch collies, why not Scotch terriers?)
Nevertheless this new king was tolerant of Christianity, and this itself speaks in his favour. However, he committed one mistake, and this cost him his throne; for one of his greatest generals happening to lose a battle, as any general might once in a way, he degraded him by sending him the dress and the distaff of an old woman. “Wear these, general,” was the message that accompanied the gift. “Give up war now and take to spinning.”
Now this general was the hero of a hundred fights, so he now swore revenge, and marched with an army against the king’s capital. This was the beginning of the end of Hormazd’s reign. The end itself soon came, and a terrible one it was. The army that Hormazd sent against the general mutinied. Then the maternal uncle of Chosroës, the son of the king, arose and threw Hormazd into prison. A prison in those days was a vile and slimy dark dungeon, alive with vermin of every description. It was soon darker still for poor Hormazd, because men came at night and blinded him with red-hot wires. Death was surely a relief to him after this. And it soon came. He was murdered, and his son reigned in his stead.
It has been said that Chosroës the Second had had some hand in his father’s death, but Beebee, my mistress, did not believe this, neither must we. We should be charitable. Besides, I don’t think that if Chosroës had given orders for his father’s execution, that he would have condemned his uncle to death as soon as he mounted the throne.
But Chosroës the Second became a very great king, or shah, though in the end, very unfortunate.
For my own part, continued Shireen after a little pause, I would rather have been a cat than a king in those days. It does seem very sad that although Chosroës the Second was a great conqueror, and expelled the fighting power of Rome from both Asia and Africa, that although he elevated his own country to perhaps the highest rank it had ever held, he should have lived to see Persia ruined. He himself was thrown into prison. Oh! the pity of it, children; and his favourite sons and daughters brought in and murdered before his face.
Shireen, his queen, was the one only wife he had ever loved.
And what a fearful fall was his! Remember that he was a very great king, a very mighty conqueror, and his whole story reads like one of the grandest of old romances. It is too long for a poor pussy cat like me to tell, but I heard my master only yesterday say to Lizzie and Tom, that they must read histories like that of Persia in the days of its glory, if they would really enjoy chivalry and romance combined, and Lizzie says she is sure she will, and Tom too, when they get a little older.
But Chosroës was at the height of his glory after he had cowed and conquered the proud Romans, depriving them of every foot of territory won by their legions under Caesar and Pompey and many others.
And nothing could exceed the splendour of his court and palace at Ctesiphon, nor the extent of his wealth and riches.
The Persians do not turn night into day. They live naturally, go to bed early and get up while the morning is still in its pristine beauty; and this healthful practice was in fashion even in the days of Chosroës the Second. And it was at sunrise, in his splendid pavilion, that this king and conqueror gave audience. From Arabia, from Egypt, from Mesopotamia, from Armenia, yea, from east and west, and north and south, flocked couriers to these audiences. And there the king would be to receive them, and at his side the beautiful and virtuous Shireen; while around him were gathered in robes of state his generals, his wise men, and his nobles of every rank, all proud of their great lord and master, yet trembling at every word he uttered; while each minute there sped from the gates of the magnificent palace swift horsemen, bearing to every nook of his vast dominions the commands of this mighty king.
But the luxury of this palace, the art displayed, the carvings, mosaics, the draperies, the ornamentation of every summer or winter room or saloon, and the voluptuous splendour and comfort, what tongue could describe?
Some notion of the extent of the palace and its magical surroundings may be gathered from the fact that three thousand ladies-in-waiting lived in or around the vast and luxurious fort, and that these had twelve thousand hand-maidens to wait upon them. But the stables must have been a marvellous show. Fancy, Warlock, twelve thousand white camels, a thousand lordly elephants, and fifty thousand horses, asses, and mules.
“Tse, tse, tse!” from Dick once more.
“You well may marvel, Dick darling.”
But alas! and alas! the tide took a turn, and all the glory of Chosroës ended in gloomy tragedy.
The fortunes of Rome were at the lowest ebb in 617 A.D. The warriors of Persia were actually within a mile – of water – of the capital, and Herodius, the emperor, had already sent away his family and his treasures, and was himself preparing to fly, when, instigated by his people and their patriarch, he took a solemn oath to do or die for Rome.
“And when can men die better,
Than in facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of their fathers,
And the country of their Gods?”
The Persians were getting ready their fleet to cross that silvery streak. The Romans, had a fleet. That fleet was the beginning of the salvation of Rome and the overthrow of mighty Chosroës. Herodius sailed on Easter Monday 622 A.D. for the Gulf of Issus, with the remains of his shattered army, and the great general and hero, Shahr Barz, made haste to annihilate the Romans and their emperor. But these fought with all the energy and fury of despair, and the Persians were beaten.
Down, down, down went Chosroës now. His own people at last revolted against him, and he was thrown into a vile dungeon called the Dungeon of Darkness. Bread and water was his only fare, and even the officers of his guard spat upon and reviled him. He was led forth at last, suffered every indignity, and was tortured to death.
His only consolation in his terrible imprisonment in that dark and loathsome dungeon, was the thought that his beautiful Queen Shireen was dead.
Nay, she was not dead, she had gone before. For Shireen was not only a beautiful and good woman, but a Christian in every sense of the word.
But although so many hundreds of years have fled since then, far away in the palatial homes of Persia, and in the humbler houses of her sons and daughters, bards and minstrels sing to this day of the deeds of the hero-king, bold Chosroës, and of the love he bore for sweet Shireen.
Chapter Six
“Na, Lass,” said Cracker, “I’ll No Drink the Little ’un’s Milk.”
But it is time, said Shireen, that I should return in the home of my dear mistress, the beautiful young Beebee, and the events of my own early days. It may be thought a descent from the heroic, and yet I don’t know, Warlock; for you know a cat, or even a Scotch terrier, may show real heroism at times.
I do not want to boast, but I must tell you, children, that I once had a terrible encounter with a wild lion in the forest, and that I came off victorious. Oh, dear me, I should not have nerve enough for so awful an adventure now, but then I knew not what fear was.
My lovely mistress then used to take me out into the woods with her. She rode upon a charming milk-white steed, with tail and mane dyed crimson, and was attended by many armed horsemen. I used to sit in front of her on the saddle.
But one day a bird on a bough that bent very low over us attracted my attention, while Shireen stopped her horse, and was talking to one of her armed attendants.
I sprang at once into the tree to seize the bird, that I might take it home in triumph to my mother. Alas! I not only missed my bird, but I lost my mistress.
For when I descended the bough again no one was there. The whole cavalcade had ridden on. What should I do? I ran hither and thither, mewing and crying in terror and anguish, but no one came near me. Had I been an older cat I might easily have found my way back. But I was then only four months old, and knew not what to do, or which way to turn.
I descended to the ground, however, and did the best thing perhaps that I could have done. I sat down on the greensward and determined to wait. My mistress, I felt sure, would send back for me as soon as she missed me.
But, as ill-luck would have it, a small nut fell from a tree close to my nose. I jumped to my feet in a moment. What a game I did have to be sure with that nut! My mistress, my mother, every creature in the world was forgotten in the mad excitement of that merry game. I played and played till the shades of evening fell around me, then tired, exhausted, and hungry, yet not knowing where to look for food, I threw myself down under a bush and went fast asleep.
I awoke at last, though how long I had slept I could not tell, nor could I tell my whereabouts, for in my mad merry game I must have gone miles away from the spot where I had been lost. I was lost now, indeed! And I was also dreadfully frightened, for the forest all around me resounded with the cries and the roaring of wild beasts. I had heard my mother speak of these, and how terrible they all were, and how quickly they could cranch the life out of the biggest cat that ever lived. But, strange to say, I was not a bit afraid.
The moon was shining as bright as day, so I got up and determined I would try to find my way out of the awful forest. Luck favoured me for once. Not that my situation was changed much for the better, for I now found myself in a broad or treeless waste; but the awful noise of the wild beasts no longer confused me, and I thought I would soon be home.
That plain was wider far than I had any idea of, and when the moon went down at last, after walking some distance further, I once more lay down to sleep. It was grey dawn when I awoke, and found I was not far from another forest. This I entered. But I had not gone far when a loud peal of thunder seemed to shake the earth to its very foundation, and I thought for a moment that the trees were going to fall upon me and crush my life out. I looked up, and lo! instead of thunder I found that the awful sound proceeded from a monster cat with eyes like yellow fire, and great teeth as thick as my tail.
I knew it was a lion, so I determined to slay him where he stood, and advanced towards him with this bold intent.
I arched my back to make myself look as terrible as possible, and my hair standing all on end made me look double the size. Then I growled, but not quite so loud as the lion. The lion had lain down for a spring, but I am sure he had never seen the like of me before.
On I marched, half sideways.
The lion looked droll and puzzled.
I was within a yard of him now, still walking half sideways, with arched back and one foot in the air. I did this for effect.
“Fuss-ss! Fut! Sphut!”
I jumped directly at his face. But I never got near him. With a yell of terror he sprang high in the air, then made off into the dark depths of the forest as fast as his four legs could carry him.
My adventure was over, for I saw him no more; but oh, joy! half-an-hour after this, just as the beautiful sun was rising, red and rosy, over the wooded hills, something as white as snow came feathering along towards me. It was my own dear blue-eyed mother, and in two hours’ time I was safely home again and on my little mistress’s lap.
The days and weeks flew by, oh, so quickly at my Persian home, and when I look back to them now it is with some degree of regret that I did not then realise my happiness. It is ever thus, and even mankind himself laments the loss of his youth. The days of the young are golden, their pathway leads over the soft sward; there are flowers at every side and trees nod green above; beyond is the azure sky, and the young think that storms will never arise, that their path will ay be smooth, that the trees will never be stripped of their foliage, nor the bright flowers cease to blow. Alas! and alas! for the dreams of youth.
Well, my youth or my kittenhood came to an end. And I think it came all at once. I was in the garden one day all by myself, when suddenly I was confronted with a monster brown rat of a breed that grows larger in Persia, they tell me, than anywhere else in the world.
Will you believe me, children, when I tell you that I felt more afraid of that rat than I had been of the lion? The awful beast did not even run away, and I knew it would be a battle to the bitter end.
“Only you, is it?” he said. “Fiss! I’m not afraid of a kitten. Your father killed my brother, and I mean to be revenged on you. Fiss!”
Then the fight began. How long it lasted I do not know. But in the end I was conqueror. What mattered it that I was bitten all about the face and feet, or my beautiful white coat bedabbled with blood!
Oh, that was a proud moment when I rushed in to my mother’s presence dragging my dead enemy across the mosaic floor. He was far too big to lift and carry.
I came in growling, feeling every inch a heroine. Nor would I permit my brother to touch my rat. My mother seemed very proud of me now, and as soon as the slave came and carried away the trophy of my triumph, mother commenced to clean my coat and bathe my wounds with her soft warm tongue. I was soon well, but felt another being now, and would have been quite ashamed to play any longer with my mother. I even deserted the cushion on which I had slept so long, and slept higher up on an ottoman.
I now attached myself more and more to my young mistress Beebee, and I became her favourite and her pet. I was almost constantly by her side during the day, except when on the warpath slaying huge rats, and I always occupied her lovely sleeping apartment at night.
But young though she was, Beebee was never idle. And her story which she told me one day, weeping bitterly, was, I thought, a very sad one.
“My own Shireen,” she said, “you see how hard at work they keep me. For to me, Shireen, study is indeed the hardest of work. But my teachers seldom leave me. I have a European lady to teach me English. This is the best of it, and oh, how I wish I were English, and free; as it is, I am but a slave. But this dear lady is good to me, and gives me lovely fairy-tale books to read in her own language; but yet these I must hide from the fierce-eyed eunuchs who guard me night and day. I am also taught music, the piano, and the zither, and I am taught to sing. Then a scion of the prophet – that old, old man with the long dyed beard, and the cloak of camel’s hair – teaches me Sanscrit and the higher branches of the Persian, so that my poor little head is turned, and my night is often passed in weeping and dreaming.
“I have no mother, my sweet Shireen. Look at these pearls and rubies and amethysts; I would give them all, all to have a mother, if only for a month.”
I purred and sung to Beebee, but she would not be comforted.
“I tell my story to you, Shireen, though you are only a cat. But I must speak to some one who loves me, else I soon would die.”
Here her tears fell faster and faster.
“And oh, Shireen, I have not told you the worst.
“It is this, Shireen. Those beautiful English books tell me that in England a man has someone to love and care for him, someone whose lot in life is the same as his; that someone is his life. But here in Persia – oh! Shireen, Shireen – if one is as I am, the daughter of a noble, and if she is beautiful and clever, her lot is indeed a hard one. She is sold – yes, sold is the right name, to the Shah.
“My father is cold-hearted and cruel. I seldom see him. He is ever, ever at Court, and when in the hunting season he brings a party to this lovely castle I am hidden away. And why, think you, Shireen? It is because when I grow older and cleverer in a few years’ time I shall go in state to the Shah. My prince will never come, as he always does, in beautiful English books; he will never come to bear me away. I shall be but one of a thousand, and spend a life like a bulbul in a golden cage.
“I have no one that loves me but you, Shireen. And now, lest they take you from me, I am going to mark you. Oh, my beautiful cat, it will not hurt. The magician himself will insert a tiny ruby in one of your teeth, Shireen; then if they take you away because I love you so, and bring me another cat like you, I can say, ‘No, no, this is not Shireen; give me back Shireen.’ And no peace will they have until you are restored.”
Well, children, the magician took me from Beebee, and he put me into a deep trance, and in one of my teeth he drilled a hole and inserted a tiny ruby.
That ruby is there now, and ever will remain.
“Just look at that happy group, Mrs Clarkson,” said Uncle Ben, “and that wonderful cat in the midst of them. Wouldn’t you think she had been, or is talking to them?”
“Well,” said Mrs Clarkson, “I shouldn’t really wonder if animals that are so much together day after day as these are, have a sort of language of their own.”
“A kind of animal Volapuk,” said the Colonel laughing. “Well, it may be, you know, but I am of opinion, and have long been so, that animals have souls. Oh, surely God never meant affection and love such as theirs, and truth and faithfulness to rot in the ground.”
“Well, I can’t say, you know,” said Uncle Ben.
“There is my cockatoo here.”
“Oh, pardon me for interrupting you, my sailor friend, but a cockatoo hasn’t half the sense and sagacity a cat has.”
“Poor Cockie wants to go to bed!” – This from the bird on Ben’s shoulder.
“Hear that?” cried Ben laughing.
“When you can make your cat give utterances to such a sensible remark as that, I’ll – but, my dear soldier, it is eleven o’clock, and Tom and Lizzie, poor little dears, have both dropped off to sleep. Good night!”
“Good-night! Good-night!” shrieked the cockatoo in a voice that waked the children at once. “Good-night. Cockie’s off. Cockie’s off.”
And away went the sailor.
But next morning Shireen had an adventure that very nearly put a stop to her story-telling for ever.
She had gone off after breakfast for a ramble in the green fields and through the village. It happened to be Saturday, so there was no school to-day, and just as she was coming out of the cottage where the sick child was, and promising herself a nap in Uncle Ben’s hammock, who should she see coming up the street with her little brother in a tall perambulator, but her favourite schoolgirl, Emily Stoddart.
Up marched Shireen with her tail in the air.
“Oh, you dear lovely pussy!” cried Emily, lifting her up and placing her in the perambulator, when she at once commenced to sing, greatly to the delight of the child.
And away went Emily wheeling them both.
“Oh, dear, what shall we do, Shireen?” cried Emily next moment, trying to hide pussy with a shawl. “Here comes the butcher’s awful dog.”
The bull-terrier made straight for the perambulator.
“Come down out o’ there at once,” he seemed to cry. “I’ve got you now. You’ll be a dead ’un in half-a-minute more.”
“You won’t? Then here goes.”
The bull-terrier – and he was no small weight either – made a spring for the perambulator. Emily made a spring to save the child. Danger had no intention, however, of harming a hair in that child’s head. It was the cat Shireen he was after; the cat, the cat, and no one else.
The child swayed to one side to save himself, and next moment down went his carriage. Down went cat and carriage, the child and Emily, and the bull-terrier, all mixed up in one confused heap.
Shireen was the first to extricate herself and to bolt for her life, but Danger was the next, and it did not seem that poor pussy’s span of existence was at that moment worth an hour’s purchase.
For a cat to permit herself to be caught by a dog while running away is the worst possible policy for the cat, because the pursuer gets her by the brick and the spine is broken. Shireen knew this, and she also knew there was no way of escape handy, no railing to run through, no doorway to enter, no tree to climb, so she determined to sell her life dearly.
Round she turned, and the blow she caught that dog staggered him for a little, and the blood ran over his face.
All in vain though. He came on now with redoubled ferocity, and down went poor Shireen.
Emily screamed and flew to her assistance.
But in two seconds more a true hero came to the rescue. This was none other save Cracker himself, the large Airedale terrier.
“Here, lad!” cried Cracker, or seemed to cry in good broad honest Yorkshire English. “What’s tha’ doin’ wi’ t’ould cat?”
He did not give the butcher’s dog time to reply, but, seizing him by the back of the neck, shook him as if he had been a rat.
Never in his life before had Danger received so severe a chastisement. In three minutes’ time he was running down the street on three legs, and all covered with blood and dust.
Shireen quietly reseated herself in the baby’s carriage, and Emily didn’t know what to do with perfect joy. She got Cracker round the neck and positively hugged him.
“Oh, you dear good noble dog,” she cried. “Here, you must have a drop of milk.”
She took the child’s bottle, poured a little into her hand, and held it out to Cracker.
But Cracker only shook his head.
“Na, lass, na,” he said. “I’ll come and see thee now and then, but – I’ll no drink the little ’un’s milk.”
A rougher-looking and more unkempt tyke than Cracker you might have wandered a long way without meeting. Yet he hid under that towsy exterior of his a kind and generous heart. And from that day Emily, he, and Shireen were the best of friends.
Cracker would meet the girl in the street and walk up, laughing all over apparently, and shaking his thick stub of a docked tail till it seemed to retaliate and shake the dog.
“How’s things this mornin’, Emily?” he seemed to say. “And how’s the little ’un? You haven’t got t’ould cat to-day then. Well, good-bye. I’m just off.”
And away he would trot.
