The Thief of Bagdad/Chapter 6

the adventures of the Prince of India during his search for the greatest rarity on earth, we are confronted not by a lack but by a superabundance, a prolixity, an extraordinary embarrassment of too much material in which we have to separate the chaff from the wheat, and vice versa. For the contemporary accounts by Hindu poets, theologians, and historians, written in the most classic and most elegant Sanskrit, fill over seven thou sand enormous tomes, twisted and baroque with Oriental parlance and imagery and illustrated with countless charming miniatures. Therefore, having read and digested every last one of them, we have decided to give here only the gist of the shortest of these accounts, which begins, piously and properly:

“Rung ho! Hail to the gods! Greetings, salutations, and genuflections to Surya, the Sun; Vayu, the Wind; Yama, the Judge of Souls; Varuna, the Regent of Water; Prithwi, the Earth; Lakshmi, the Dispenser of Wealth!

“Greetings to all the household gods!

“Greetings, also, to Vishnua, Shiva, and Doorga!

“Greetings, finally, to Brahm, greatest of gods! May His might be glorified and His word be exalted! For it was He who distinguished man by the garment of intellect, who adorned his exterior with splendid form and perfect figure, and who illuminated his interior with the light of knowledge. Man hath thus received the happy gift of being enabled, with clear view and penetrating reflection, to contemplate the Wonders of Omnipotence and the mysteries of creation, and to know that the brocaded surface of Day, colored with brilliant and motley groupings, and the glorious curtain of Night, decorated with the light of the many stars, received not visible form without a wise Ordainer and a preventing Framer. …

So the original Sanskrit text rambles on for about three hundred pages to come back to earth by describing the meeting at Puri, the ancient capital of Hindustan, between the Prince of India and the learned Brahmin priest, the Sami Haridat Rashiq Lall.

The latter, having listened to his sovereign lord’s request, immediately rolled up his tongue, separated his soul from his body, and went into a trance which lasted for seven days and seven nights. Then, returning to consciousness, he declared that he had considered the matter of the Prince’s marriage, and quoted the Shastras, the Hindu Scripture, at length:

“‘She who is not descended from his paternal or maternal ancestors within the sixth degree is eligible by a man of high caste for nuptials. In taking a wife let him studiously avoid the following families, be they ever so high in caste, or ever so rich in grain and cattle and gold: the family which has neglected prescribed religious duties; that which has produced no male children; that which has thick hair on its body; that whose sons have blue eyes; and that which is given to vile language.’”

The Swami slurred; stopped; then, smiling a little, went on:

“Rajah! I have the very wife for you. She is very learned and of good family. She is of golden color, with a dear little nose like the flower of the sesamum. Her eyes are large, like the principal leaf of the lotus. Her lips are red, like the young leaves of the mango-tree; her teeth are like pomegranate seeds; and her swaying walk is that of a drunken elephant. She is most fair amongst the fair. I repeat that she is of excellent family. She is, in fact, my daughter. Marry her, my lord, and be happy ever afterwards!”

“A curse on your daughter and her father!” exclaimed the Prince impatiently. “I told you—did I not?—that I wish to marry Princess Zobeid!”

“She is an Arab—a Moslem—a foreigner—a heathen—a cannibal of the holy cow!”

“A cannibal, too, of my heart! She has devoured it—by Shiva! I love her!”

“The gods have ordered that …”

“The gods may order you, but not me to do or let undone certain things,” haughtily interrupted the Prince. “I am their descendant. I am their equal.” And when the other continued to argue and plead, he exclaimed: “Shut your lips lest your teeth catch cold! And now—tell me what I came here to consult you about. The greatest treasure on earth—where shall I find it?”

Then, as Haridat Rashiq Lall still went on voicing his objections and quoting lengthy passages from Hindu Scripture in support of his arguments, at last the Prince lost his patience and commanded his Rajput slaves to give the Holy Man a sound bastinado upon the soles of his saintly feet. They did so, trussing him up like a pig with his feet in the air, plying their bamboo staves with ardor and enthusiasm, having never liked the priest who was given to nagging and preaching and sermonizing and pointing out other people’s sins and errors. After which, the soles of his feet cut to ribbons and hurting painfully, the latter was convinced that his imperial master meant what he said. So he rubbed ointment on his wounds; went into another trance which lasted for seventeen days and seventeen nights; awakened; painted a brand-new, crimson caste mark on his forehead; and announced that, though he still disapproved of the Rajah’s decision, he had succeeded in discovering what was wanted of him:

“The rarest and most wondrous thing on earth! The goddess Doorga’s left eye wherein one can see, as if graved there by a steel chisel, whatever is happening anywhere in the world!”

“For instance,” asked the Prince, “could I read therein what Zobeid is doing at this very moment?”

“Indeed, O Rajah!”

“Very well. Where is this statue of Doorga?”

“Far, far in the north! A thousand miles from here. Beyond the Suleymani Range! In the land of the heathen Afghans! In a jungle a little to the west of the city of Kandahar!”

Early the next morning the Prince of India went into the North, accompanied by a large retinue of soldiers and slaves and porters, not forgetting to take along seven Tamil sorcerers. For the Swami had warned him that he would have to cross a swamp inhabited by ghastly and repulsive supernatural beings.

They climbed the Suleymani Range and, at the end of the second moon, came to the jungly swamp. It was guarded by a Yogi, the guardian of the swamp who, dressed in nothing but age-old dirt, squatted on a mound of earth, drumming upon a skull, and incessantly exclaiming:

“''Ho, HaliKali [sic]! Ho, Devi! Ho, Doorga!''” as he prayed to the three dread incarnations of the goddess of destruction.

But the Prince of India did not stop to argue with him. A word to his scarlet-robed executioner—the swish of a two-handed sword—and the Yogi’s head rolled on the ground like an over-ripe pumpkin, while the Prince and his followers entered the dismal swamp.

The Swami’s warning had been right. For it was inhabited by all the terrible creatures of the Hindu hell. There were here enormous goats with tiger claws and flat, opaque snake eyes, possessed by the souls of those who had slain Brahmins; things with the bodies of men and the faces of camels and monkeys and warthogs, inhabited by the souls of deniers of the deities; huge, hideous, crawling green worms, containing the souls of priests who had eaten meat or drunk fermented liquor; blood-sucking bats who in life had stolen the property of temples; restless ghosts of those who had married low-caste women; shades for whom the funeral rites had not been correctly performed; sobbing, wailing, moaning souls fresh from the tortures of Tamisra, the Hell of Outer Darkness, and the Usipatra Vana, or Sword-Leaved Forest. There were here corpses and skeletons animated by female fiends, Daginis and Yoginis and Shankinis, dancing about in frightful revelry, and a thousand other terrible sights.

So the seven Tamil sorcerers had their work cut out for them. But, what with prayers and exorcisms and incantations, with the burning of secret incense and the mumbling of ancient spells and the beating of devil drums, they succeeded at last. The supernatural beings disappeared in a great, roaring, yellow wind; and the Prince and his retinue continued their journey until, finally, they reached the statue of Doorga, the goddess of destruction.

Standing alone, majestic and grim, in the heart of the festering, jungle, it was raised on a tall, square pedestal on which was painted a panorama of all Hindustan’s many motley myths and legends and faiths and superstitions : from the Chhadanta Jataka, the birth story of the Six-Tusked Elephant, most beautiful of all Indian legends, to the ancient tale of Kaliya Damana, which tells how Krishna overcame the hydra Kaliya; from color-blazing designs picturing Rama, Shiva, and Lakshmi meditating in their forest cells, to a representation of Bhagiratha imploring Shiva to permit the river Ganges to fall to the thirsty earth from his matted locks.

The statue itself was immense, towering over two hundred feet into the air, and carved from a single block of shiny, black basalt: with thick, blood-red, sensuous lips that were curled in a cruel smile; around its neck a double girdle of human skulls, and skulls, too, hanging from its ears; in its whirling hair a cobra, a mermaid figure of the river Ganges, a human skeleton, and the crescent moon. It had six arms. One of them held a sword, the second the blood-dripping head of a bearded man, the third a drum, the fourth fire, while its other two hands were empty and raised to bless the worshipers. Before the statue’s feet lay the utensils of sacrifice—dishes for the burnt offerings, lamps, jugs, incense, copper cups, gongs and conches.

Thus, in its solitary jungle home, as all over India, in a hundred temples from the snows of the Himalayas to the moist reek of Cape Comorin, towered Doorga, the Great Mother, the Emblem of Lust and Destruction—that unspeakable Representation of the Mysteries and Cruelties of Life!

The Prince looked at the idol. He murmured a prayer:

“O Six-Armed Reverence! O Mother of all the spirits—of Alays and Gumas, Baitals and Yakshas of dreadful forms! Bless me, O Doorga! O Smashana Kali!”

Again he looked at the statue. Its right eye, carved from the basalt, was painted a bright yellow. But the left, distinct even from this distance, was an immense crystal which mirrored the dance of the clouds.

The magic crystal! The magic globe! The greatest rarity in the world! The treasure with which to buy the Princess Zobeid and Bagdad!

For a moment he was conscious of certain misgivings. Should he risk it? Should he mutilate Doorga, the Great Mother, the dread goddess of Destruction? Should he pluck out this wondrous eye of hers?

Quickly he overcame this feeling of misgiving. By cutting out her eye he would bring Bagdad and all Arabistan under his sway—under the sway, thus, of India’s gods—of Doorga herself. Yes. Doorga would understand.

Only, before sending up a man to cut out the eye, he decided to propitiate the goddess with proper worship. He spoke to his priests and sorcerers; and, shortly afterwards, the worship commenced according to the ancient rites, with a procession of Hindus advancing through the forest and jungle toward the idol, singing, playing on instruments, on esraj and sitar and tabla carrying swinging lamps that stabbed points of yellow and gold through the greenish gloom of the jungle, others carrying wreaths of orchids and bowls filled with milk and fruit and sweetmeats.

At the end of the procession came the Prince himself. He was flanked at the left by a tall, mitred high-priest in white robes, and at the right by another ministrant, swinging a flat incense burner on silver chains.

Around and around he swung it, and there rose long, slow streamers of perfumed, many-colored smoke—wavering and glimmering like molten gold, blazing with all the deep, translucent yellows of amber and topaz, flaming through a stark, crimson incandescence into a great, metallic blue, then trembling into jasper and opal flames, like a gigantic rainbow forged in the heat of a wondrous furnace. Up swirled the streams of smoke, tearing themselves into floating tatters of half-transparent veil, pouring through the jungle and clinging to the trees, the bushes, the statue of Doorga.

Straight up to the idol moved the procession, bowing with outstretched hands, depositing their offerings at Doorga’s feet, and chanting their litanies—with a gathering, bloating volume of voices, gradually shaping the words until the full hymn, the full melody, the full meaning beat up like an ocean of eternity, the whole punctuated by the hollow, staccato thump of the drums:

“Ho, Kali! Ho, Devi! Ho, Doorga, Doorga, Doorga! Thou who holdest a sword in thy lotus-like hands—who art fearless—who art black as the clouds—whose form is terrible—who dwellest in burning ground …

The voices dropped to a flat humming and purring. Then a wail of drums and cymbals, a shrill piping of reed-flutes in ear-splitting waves of sound—and once more the chanting rose loudly, while the swinging incense-burner poured out a thick cloud of cloying, dead-sweet smoke, like an impalpable cloud of dread superstitions—the soul of their ancient Hindu faith in scented, vapory form:

“… nor this the weapons pierce; nor this does fire burn; nor this does water wet, nor the wind dry up—Doorga, Doorga! O harasser of Thy foes eternal—all-pervading and constant Thou! Changeless, yet ever changing; unmanifest, unrecognizable Thou, and unvarying …”

The voices of the worshipers peaked to a hideous, insane, soul-freezing pitch. They burst forth in thick, palpable fervor:

“Hail, Mother! Hail, goddess of a thousand names! For as a destructress Thou art Kali! As a reproducer Thou art symbolized by the Yoni! Thou art the Mother of the Universe, in the holy reincarnation of Jagan-Matri! As Parvati, Thou dost protect the hillmen, and Thou art also Sati, Tara, and Bhaivana herself, the consort of Shiva! Ho, Kali! Ho, Devi! Ho, Doorga! Help us cross the Vaitarami, the dread stream of death! Help us over the horrors of the outer darkness Tamisra, across the sword-leafed forest of Usipatra Vana!”

Then the high-priest raised his hands to command silence; and he broke into a chant, between speaking and singing:

“Hail, Mother! Hail, six-armed goddess of horrid form, around whose neck hangs a string of human skulls, a precious pendant! Hail, malign and blessed image of destructiveness! Listen Thou to my Mantra!”

“Ho, Kali! Ho, Smashana Kali!”—the worshipers prayed and chanted and groaned.

Some were half mad with excitement, and every once in a while one of them would jump up with a throaty yell, swing into the open space in front of the pedestal with a whirling, gyrating motion, and dance before the jeering, black statue with horrible gestures—and over all the sullen, palsying din of the drums and cymbals and tomtoms—and the red, floating, swirling wreaths of incense smoke—until at last, through sheer, physical exhaustion of the worshipers, the ceremony came to an end.

There was in the Prince’s entourage a young Brahmin from Madras, called Asoka Kumar Mitra. This youth was very learned and of excellent family. His was an absolute purity of living and thinking, so exemplary that he even refused to look at his own great-grand mother, an ugly, shriveled old woman, unless her face was covered by a thick veil; his character was irreproachable; his honor unstained; and his charity so great that he used for himself only one hundredth part of his income and divided all the rest in equal proportions between saintly beggars, one half to Bairagis or Vishnu’s mendicants, the other half to Sanyasis or ash-smeared worshipers of Shiva. Him the Prince of India commanded to climb the statue and remove the left eye from its stone socket.

“For,” he added, “your hand is as pure as your heart. Your touch will be gentle to Doorga.”

The youth trembled with fear.

“Heaven-Born,” he replied, “I am afraid.”

“Afraid? Of what, may I ask?”

“To remove the eye—oh—it would be a terrible affront to the goddess!”

“Is that all?” smiled the Prince carelessly. “Have no fear. Doorga is my cousin. I myself absolve you of all sin.”

But still Asoka Kumar Mitra hesitated, and the Prince was about to lose his temper—which had always been short—when the high-priest whispered a word in his ear:

“You cannot do it, my lord.”

“By Shiva!” exclaimed the Prince. “Was there ever a Rajah in all Hindustan as plagued with objecting, arguing, nagging, contradicting, cursed fools as I am? Why can’t I do it?”

“Because”—the high-priest pointed at the grim, fiendish statue—“Doorga is not yet appeased.”

“We prayed to her. We worshiped her according to the proper rites.”

“I know. But she demands a sacrifice.”

“We offered milk and flowers and fruit and sweetmeats.”

“This is the month of pilgrimages, Heaven-Born,” argued the high-priest. “This month Doorga demands a sacrifice of blood—to smell sweetly in her nostrils!”

“Very well,” said the Prince. “I shall sacrifice to her when I return to Puri. I shall give to her a holocaust of thirty white sheep, thirty black sheep, three virgins and seven Brahmin youths of excellent family. I give oath!” He bowed toward Doorga. “And now”—turning to Asoka Kumar Mitra—“up with you, my lad. And have no fear. No sin is yours. I absolve you!”

It is a disputable point what caused the young Brahmin to obey. Perhaps he did so because he had faith in the Prince’s divine connections; perhaps, on the other hand, because just then the Prince was making a significant gesture in the direction of his red-robed executioner. At all events, up he went; mounting the pedestal; escalading the idol’s huge feet; scrambling up to its left knee, whence, slowly, warily, precariously, he scaled the hip’s enormous, curved circumference; reaching out and grasping one of the great arms and using it as if it were a ladder; attaining the hand which held the blood-dripping head of a bearded man; sitting astride its thumb for a few moments to rest himself and regain his breath.

Down below the Prince urged him on with hearty words; and so the youth vaulted in a keen leap toward the statue’s thick, sensuous lips; got there in safety; and at last pulled himself up to the left eye, standing on the stony rim of the socket.

He took a sharp chisel from his waist shawl; worked assiduously for several minutes until he had removed the eye. And then—was it fear of the goddess’ revenge, or was it a plain case of dizziness?—suddenly he gave a cry of terror. His feet slipped. His knees gave. He lost his balance. He tried to steady himself; could not; and, the crystal hugged against his breast, fell down, through the air, in a fantastic curve, striking the ground, two hundred feet below, with a sickening thud and crash.

There was complete silence. Silence of utter terror. The youth was dead.

Then the high-priest broke into a loud chant of thanksgiving:

“Ho, Devi! Ho, Doorga! Ho, Smashana Kali! Thou hast listened to my Mantra! Thou hast accepted the sacrifice! Blessed be Thy name, O Great Mother!”

Quickly he bent over the dead. With agile, practiced fingers he opened a vein and drained a generous quantity of blood into a sacerdotal bowl. He poured it out at the feet of the idol while the worshipers prayed and chanted, and while the Prince picked up the crystal eye which had remained unbroken in spite of the fall.

He held it high.

He looked into its milky whiteness. The greatest rarity in the world, he thought triumphantly, well worth the death of a thousand young Brahmins! The treasure by the strength of which Zobeid would be his! Then, at the thought of her, he spoke her name. He ad dressed the crystal:

“Tell me, O magic crystal, what Zobeid is doing at this moment!”

At once the globe clouded, to become a moment later like a vivid, colored miniature that showed Zobeid on the balcony of her room, staring with starry eyes into the distance—eyes that were full of longing and love and faith.

“By Shiva!” thought the Rajah, who all his life had had an excellent conceit of himself. “The Crusher of Hearts is thinking of me!”

It would have shocked him dreadfully had he been able to read the words which Zobeid’s lips were forming silently:

“Ahmed! Ahmed! Soul of my soul! Oh—my Ahmed—how I wish that I could be with you—to help you—help you in your search!”

And indeed right then the Thief of Bagdad was in dire need of help.

For he was about to cross the Valley of the Monsters, the Valley of Evil Thoughts, where all the envies and jealousies and bad wishes formed in the human brain since God created Adam out of clay mixed with water and Eve from a crooked rib of Adam’s body, lie in ambush for the traveler—unless there be no rancor in his soul and no envy nor malevolence in his heart.

In this valley dangers of all kinds were as thick as hair in the tail of the blue-faced Vindhya monkey. Here were slippery rocks and timber falls and jagged precipices; impetuous torrents flashing down their beds of black stone; and no path except a fugitive track through the undergrowth, hardly discernible, wiped by the poisonous breath of the jungle into a dim, smelly mire which bubbled and sucked—seemed to reach out for those who dared tread its foul solitude.

Ahmed gripped his sword and steeled his will. He walked on.

Cable-like, spiky creepers dropped low from the trees and struck his face; they opened before him with a dull, gurgling sound as he brushed them aside with fist or sword point; they closed behind him as if the jungle had stepped away for a second to let him through, leisurely, contemptuously, invincibly, to bar his way, should he attempt to return.

Darkness came suddenly. It came with black thunder clouds and the fiery, crimson, forked tongues of lightning. All about him Ahmed could hear the night cries of wild animals; the trumpeting of gigantic elephants; the grisly laugh of the foul, spotted hyenas; the howling of tigers; the hissing of cobras; and the whimpering of wild dogs coursing in packs on the tracks of their prey.

Fear dropped on him like a sodden blanket. He thought of the Prince of India, the Prince of Persia, the Prince of the Mongols. Thought of them with envy in his heart and rancor in his soul. They were strong. They were powerful. They were rich. They had thousands and thousands of armed retainers and wise men to obey their every wish, while he was alone in all the world, with nobody to lend him a helping hand.

“Allah!” he exclaimed. “How I envy them!”

And, as his lips pronounced the words, all at once the darkness was cleft in two by an immense shaft of quivering, yellow light, and he saw, square in his path, a huge monster facing him.

It towered above him like a mountain. Its shape was that of a dragon covered with green, steely scales, a swishing tail that wound up in a forest of lances, an enormous, cavernous mouth that was armed with a treble row of dagger-sharp teeth and dripping with blood and black venom, and eight legs with claws large enough to rip an elephant to pieces as if it were a mouse and to tear a banyan tree up by the roots as if it were a small weed.

It saw Ahmed, and made for him with a great, clumsy leap, breathing a column of smoke and fire from its nostrils.

The Thief of Bagdad was about to turn tail and run away. But he reconsidered. He had no chance of escape. The dragon would overtake him at a single leap; would swallow him at a single mouthful.

All right—he said to himself—it was quite hopeless; but at least he would die fighting. So he lunged at the brute with the point of his sword; missed; leaped nimbly to one side to evade the monster’s claws; lunged again, missed again, again leaped to safety.

“Hai!” he gave his guttural war cry. “Hai!” and gradually, as he fought, the envy and rancor in his heart began to pale, and there came to him a certain high, reckless, clanking courage—nor exactly a courage of despair.

Up from the ground he vaulted with both feet, striking with all his strength. The dragon grunted, doubtless surprised that this small lump of humanity should dare resist him and give battle, and receded a step.

Ahmed laughed.

“Pig!” he shouted at the brute. “Wart! Jew! Christian! Unclean and ludicrous pimple! Come here and fight!”

The envy in his heart paling more and more, he went to the attack, fighting after the time-honored manner of Arab sworders; bending almost double; skipping in a lithe, rapid circle; executing various gambados and measured leaps; springing forward like a monkey and backward like a toad; beating with his sword upon the monster’s tough hide so that it rattled like a drum.

“''Hai! Hai! Hai!''”

Why—he thought—he was really thoroughly enjoying himself! Bah!—with all their might and wealth the three Princes of Asia would never be able to fight as he was fighting. Envy them? By the Prophet—let them envy him! And, as his brain conceived and formed the thought, all at once his sword point found a soft spot between the monster’s green, steely scales. The point entered, twisted, tore, cut, ripped; and with a great, wailing roar, the dragon fell on its side, breathed one final column of smoke and fire through its nostrils, and died.

“By the Prophet—on Him the salute!” the Thief of Bagdad said to himself, not at all modestly. “Pluck does it every time!”

He shook his right hand with his left, congratulating himself. He kicked the dead dragon contemptuously in the ribs, wiped his sword with a handful of grass, left the Valley of the Monsters, the Valley of Evil Thoughts, and turning the corner, found himself at the very entrance of the Garden of the Enchanted Trees, the Garden of Wisdom and Wit.