The Talisman by Walter Scott (important books to read TXT) 📗

of us still sing, in memorial of our fathers' more ancient faith, such verses as these.”

So saying, he proceeded to chant verses, very ancient in the language and structure, which some have thought derive their source from the worshippers of Arimanes, the Evil Principle.

AHRIMAN. Dark Ahriman, whom Irak still Holds origin of woe and ill! When, bending at thy shrine, We view the world with troubled eye, Where see we 'neath the extended sky, An empire matching thine! If the Benigner Power can yield A fountain in the desert field, Where weary pilgrims drink; Thine are the waves that lash the rock, Thine the tornado's deadly shock, Where countless navies sink! Or if he bid the soil dispense Balsams to cheer the sinking sense, How few can they deliver From lingering pains, or pang intense, Red Fever, spotted Pestilence, The arrows of thy quiver! Chief in Man's bosom sits thy sway, And frequent, while in words we pray Before another throne, Whate'er of specious form be there, The secret meaning of the prayer Is, Ahriman, thine own. Say, hast thou feeling, sense, and form, Thunder thy voice, thy garments storm, As Eastern Magi say; With sentient soul of hate and wrath, And wings to sweep thy deadly path, And fangs to tear thy prey? Or art thou mix'd in Nature's source, An ever-operating force, Converting good to ill; An evil principle innate, Contending with our better fate, And, oh! victorious still? Howe'er it be, dispute is vain. On all without thou hold'st thy reign, Nor less on all within; Each mortal passion's fierce career, Love, hate, ambition, joy, and fear, Thou goadest into sin. Whene'er a sunny gleam appears, To brighten up our vale of tears, Thou art not distant far; 'Mid such brief solace of our lives, Thou whett'st our very banquet-knives To tools of death and war. Thus, from the moment of our birth, Long as we linger on the earth, Thou rulest the fate of men; Thine are the pangs of life's last hour, And—who dare answer?—is thy power, Dark Spirit! ended THEN? [The worthy and learned clergyman by whom this species of hymn has been translated desires, that, for fear of misconception, we should warn the reader to recollect that it is composed by a heathen, to whom the real causes of moral and physical evil are unknown, and who views their predominance in the system of the universe as all must view that appalling fact who have not the benefit of the Christian revelation. On our own part, we beg to add, that we understand the style of the translator is more paraphrastic than can be approved by those who are acquainted with the singularly curious original. The translator seems to have despaired of rendering into English verse the flights of Oriental poetry; and, possibly, like many learned and ingenious men, finding it impossible to discover the sense of the original, he may have tacitly substituted his own.]

These verses may perhaps have been the not unnatural effusion of some half-enlightened philosopher, who, in the fabled deity, Arimanes, saw but the prevalence of moral and physical evil; but in the ears of Sir Kenneth of the Leopard they had a different effect, and, sung as they were by one who had just boasted himself a descendant of demons, sounded very like an address of worship to the arch-fiend himself. He weighed within himself whether, on hearing such blasphemy in the very desert where Satan had stood rebuked for demanding homage, taking an abrupt leave of the Saracen was sufficient to testify his abhorrence; or whether he was not rather constrained by his vow as a Crusader to defy the infidel to combat on the spot, and leave him food for the beasts of the wilderness, when his attention was suddenly caught by an unexpected apparition.

The light was now verging low, yet served the knight still to discern that they two were no longer alone in the desert, but were closely watched by a figure of great height and very thin, which skipped over rocks and bushes with so much agility as, added to the wild and hirsute appearance of the individual, reminded him of the fauns and silvans, whose images he had seen in the ancient temples of Rome. As the single-hearted Scottishman had never for a moment doubted these gods of the ancient Gentiles to be actually devils, so he now hesitated not to believe that the blasphemous hymn of the Saracen had raised up an infernal spirit.

“But what recks it?” said stout Sir Kenneth to himself; “down with the fiend and his worshippers!”

He did not, however, think it necessary to give the same warning of defiance to two enemies as he would unquestionably have afforded to one. His hand was upon his mace, and perhaps the unwary Saracen would have been paid for his Persian poetry by having his brains dashed out on the spot, without any reason assigned for it; but the Scottish Knight was spared from committing what would have been a sore blot in his shield of arms. The apparition, on which his eyes had been fixed for some time, had at first appeared to dog their path by concealing itself behind rocks and shrubs, using those advantages of the ground with great address, and surmounting its irregularities with surprising agility. At length, just as the Saracen paused in his song, the figure, which was that of a tall man clothed in goat-skins, sprung into the midst of the path, and seized a rein of the Saracen's bridle in either hand, confronting thus and bearing back the noble horse, which, unable to endure the manner in which this sudden assailant pressed the long-armed bit, and the severe curb, which, according to the Eastern fashion, was a solid ring of iron, reared upright, and finally fell backwards on his master, who, however, avoided the peril of the fall by lightly throwing himself to one side.

The assailant then shifted his grasp from the bridle of the horse to the throat of the rider, flung himself above the struggling Saracen, and, despite of his youth and activity kept him undermost, wreathing his long arms above those of his prisoner, who called out angrily, and yet half-laughing at the same time—“Hamako—fool—unloose me—this passes thy privilege—unloose me, or I will use my dagger.”

“Thy dagger!—infidel dog!” said the figure in the goat-skins, “hold it in thy gripe if thou canst!” and in an instant he wrenched the Saracen's weapon out of its owner's hand, and brandished it over his head.

“Help, Nazarene!” cried Sheerkohf, now seriously alarmed; “help, or the Hamako will slay me.”

“Slay thee!” replied the dweller of the desert; “and well hast thou merited death, for singing thy blasphemous hymns, not only to the praise of thy false prophet, who is the foul fiend's harbinger, but to that of the Author of Evil himself.”

The Christian Knight had hitherto looked on as one stupefied, so strangely had this rencontre contradicted, in its progress and event, all that he had previously conjectured. He felt, however, at length, that it touched his honour to interfere in behalf of his discomfited companion, and therefore addressed himself to the victorious figure in the goat-skins.

“Whosoe'er thou art,” he said, “and whether of good or of evil, know that I am sworn for the time to be true companion to the Saracen whom thou holdest under thee; therefore, I pray thee to let him arise, else I will do battle with thee