Lord Byron's Novel Read Free

only the eldest of the goats they tended—was much of what Ali knew of love: though not all .
    For there was another child who was also given into the old man’s care—a girl, whose name was Iman, not more than a year older than Ali, orphaned like himself—or so they believed and said, what time they spoke of it, which was not often—for as children do, they thought not to ask the world why and wherefore they had come to be as they were, content to know themselves, and one another, as they knew the heat of the sun, and the taste of the mountain’s water-springs. Her hair was as the raven’s wing, but her eyes—as is not uncommon in that land—were blue, not the blue of our Anglo-Saxon blondes but the blue of the deep Sea—and into those frank and wide orbs, so seldom cast down, Ali fell entirely. Poets talk of maidens’ eyes, and divagate endlessly upon them, and we are to understand that by those liquid spheres they mean to indicate all the beloved object’s parts and attractions—which we are free to speculate upon. Yet Ali was hardly conscious of what other charms his little goddess possessed—in her eyes he did indeed drown, and could not, when she looked upon him, look away.
    In another, colder clime, Ali forgot progressively that language he had first lisped in, and grown up to speak; but he never forgot what she said to him, or what he answered; the words were not as other words, they seemed as though minted in gold, and even long after to speak them over to himself was to enter a little treasure-house where they alone were kept. Of what did they two speak? Of everything—of nothing; they were silent, or she spoke, and he answered not; or he boasted wildly, his eyes upon hers, to see if his tale would keep her—and she listened. ‘Iman, go thou the long way—these flints will cut thy feet.’—‘Ali—Take this bread of mine, I have enough for two.’—‘What do you see in that cloud? I see a hawk with a great beak.’—‘I see a fool who makes hawks out of clouds.’—‘I must go for water. Come with me—I sha’n’t be long—Take my hand and come!’
    They two were the only souls in that land—each the only object of the other’s thought. As two swans take their turns to lift their wide wings and thresh the air, and walk upon the water for each other’s delight— what they spoke of was of no matter—so that their intercourse continued, and was repeated. She—imperious as a queen, bare-foot though she was—could cause and did cause suffering when she chose—perhaps only to test her power, as one might test a stick against a hapless blossom; soon enough she was sorry, and they again compounded, with many caresses and offerings of kindness.
    It may be averred that a passion of such degree is not possible in one so young—for Ali had hardly reached his second decade—and it is perfectly logical for them to think so who have never felt it —such ones we may not persuade, and so do not address:—whoever has known such a feeling in earliest youth has known a singular power, and will keep a memory of it in his inmost heart, which—though against it no other and later may be measured —yet it will be the Touchstone against which all others will be struck, to see if they be true gold, or counterfeit.
    Throughout that time it was seen that Ali—though in truth the lad took no particular notice of it—was marked in an especial way; favours and gifts came upon him from sources unclear—a delicacy of victuals—a bright scarf for his head—a look of approval or of interest from his elders. On his reaching a particular anniversary—though which year in his short life it was, he did not know, for an uncertainty surrounded his birth-date as it did his true ancestry—he received, from the same font of benefactions, an old pistol, which he was proud to stick in his belt, only sorry that it must reside there all alone, where all men of the least standing carried two at a minimum and a