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
