Shireen and her Friends: Pages from the Life of a Persian Cat. Stables Gordon

and wonderful! The music was all on the descending scale, and chords were struck chiefly fifths. But the keys of the piano did not move, and the notes sounded far away. Presently the performance was concluded with a series of groans emitted by the bass strings.

      “I have it,” the Colonel cried, “it is Chammy. Dear old Chammy.”

      Me jumped up and opened the instrument wide, and there sure enough was the chameleon. He had been asleep in there for three weeks or more, and had awakened hungry and lively – poor Chammy.

      “Whatever made you get up the chimney, Chammy?” said Shireen again.

      “Just to find a cosy corner,” replied the chameleon, “for lor’, bless your pretty face, Shireen, now that the days are getting shorter, my poor old toes do be that wondrous cold sometimes, you wouldn’t believe.”

      “But you wanted to hear the story of Queen Shireen, didn’t you?”

      “Yes, Chammy, if you won’t take long to tell it.”

      “Oh, not more’n a hundred years or so. Time is nothing to me, you know.”

      But time was a good deal to these old friends around the fire, so it ended after all in Chammy climbing up into his perch again, and apparently going to sleep there, with his droll eyes open, and Shireen herself having to tell the story.

      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