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TITLE: THE PRINCE OF INDIA, V1
AUTHOR: LEW WALLACE
EBOOK: E04886 (O'Briens Book Cellar)
VOlume 1 ***

THE PRINCE OF INDIA
OR
WHY CONSTANTINOPLE FELL

BY
LEW. WALLACE

VOL. I.

   _Rise, too, ye Shapes and Shadows of the Past
    Rise from your long forgotten grazes at last
    Let us behold your faces, let us hear
    The words you uttered in those days of fear
    Revisit your familiar haunts again
    The scenes of triumph and the scenes of pain
    And leave the footprints of your bleeding feet
    Once more upon the pavement of the street_
                                       LONGFELLOW

CONTENTS

BOOK I
THE EARTH AND THE SEA ARE ALWAYS GIVING UP THEIR SECRETS

    I. THE NAMELESS BAY
   II. THE MIDNIGHT LANDING
  III. THE HIDDEN TREASURE

BOOK II
THE PRINCE OF INDIA

    I. A MESSENGER FROM CIPANGO
   II. THE PILGRIM AT EL KATIF
  III. THE YELLOW AIR
   IV. EL ZARIBAH
    V. THE PASSING OF THE CARAVAN
   VI. THE PRINCE AND THE EMIR
  VII. AT THE KAABA
 VIII. THE ARRIVAL IN CONSTANTINOPLE
   IX. THE PRINCE AT HOME
    X. THE ROSE OF SPRING

BOOK III
THE PRINCESS IRENE

    I. MORNING ON THE BOSPHORUS
   II. THE PRINCESS IRENE
  III. THE HOMERIC PALACE
   IV. THE RUSSIAN MONK
    V. A VOICE FROM THE CLOISTER
   VI. WHAT DO THE STARS SAY?
  VII. THE PRINCE OF INDIA MEETS CONSTANTINE
 VIII. RACING WITH A STORM
   IX. IN THE WHITE CASTLE
    X. THE ARABIAN STORY-TELLER
   XI. THE TURQUOISE RING
  XII. THE RING RETURNS
 XIII. MAHOMMED HEARS FROM THE STARS
  XIV. DREAMS AND VISIONS
   XV. DEPARTURE FROM THE WHITE CASTLE
  XVI. AN EMBASSY TO THE PRINCESS IRENE
 XVII. THE EMPEROR'S WOOING
XVIII. THE SINGING SHEIK
  XIX. TWO TURKISH TALES
   XX. MAHOMMED DREAMS

BOOK IV
THE PALACE OF BLACHERNE

    I. THE PALACE OF BLACHERNE
   II. THE AUDIENCE
  III. THE NEW FAITH PROCLAIMED
   IV. THE PANNYCHIDES
    V. A PLAGUE OF CRIME
   VI. A BYZANTINE GENTLEMAN OF THE PERIOD
  VII. A BYZANTINE HERETIC
 VIII. THE ACADEMY OF EPICURUS
   IX. A FISHERMAN'S FETE
    X. THE HAMARI

BOOK I

THE EARTH AND THE SEA ARE ALWAYS GIVING UP THEIR SECRETS THE
PRINCE OF INDIA

CHAPTER I.

THE NAMELESS BAY

In the noon of a September day in the year of our dear Lord 1395, a
merchant vessel nodded sleepily upon the gentle swells of warm water
flowing in upon the Syrian coast. A modern seafarer, looking from the
deck of one of the Messagerie steamers now plying the same line of
trade, would regard her curiously, thankful to the calm which held her
while he slaked his wonder, yet more thankful that he was not of her
passage.

She could not have exceeded a hundred tons burthen. At the bow and stern
she was decked, and those quarters were fairly raised. Amidship she was
low and open, and pierced for twenty oars, ten to a side, all swaying
listlessly from the narrow ports in which they were hung. Sometimes they
knocked against each other. One sail, square and of a dingy white,
drooped from a broad yard-arm, which was itself tilted, and now and then
creaked against the yellow mast complainingly, unmindful of the simple
tackle designed to keep it in control. A watchman crouched in the meagre
shade of a fan-like structure overhanging the bow deck. The roofing and
the floor, where exposed, were clean, even bright; in all other parts
subject to the weather and the wash there was only the blackness of
pitch. The steersman sat on a bench at the stern. Occasionally, from
force of habit, he rested a hand upon the rudder-oar to be sure it was
yet in reach. With exception of the two, the lookout and the steersman,
all on board, officers, oarsmen, and sailors, were asleep--such
confidence could a Mediterranean calm inspire in those accustomed to
life on the beautiful sea. As if Neptune never became angry there, and
blowing his conch, and smiting with his trident, splashed the sky with
the yeast of waves! However, in 1395 Neptune had disappeared; like the
great god Pan, he was dead.

The next remarkable thing about the ship was the absence of the signs of
business usual with merchantmen. There were no barrels, boxes, bales, or
packages visible. Nothing indicated a cargo. In her deepest undulations
the water-line was not once submerged. The leather shields of the
oar-ports were high and dry. Possibly she had passengers aboard. Ah,
yes! There under the awning, stretched halfway across the deck dominated
by the steersman, was a group of persons all unlike seamen. Pausing to
note them, we may find the motive of the voyage.

Four men composed the group. One was lying upon a pallet, asleep yet
restless. A black velvet cap had slipped from his head, giving freedom
to thick black hair tinged with white. Starting from the temples, a
beard with scarce a suggestion of gray swept in dark waves upon the neck
and throat, and even invaded the pillow. Between the hair and beard
there was a narrow margin of sallow flesh for features somewhat crowded
by knots of wrinkle. His body was wrapped in a loose woollen gown of
brownish-black. A hand, apparently all bone, rested upon the breast,
clutching a fold of the gown. The feet twitched nervously in the
loosened thongs of old-fashioned sandals. Glancing at the others of the
group, it was plain this sleeper was master and they his slaves. Two of
them were stretched on the bare boards at the lower end of the pallet,
and they were white. The third was a son of Ethiopia of unmixed blood
and gigantic frame. He sat at the left of the couch, cross-legged, and,
like the rest, was in a doze; now and then, however, he raised his head,
and, without fully opening his eyes, shook a fan of peacock feathers
from head to foot over the recumbent figure. The two whites were clad in
gowns of coarse linen belted to their waists; while, saving a cincture
around his loins, the negro was naked.

There is often much personal revelation to be gleaned from the
properties a man carries with him from home. Applying the rule here, by
the pallet there was a walking-stick of unusual length, and severely
hand-worn a little above the middle. In emergency it might have been
used as a weapon. Three bundles loosely wrapped had been cast against a
timber of the ship; presumably they contained the plunder of the slaves
reduced to the minimum allowance of travel. But the most noticeable item
was a leather roll of very ancient appearance, held by a number of broad
straps deeply stamped and secured by buckles of a metal blackened like
neglected silver.

The attention of a close observer would have been attracted to this
parcel, not so much by its antique showing, as by the grip with which
its owner clung to it with his right hand. Even in sleep he held it of
infinite consequence. It could not have contained coin or any bulky
matter. Possibly the man was on some special commission, with his
credentials in the old roll. Ay, who was he?

Thus started, the observer would have bent himself to study of the face;
and immediately something would have suggested that while the stranger
was of this period of the world he did not belong to it. Such were the
magicians of the story-loving Al-Raschid. Or he was of the type
Rabbinical that sat with Caiphas in judgment upon the gentle Nazarene.
Only the centuries could have evolved the apparition. Who was he?

In the course of half an hour the man stirred, raised his head, looked
hurriedly at his attendants, then at the parts of the ship in view, then
at the steersman still dozing by the rudder; then he sat up, and brought
the roll to his lap, whereat the rigor of his expression relaxed. The
parcel was safe! And the conditions about him were as they should be!

He next set about undoing the buckles of his treasure. The long fingers
were expert; but just when the roll was ready to open he lifted his
face, and fixed his eyes upon the section of blue expanse outside the
edge of the awning, and dropped into thought. And straightway it was
settled that he was not a diplomatist or a statesman or a man of
business of any kind. The reflection which occupied him had nothing to
do with intrigues or statecraft; its centre was in his heart as the look
proved. So, in tender moods, a father gazes upon his child, a husband at
the beloved wife, restfully, lovingly.

And that moment the observer, continuing his study, would have forgotten
the parcel, the white slaves, the gigantic negro, the self-willed hair
and beard of pride--the face alone would have held him. The countenance
of the Sphinx has no beauty now; and standing before it, we feel no stir
of the admiration always a certificate that what we are beholding is
charming out of the common lines; yet we are drawn to it irresistibly,
and by a wish vague, foolish--so foolish we would hesitate long before
putting it in words to be heard by our best lover--a wish that the

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