Top-of-the-World Stories for Boys and Girls. Anonymous

CHAPTER I

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      The Palace of Shah Nadir

      There was once a Persian king whose name was Shah Nadir, and who was exceedingly rich. Large and beautiful countries with many millions of people were under his sway. Great rooms in his palace were filled with gold and precious stones; and his ships, laden with the riches of India, sailed over every sea. When he appeared in his capital city, Ispahan, he was surrounded by a life guard of a thousand men dressed in silver armor which glistened in the sun; and fifty thousand knights on most beautiful horses, with golden saddles and harnesses glittering with jewels, stood ready to speed away and conquer the world at his bidding.

      But the mighty Shah Nadir was old and had no longer any desire for war and conquest. He had won many battles; many hostile cities had perished in ashes before his wrath; and many, many a knight had been pierced through by his sword in the days when his arm was young and none could withstand him.

      But now he was old and weary, and liked best to recline on the luxurious purple divans of his gorgeous palace. Occasionally, however, when golden-edged clouds shielded the burning Persian sun, and a delightful breeze blew down from Mt. Zagrosch, the old Shah would seat himself in his richly ornamented palanquin borne by eight black slaves clad in silver tissue, and allow himself to be carried out that he might review his troops or watch the wild animals fighting in the arena.

      Shah Nadir had many sons, because he had also many wives, as is the custom in eastern lands; but his sons brought him little joy. They were thankless and full of selfish ambition, thinking that their father lived too long, and plotting against his life and his throne. Therefore the king drove them all away from his court to distant provinces which they ruled over as viceroys. But he kept at home with himself his dear and only daughter, the Princess Lindagull, because he loved her more than all else on earth—yes, more than all his treasures and all his riches.

      Now it is well known that such a name as "Lindagull" had never before been heard in Persia, nor could it indeed be rightly pronounced by the Persians. The mother of the princess had come from the far North, no one knew exactly whence. She had been captured in her youth by African pirates, and after many adventures had been sold to the king of Persia, who, on account of her extreme beauty, took her in wedlock and loved her more than all his other wives.

      This beautiful sultana, who was now dead, had called her only daughter "Lindagull," signifying that the princess was as lovely and pure as the gold of the sun, shimmering through the lindens of the North.

      And it is true that a more beautiful or purer being could not be found if you searched the wide world over than the Princess Lindagull. She had the royal bearing of her father; but in form and disposition she was like her mother. With a complexion as dazzling as Scandinavian snow and eyes as soft as August stars on a moonless night, she had also a heart noble, tender and good; and so there was no one in Shah Nadir's whole kingdom who did not love the Princess Lindagull; for the fame of her beauty and goodness had spread through all Persia. This the old king knew full well, and his proud heart melted like wax every time he looked upon his lovely child. She was the delight of his eyes;—his comfort by day, his dream by night. One word of hers could quell his highest rage. He could not refuse her any request, even to the freedom of a slave.

      When Shah Nadir thought upon his sons with their evil hearts, and of the trouble which they had made in the kingdom, he decided that none of them was fit for succession to his throne; and he made up his mind to choose for his daughter some good and noble man as a husband, and to leave to her and her descendants the inheritance of his riches and his kingdom.

      The fatherly affection of Shah Nadir for the Princess Lindagull was right and beautiful; but he fell into the great error of allowing it to displace other loves and to lead him away from his duties to his subjects. So a heavy punishment came upon him.

      No one could live in a more magnificent and delightful manner than did the Princess Lindagull. In a cool grove, under the shadow of high palm-trees, amid the music of rippling fountains and surrounded by the fragrance of a thousand flowers, stood the princess's lovely castle. In its lofty apartments the sunbeams broke through windows of limpid rock-crystal. The princess rested on the most elegant couch at night; and when morning came she was led by her attendant ladies to bathe in a grand basin of mother-of-pearl into which a fountain poured forth its waters and made a deep pool, the water playfully rippling around her delicate figure as she bathed.

      In the daytime she wrought exquisite embroideries with her maidens, or listened to the songs of the birds or the music of the zither, or wandered in the grove, playing like a child with the yellow butterflies and dark red roses.

      The Princess Lindagull was not more than twelve years old; but in the Eastern countries twelve years makes one appear as old as sixteen in Northern countries.

      It is not a good thing to live constantly in luxury, and to see one's wishes fulfilled "at the least wink" as were those of Princess Lindagull. Many persons become proud and wilful under these circumstances; but this little princess did not. She merely became low-spirited. She did not know why it was, but the playing of the butterflies, the fragrance of the flowers, the rippling of the waters, and the zither's sweet sounds pleased her no more. She realized that her heart was often empty, and noticed with surprise that she often had a desire to weep. She could not understand it at all, and still less could her ladies. She did not know, this little Lindagull, that as a dark frame enhances many a picture, so trial and sorrow give one's happy days an added luster. With pleasures and naught but pleasures in her life, happiness was slipping from her. She must experience sorrow before she could know true joy.

      Nevertheless, the princess believed that she had discovered the reason of her longings. It must be because she had always lived in the seclusion of her palace. She determined to go out, at least for once, into the rush and whirl of human life; and so, when her father next came to visit her, she asked that she might be allowed to see the great exhibition of wild beasts soon to be held at Ispahan in honor of the king's sixtieth birthday. Since Shah Nadir could refuse her nothing, he granted her request; realizing, however, that it was the first time he had ever done so with absolute unwillingness.

      Such a conqueror as Shah Nadir, to whom half Asia paid tribute, could not fail to have many enemies. This, however, troubled him but little, because he had long held them in complete subjection.

      One of these enemies had fallen under the personal dislike of the king; and in addition to the usual ceremonies of submission Shah Nadir had required the captive foe to suffer one of the greatest indignities of the East—that is, the shaving of his beard. Having thus contributed to the king's vindictive amusement, the captive was set free.