STORY OF THE KING WHO WOULD BE STRONGER THAN FATE

Edition and rights: Original English text from Project Gutenberg ebook #31201, marked public domain in the USA. The literary text below is reproduced without AI rewriting.

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Once upon a time, far away in the east country, there
lived a king who loved hunting so much that, when once
there was a deer in sight, he was careless of his own
safety. Indeed, he often became quite separated from his
nobles and attendants, and in fact was particularly fond
of lonely adventures. Another of his favourite amusements
was to give out that he was not well, and could not
be seen; and then, with the knowledge only of his faithful
Grand Wazeer, to disguise himself as a pedlar, load a
donkey with cheap wares, and travel about. In this way
he found out what the common people said about him,
and how his judges and governors fulfilled their duties.

One day his queen presented him with a baby
daughter as beautiful as the dawn, and the king himself
was so happy and delighted that, for a whole week, he
forgot to hunt, and spent the time in public and private
rejoicing.

Not long afterwards, however, he went out after some
deer which were to be found in a far corner of his forests.
In the course of the beat his dogs disturbed a beautiful
snow-white stag, and directly he saw it the king determined
that he would have it at any cost. So he put the
spurs to his horse, and followed it as hard as he could gallop.
Of course all his attendants followed at the best speed
that they could manage; but the king was so splendidly
mounted, and the stag was so swift, that, at the end of an
hour, the king found that only his favourite hound and
[Pg 301]
himself were in the chase; all the rest were far, far behind
and out of sight.

Nothing daunted, however, he went on and on, till he
perceived that he was entering a valley with great rocky
mountains on all sides, and that his horse was getting
very tired and trembled at every stride. Worse than all
evening was already drawing on, and the sun would
soon set. In vain had he sent arrow after arrow at the
beautiful stag. Every shot fell short, or went wide of the
mark; and at last, just as darkness was setting in, he
lost sight altogether of the beast. By this time his horse
could hardly move from fatigue, his hound staggered
panting along beside him, he was far away amongst
mountains where he had never been before, and had quite
missed his way, and not a human creature or dwelling
was in sight.

All this was very discouraging, but the king would not
have minded if he had not lost that beautiful stag. That
troubled him a good deal, but he never worried over what
he could not help, so he got down from his horse, slipped
his arm through the bridle, and led the animal along the
rough path in hopes of discovering some shepherd’s hut,
or, at least, a cave or shelter under some rock, where he
might pass the night.

Presently he heard the sound of rushing water, and
made towards it. He toiled over a steep rocky shoulder
of a hill, and there, just below him, was a stream dashing
down a precipitous glen, and, almost beneath his feet,
twinkling and flickering from the level of the torrent, was
a dim light as of a lamp. Towards this light the king
with his horse and hound made his way, sliding and
stumbling down a steep, stony path. At the bottom the
king found a narrow grassy ledge by the brink of the
stream, across which the light from a rude lantern in
the mouth of a cave shed a broad beam of uncertain
light. At the edge of the stream sat an old hermit with a
long white beard, who neither spoke nor moved as the
[Pg 302]
king approached, but sat throwing into the stream dry
leaves which lay scattered about the ground near him.

‘Peace be upon you,’ said the king, giving the usual
country salutation.

‘And upon you peace,’ answered the hermit; but still
he never looked up, nor stopped what he was doing.

For a minute or two the king stood watching him.
He noticed that the hermit threw two leaves in at a time,
and watched them attentively. Sometimes both were
carried rapidly down by the stream; sometimes only one
leaf was carried off, and the other, after whirling slowly
round and round on the edge of the current, would come
circling back on an eddy to the hermit’s feet. At other
times both leaves were held in the backward eddy, and
failed to reach the main current of the noisy stream.

‘What are you doing?’ asked the king at last, and
the hermit replied that he was reading the fates of men;
every one’s fate, he said, was settled from the beginning,
and, whatever it were, there was no escape from it. The
king laughed.

‘I care little,’ he said, ‘what my fate may be; but I
should be curious to know the fate of my little daughter.’

‘I cannot say,’ answered the hermit.

‘Do you not know, then?’ demanded the king.

‘I might know,’ returned the hermit, ‘but it is not
always wisdom to know much.’

But the king was not content with this reply, and
began to press the old man to say what he knew, which
for a long time he would not do. At last, however, the
king urged him so greatly that he said:

‘The king’s daughter will marry the son of a poor
slave-girl called Puruna, who belongs to the king of the
land of the north. There is no escaping from Fate.’

The king was wild with anger at hearing these words,
but he was also very tired; so he only laughed, and
answered that he hoped there would be a way out of that
fate anyhow. Then he asked if the hermit could shelter
[Pg 303]
him and his beasts for the night, and the hermit said
‘Yes’; so, very soon the king had watered and tethered
his horse, and, after a supper of bread and parched peas,
lay down in the cave, with the hound at his feet, and
tried to go to sleep. But instead of sleeping he only lay
awake and thought of the hermit’s prophecy; and the
more he thought of it the angrier he felt, until he gnashed
his teeth and declared that it should never, never come
true.

Morning came, and the king got up, pale and sulky,
and, after learning from the hermit which path to take,
was soon mounted and found his way home without
much difficulty. Directly he reached his palace he
wrote a letter to the king of the land of the north,
begging him, as a favour, to sell him his slave girl
Puruna and her son, and saying that, if he consented, he
would send a messenger to receive them at the river
which divided the kingdoms.

For five days he awaited the reply, and hardly slept
or ate, but was as cross as could be all the time. On the
fifth day his messenger returned with a letter to say that
the king of the land of the north would not sell, but he
would give, the king the slave girl and her son. The king
was overjoyed. He sent for his Grand Wazeer and told
him that he was going on one of his lonely expeditions,
and that the Wazeer must invent some excuse to account
for his absence. Next he disguised himself as an ordinary
messenger, mounted a swift camel, and sped away to the
place where the slave girl was to be handed over to him.
When he got there he gave the messengers who brought
her a letter of thanks and a handsome present for their
master and rewards for themselves; and then without
delay he took the poor woman and her tiny boy-baby up
on to his camel and rode off to a wild desert.

After riding for a day and a night, almost without
stopping, he came to a great cave where he made the
woman dismount, and, taking her and the baby into the
[Pg 304]
cave, he drew his sword and with one blow chopped her
head off. But although his anger made him cruel enough
for anything so dreadful, the king felt that he could not
turn his great sword on the helpless baby, who he was
sure must soon die in this solitary place without its
mother; so he left it in the cave where it was, and,
mounting his camel, rode home as fast as he could.

Now, in a small village in his kingdom there lived an
old widow who had no children or relations of any kind.
She made her living mostly by selling the milk of a flock
of goats; but she was very, very poor, and not very strong,
and often used to wonder how she would live if she got
too weak or ill to attend to her goats. Every morning
she drove the goats out into the desert to graze on the
shrubs and bushes which grew there, and every evening
they came home of themselves to be milked and to be
shut up safely for the night.

One evening the old woman was astonished to find
that her very best nanny-goat returned without a drop of
milk. She thought that some naughty boy or girl was
playing a trick upon her and had caught the goat on its
way home and stolen all the milk. But when evening
after evening the goat remained almost dry she determined
to find out who the thief was. So the next day she
followed the goats at a distance and watched them while
they grazed. At length, in the afternoon, the old woman
noticed this particular nanny-goat stealing off by herself
away from the herd and she at once went after her. On
and on the goat walked for some way, and then disappeared
into a cave in the rocks. The old woman followed the
goat into the cave and then, what should she see but the
animal giving her milk to a little boy-baby, whilst on the
ground near by lay the sad remains of the baby’s dead
mother! Wondering and frightened, the old woman
thought at last that this little baby might be a son to her
in her old age, and that he would grow up and in time to
come be her comfort and support. So she carried home
[Pg 305]
the baby to her hut, and next day she took a spade to the
cave and dug a grave where she buried the poor mother.

Years passed by, and the baby grew up into a fine
handsome lad, as daring as he was beautiful, and as
industrious as he was brave. One day, when the boy,
whom the old woman had named Nur Mahomed, was
about seventeen years old, he was coming from his day’s
work in the fields, when he saw a strange donkey eating
the cabbages in the garden which surrounded their little
cottage. Seizing a big stick, he began to beat the intruder
and to drive him out of his garden. A neighbour passing
by called out to him—‘Hi! I say! why are you beating
the pedlar’s donkey like that?’

‘The pedlar should keep him from eating my cabbages,’
said Nur Mahomed; ‘if he comes this evening here again
I’ll cut off his tail for him!’

Whereupon he went off indoors, whistling cheerfully.
It happened that this neighbour was one of those people
who make mischief by talking too much; so, meeting the
pedlar in the ‘serai,’ or inn, that evening, he told him
what had occurred, and added: ‘Yes; and the young spitfire
said that if beating the donkey would not do, he would
beat you also, and cut your nose off for a thief!’

A few days later, the pedlar having moved on, two
men appeared in the village inquiring who it was who
had threatened to ill-treat and to murder an innocent
pedlar. They declared that the pedlar, in fear of his life,
had complained to the king; and that they had been sent
to bring the lawless person who had said these things before
the king himself. Of course they soon found out about
the donkey eating Nur Mahomed’s cabbages, and about
the young man’s hot words; but although the lad assured
them that he had never said anything about murdering
anyone, they replied they were ordered to arrest him, and
bring him to take his trial before the king. So, in spite
of his protests, and the wails of his mother, he was
carried off, and in due time brought before the king. Of
[Pg 306]
course Nur Mahomed never guessed that the supposed
pedlar happened to have been the king himself, although
nobody knew it.

But as he was very angry at what he had been told,
he declared that he was going to make an example of this
young man, and intended to teach him that even poor
travelling pedlars could get justice in his country, and be
protected from such lawlessness. However, just as he
was going to pronounce some very heavy sentence, there
was a stir in the court, and up came Nur Mahomed’s old
mother, weeping and lamenting, and begging to be heard.
The king ordered her to speak, and she began to plead
for the boy, declaring how good he was, and how he was
the support of her old age, and if he were put in prison
she would die. The king asked her who she was. She
replied that she was his mother.

‘His mother?’ said the king; ‘you are too old, surely,
to have so young a son!’

Then the old woman, in her fright and distress, confessed
the whole story of how she found the baby, and
how she rescued and brought him up, and ended by
beseeching the king for mercy.

It is easy to guess how, as the story came out, the
king looked blacker and blacker, and more and more
grim, until at last he was half fainting with rage and
astonishment. This, then, was the baby he had left to
die, after cruelly murdering his mother! Surely fate
might have spared him this! He wished he had sufficient
excuse to put the boy to death, for the old hermit’s prophecy
came back to him as strongly as ever; and yet the
young man had done nothing bad enough to deserve such
a punishment. Everyone would call him a tyrant if he
were to give such an order—in fact, he dared not try it!

At length he collected himself enough to say:—‘If
this young man will enlist in my army I will let him off.
We have need of such as him, and a little discipline will
do him good.’ Still the old woman pleaded that she
[Pg 307]
could not live without her son, and was nearly as terrified
at the idea of his becoming a soldier as she was at the
thought of his being put in prison. But at length the
king—determined to get the youth into his clutches—pacified
her by promising her a pension large enough to
keep her in comfort; and Nur Mahomed, to his own
great delight, was duly enrolled in the king’s army.

As a soldier Nur Mahomed seemed to be in luck.
He was rather surprised, but much pleased, to find that
he was always one of those chosen when any difficult
or dangerous enterprise was afoot; and, although he had
the narrowest escapes on some occasions, still, the very
desperateness of the situations in which he found himself
gave him special chances of displaying his courage. And
as he was also modest and generous, he became a favourite
with his officers and his comrades.

Thus it was not very surprising that, before very long,
he became enrolled amongst the picked men of the king’s
bodyguard. The fact is, that the king had hoped to have
got him killed in some fight or another; but, seeing that,
on the contrary, he throve on hard knocks, he was now
determined to try more direct and desperate methods.

One day, soon after Nur Mahomed had entered the
bodyguard, he was selected to be one of the soldiers told
off to escort the king through the city. The procession
was marching on quite smoothly, when a man, armed
with a dagger, rushed out of an alley straight towards the
king. Nur Mahomed, who was the nearest of the guards,
threw himself in the way, and received the stab that had
been apparently intended for the king. Luckily the blow
was a hurried one, and the dagger glanced on his breastbone,
so that, although he received a severe wound, his
youth and strength quickly got the better of it. The
king was, of course, obliged to take some notice of this
brave deed, and as a reward made him one of his own
attendants.

After this the strange adventures the young man
[Pg 308]
passed through were endless. Officers of the bodyguard
were often sent on all sorts of secret and difficult errands,
and such errands had a curious way of becoming necessary
when Nur Mahomed was on duty. Once, while he was
taking a journey, a foot-bridge gave way under him; once
he was attacked by armed robbers; a rock rolled down
upon him in a mountain pass; a heavy stone coping fell
from a roof at his feet in a narrow city alley. Altogether,
Nur Mahomed began to think that, somewhere or other,
he had made an enemy; but he was light-hearted, and
the thought did not much trouble him. He escaped
somehow every time, and felt amused rather than anxious
about the next adventure.

It was the custom of that city that the officer for the
day of the palace guards should receive all his food direct
from the king’s kitchen. One day, when Nur Mahomed’s
turn came to be on duty, he was just sitting down to a
delicious stew that had been sent in from the palace, when
one of those gaunt, hungry dogs, which, in eastern countries,
run about the streets, poked his nose in at the open
guard-room door, and looked at Nur Mahomed with
mouth watering and nostrils working. The kind-hearted
young man picked out a lump of meat, went to the door,
and threw it outside to him. The dog pounced upon it,
and gulped it down greedily, and was just turning to go,
when it staggered, fell, rolled over, and died. Nur
Mahomed, who had been lazily watching him, stood still
for a moment, then he came back whistling softly. He
gathered up the rest of his dinner and carefully wrapped
it up to carry away and bury somewhere; and then he
sent back the empty plates.

How furious the king was when, at the next morning’s
durbar, Nur Mahomed appeared before him fresh, alert,
and smiling as usual. He was determined, however, to
try once more, and bidding the young man come into his
presence that evening, gave orders that he was to carry
a secret despatch to the governor of a distant province.
[Pg 309]
‘Make your preparations at once,’ added he, ‘and be ready
to start in the morning. I myself will deliver you the
papers at the last moment.’

Now this province was four or five days’ journey from
the palace, and the governor of it was the most faithful
servant the king had. He could be silent as the grave,
and prided himself on his obedience. Whilst he was an
old and tried servant of the king’s, his wife had been
almost a mother to the young princess ever since the
queen had died some years before. It happened that, a
little before this time, the princess had been sent away
for her health to another remote province; and whilst
she was there her old friend, the governor’s wife, had
begged her to come and stay with them as soon as she
could.

The princess accepted gladly, and was actually staying
in the governor’s house at the very time when the king
made up his mind to send Nur Mahomed there with the
mysterious despatch.

According to orders Nur Mahomed presented himself
early the next morning at the king’s private apartments.
His best horse was saddled, food placed in his saddle-bag,
and with some money tied up in his waistband, he was
ready to start. The king handed over to him a sealed
packet, desiring him to give it himself only into the hands
of the governor, and to no one else. Nur Mahomed hid
it carefully in his turban, swung himself into the saddle,
and five minutes later rode out of the city gates, and set
out on his long journey.

The weather was very hot; but Nur Mahomed
thought that the sooner his precious letter was delivered
the better; so that, by dint of riding most of each night
and resting only in the hottest part of the day, he found
himself, by noon on the third day, approaching the town
which was his final destination.

Not a soul was to be seen anywhere; and Nur
Mahomed, stiff, dry, thirsty, and tired, looked longingly
[Pg 310]
over the wall into the gardens, and marked the fountains,
the green grass, the shady apricot orchards, and giant
mulberry trees, and wished he were there.

At length he reached the castle gates, and was at once
admitted, as he was in the uniform of the king’s bodyguard.
The governor was resting, the soldier said, and
could not see him until the evening. So Nur Mahomed
handed over his horse to an attendant, and wandered
down into the lovely gardens he had seen from the road,
and sat down in the shade to rest himself. He flung
himself on his back and watched the birds twittering and
chattering in the trees above him. Through the branches
he could see great patches of sky where the kites wheeled
and circled incessantly, with shrill whistling cries. Bees
buzzed over the flowers with a soothing sound, and in a
few minutes Nur Mahomed was fast asleep.

Every day, through the heat of the afternoon, the
governor, and his wife also, used to lie down for two or
three hours in their own rooms, and so, for the matter
of that, did most people in the palace. But the princess,
like many other girls, was restless, and preferred to
wander about the garden, rather than rest on a pile of
soft cushions. What a torment her stout old attendants
and servants sometimes thought her when she insisted on
staying awake, and making them chatter or do something,
when they could hardly keep their eyes open! Sometimes,
however, the princess would pretend to go to sleep,
and then, after all her women had gladly followed her
example, she would get up and go out by herself, her veil
hanging loosely about her. If she was discovered her
old hostess scolded her severely; but the princess only
laughed, and did the same thing next time.

This very afternoon the princess had left all her
women asleep, and, after trying in vain to amuse herself
indoors, she had slipped out into the great garden, and
rambled about in all her favourite nooks and corners,
feeling quite safe as there was not a creature to be seen.
[Pg 311]
Suddenly, on turning a corner, she stopped in surprise,
for before her lay a man fast asleep! In her hurry she
had almost tripped over him. But there he was, a young
man, tanned and dusty with travel, in the uniform of an
[Pg 312]
officer of the king’s guard. One of the few faults of
this lovely princess was a devouring curiosity, and she
lived such an idle life that she had plenty of time to be
curious. Out of one of the folds of this young man’s
turban there peeped the corner of a letter! She wondered
what the letter was—whom it was for! She drew her
veil a little closer, and stole across on tip-toe and caught
hold of the corner of the letter. Then she pulled it a
little, and just a little more! A great big seal came into
view, which she saw to be her father’s, and at the sight
of it she paused for a minute half ashamed of what she
was doing. But the pleasure of taking a letter which was
not meant for her was more than she could resist, and
in another moment it was in her hand. All at once she
remembered that it would be death to this poor officer
if he lost the letter, and that at all hazards she must
put it back again. But this was not so easy; and, moreover,
the letter in her hand burnt her with longing to
read it, and see what was inside. She examined the
seal. It was sticky with being exposed to the hot sun,
and with a very little effort it parted from the paper.
The letter was open and she read it! And this was what
was written:

‘Behead the messenger who brings this letter secretly
and at once. Ask no questions.’

The girl grew pale. What a shame! she thought.
She would not let a handsome young fellow like that be
beheaded; but how to prevent it was not quite clear at
the moment. Some plan must be invented, and she
wished to lock herself in where no one could interrupt
her, as might easily happen in the garden. So she crept
softly to her room, and took a piece of paper and wrote
upon it: ‘Marry the messenger who brings this letter to
the princess openly at once. Ask no questions.’ And
even contrived to work the seals off the original letter and
to fix them to this, so that no one could tell, unless they
examined it closely, that it had ever been opened. Then
she slipped back, shaking with fear and excitement, to
[Pg 313]
where the young officer still lay asleep, thrust the letter
into the folds of his turban, and hurried back to her room.
It was done!

Late in the afternoon Nur Mahomed woke, and, making
sure that the precious despatch was still safe, went off
to get ready for his audience with the governor. As soon
as he was ushered into his presence he took the letter
from his turban and placed it in the governor’s hands
according to orders. When he had read it the governor
was certainly a little astonished; but he was told in the
letter to ‘ask no questions,’ and he knew how to obey
orders. He sent for his wife and told her to get the
princess ready to be married at once.

‘Nonsense!’ said his wife, ‘what in the world do you
mean?’

‘These are the king’s commands,’ he answered; ‘go
and do as I bid you. The letter says “at once,” and
“ask no questions.” The marriage, therefore, must take
place this evening.’

In vain did his wife urge every objection; the more
she argued, the more determined was her husband. ‘I
know how to obey orders,’ he said, ‘and these are as
plain as the nose on my face!’ So the princess was
summoned, and, somewhat to their surprise, she seemed
to take the news very calmly; next Nur Mahomed was
informed, and he was greatly startled, but of course he
could but be delighted at the great and unexpected
honour which he thought the king had done him. Then
all the castle was turned upside down; and when the
news spread in the town, that was turned upside down
too. Everybody ran everywhere, and tried to do everything
at once; and, in the middle of it all, the old
governor went about with his hair standing on end,
muttering something about ‘obeying orders.’

And so the marriage was celebrated, and there was
a great feast in the castle, and another in the soldiers’
barracks, and illuminations all over the town and in the
beautiful gardens. And all the people declared that such
[Pg 314]
a wonderful sight had never been seen, and talked about
it to the ends of their lives.

The next day the governor despatched the princess
and her bridegroom to the king, with a troop of horsemen,
splendidly dressed, and he sent a mounted messenger on
before them, with a letter giving the account of the marriage
to the king.

When the king got the governor’s letter, he grew
so red in the face that everyone thought he was going
to have apoplexy. They were all very anxious to know
what had happened, but he rushed off and locked himself
into a room, where he ramped and raved until he was tired.
Then, after awhile, he began to think he had better make
the best of it, especially as the old governor had been
clever enough to send him back his letter, and the king
was pretty sure that this was in the princess’s handwriting.
He was fond of his daughter, and though she
had behaved so badly, he did not wish to cut her head off,
and he did not want people to know the truth because it
would make him look foolish. In fact, the more he considered
the matter, the more he felt that he would be wise to
put a good face on it, and to let people suppose that he had
really brought about the marriage of his own free will.

So, when the young couple arrived, the king received
them with all state, and gave his son-in-law a province to
govern. Nur Mahomed soon proved himself as able and
honourable a governor as he was a brave soldier; and,
when the old king died, he became king in his place, and
reigned long and happily.

Nur Mahomed’s old mother lived for a long time in
her ‘son’s’ palace, and died in peace. The princess, his
wife, although she had got her husband by a trick, found
that she could not trick him, and so she never tried, but
busied herself in teaching her children and scolding her
maids. As for the old hermit, no trace of him was ever
discovered; but the cave is there, and the leaves lie thick
in front of it unto this day.

[Told the writer by an Indian.]

[Pg 315]