Lord Byron's Novel by John Crowley

whose care Lord Sane’s admired black charger had been given. They had come upon the hapless fellow, on his way far elsewhere, it seemed, and astride the horse—though the poor animal’s wound, and its stagger, were much the worse, indeed now beyond repair. The man was brought before his employer—trembling in justified terror, and begging, indeed singing in a heart-rending shriek for understanding, exculpation, mercy—Sane silent, and looking down upon him—then upon his quick word or two—which words compelled the miscreant to louder shrieks—the man was bound and carried to the stables, and prepared for the bastinado: which fearful process no one there present, perhaps not excepting even the one who was to undergo it, would have denied the foreign Lord the right to impose upon his servant for his dereliction. When all was in readiness, Lord Sane settled himself at a distance upon a stool brought for him. Ali—for he was specially commanded to be present, at his father’s side—stood behind. The Lord called for his pipe, which was quickly brought him, and a coal to light it with; and when it burned to his liking, he signalled—by a gesture as small as it was unmistakable—that the punishment should begin.
    Man’s ingenuity in the devices of torture and pain is endless—for it must have taken a deal of patient experiment to learn that the blows of a slim cane upon the bottoms of the feet, though not violent, are, when continued sufficiently, unbearable—the strongest man may not help crying out, and this groom was not of the strongest—no doubt he had seen others undergo what he now faced—and his wailing increased in pitch and volume before the first blow was struck. Lord Sane without expression went on smoking his pipe as the groom was beaten, unmoved even when it became apparent that the man’s bowels had loosened in his agony. It was in that hour that Ali learned that he hated cruelty—knew that from that time forward he would never, if he could with honour avoid it, inflict or cause to be inflicted such acts as this he witness’d upon any being unable to resist, be it human or animal. As all men do who live in society, he learned to abide cruelty, when he could not prevent it—which largely he could not, the world being at all times over-full of it—he learned even to jest at it, speak lightly of it, in the world’s way—but he would find himself unable to witness it with equanimity, and be compelled to stop it, when he could: as on that day he could not.
    When the punishment was done, Lord Sane gave over his pipe to his boy, and left the stables, where the groom still sang out his pain and shame—went to the courtyard, where the once-proud stallion hung its head—took a pistol from his belt, primed and cocked it, and shot dead the poor beast himself without a word.
    They went down from the mountains to the sea, through country almost without roads—though they passed a company in the process of repairing one of the few—a company of women, for in that land, in contrast to the homelands of the Turk, women are not put out of the world but do all the work that men do—nay, more—they are often driven like beasts, and not highly regarded. One among these women breaking stone—the youngest and loveliest of them—raised her blue eyes to see the strange party pass, and Ali as though stabbed to the heart believed for a moment that his Iman had somehow come to be transported here; the illusion quickly passed, and yet he still felt—for the first time in all its awful strangeness and permanency —that he had left his home, and all that he knew and loved he might never see again.
    But the sea then appeared, its blue prinked with diamond sparkles, at first glimpsed between the peaks, then the great plain of it reveal’d, which Ali could not at first conceive to be truly made of water, as the more travelled among the band assured him—laughing—that it was; and Ali in terror and delight rode