Tippoo Sultaun: A tale of the Mysore war. Taylor Meadows

in every word of his master’s soliloquy with greedy ears, and rejoicing in the hope of speedy revenge. ‘Who saidst thou he is?’

      ‘A Patél, noble sir—a miserable Patél of a village, Alla knows where—a man whose mother, Inshalla! is vile.’

      ‘I care not for his mother—who is he? and how comes he with the Khan? Tell me, or I will beat thee with my shoe!’

      ‘My lord—Khodawund!—be not angry, but listen: he is the Patél of a village where the Khan and his young wife were nearly drowned; he saved the lady, and he fought afterwards against some Mahrattas when they attacked the village where the Khan was resting for the night, and was wounded in his defence.’

      ‘And this is all, Madar?’

      ‘It is, protector of the poor! it is all; they say the Patél is a Roostum—a hero—a man who killed fourteen Mahrattas with his own hand, who—’

      ‘Bah!’ cried Jaffur impatiently, ‘and thou art a fool to believe them;’ and he fell to musing. ‘He must have seen her face,’ he said at length aloud.

      ‘He must,’ echoed his attendant; ‘they say he carried her in his arms from the river.’

      ‘Khoob! and what said they of her beauty?’

      ‘That she is as fair as the full moon in the night of Shub-i-Barāt.’

      ‘Khoob! and he has seen her again, I doubt not, since then.’

      ‘Willa alum!’ said Madar, raising his thumbs to his ears.

      ‘How should your slave know? but it is likely—people cannot conceal their faces when they are travelling.’

      ‘No, nor, Inshalla! wish to do so! but we shall see—take care that you mention not abroad what occurred this evening—they will forget it.’

      ‘But my lord will not!’

      ‘I never forget an insult till I have had its exchange, and that thou well knowest, Madar. Begone! make it known without that I may now be visited. We will consider of this matter.’

      But we must return to the Khan, whose active furashes had encircled several of the pillars of the cloisters with high tent walls, swept out the inclosures thus made, spread the carpets, and converted what was before open arches and naked walls and floors into a comfortable apartment, perfectly secure from observation. Ameena took possession of it, and was soon joined by her lord, who, in truth, was in nowise sorry after the fatigues of the day to enjoy first a good dinner, and afterwards the luxury of a soft cotton mattress, and to have his limbs gently kneaded by the tiny hands of his fair wife, while she amused him with a fairy tale, or one of those stories of intrigue and love which are so common among the Easterns.

      The cool air of the Mysore country had apparently invigorated her, and the languor which the heat and the fatigue of constant travelling had caused in the Carnatic had entirely disappeared, and given place to her usual lively and joyous expression. She had thrown a deep orange-coloured shawl, with a very richly-worked border, around her, to protect her from the night breeze that blew chilly over the tent walls, which did not reach to the roof of the building they were in, and it fell in heavy folds around her, appearing to make her light figure almost more slender from the contrast. She was inexpressively lovely, as she now bent playfully over the Khan, employed in her novel vocation, and again desisting, began afresh some other story wherewith to beguile the time till the hour of repose arrived.

      ‘Alla bless thee, Ameena!’ said the Khan, after one of her lively sallies, when her face had brightened, and her eyes sparkled at some point of her tale—‘Alla bless thee! thou art truly lovely to-night: the Prophet (may his name be honoured!) could have seen no brighter Houris in Paradise (when the will of Alla called him there) than thou art.’ ‘I am my lord’s slave,’ said the lady, ‘and to please him is my sole endeavour day and night. Happy is my heart when it tells me I have succeeded—how much more when I am honoured with such a remark from thine own lips, O my lord! And as to my beauty’—and here she threw a glance into the little mirror she wore upon her thumb—‘my lord surely flatters me; he must have seen far fairer faces than mine.’

      ‘Never, never, by the Prophet!’ cried the Khan, with energy; ‘never, I swear by thine own eyes, never. I have but one regret, Ameena, and that cannot be mended or altered now.’

      Ameena’s heart suddenly failed her, for Kasim came to her remembrance, and she thought for an instant that he might suspect.

      ‘Regret! what dost thou regret?’ she asked hesitatingly. ‘Anything that thy poor slave hath done? anything—’

      ‘Nothing, fairest, on thy part; it was for myself.’

      Her heart was suddenly relieved of a load. ‘For thyself?’ she said gaily; ‘what dost thou regret, Khan Sahib?’

      ‘That I am not twenty years younger, for thy sake, Ameena,’ he said with much feeling. ‘Methinks now, to see these grey hairs and this grey beard,’ and he touched them as he spoke, ‘so near thy soft and waving tresses, I seem more like a father to thee than a husband: and yet thou art mine, Ameena. I would thou wert older, fair one!’

      ‘And if I were, I should not be so fair,’ she said artlessly.

      ‘I care not, so that we had grown old together; at least I should have seen thy beauty, and the remembrance of it would have been with me.’

      Ameena sighed; her thoughts wandered to Kasim’s noble figure and youthful yet expressive countenance; in spite of herself and almost unconsciously she drew her hand across her eyes, as if to shut something ideal from her sight.

      The Khan heard her sigh; he would rather not have heard it, though his own remark he knew had provoked it. ‘I have said the truth, Ameena, and thou wouldst rather I were a younger man,’ he said, looking at her intently. ‘But what matter? these idle words do but pain thee. It is our destiny, sweet one, and we must work it out together.’

      ‘Ay, it is our destiny,’ she said.

      ‘The will of Alla!’ continued the Khan, looking up devoutly, ‘which hath joined two beings together so unsuited in age, but not in temper I think, Ameena. Thou art not as others, wilful and perverse—heavy burdens—hard to carry—and from which there is no deliverance; but a sweet and lovely flower, which a monarch might wear in his heart and be proud of. So thou truly art to Rhyman Khan, and ever wilt be, even though enemies should come between us.’

      ‘Enemies! my lord,’ she said with surprise in her tone; ‘I never had an enemy, even in my own home: and I am here with thee in a strange land, where I know no one who could be mine enemy!’

      ‘May Alla put them far from thee, fairest!’ he replied affectionately; ‘and yet sometimes I fear that thou mayst have to encounter enmity.’

      ‘I have heard it said by my honoured father, Khan, that as the blessed Prophet had many enemies, and as the martyrs Hassan and Hoosein came to their sad deaths by them, it is the lot of all to have some one inimical; but he meant men, whose occupations and cares call them into the world—not women, like me, who, knowing no one but my servants, cannot make enemies of them if I am kind.’

      ‘But I mean those who would be jealous of thy beauty, and seek thus to injure thee—from these I alone fear,’ replied her husband.

      ‘I fear not, Khan,’ she said, simply and confidently, ‘neither for thee nor myself. I cannot think that thou couldst ever give thy Ameena cause for jealousy, or any one else cause of jealousy of her. Alla help me! I should die if such could be—’

      ‘Nay, there thou shalt be safe,’ he said, interrupting her; ‘for never, never shalt thou have cause to say of Rhyman Khan that he was false to thee. I am a soldier, and one whose honour has known neither stain nor spot; and yet—’

      He had stopped suddenly and appeared to think; and, while he thought, suddenly an idea flashed into her mind—could she have already a rival? She could not bear it to rest there for an instant, ere