The Essential William Makepeace Thackeray Collection. William Makepeace Thackeray

I had explained to the Council the extraordinary means of defence possessed by the garrison.

      "Your star is bright, O Bahawder! for this very night we had resolved upon an escalade of the fort, and we had sworn to put every one of the infidel garrison to the edge of the sword."

      "But you have no battering train," said I.

      "Bah! we have a couple of ninety-six pounders, quite sufficient to blow the gates open; and then, hey for a charge!" said Loll Mahommed, a general of cavalry, who was a rival of Bobbachy's, and contradicted, therefore, every word I said. "In the name of Juggernaut, why wait for the heavy artillery? Have we not swords? Have we not hearts? Mashallah! Let cravens stay with Bobbachy, all true men will follow Loll Mahommed! Allahhumdillah, Bismillah, Barikallah?" {7} and drawing his scimitar, he waved it over his head, and shouted out his cry of battle. It was repeated by many of the other omrahs; the sound of their cheers was carried into the camp, and caught up by the men; the camels began to cry, the horses to prance and neigh, the eight hundred elephants set up a scream, the trumpeters and drummers clanged away at their instruments. I never heard such a din before or after. How I trembled for my little garrison when I heard the enthusiastic cries of this innumerable host!

      There was but one way for it. "Sir," said I, addressing Holkar, "go out to-night, and you go to certain death. Loll Mahommed has not seen the fort as I have. Pass the gate if you please, and for what? to fall before the fire of a hundred pieces of artillery; to storm another gate, and then another, and then to be blown up, with Gahagan's garrison in the citadel. Who talks of courage? Were I not in your august presence, O star of the faithful, I would crop Loll Mahommed's nose from his face, and wear his ears as an ornament in my own pugree! Who is there here that knows not the difference between yonder yellow-skinned coward and Gahagan Khan Guj--I mean Bobbachy Bahawder? I am ready to fight one, two, three, or twenty of them, at broad-sword, small-sword, single- stick, with fists if you please. By the holy piper, fighting is like mate and dthrink to Ga---to Bobbachy, I mane--whoop! come on, you divvle, and I'll bate the skin off your ugly bones."

      This speech had very nearly proved fatal to me, for, when I am agitated, I involuntarily adopt some of the phraseology peculiar to my own country; which is so un-eastern, that, had there been any suspicion as to my real character, detection must indubitably have ensued. As it was, Holkar perceived nothing, but instantaneously stopped the dispute. Loll Mahommed, however, evidently suspected something; for, as Holkar, with a voice of thunder, shouted out; "Tomasha (silence)," Loll sprang forward and gasped out -

      "My lord! my lord! this is not Bob--"

      But he could say no more. "Gag the slave!" screamed out Holkar, stamping with fury; and a turban was instantly twisted round the poor devil's jaws. "Ho, furoshes! carry out Loll Mahommed Khan, give him a hundred dozen on the soles of his feet, set him upon a white donkey, and carry him round the camp, with an inscription before him: 'This is the way that Holkar rewards the talkative.'"

      I breathed again; and ever as I heard each whack of the bamboo falling on Loll Mahommed's feet, I felt peace returning to my mind, and thanked my stars that I was delivered of this danger.

      "Vizier," said Holkar, who enjoyed Loll's roars amazingly, "I owe you a reparation for your nose: kiss the hand of your prince, O Saadut Alee Beg Bimbukchee! be from this day forth Zoheir u Dowlut!"

      The good old man's eyes filled with tears. "I can bear thy severity, O Prince," said he; "I cannot bear thy love. Was it not an honour that your Highness did me just now when you condescended to pass over the bridge of your slave's nose?"

      The phrase was by all voices pronounced to be very poetical. The Vizier retired, crowned with his new honours, to bed. Holkar was in high good-humour.

      "Bobbachy," said he, "thou, too, must pardon me. A propos, I have news for thee. Your wife, the incomparable Puttee Rooge" (white and red rose), "has arrived in camp."

      "My WIFE, my lord!" said I, aghast.

      "Our daughter, the light of thine eyes! Go, my son; I see thou art wild with joy. The Princess's tents are set up close by mine, and I know thou longest to join her."

      My wife? Here was a complication truly!

      CHAPTER V: THE ISSUE OF MY INTERVIEW WITH MY WIFE

      I found Puneeree Muckun, with the rest of my attendants, waiting at the gate, and they immediately conducted me to my own tents in the neighbourhood. I have been in many dangerous predicaments before that time and since, but I don't care to deny that I felt in the present instance such a throbbing of the heart as I never have experienced when leading a forlorn hope, or marching up to a battery.

      As soon as I entered the tents a host of menials sprang forward, some to ease me of my armour, some to offer me refreshments, some with hookahs, attar of roses (in great quart bottles), and the thousand delicacies of Eastern life. I motioned them away. "I will wear my armour," said I; "I shall go forth to-night. Carry my duty to the princess, and say I grieve that to-night I have not the time to see her. Spread me a couch here, and bring me supper here: a jar of Persian wine well cooled, a lamb stuffed with pistachio- nuts, a pillaw of a couple of turkeys, a curried kid--anything. Begone! Give me a pipe; leave me alone, and tell me when the meal is ready."

      I thought by these means to put off the fair Puttee Rooge, and hoped to be able to escape without subjecting myself to the examination of her curious eyes. After smoking for a while, an attendant came to tell me that my supper was prepared in the inner apartment of the tent (I suppose that the reader, if he be possessed of the commonest intelligence, knows that the tents of the Indian grandees are made of the finest Cashmere Shawls, and contain a dozen rooms at least, with carpets, chimneys, and sash- windows complete). I entered, I say, into an inner chamber, and there began with my fingers to devour my meal in the Oriental fashion, taking, every now and then, a pull from the wine-jar, which was cooling deliciously in another jar of snow.

      I was just in the act of despatching the last morsel of a most savoury stewed lamb and rice, which had formed my meal, when I heard a scuffle of feet, a shrill clatter of female voices, and, the curtain being flung open, in marched a lady accompanied by twelve slaves, with moon faces and slim waists, lovely as the houris in Paradise.

      The lady herself, to do her justice, was as great a contrast to her attendants as could possibly be: she was crooked, old, of the complexion of molasses, and rendered a thousand times more ugly by the tawdry dress and the blazing jewels with which she was covered. A line of yellow chalk drawn from her forehead to the tip of her nose (which was further ornamented by an immense glittering nose- ring), her eyelids painted bright red, and a large dab of the same colour on her chin, showed she was not of the Mussulman, but the Brahmin faith--and of a very high caste: you could see that by her eyes. My mind was instantaneously made up as to my line of action.

      The male attendants had of course quitted the apartment, as they heard the well-known sound of her voice. It would have been death to them to have remained and looked in her face. The females ranged themselves round their mistress, as she squatted down opposite to me.

      "And is this," said she, "a welcome, O Khan! after six months' absence, for the most unfortunate and loving wife in all the world? Is this lamb, O glutton! half so tender as thy spouse? Is this wine, O sot! half so sweet as her looks?"

      I saw the storm was brewing--her slaves, to whom she turned, kept up a kind of chorus:-

      "Oh, the faithless one!" cried they. "Oh, the rascal, the false one, who has no eye for beauty, and no heart for love, like the Khanum's!"

      "A lamb is not so sweet as love," said I gravely; "but a lamb has a good temper: a wine-cup is not so intoxicating as a woman--but a wine-cup has NO TONGUE, O Khanum Gee!" and again I dipped my nose in the soul-refreshing jar.

      The sweet Puttee Rooge was not, however, to be put off by my repartees; she and her maidens recommenced their chorus, and chattered and stormed until I lost all patience.

      "Retire, friends," said I, "and leave