“I cannot put that to my father,” said Shere Dil Khan.
“Is it not enough? Well, name your own price.” Her colour came and went, and she spoke eagerly and quickly.
“It is not that, but—”
“Well, put it, put it!” returned Hilda, unable to restrain an impatient stamp of the foot. “Put it, I entreat you.”
He looked at her hesitatingly for a moment, then complied. A change came over the features of Mushîm Khan as he listened, and his eyes fairly blazed with wrath.
“Am I a vile Hindu trader to be approached with such an offer?” he said. “Is the blood of my brother—the ignominy of his death—a mere question of rupees, of a lakh more or less? Tell this woman that all the rupees in the treasury of the Sirkar for a hundred years would not redeem the man whose father put to death with ignominy one of our house. He dies at sunrise to-morrow. As for her, she came alone and trusting to my protection. Praised be Allah, it shall be extended to her, and to her attendant. Let refreshment be given her, and with my safe conduct let her depart.”
This Shere Dil Khan duly rendered. But Hilda did not move. Great tears rose to her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
“He must not die, ah—he must not die,” she said. “Listen, Sirdar Sahib. Tell the Nawab I offer him all I have in the world, five lakhs of rupees, in redemption of this life. See, I have braved all and every danger, and travelled alone here to save it. He is brave, he must be generous. Oh, make him relent.”
Animation made all the difference in the world to Hilda Clive’s appearance. When she was animated to this extent she was beautiful—moreover, the Gularzai dress became her well. Shere Dil Khan looked at her with pity and concern. But the faces of the other two remained hard as granite.
“I have said and I have no more to say,” answered the Nawab, when this had been translated to him. “He dies at sunrise. I have sworn it. And now, let her depart.”