After he had left her, impatient of her hesitation, a sudden terror seized her, lest he might have sought the King, lest he might persuade him.
"My bearers--woman! Quick!" she called to Hâfzan. "Quick, fool! my dhooli!"
But even dhooli bearers have to fly when vengeance shadows the horizon; and in that secluded corner none remained. Everyone was busy elsewhere; or from sheer terror clustered together where soldiers were to be found.
"The Ornament-of-Palaces can walk," said Hâfzan, still with that faint malice in her face. "There is none to see, and it is not far."
So, for the last time, Zeenut Maihl left the summer-house whence she had watched the Meerut road. Left it on foot, as many a better woman as unused to walking as she was leaving Delhi with babies on their breasts and little children toddling beside them. Past the faint outline of the Pearl Mosque, through the cool damp of the watered garden with the moon shining overhead, she stumbled laboriously. Up the steps of the Audience Hall toward a faint light by the Throne. The King sat on it, almost in the dark; for the oil cressets on a trefoil stand only seemed to make the shadows blacker. They lay thick upon the roof, blotting out that circling boast. Before him stood Bukht Khân, his hand still on his sword, broad, contemptuously bold. But on either side of the shrunken figure, half lost in the shadows also, were other counselors. Ahsan-Oolah, wily as ever, Elahi Buksh, the time-server, who saw the only hope of safety in prompt surrender.
"Let the Pillar-of-Faith claim time for thought," the latter was saying. "There is no hurry. If the soubadar-sahib is in one, let him go----"
Bukht Khân broke in with an ugly laugh, "Yea, Mirza-sahib, I can go, but if I go the army goes with me. Remember that. The King can keep the rabble. I have the soldiers."
Bahâdur Shâh looked from one to the other helplessly. Whether to go, risk all, endure a life of unknown discomfort at his age, or remain, alone, unprotected, he knew not.
"Yea! that is true. Still there is no need for hurry," put in the physician, with a glance at Elahi Buksh. "Let my master bid the soubadar and the army meet him at the Tomb of Humayon to-morrow morning. 'Twill be more seemly time to leave than now, like a thief in the night."
Bukht Khân gave a sharp look at the speaker, then laughed again. He saw the game. He scarcely cared to check it.