“Fighting.”
I winced, for his manner suggested that he had been successful, and I knew what that meant.
“Don’t look like that,” he said kindly. “You are a soldier, and know that only one side can win. You and yours have carried all before you for many years; it is our turn now.”
“But only for a little while,” I said quietly. “You must be beaten in the end.”
“Indeed!” he said, frowning, but turning it off with a laugh. “Oh no; we carry everything before us now, and we shall be free once more.”
My brows knit, and I tried to say something, but only words which I felt would anger him seemed to come to my lips, and after watching me, he smiled.
“You do not agree with me, of course?” he said. “How could you? But you did not tell me if there was anything you wanted,” he continued pleasantly.
I looked in his eyes, then my own wandered over him and his dress; and as he sat there by my pillow, looking every inch an Eastern king, the scene once more suggested some passage out of the “Arabian Nights,” and there was an unreality about it that closed my lips.
Just then my eyes rested upon the beautiful tulwar that he had drawn across his knees when he sat down. It was a magnificent weapon, such as a cunning Indian or Persian cutler and jeweller would devote months of his life in making; for the hilt was of richly chased silver inlaid with gold, while costly jewels were set wherever a place could be found, and the golden sheath was completely encrusted with pearls. It must have been worth a little fortune; and, while my eyes rested upon the gorgeous weapon, he smiled, and drew it nearly from the sheath, when I could see the beautifully damascened and inlaid blade, upon which there was an inscription in Sanscrit characters.
“There is no better nor truer steel,” he said, turning it over, so that I could see the other side of the blade. “Get strength back in your arm, and you could kill an enemy with that at a blow. You like it?”