“You know not whom you have harboured.”
“Nor do I seek to know: it is enough for me that I have saved the life of a fellow-creature. To me it is quite a matter of indifference who or what you may be; you have proved my benefactor and I shall never forget that I am indebted to you, not only for my own life, but for those lives which are far dearer to me than my own.”
“To-morrow I must quit you. It may perhaps be some consolation to you to know that you saved the life of the Emperor Humayoon. I have been driven from my throne by a rebel, and I must cast myself under the protection of some foreign power until I can regain it.”
The Pariah and his wife prostrated themselves before the Mogul the moment he had proclaimed his regality.
“Rise,” said the Emperor, “and receive my benediction: take this ring and this gold, and may it in future keep you from the privations to which you have hitherto been exposed.”
Saying this, he took from his finger a ring bearing a large ruby of considerable value, and put it into the hand of his host, together with a bag containing two thousand rupees in gold. This was a fortune to a needy family, a provision for life, which they acknowledged with tears of grateful joy. Being now sufficiently recovered to proceed on his journey, the following morning the Humayoon mounted his horse, and quitted the Pariah’s dwelling with prophetic sadness.
FOOTNOTES:
[24] Gram is a sort of small bean, eaten by cattle in India.
CHAPTER II.
From this moment the Pariah’s family prospered. With the Emperor’s benefaction, he purchased a large quantity of cattle, which he fed with grass from the jungles. By selling these he soon increased his two thousand rupees, and in a few years, by a course of active industry, became a wealthy man. His daughter Yhahil realised, as she grew up, the promise of her babyhood. Her beauty was the theme of every tongue, yet no one sought alliance with the Pariah, and she remained unwedded, which to every Hindoo woman is the sum of human misery. All the members of her own tribe were poor destitute objects, from a union with whom her soul sickened, and she in vain directed her thoughts to becoming the bride of a man of caste. She considered her case deplorable, and began to pine in secret at her unhappy lot.