Within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king,
Death keeps his court.
Dawir Buxsh, who had been lately raised to a throne amid popular acclamation, was now hurled from his elevation, and more an object of pity than the meanest among those whom he had so lately governed. His cruelty to the unhappy Shariar too late filled him with remorse. The death of that Sultan’s daughter tortured his memory with a thousand bitter pangs. He saw that his fate was determined on, and the lingering desire of life made him look forward to death with horror.
On the morning after his uncle’s accession to the throne of the Moguls, two eunuchs entered the prison of Dawir Buxsh; he immediately knew that he was to die, and throwing himself upon his knees, was strangled whilst in the act of putting up a prayer to Heaven. The aspiration was cut short by the bow-string, and Multan Shariar and his daughter were both fully avenged.
The Omrah’s Daughter
CHAPTER I.
Lody Chan was seated in the veranda of his palace, smoking his hookah, and enjoying the luxury of repose which that exquisite instrument is so admirably calculated to induce. Behind him stood a tall attendant dressed in a tunic of green cloth, his waist encircled by a red cummerbund, his head surmounted with a bright yellow turban, undulating a yak’s tail over his master, to prevent mosquitos from sounding in his ears their little note of warning, or fixing their fine taper antennæ into those rich conduits through which the currents of life meander in ten thousand winding avenues to and from the heart. Beside this man stood another attendant, somewhat differently clad as to colour, but precisely similar in costume, waving a punka beside the Chan, in order to break the stagnation of the hot air of noon, in a shade where the thermometer would stand at ninety-eight degrees.
Lody was seated upon a carpet from the valued looms of Persia; beside him stood a goblet of Shiraz wine, and at his right hand a matchlock, its stock richly inlaid with gold. From the eaves of the veranda fell a silk awning, which was lowered when the sun slanted its level rays above the horizon in its early rising, or flooded the plain with its departing glories, ere it sank behind the broad ocean. This awning was brocaded with the precious metals from the celebrated bazaars of Ispahan, unrivalled throughout the East for the richness of its tissues. The walls were panelled with polished steel, which multiplied the reflection of every object near, and seemed to give an almost interminable space to the balconies by which the palace was surrounded. Arms, burnished with a care that showed how highly they were prized, hung from the pilasters which supported the projecting roof of the veranda, and various emblems of war were distributed around, with a profusion and an attention to effect, which sufficiently evinced how familiar the lord of this palace was with that bane of peace upon earth of which it has been too truly said, and but too little heeded, that
War’s a game
Which, were their subjects wise, kings would not play at.
Everything around the palace of Chan Lody attested his predilection for this most desperate game of chance that man can engage in. He was one of the greatest warriors of his day. Being a descendant of the imperial family of Lody, he felt anxious to maintain the dignity of his house; but though glory was the fierce aim of his ambition, he never tarnished it by an act of dishonour. He was indeed an ambitious prince, but a generous soldier and a virtuous man.
Whilst he sat drawing through the golden mouthpiece of his beautifully embossed hookah the exhalations of a richly aromatic chillam, a stranger was announced desiring to have an interview with the Chan.