By this time the whole of her party had escaped, and she alone remained within the walls. A soldier now grasping the reins of her horse, she instantly severed his arm at the wrist with a single stroke of her keen Damascus sabre. The man, exasperated, urged a comrade to cut her down. The latter sprang forward, but she met him as he advanced, and buried her weapon in his throat. Morad commanded that the troops should retire, and urged his charger towards Jahanira.
“Lady, you are our prisoner.”
“Never!” cried Jahanira, drawing a dagger. “I will not survive captivity. Open yonder gates, and allow me to follow my father, or I will leave you only my body for the gratification of your revenge. You shall never take me alive!”
“Nay, this intemperance ill befits a daughter of the illustrious house of Lody. None but cowards die to escape the shocks of destiny.”
“And none but cowards submit to the caprices of tyrants. You once preserved my life; but if you intend to inthral the life you saved, all obligation is cancelled between us, and I now dare you to mortal combat; for, woman as I am, you shall find me no contemptible competitor.”
She spurred her Arab towards Morad and made a stroke at his head; but he suddenly reined back his horse and avoided the blow, which fell upon the animal’s neck. It plunged violently, and the prince had great difficulty in evading the fierce onset of his beautiful antagonist, who at length wounded him in the arm; and seeing several horsemen approach to the aid of their general, she urged her little roan charger towards the gate. Morad, charmed with her heroism, ordered it to be opened; when, bounding through the portal with the swiftness of an arrow, she soon joined her father and brothers about four leagues from the city.
The Emperor having been roused by the sudden shouts of the fugitive and his followers, as they made their unexpected eruption from the castle, started from his bed, and seizing a sword, sent messengers to ascertain the cause; apprehending an insurrection of the citizens in favour of Chan Lody, who was extremely popular among them. On ascertaining that the Omrah had escaped, he despatched a large body of troops, headed by Perist, the usher, who was accompanied by several other nobles of distinction, and ordered to bring back the fugitives to the city either dead or alive.
Perist, eager to punish Azmut for the attack made upon him by that young warrior in the Emperor’s presence, readily undertook the command, and promised that before the waning of another moon the heads of his master’s enemies should either be blackening on the walls of Agra, or their bodies bound in chains within the state prisons. This empty boast satisfied Shah Jehan, who well knew the usher’s hostility to the family of Lody, which he would have been willing to exterminate, even at the sacrifice of his own life.
Perist was a Calmuc Tartar, of amazing power of body, and no less intrepidity of spirit, who had raised himself to distinction in the imperial army by his gigantic strength and desperate valour. He had risen from a low station in the army to one of high distinction in the state, and this had emboldened him to seek an alliance that should perpetuate his name. The lovely Jahanira had long been the theme of public panegyric, and the reputation of her beauty, together with her illustrious descent, made him desire to become united with this distinguished maiden.
Without having seen the object of his ambitious aspiring, but relying upon the reports of her high qualities, he sent his proposals, which were rejected with scorn. This roused the malignity of the Tartar. To be contemned by a woman was an injury never to be forgotten; and he meditated a distant but signal revenge. He expected that his treatment of the fiery young Azmut would rouse the indignation of his family, and most probably excite them to acts of violence. It had happened precisely as he had foreseen, and he now gladly seized the opportunity of following up to its issue the plan of retribution which he had so warily laid. He was not a man to let his resolution lie in abeyance until chance concurred to elicit the desired result; but he had that energy of malice which tries every hazard, however desperate, to realize the consummation of its most atrocious purposes.