“Come,” said she, “’tis time you were on your way. The Emperor’s troops were encamped last night beyond the country over which we have passed with the scourge of our power. They will be on their march by this time. You must all fight, and wrap the souls of your foes in the black veil of terror. Who undergoes the penance this morning?”
Without uttering a word, one of the fakeers who had accompanied the Mogul on the day of his capture, and rendered himself conspicuous by passing needles through his flesh, rose from his recumbent position, and, with an expression of callous indifference, advanced towards the spot where the flame had brightly blazed on the preceding evening. Rubbing two smooth pieces of a black-grained wood rapidly together, he kindled a tuft of dry grass on which some brushwood had been placed, and upon this several dry logs. A strong fire was soon burning, into which the devotee placed a long cylindrical rod of iron. In the course of a few moments it became red hot. When in this state he placed the point of the rod against his cheek, and deliberately pressed it until it had passed through his tongue, and was visible on the other side. It was then bent down on either cheek, towards the shoulder, forming three sides of a square, to prevent the possibility of its being withdrawn. The stern composure of his countenance did not relax a single instant during the revolting infliction. His companions looked upon him with fatuitous admiration, making him the most solemn obeisance after the odious penance had been concluded.
The man next deliberately opened the wounds which he had made on the previous day, and passed different coloured strings through them. Thus adorned, he declared himself ready to go forth in his own invincible might, and crush the enemies of his venerable patron. Bistamia placed a golden boon within his half-closed hand, upon which he grinned as well as his locked jaws would permit, and was about to quit the place accompanied by his companions, when the hag said with a savage laugh: “On your return you shall enjoy a rare pastime with yonder son of a scurvy dog: I will reserve him for your merriment. A little easy blood-spilling without labour will be a relaxation, after the fatigue of making carrion in the gross. Go and prosper—slay and spare not!” They made their salaam, departed, and the prisoner was once more left to his own solitary reflections.
About noon, his visitor of the night approached him. As she advanced, the lightness of her step, and the buoyant elasticity of every motion of her frame, proclaimed the beauty which he had already anticipated. In a few moments, a lovely girl, in the very birth and freshness of womanhood, stood before him. She was young and beautiful as the morning stars when they sang together at the birth of creation. Her breath seemed impregnated with spicy perfume wafted on gentlest airs from the shores of Arabia the Happy. It invested her in an atmosphere of its own.
Her eyes were dark—of the deepest hue, but brilliant as gems, and soft as the soul of which they were eloquent interpreters. Her hair was raised in a cone on the top of her head, and confined by a long silver pin, giving increased altitude to her majestic figure, and exposing the whole of her finely-arched forehead to the rapturous gaze of the Mogul.
“I would not have escaped this captivity for worlds!” he cried, as she stood beside him in the plenitude of her almost unearthly beauty.
“Stranger,” she replied, “have you the courage to bear me from the house of bondage, if I free you from your chains?”
“Try me; and if I fail to realise your wishes, cast me back again to my prison, and gall my limbs with the fetters from which I should no longer deserve to be free.”
She bent over him, and released his hands from the manacles that confined them, and he stood before her disencumbered of his bonds.
“Listen,” cried the beautiful girl, “while I unfold to you the miserable position in which I stand. My grandmother has given me as a concubine to the fakeer who this morning underwent the penance which you witnessed. On his return from the battle he will claim me. I need scarcely tell you that I entertain towards him a disgust so intrinsical and unconquerable, that I am determined to die by my own hands rather than become the instrument of that man’s pleasures. Upon you my hopes are fixed to release me from this horrible alternative. To-night, when the fakeers shall be hushed in sleep after their debauch, in which they are sure to indulge, we may fly from these detested walls. Meanwhile, you must resume your chains. You will now have the power of casting them off when you please. At midnight I will again visit you, prepared to fly with you from the most odious persecution to that freedom which I shall rely upon your honour for securing to me.”