“I laugh at the vain efforts of a puny youth, who will have brought what you call his wrongs upon himself. He married your daughter when he knew that I had made overtures to possess her.”
“She had been pledged to him from infancy.”
“But the will of kings sets aside such idle pledges; they, therefore, should not have been fulfilled.”
“Our destinies are not dependent upon the will of kings. It has been hers to marry Jeipal, and all the powers of your extensive regality cannot sunder the mystical link which unites them. You may separate them from each other, but that conjunction of soul in which they are mutually joined is beyond your control—you cannot annul it.”
“But I will tear them asunder in spite of it; and let me tell you that while I live no power I possess shall be spared to secure the one great object of my wishes, which is the possession of your daughter Jaya.”
“That I have promised you, and the word of a Rajpoot is a sacred bond, forfeited only with life.”
Alla-ood-Deen quitted his presence with some lurking apprehensions that it was the Rajpoot’s intention still to evade his demands; he was therefore daily urgent to know the day which his daughter had fixed for her appearance at his capital. A week elapsed, but no communication had been made by the wife of Jeipal, and her father began to suspect that she had no intention of fulfilling her promise. On the following morning, however, he received a written communication from her, in which she stated that on the tenth day following she should be at Delhi; at the same time detailing to him a plan which she had devised, in concurrence with her husband, in order to effect his escape. He was delighted with the scheme, and prepared to advance its accomplishment to the best of his power. The idea of escape from the odious thraldom to which he had been subjected, gave such an impulse to his spirit that he soon shook off the lethargy of disease, and within a week was perfectly restored to his usual state of health.
The king, delighted at the near prospect of possessing the lovely Jaya, commanded that her entrance into Delhi should be distinguished by the strongest tokens of his affection. A guard was ordered to receive her at the gate, and pay her military honours as she passed through. She had requested her father to obtain the king’s passport for herself and retinue to proceed by slow marches towards the capital without interruption. Alla-ood-Deen had immediately granted her request, and given orders at all the towns and villages that she and her attendants should be exonerated from the ordinary scrutiny to which all travellers were subjected.
Ray Ruttun Sein waited with impatience for the day when he should welcome his daughter’s arrival at the Mahomedan capital. Alla-ood-Deen was no less impatient to behold the woman to whom report had ascribed such singular personal endowments. His harem was fitted up for her reception with extraordinary splendour; and he lavished his treasure with a profuse liberality in preparing to welcome this Hindoo beauty in a manner worthy of his princely munificence.
On the morning named by Jaya for her entrance into Delhi, a numerous cavalcade was seen approaching the city gate. It consisted of a number of litters, in which women are accustomed to travel in Eastern countries, covered with cloth draperies that entirely concealed from view those within. The litters were accompanied by about a hundred unarmed followers on foot. Each litter was borne on the shoulders of four men, and they severally passed through the gate, that which headed the cavalcade being honoured with a military salute from the guard. As had been previously agreed, they were borne towards the prison in which Ray Ruttun Sein was confined. This was a large house surrounded by a court and enclosed by a high wall. Into this court the litters were carried, and, when all were set down, the gates were closed and fastened on the outside.