As the fear-stricken fugitive entered, the mechanical birds were warbling their cheerful notes, and a large Swiss musical-box was playing, with the accompaniment of drums and bells, “See the Conquering Hero comes.” It was the very irony of fate. It seemed as if it had been done purposely to mock him.
He strode over to the magnificently carved table upon which the box stood, and, drawing his tulwar, dealt the instrument a terrific blow, that almost severed it in halves; then he sank on to a couch, and burying his face in his hands, rocked himself, and moaned.
“Your Highness is troubled,” Azimoolah remarked softly, his composure not in the least disturbed by the Nana’s display of fury. “Why should you give way like this?” he continued, as he received no reply to his first remark. “Despair is unworthy of a prince. All is not yet lost. Rouse yourself, show a dauntless mien, and we will yet beat these English back.”
The Nana started from the couch, his face livid with passion, so that Azimoolah shrank back in alarm, for cruel natures are always cowardly, and it was coward matched to coward.
“Curse you for mocking me!” the Nana cried, raising both his hands above his head. “Curse you for luring me to destruction! May you rot living! May you wander a nameless outcast—without shelter, without home, fearing every bush, trembling at every rustle of a leaf, and with every man’s hand against your life. If I had not listened to you I should not have fallen. Curse you again! May every hope of Paradise be shut out for you.”
He fell into his seat again, overpowered by the exertion this outburst had caused him.
Azimoolah was a little disconcerted, but he tried not to show it. With one hand on the handle of a jewelled dagger, that was hidden in the folds of his dress, and his other hand playing with a lace handkerchief, he crossed quietly to where the Nana was seated, and said with withering sarcasm—
“Your Highness is a little out of sorts, and my presence is not required; but I may be permitted to remind your Highness that ‘curses, like chickens, return to roost.’”
With a smile of scorn upon his lips he passed out of the room, and the fallen Mahratta was alone.
In a little time, instincts of self-preservation caused the Nana to start up, and resolve upon some plan of escape. He knew what would be expected from him by his people. Having been defeated, he must retrieve his honour by dying; but, as before stated, he was too great a coward for that. He was wily enough, however, to see that it offered him means of escape. There were two or three of his followers that he could yet depend upon, and these he summoned to his presence, and made known a plan that suggested itself to him.