"Allah Ackbar—now we have it!" exclaimed Saleh Mohammed, with something between irritation and amusement. "Well, know, aga, that to quote a Parsee or Hindoo banker's book in lieu of Hafiz might be more to the purpose."
"Perhaps so: we have more metal in our scabbards than in our purses, in the desert here."
"They have tempers, these Feringhee women, I can tell you," said the Dooranee, with a quiet laugh.
"So have ours, for the matter of that, and are free enough with their slipper heel on a man's beard at times."
"Ah! all women, I dare say, are like the apples of Istkahar, one half sweet and one half sour," said the old Khan, shaking his long beard.
"You must seek the well of youth again," rejoined the young Toorkoman, laughing. "There is another Kaffir damsel whose voice sounded sweetly, as if she had tasted of the leaves that shadow the tomb of Tan-Sien," he continued, using in his ordinary conversation figures and phraseology that seem no way far-fetched to an Oriental; "yes, aga, tender and soft, for I heard her sing her two children to sleep in yonder hut. Yet she may never have been in Gwalior," added Zoolficar; for the lady was an officer's widow, young and pretty, with two poor sickly babes; and the tomb he referred to was that of the famous musician, who once flourished at the court of the Emperor Ackbar, and the leaves of a tree near which are supposed to impart, when eaten, a wondrous melody to the human voice.
"Then am I to understand that you have set eyes upon both these prisoners?" asked Saleh Mohammed, his keen black eyes becoming very round, as he seemed to make up more fully to the matter in hand.
"Please God, I have. In a word," said Zoolficar Khan, lowering his voice, "I shall give you a purse of five hundred tomauns for them both—peaceably, and help you to plunder the Hazarees on your way home."
"And what of the Sirdir?"
"Tell him they died on the way: moreover, I don't want the two children—you may keep them."