Now it was the hour that the Rana should visit her; for since the coming of the Lotus Lady, he had forgotten his other women, and in her was all his heart. He came from the Hall of Audience where petitions were heard, and justice done to rich and poor; and as he came, the Queen, hearing his step on the stone, dismissed her women, and smiling to know her loveliness, bowed before him, even as the Goddess Uma bows before Him who is her other half.
Now he was a tall man, with the falcon look of the Hill Rajputs, and moustaches that curled up to his eyes, lion-waisted and lean in the flanks like Arjoon himself, a very ruler of men; and as he came, his hand was on the hilt of the sword that showed beneath his gold coat of khincob. On the high cushions he sat, and the Rani a step beneath him; and she said, raising her lotus eyes:—
“Speak, Aryaputra, (son of a noble father)—what hath befallen?”
And he, looking upon her beauty with fear, replied,—
“It is thy beauty, O wife, that brings disaster.”
“And how is this?” she asked very earnestly.
For a moment he paused, regarding her as might a stranger, as one who considers a beauty in which he hath no part; and, drawn by this strangeness, she rose and knelt beside him, pillowing her head upon his heart.
“Say on,” she said in her voice of music.
He unfurled a scroll that he had crushed in his strong right hand, and
read aloud:—
“‘Thus says Allah-u-Din, Shadow of God, Wonder of the Age,
Viceregent of Kings. We have heard that in the Treasury of Chitor is a
jewel, the like of which is not in the Four Seas—the work of the hand
of the Only God, to whom be praise! This jewel is thy Queen, the Lady
Padmini. Now, since the sons of the Prophet are righteous, I desire but
to look upon this jewel, and ascribing glory to the Creator, to depart
in peace. Granted requests are the bonds of friendship; therefore
lay the head of acquiescence in the dust of opportunity and name an
auspicious day.’”
He crushed it again and flung it furiously from him on the marble.