She laughed, though there was a spice of irritation in her mirth, but Roger gripped her round the waist, for the mule, more perceptive than the man, stumbled at the right moment. To comfort her, he gave her a reassuring hug.
“There is naught of the fuzz-ball about thee, Matilda,” he vowed, and the Countess laughed again. But she blushed, too, and murmured in her own language:—
“After all, the truest romance is more than half a comedy.”
One night, when the cavalcade was halted in the very village whence Nur Mahal had turned northwards with such quick vagary, an owl hooted from the depths of a nim tree. The weird note thrice boomed unheeded through the air, for all in the camp were weary, but, when the mournful cry rang out for the fourth time, one of Sher Afghán’s Rajputs raised himself quietly from his bed of leaves and listened.
At the fifth hoot he glanced around and saw that none other was disturbed. He rose and sauntered quietly towards the tree, in whose deep shade he was lost for a little while. He returned, and with him now walked another Rajput. The two reached the camp fire around which lay their clansmen, and conversed in whispers with others whom they awakened. Then the newcomer, following directions, strolled towards the tent occupied by the Englishmen. Entering in the dark he was seized by Walter, who was lying sleepless, thinking of the possible outcome had he given Nur Mahal a different answer when they last stood together in the millet-field so near at hand.
Jai Singh had said that the place was bewitched, and lo, here was Jai Singh himself wriggling in his clutch! As for Roger, the sound of the scuffle roused him, and both Mowbray and he were vastly surprised when the old Rajput gasped:—
“Slay me not, sahib! My throat is sore enough with screeching to deaf ears. Soul of Govind, let go!”
Bad news can be told with scant breath. It did not take Jai Singh long to acquaint them with the dire intelligence that Nur Mahal, although received in great state by Jahangir, had openly defied him. She charged him with the murder of her gallant husband, and, woman-like, even unfairly taunted him with his cowardice in destroying by a trick one whom he dared not encounter in fair fight.
Lashed to rage by her scorn, Jahangir gave instant orders that she should be sewn in a sack and thrown to the crocodiles. But even in that servile court there lingered memories of Akbar’s justice, and the infuriated tyrant was compelled to rescind his cruel mandate before it could be executed.