"Well, if it must be, it must be; what is to happen is to happen, and no one can help their fate," she said, with a great sigh, as she got up from her seat. "Fire and water, fire and water, they won't mingle."
"Go, I tell you," cried Shireen-bee; "you are thinking again, and if you want to do that, you had better not go at all. Are you a coward?"
Luteefa-bee went away sadly, wiping her eyes, and, asking to see Osman Beg, was ushered into his presence by an Abyssinian slave.
He was alone, smoking, and idly looking up the glen from one of the arched doorways, where a pleasant breeze entered and cooled the room.
"What news, mother?" he said; "what hast thou been doing, and when am I to have a wife?"
He spoke good humouredly, but she did not like the expression of his eyes. They looked to her perception as if he would have added, "if you do not get me one soon, I will have you flung down the rocks into the river." And she shuddered at the bare thought.
"Ah! it is cold here," continued Osman Beg, who observed the action; "come, and sit out of the wind, and tell me what news thou hast."
"Protector of the poor," cried the woman, "forgive your slave, but she has no news. Shireen has been everywhere, but there is no one worthy of you, no one to whom Luteefa-bee could unite you. Had there even been one, however lowly in birth, your slave would have gone herself and arranged everything. But one is lame, another deformed, two are little children; and as to anyone of decent station, we cannot hear of anybody in the whole country, even at Sugger. All the Mussulmans are only poor weavers. Therefore, your slave begs permission to depart. She is full of grief; but, who can control destiny?"
"You are a cheat!" cried the Nawab, furiously. "A cheat, like all your people. Where are the rupees I gave you? Give them back; and may the Shytán burn you. I say, where is the money?"
"I left it at Moodgul, with the banker," returned the woman, whimpering. "Send some one with me, and I will give it back. But the Nawab Osman Beg's generosity is great," she added, soothingly; "and what is given is given. Who ever asks return of a gift?"