The Queen was seated in her usual place in the beautiful room which Abbas Khan had known from his childhood, and where for years he had been the fellow-student and joyous playmate of the King. She was dressed in her usual Court costume, a white muslin robe of the Persian fashion, with a filmy white muslin scarf over her head, lightly edged with gold tissue ribbon, which, passing over her head, hung down over her right arm. She was not unveiled entirely, but the almost transparent muslin, of which the covering of her face was composed, allowed her features to be distinctly visible to those who sat near her. They seemed to the young man even softer and more tenderly beautiful than they had appeared in her hunting dress; and though he had been long absent, he did not observe any change, for she was to him, in his intense love and admiration for his foster-mother, the most beautiful woman, in his eyes, that he had ever seen. There was no alteration in the Royal seat, in the room whose clustered shafts, rising from the corners and sides in slender columns of the whitest polished stucco, looked like marble, and spread out into the bewildering tracery of the roof, while the spaces between the shafts were covered with the most delicate arabesque patterns, portions of which shone with burnished gold. There was no perceptible change in those who sat before him; was the difference then in himself, that all, except the Queen herself, appeared to regard him with suspicion?
"Be seated, Abbas Khan," said the Queen, in her soft, low voice. And with a courteous reverence to each of those present, which he was now at liberty to make, and which was kindly returned, the young Khan took his seat below the rest.
"Thou hast none but elders and friends to listen to thee," continued the Queen; "friends of thy father and uncle; tell them and me in what manner Elias Khan was slain, and why thou took refuge in Juldroog."
"If I might hear any accusation there is against me first, I might reply the better," answered Abbas Khan. "Nevertheless, if this be withheld from me, I am not ashamed to tell my Queen and mother, and my elders, the truth, as the Lord knoweth."
"Conceal nothing, my son," said the Queen, gently. "Even if thou hast chanced to err, speak freely and truly."
"Ye all know," he continued, addressing Hyat Khan, the chief Kotwal, "how Elias Khan was surprised by our lord the King, and how, as he did to Eyn-ool-Moolk, in the generosity of his heart, Elias was released. Ye all know, too, how he fled to Eyn-ool-Moolk and the Prince Ismail. Then he became a declared rebel."
We need not, perhaps, follow the young Khan's narrative of the skirmish in which Elias Khan was slain by him, nor the subsequent events which have already been detailed; nor how he declared he had been sick unto death, while he was living with his cousin, Osman Beg, till relieved by a holy Dervish, and afterwards a Portuguese padré, who had been sent to Juldroog by Dilawer Khan, of Moodgul, and whom he had brought with him under the order of the Queen herself. The young man's narrative was clear and distinct, and the frank manner in which it was given carried with it conviction of its truth to all who heard it.
"Yet," said Hyat Khan, "it was believed, it is believed, that thou wert the traitor, and slew Elias Khan treacherously, because he was thy rival."
"And," added the priest, with a scornful sniff, "that thou hast been consorting with the Nazarene woman, who is a reputed witch and sorceress."
Abbas Khan looked from one to another of the speakers, by turns, with amazement, his fair face flushing with excitement. "Who are my accusers?" he asked. "I can reply only to them on these points, and I pray the Royal justice that I may be confronted with them, and then let Alla judge. As to the Christian lady, let my Queen-mother examine herself; to me she is as a mother or a sister—a holy woman devoted to the service of God by her vows, as her brother is by his."