How thoughtful was she for them all! She was evidently most anxious for Maria. "Thou art more tender of heart," she would say, "than we tough Moslems. Thy faith is more tender; and the scenes thou hast endured with us here are not fit either for thee or thy brother, and ye must leave me till the peril be past. If it pass, and we have peaceful lives before us till my boy grows up, thou and thy brother shall roam where ye will, and preach as ye will; for who does not love and honour ye?"
It was a bitter parting; but the Queen sent Maria and her brother away. A body of men came from Dowlutabad, sent by Mullek Umber to escort treasure for the pay of the troops with the Queen; and the Queen sent the Bishop and his sister with them to her faithful friend. It was the only opportunity there might be for many weeks; and if peace ensued, they could at any time return again in a few days. And Maria had been absent before, and had returned safely; so Zóra was comforted, but not the Queen.
The evening before the small force marched, Maria and the Queen were alone together, and the Royal lady, taking Maria's head on her breast, said gently, "Thou hast been a true and loving daughter to me, child. All the women of my country are feeble and impetuous; but from the first even unto the last thou hast been the same. Thou hast borne with a weak old woman's waywardness; thou hast put sweet loving thoughts into my heart, and told me truths which well up, and teach me mercy. And oh, Maria! though I have never mentioned it to thee, how can I thank thee for thy conduct at Beejapoor; so gentle, yet so firm. Thou dost not know, thou never canst know, how he pleaded with me for thee, or what he offered me for thee. And he, too, is loving, and would have been kind and faithful to thee; and at first I grieved that it could not be. But thou wast right. The Lord vouchsafed wisdom to thee, and thou art blessed with that thought, O, my daughter; for when ye meet, all will have passed away in peace. He is the father of children now, and is happy; though he hath not forgotten her who was a joy to him. I would often fain have spoken to thee about that eventful passage in thy young life; but these are my last words to thee, and thou wilt not forget them."
"Never, never! my more than mother," she returned, sobbing bitterly. "And may the Lord grant that we meet again in peace." She would have said more, for her heart was full of gratitude; but the Queen said gently,—
"It may not be, daughter. My message is coming nearer to me; nearer, nearer, day by day, and I am content. Go now, and leave me, with but one embrace—the last. I shall think of thee in safety, till the angel summons me. Lo!" and she stretched her hand on high, while a smile of triumph spread over her features, and her still lustrous eye glowed brightly, "Lo! he is near me, even now."
We have already said there was no force in the field which could pretend to check the advance of the powerful army which was now approaching by safe and easy stages. The siege train was especially powerful and its equipment complete, and the Emperor had sent a large body of the famous miners of the northern provinces, who in their peculiar vocation were unsurpassed in skill and daring. Khan Khanan, who knew the ground perfectly, had determined to risk as few of his own troops' lives as possible, and he had already seen proved how comparatively easy and how certain it would be to destroy the fort with gunpowder.
Osman Beg was in his place as general leader and director of the marches, and he had gained the confidence of the commander-in-chief with singular adroitness and plausibility. All these intervening years the mad craving of his heart for Zóra had never diminished, nay, it had fed on its own imaginings. What would she not be now in the full possession of her matured beauty? How different to the poor Fakeer's daughter of Juldroog, whom he had so madly loved. No one, he believed, knew that he belonged to the Moghul forces at all. His name was a common one among the bodies of Turcomans who served in the Imperial army, and in the first siege he had kept himself aloof from the camp and the siege operations. Dom Diego had asked him to command a portion of the storming party, and even taunted him with cowardice when he refused; but Osman Beg had laughed at the possibility of taking the fort as the priest imagined, and he heard of his death without surprise and without regret. "Mine shall be a sure game," he thought; "one in which the risk will be small and the reward certain. Then I shall gloat myself with revenge, and my virtuous cousin shall die at my feet or be hurled into the air to feed the vultures. Let but our position become securely taken up before the fort, and I will see what Moghul gold may not effect within."
The last march was made. The people of the city and its environs, warned by previous experience, had deserted their homes for some days, and nothing was left in the streets but starving, homeless dogs, who howled piteously night and day. There was nothing on the plain but the grim old fort and its defences, which the Moghul commander could see were in much more complete order than they had previously been. The wide esplanade was cleared of every vestige of cover; trees all around had been cut down; the defences of the parapets had been newly topped with clay; loopholes had been narrowed, and embrasures protected by sandbags and gabions. Even the covered way at the crest of the counterscarp had been cleared out and fitted for musketeers, and larger guns than before mounted in many places on the broad rampart and the bastions. The work had been that of months, and Abbas Khan was not one who would trust to others to see it performed. He and the Queen had passed their days on the ramparts, and during working hours the red umbrella of the Queen could be seen by the whole garrison, moving from point to point; while at night she went the accustomed rounds in her turn, with other officers, generally accompanied by Humeed Khan. So far as human means and the science of the time could ensure security, Ahmednugger was safe.