[CHAPTER XXIII.]
Seated with the old Moola I have before mentioned, the Nuwab Subzee Khan Buhadoor (for by that name alone I knew him) was quaffing his bitter and intoxicating draught. Around him stood some of his retainers, fierce-looking fellows, one or two of them with deep scars on their rough visages, which showed they had bravely followed their noble master through many a hard-fought field. Behind him sat the slave I have mentioned, a slender fair girl, who was busily employed in making a fresh bowl of the infusion the Nuwab was so fond of.
The Moola introduced me. "This," said he, "my lord, is the young man I spoke of. I need repeat no praises of him, for no doubt your discerning eyes will at once observe that he is a person of respectability and good breeding, and a fit companion for one of my lord's exalted rank."
I presented the hilt of my sword as a nuzzur, and after touching it with his hand, he bid me be seated near him on the carpet. This I was too polite to do; so, excusing myself on the ground of unworthiness of such honour, I seated myself on my heels on the edge of the carpet, and placed my sword and shield before me. The sword immediately attracted his attention. "That is a noble weapon, Meer Sahib," said he; "may I be allowed to look at it?"
"Certainly," said I, presenting the hilt; "the sword is at my lord's service."
"Nay, Meer Sahib, I want it not; but I am curious in these matters, and have a choice collection, which I will one day show you."
He drew it carefully from the scabbard, and as the brightly-polished blade gleamed in the sunlight, he looked on it with a smile of delight, such as one would greet an intimate friend with after a long absence. I must however describe him. In person he was tall and strongly made; his arms in particular, which were distinctly seen through his thin muslin dress, were remarkably muscular, and very long; his figure was slightly inclined to corpulency, perhaps the effect of age, which had also sprinkled his curling beard and mustachios with gray hairs; or it might be that these had been increased in number by the dangerous use of the drug he drank in such quantities. His face was strikingly handsome, and at once bespoke his high birth. A noble forehead, which was but little concealed by his turban, was covered with veins which rose above its surface, as though the proud blood which flowed in them almost scorned confinement. His eyes were large and piercing like an eagle's, and, but that they were swollen and reddened by habitual intemperance, would have been pronounced beautiful. He had a prominent thin nose, large nostrils, almost transparent, and a mouth small and curved like a bow, which, when the features were at rest, wore an habitual expression of scorn. His flowing and graceful beard and mustachios, which I have already mentioned, completed a countenance such as I had never seen the like of before, and have not met with since. The whole was inexpressibly striking, and in the meanest apparel the Nuwab would at once have been pronounced by any one to be a man of high family and a gallant soldier.
A rosary of large pearls was about his neck, and with this exception he wore no ornaments. His dress was studiously plain, while it was neat in the extreme. I remarked two deep scars, one on the back of his head where it joined the neck, the other on his broad chest, and its deep seam was not concealed by the thin dress he wore. Such was Subzee Khan, who had won his renown in many a hard fight, and whom I was determined to destroy on the very first opportunity. He continued looking at the blade so earnestly and so long, that I began to think that it had possibly belonged to some victim of my father's, who might have been known to the Nuwab, and I was mentally framing a reply in case he should ask me where I got it, when he suddenly said, as he passed his finger along the edge, "So, you too have seen battles, my friend; there are some slight dents in this good sword which have not escaped the touch of an old soldier. How did it come by them?"
"Oh, a trifling skirmish with robbers as I came down from Hindostan," said I; and I related to him our affair with the thieves in the Nirmul road.