"You see the leader," said I, "in my poor person. And what may be the demands of the Nuwab Sahib so early? Is there anything his poor servant can do to prove how much he is impressed with the kind treatment he has received?"
"You must be content to be our prisoner," said the man, haughtily, "until your camp is searched; a strange event has happened, and you are suspected."
"Of what?" said I, appearing thunderstruck; "of what can I be suspected? But the camp is before you, sirs, by all means search it. Perhaps," said I, bitterly, "your town has been robbed, and it is not wonderful that persons of respectability should be suspected in this unmannerly country."
"Peace!" cried the man, "we must do our duty; and I for one, for the sake of appearances, should be glad to find you had not requited the Nuwab's hospitality with treachery."
"I am dumb," said I, "notwithstanding that I am in utter astonishment at your words; but by all means search the place, and afterwards perhaps you will in kindness unravel this mystery to me."
He rode with me to my tent, and, dismounting, entered it with me, followed by two or three of his men. There was nothing in it but the carpet and mattress on which I had slept, a few cooking utensils, and some of the bales of plunder piled up at the farther end. "She is not here," said Azim Khan, the leader of the Nuwab's party, "let us go to the other tent."
I accompanied them, and, making a salam to my father, told him that the Nuwab's people wished to search his tent, as they had done mine, and added, "Do not oppose them, lest the Nuwab should in truth see reason to suspect us."
"Certainly not," said my father; "here is the tent, and I am the Nuwab's slave; it is not likely that an old man like me should have women concealed here."
So his tent was searched as mine had been, and afterwards the temporary screens of the men, but nothing was found, and the party were evidently disappointed. "We are on the wrong track, and I told you so," said Azim Khan to the leader: "depend upon it, as I told the Nuwab, it is that rascal Sheffee Khan's work; we all know him to be in the employ of the Hakim of Nursee, who wanted to get the girl; and we had better be after him than wasting our time here."