"True; I swear by your head and eyes, by the holy Krishna and his temple at Muttra. Canst thou doubt, after what has passed, O Jemadar?" cried the Lalla earnestly.
"Nay, how could I understand thy jabbering of Persian? That was no honest talk, Maun Singh; they meant to cheat us by it, and this slave joined in it. Twenty-one, twenty-two,"—he was counting the remainder of the gold, and dropping the coins into his own bag as he spoke, "twenty-three. Dost thou think, O Lalla, that I am a cheating Mutsuddee, like thyself?—twenty-four, twenty-five.—Ill-begotten clerk, say—am I—Pahar Singh—a liar and a thief like thyself?"——
"May I be your sacrifice, Maharaj, no," cried the Lalla, terrified at his manner, and watching, with evident and ill-concealed uneasiness, coin after coin disappearing into the bag. "Why should my lord be angry if I spoke in Persian?"
"Ho, ho, thou art frightened again—art thou? Well, perhaps thou couldst not help the Persian, as the letter had to be read; but I understood it all the time, O Lalla. Thou couldst not have cheated me—listen!" he continued in that language, speaking it with a broad Mahratta accent; "what part of this sum dost thou expect for thy share—twenty-six, twenty-seven. There is yet much, Lalla. What sayeth the poet Saadi? Expectation——No matter, I forget the verses we used to learn at school. How much?"
"Nay, Maharaj, I know not," returned the man in a bewildered manner. "My lord said half would be mine, and the Meerza told us there were more than ten thousand rupees."
"Good, O Lalla, thou patron of valiant men like me: but dost thou expect it? Five thousand rupees! dost thou think that such a sum will come to thee?" and his hand passed to the hilt of his sword.
"My lord! noble prince! I—I—I," stammered the now trembling wretch. "I—I—mean the promise to me. Nay, look not so, Maharaj," as he observed the robber's face distorted with suppressed rage, the veins of his forehead swelled, and white foam gathering about the corners of the mouth. "Nay, look not so angry! Behold, I kiss your feet: I am a very poor man, and a stranger;" and he joined his hands in supplication as he rose from his heels partly to a kneeling posture. "Would my lord ever have known of the value of those papers had I not told it? Would they not have been thrown away, scattered to the winds, if my poor life had been taken at Itga?"
"My promise!—my promise to thee, O son of a base mother! Didst thou not swear to me they would be worth thousands?—lakhs!" cried the robber, raising his voice and gesticulating violently, as he now took up the gold pieces by handfuls, and thrust them into the bag. "A lakh of rupees! and here are only a few paltry coins, for which thou hast brought me fifty coss! What will Anunt Geer of Kullianee say to this poor instalment on his debt? Thief! get me the rest—the rest of the gold they have put aside for thee. Didst thou not promise a lakh?"
He had now lashed himself into a fury, which had been his object evidently from the first; and he struck the Lalla with his clenched hand violently upon the head, so that he fell backwards, and lay apparently stunned; but it was only fear.
"He will kill him—not that he does not deserve death, the mean hound!" said Fazil Khan, hurriedly to his companion. "When was Pahar Singh ever known to spare a victim? What is to be done, Bulwunt? shall we attack them?"