Tara: A Mahratta Tale

by Meadows Taylor

"Yes, friends, those men knew us," continued Maloosray; "and to my mind the place is no longer safe: so we had as well be ready. If they have given the alarm—and Bulwunt would do so if he had any sense—we shall have horsemen scouring the plains to-morrow, and that fine lad, Fazil Khan, at the head of them. So away, some of you: watch the gates; let the horses be kept saddled all day; and let them have bread as fast as they can eat it. I would go at once, Nettajee," he added to that person, taking him aside; "but the Wuzeer must be seen and spoken with first. He was at Almella yesterday, and will be in the city by the afternoon. Without having speech of him, I dare not show myself before the master; and the object of our journey would be incomplete. I think we may trust him."

"Alas! I fear not," replied Nettajee; "ye are too sanguine, you and the Maharaja. Khan Mahomed will not league with us; he leans to the Moghuls, and calls us 'Kafirs of Hindus,' and kills cows wherever he can. I know it. Why do ye trust him, when he is faithless to his own salt? Suppose he chose to turn round and hang up Tannajee Maloosray to the 'Goruk Imlee tree,' would not that keep him fair in his master's eyes, and blind them to his intrigues with the Padshah? Ah, brother, trust him not: one who will deceive the master who has raised him to what he is, will deceive you. A slave born, he will be one to the last; and he is not fit to strike in with free men like us! Leave him to the Moghuls, to whom he will be a slave, as he was to Beejapoor: we have our own road between both. But come now to Ranoo: is he fit to travel?"

"He will be better after he has slept. We were owls, Nettajee, not to see through those flimsy disguises," returned Maloosray.

"Bulwunt Rao is better living than dead, brother; and we may yet bring him round," said Nettajee.

"I tell thee, O Netta," interrupted Tannajee, fiercely, and grinding his teeth as he spoke, "I would cut him down with my own hand at the feet of the Maharaja, rather than he should have speech of him. Never name him to me, else we may differ."

"Ah, that blow of his still rings in your head, Tannajee," replied the other, laughing. "But come; if you don't need sleep, I do. He sleeps," he continued, as they entered the cloister where the wounded man lay; "that is well; and I will do the same, Tannajee;" and so saying, he took down a sheet from a cord on which it was hanging, and, wrapping himself in it, lay down, and was soon snoring loudly.

But Maloosray could not sleep, and after a while, got up, and ascending the steps to the roof of the terrace, looked over the plain suspiciously. All, however, was still. To the east, lightning was playing about the tops of the clouds in dim flickering flashes. Everywhere else the sky was clear, and the stars shone with great lustre. A few jackals howled in the distance, and their cry was answered successively in many directions. Then the drums and horns of the several guards at the gates and on the outer walls and bastions of the city, sounded deep and shrill one by one, and were taken up by those in the "Ark" or citadel of the palace, and so died away in the distance.

His eye followed the line of towers and battlements, and narrowly watched every light which might betoken a stir among the troops within; but there was none. The huge dome of the mausoleum of Mahmood Adil Shah, not long completed, stood out in a dark heavy mass against the clear sky: and beyond it the outlines of the Palace of the Seven Stories—the great Cavalier—and a confused mass of trees and buildings intermingled; nearer, too, the massive walls and arches of the tomb of the mother of the late King, then, as now, unfinished.

All was still. High up in the palace a light twinkled now and then faintly, on which Tannajee speculated dreamily. Was the King awake? the light was in his private apartments. What could he be doing so late in the night? for the drums and trumpets had sounded the third watch. O that he would join heartily with his master, and defy the Moghuls! Would no one tell him this was his best policy? Better a thousand times to secure the fidelity of a large portion of his own subjects by timely concession, than to defy and coerce their chieftain. Now, too, though the Moghuls had been once beaten off, it would not be so again. They were resting and gathering strength, and one by one the independent kingdoms to the north had fallen before them.