"Open the door! release me! release me!" cried Tara from within in piteous accents. "Let me go! let me go! Ah, sirs, for your mothers' honour, release me!"
"Art thou his wife?" asked Fazil, dismounting and opening the door of the palankeen; "if so, fear not, we have no war with women."
"Not so; I am not his wife," cried Tara hastily, disengaging herself from the litter, and throwing herself at Fazil's feet. "O sir, save me! Noble sir, by your mother's, by your sister's honour, save me from him; he would have carried me away. Nay, I will not rise till you tell me you will take me to my father. O return with me and rescue him, else he will be slain! Come, I will lead ye back; he is a priest of the temple!"
"It cannot be, girl," said Fazil, more disturbed by Tara's beauty, and more agitated than he cared to acknowledge to himself. "It cannot be till daylight, and no one will touch your father if he be a Brahmun; so sit in the litter and fear not. And thou art not his wife?" and he pointed to Moro Trimmul.
"O no, my lord," said the girl trembling; "you have been sent by the Holy Mother to deliver me, else he would have carried me away by force. Do not give me to him, I beseech you."
"Fear not," said Fazil; "no harm shall come to thee here. There is more in this matter than we can now find out, friends," he continued to those about him; "but bind that Brahmun on his horse, and tie it to one of your own."
"Ah, sir, I will do that beautifully," cried Lukshmun, "and with his own waist-cloth too. But, friends, see that my wife does not run away, while I am busy for the master there—to my mind she is the handsomest of the two."
It was Gunga who, knowing the path, had turned from it when Moro Trimmul met Fazil, and, slipping from her horse, had tried to escape among the bushes; but the quick eye of Lukshmun had detected her, and he had seized and dragged her forward.
"May earth fall on thee, dog!" cried the girl, struggling with him, "foul hunchback as thou art, let me go."