What had happened? That the town had been surrounded by the King's troops there could be no doubt; yet why the violence? Who could the young leader of the party be, by whom she had been arrested, who spoke her own Mahratta tongue so softly and so well? A strange thing, for he was evidently a Mussulman of rank. He had looked so grand and beautiful as the torchlight flashed upon his bright steel morion and silvery coat of mail. She had never seen aught like him before. He might resemble the god Rámchunder, she thought, when he went to battle with the demon Rawun; and she shut her eyes at a vision at once so beautiful and so terrible. Her gentle mind was all confusion, mingled with dreadful and undefined anticipation of misery; yet one thing was clear, she had been saved by that noble youth from Moro Trimmul and Gunga's united design—saved from worse than death.
The torch carried with her palankeen had been extinguished in the surprise, but the torch-bearer had been detained, and she could see him sitting near the litter pouring a drop or two of oil upon it now and then to keep it alight, yet without flaring. Once it did blaze up, and revealed for an instant the faces of the bearers sitting on their hams in a group, and the horsemen with Fazil in his bright armour standing around them; but all were strangers, else she would have spoken again—anything to divert her brooding thoughts and misery.
As the grey light of dawn increased she could see, through the small Venetian blinds of the litter, that the royal horsemen stood in groups at a short distance, all with their swords drawn. One party watched Moro Trimmul, who, tightly swathed in a cotton sheet so that he could not use his arms, sat upon his horse, which was tied to another. Gradually she could see his features, gloomy and stern; savage, indeed, as he writhed in the bandage which he was powerless to remove. Near him, on a strong pony, sat the girl Gunga, covered with a coarse white sheet, which had been thrown over her. A short stout man was holding her pony's head, and his own horse stood beside her. Around were the soldiers, all mounted, and apart from them their young leader, on a powerful white horse, which stood still, tossing its head, and champing its bit occasionally.
Past this figure, upon which her eyes rested wonderingly, as the growing daylight revealed it more fully, she looked up to the glen, and temple, and town, where all was still—a silence she thought like death. The usual sounds of waking life, the music at the temple, which always played as daylight broke, the earliest morning hymns, and clash of cymbals, were all wanting. They were at the mouth of the glen in a small paddock, near an old temple; she knew the place perfectly, and many a time had wandered there with her mother, or, with other girls, in search of flowers, and pieces of frankincense from the ancient trees which grew among some ruined walls. If the service in the temple had not been interrupted, it would have been proceeding at this hour, and the sound would come clearly to the place where they were; but the stillness was not broken. The men about her occasionally conversed in low tones or in whispers, but were for the most part silent.
It was now light enough to move, and the young Khan, calling to the bearers, bade them take up the litter and proceed. They were about to do so, when Tara again renewed her piteous appeal to him.
"O do not take me away!" she cried, "O release me! I can find my way up the mountain. My father was in the temple; my mother and all my people look for me. O noble sir, what am I to you? let me go; by your honour, do not deceive me!"
"Not so, lady," said Fazil, stooping from his horse towards the litter. "It is not fit for thee to go alone after last night's disturbance; and there are rough folk up yonder, for whom I will not answer with one so fair as thou art. No one ever relied in my honour that was deceived. Still trust, lady, and I will see thee safe amongst thy people; fear not."
"O noble sir," said Tara sobbing, "I do trust, I will trust; but O, give me not to him yonder, who is bound. He would have carried me away, and dishonoured me. O sir, you have been my preserver from this danger, and I kiss your feet. My father is Vyas Shastree, the chief priest of the temple, and we are well known. Take me to him, or send for him, and he and my mother will bless you. O noble sir, deceive not a helpless girl!"
"Vyas Shastree!" cried Gopal Singh, who had overheard the latter part of Tara's passionate appeal; "then this, Meah Sahib, is his daughter Tara, the strange new Moorlee; so beautiful that they say she bewitches all men who see her. Art thou not she, O girl? art thou not Tara, the Moorlee? Speak truly."