"He will be vexed at what he finds," said the Khan when Fazil was gone; "and it will distress his young heart. He has never seen the like, and it requires older eyes, like thine and mine, Huzrut, to look on such sights unmoved."
"Ay, true," replied the Peer; "but one or two battle-fields will be enough to cure him, and methinks he is over-tender to infidels. Well, we shall see what he advises about this Brahmun, for he is clear in council. The man ought to die."
"He will not care about the men," said the Khan, musing abstractedly, "but about the women who are dead; and that loving heart of his mother's which she gave him, will be grieved. God knows I would not have had it so."
"Ameen!" said the Peer, "nor I, Khan. But they were only Kaffirs after all, and did not Feroze Shah, of blessed memory, make a pile of infidels' heads before the gate of Gulburgah fort?"
Afzool Khan did not answer—he appeared ill at ease: and the priest, taking his beads from his waist-band, settled himself on his heels, with his eyes shut, assuming an attitude of complacent meditation on things divine, as they passed rapidly through his fingers.
[CHAPTER LIX.]
Fazil and Pahar Singh went out together into the street. The latter led the way through the gate and along the main streets of the town to its centre, where a busy, motley scene now presented itself. The Amil, or local civil officer, was seated in his Kuchéri, or hall of audience, surrounded by a crowd of people to whom he was giving orders for flour, grain, butter, sheep, forage, and the other countless necessities of the force which had so suddenly come upon him. They did not pause there, but turned down the main street leading to the temple, the gilded spires and other portions of which appeared at the end of it, the craggy sides of the glen, and, beyond all, the precipices of the Ram Durra, which were veiled in the blue morning vapour.
Now there was no doubt of what had happened. The pavement of the bazar, worn smooth by the naked feet of thousands of pilgrims and devotees in centuries past, was stained with blood which, as they advanced, was still wet and slippery in many places. Already had the town scavengers begun to wash it away, and were pouring vessels of water on the flags and sweeping them with brooms. A few shops only were open for the sale of flour, butter, and groceries, the owners of which sat within, with scared faces, evidently in the direst terror.
"They lay thick here," said Pahar Singh—the first words he had spoken, "but have been removed, and they are burying them yonder, outside, all together—infidels, as your father would say, and true believers. But stay, Meah Sahib, there is one of my poor fellows lying here in a shop. I thought him dead, but he is alive as yet; let us look at him. A poor fellow," he said, repressing a sob; "a poor hunchback, but he was like a dog to me—not a man. Perhaps he may know me now, or he may be dead; let us see."