"I was afraid," replied the hunchback; "I fear fighting, sir; and if a drawn weapon is flashed in my face, I faint. So we ran away from Jowly—did we not, my son? and have been travelling about the country ever since, getting what we can. But what of the Brahmun, sir? was he killed in the fight at Jowly?"
"No, no—not there," replied the man; "but he is dead, nevertheless. Some one cut him down the day the Sutee was carried off."
"Ah yes, I have heard of that, sir; the people have strange stories about it; but who carried her off? and who killed the Brahmun? A Brahmun slain! O the impiety!" continued Lukshmun devoutly; "think of that, my son! A holy Brahmun!"
"I don't know; I was not there," replied the man; "we were still out at Jowly, or it would not have happened: but they said some of Afzool Khan's men, who were starving, made a Duróra on the Sutee, and carried her off; as to Moro Trimmul, he was no loss—a bad man, my friend, though a Brahmun. They might have spared the girl, however, for all the use she was to the Brahmuns afterwards. I wonder no one kept her, for she was very lovely, they say."
"O sir," cried the hunchback innocently; "and did she not live? Who killed her?"
"They say not," he replied; "and that the cruel men killed her for the ornaments she wore. There was a woman's corpse found some days afterwards on their track, and the remains were brought here, and her father was told of it. They say he went mad after that, for he believed they were his child's. He married Moro Trimmul's sister, you know. Ah, it is a curious story altogether."
"Indeed," returned Lukshmun simply; "I should like to hear it all. If I sing for you to-night will you tell it to me?"
"A bargain!" cried the man joyfully; "come to us without fail; we are a jovial lot, and there may be good liquor, and some of the dancers too. I will come for thee. 'Faith, the story of the Moorlee's murder by Moro Trimmul is as good as a scene in a play."
"What Moorlee?"
"O, the Tooljapoor girl, Gunga, who was with him. They found her body under the window of his room at Pertâbgurh, hanging in the trees below the precipice, and so the whole came out; but he was dead before then. One of those dare-devil Mussulmans had killed him, and they took some of the Sutee wood, and burnt him there, by the river."