Disappointed at the issue of the examination, the English were at once suspected, and denounced by Jaffar. They were surrounded and rudely searched: on most was found a portion of the missing money and jewels; and, as it but too well fell in with Tippoo’s humour, and gratified his hate against them, they were one and all decreed to captivity—which, from the horrors all had heard related of it, was in prospect worse than death.
CHAPTER XX.
Abdool Rhyman Khan, as may be imagined, quitted his wives in no very pleasant mood. Tired by his long march, and without having tasted food since the morning, the bitter insult he had received, their disrespect and their abuse, were the more aggravating, and sank deeply into his heart. Although not a man of wrath habitually, or one indeed who could be easily excited, he was now in very truth enraged, and felt that he would have given worlds for any object on which he could have vented the fury that possessed him.
‘Alla! Alla!’ he exclaimed, as he ground his teeth in vexation; ‘that I should have been born to eat this abomination; that I, who have a grey beard, should be thus taunted by my women, and called a coward, one less than a man! I who, Mashalla! have slain men, even Feringhees!—that I should have to bear this—Ya Hyder! Ya Hoosein!—but I am a fool to be thus excited. Let them only fail to receive Ameena as she ought to be received—let me but have a pretext for what I have long desired, and now threatened, and they will see whether my words are truth or lies. Too long have I borne this,—first one, then the other—now Kummoo, now Hoormut—now one’s mother, now the other’s brothers and cousins; but, Inshalla! this is the last dirt I eat at their hands—faithless and ungrateful! I will send them back to their homes; I have often threatened it, and now will do it.’
His horse awaited him at the door, and springing into the saddle, he urged him furiously on through the Fort gate, into the plain beyond; and here—for the rapid motion was a relief to him—he lunged him round and round; now exciting him to speed, now turning him rapidly from one side to another, as though in pursuit of an imaginary enemy. This he did for some time, while his groom and Daood looked quietly on; the latter attributing to its true cause the Khan’s excitement, the former wondering what could possess his master to ride so furiously after the long journey the horse had already performed that morning.
The Khan at last desisted—either from feeling his temper cooling, or from observing that his horse was tired—and turning first towards the encampment, he proceeded a short distance; but apparently remembering something, he retraced his steps towards the Fort; indeed he had forgotten to report the arrival of his corps to the officer whose duty it was to receive the intelligence.
As he passed his house, he saw one of the women-servants, who used to go on errands or make purchases in the bazaar, issue from the door-way, and covering her face, dart on before him, apparently to elude his observation.
‘Ha! by the Prophet, I will know what that jade is after,’ muttered the Khan to himself, as he dashed his heels into his charger’s flanks, and was up with her in a moment. ‘Where goest thou?’ he cried; ‘Kulloo, think not to conceal thyself; I saw thy face as thou camest out of the door; what errand hast thou now?’
‘May I be your sacrifice, Khan!’ said the woman; ‘I am only sent for the Khanum Kummoo’s mother,—may her prosperity increase!’