‘We had better stay by the palankeen ourselves, Khan Sahib,’ said Kasim; and Ameena well remembered the tones of his voice, though she had not heard it for some months; ‘it is not safe that the lady should be here alone.’
‘Be it so then, Kasim; we will not leave her.’
In a few minutes, however, the Sultaun, who they thought was before, but who had lingered behind to shoot deer, advanced rapidly on horseback at the head of the brilliant group of his officers;—a gay sight were they, as the afternoon sun glanced from spear and sword, from shield, matchlock, and steel cap, and from their fluttering scarfs of gay colours and gold and silver tissue. A band of spearmen, bearing the heavy broad-bladed spears of the Carnatic ornamented with gay tassels, preceded him, calling out his titles in extravagant terms, and running at their full speed. Behind him was the crowd of officers and attendants, checking their gaily caparisoned and plunging horses; and quite in the rear, followed the whole of the elephants, their bells jingling in a confused clash, and urged on by their drivers at their fullest speed to keep pace with the horses. The Sultaun sat his beautiful grey Arab with the ease and grace of a practised cavalier, now checking the ardent creature and nearly throwing him backwards, now urging him on to make bounds and leaps, which showed how admirably he had been taught his paces, and displayed his own and his rider’s figure to the best advantage.
‘By Alla, ’tis a gallant sight, Kasim!’ said the Khan; for they had drawn up to one side, as the cavalcade came thundering on over a level and open spot, to let it pass; ‘looking at them, a soldier’s eye glistens and his heart swells; does not thine do so? Look out, my pearl!’ he cried to Ameena; ‘veil thyself and look out—the Sultaun comes.’
‘My heart beats,’ said Kasim, ‘but not as it would were he who rides yonder a man whom I could love as well as fear.’
‘Inshalla!’ cried the Khan, ‘thou wilt forget to-day’s work ere long, and then thou wilt love the Lion of the Faith, the terrible in war, even as I do. Inshalla! what Sultaun is there on the earth like him, the favoured of Alla, before whom the infidels are as chaff in the wind? But see, he beckons to me; so remain thou with the Khanum, and bring her into camp.’ And so saying, the Khan gave the rein to his impatient charger, and bounded onwards to meet the Sultaun, who appeared to welcome him kindly.
Kasim saw the Khan draw up beside him; joining his hands as if speaking to him; and as the wild and glittering group hurried by, horses and elephants intermingled, he lost sight of him among the crowd, and the cavalcade rapidly disappeared behind a grove of trees.
And now she, who for many months had often filled his dreams by night, and been the almost constant companion of his thoughts by day, was alone with him. He had seen her fair and tiny hand shut the door of the palankeen, which was an impenetrable screen to his longing eyes; and he would have given anything he possessed for one glance—to have heard one word, though he dared not have spoken to her.
And in truth, the thoughts of the fair inmate of the vehicle, which was being borne along at the utmost speed of the bearers, were busied also in a variety of speculations upon her young guardian. Did he remember her still? had he still the handkerchief with which his wound had been bound? for he had never returned it. Did he remember how she handed him matchlock after matchlock, to fire upon the wild Mahrattas, and cried with the rest Shabash! when they said his aim was true? She had not forgotten the most trivial incident; for her heart, in the lack of society, had brooded on these occurrences; they were associated too, in her youthful mind, with the appearance of one so noble and gallant, of whom she heard such constant and florid encomiums from the Khan her husband, that it would have been strange had she not dwelt on this remembrance with more than friendship for the author of them. But the current of these thoughts—when his noble figure was present to her imagination—as he had dashed on hotly in pursuit of the Mahrattas,—was suddenly and rudely interrupted by a hubbub, the reason of which she could not at first comprehend.
The bearers were proceeding rapidly, when, at a turning of the cross road which they had taken for shortness, they perceived an elephant, one of the royal procession, which, either maddened by the excitement of the hunt, or goaded to desperation by its driver, was running hither and thither upon the road in the wildest manner. The Mahout repeatedly drove his sharp ankoos[[41]] into its lacerated head; but this appeared to enrage, and make it the more restive, instead of compelling it to go forward, as was evidently his wish.