To Kasim Ali her love was too precious a thought to part with easily, and he clung to it with all the ardour of his soul, for he felt himself alone among that host. He possessed acquaintances, it was true, but they were either the wild and debauched characters of the army, whom he had met now and then on service, and in his attendance at the Durbar, with whom he had no congeniality of feeling—or the friends of the Khan, elderly men, who looked on him as a youth of inexperience, and with whom it would be beneath their importance to associate. But Kasim was content as it was. In the business the Khan provided for him there was enough of employment, and his weak state and constant ill health prevented him from seeking other society. Day after day he was seen in the Khan’s Durbar, acting as his secretary, and fulfilling the duties of that important trust far more efficiently than the Mutsuddees[[46]] whom the Khan had hitherto employed.
[46]. Clerks.
We have before mentioned the extensive system of peculation practised by Jaffar Sahib, of whom indeed we have long lost sight; but as he was employed in a different sphere from the persons who belong to our history, we have not thought it worth our while to follow him into his career of oppression and spoliation, where he revelled in all the opportunities of gratifying his worst passions; nor was he a singular instance in the army of the Sultaun. Bigots in faith, zealots in the practice of it, there was no greater enjoyment to hundreds than the destruction of the Hindoos in those provinces of Malabar which had gradually been driven into rebellion, and afterwards conquered by the Sultaun, as we have already mentioned.
Employed with a portion of the risala, he had carried out to the letter the instructions which the Sultaun had personally communicated to him. Burn, slay, destroy, convert, were the reiterated orders, and they were literally obeyed. Jaffar Sahib had been with the camp only for a few days, when the storming of the breach was expected; and that having taken place, he was sent, with the rest of his own character, to finish the work in the defenceless territories of Travancore. But he had at last been withdrawn from thence, and was now attached to the large cavalry force which held possession of the plain of Coimbatoor, and guarded the passes into the table-land of Mysore.
To the Jemadar’s system of deception, however, Kasim Ali fancied he had at length gained a clue, when it was prominently brought to his notice by the Khan himself, who, much disturbed upon the subject, one day handed him a letter he had received from the Bukhshee[[47]] of the army, who, it seemed, had detected the false accounts the Jemadar had furnished.
[47]. Paymaster.