‘Peace!’ exclaimed the Sultaun; ‘I see by thine eye, Jaffar Sahib, that thou art guilty; there is no hiding truth from me. As I slept one night, the dream is recorded, the angel Gabriel appeared to me. “Thou art a Sultaun,” he said, “and the destinies of thousands and millions are in thy hands; thou shalt be able from henceforth to detect a lie at once,” and so saying he vanished; and I, who am a child of clay, and not worthy of the honour, feel that he said truly. Dost thou not tremble as I read thy heart in thine eye, and see that thou art a thief? yes, thou dost wince—the thief of the Sircar Khodadad.[[49]] Shall I have thee taken into the square, Kumbukht, and set in a high place, and a proclamation made that thou art a thief? Toba! Toba! wert thou not content with the plunder of the infidels, but thou must needs steal from us? Ya Alla kureem! grant us patience to bear this.’
[49]. The Government, the gift of God.
‘Enough! enough, O fountain of mercy!’ said the trembling wretch; ‘enough; I beseech you by my long and faithful service to forgive me, to pardon the past, to keep me from shame. I am your slave, I lick the dust of your feet! Holy Alla! be my aid, and ye saints and martyrs in whose name I have slain and despoiled infidels!’
‘Who is this grovelling wretch?’ said Meer Sadik the Dewan, and Kishun Rao the Treasurer, who then entered.
‘Ay, who is he? ye may well ask,’ replied the Sultaun; ‘one who, Inshalla! has owned himself to be a thief,—to have taken the Sircar’s money,—to have been unfaithful to his salt.’ And then, though the miserable Jemadar pleaded hard for mercy, he told all he had guessed at, and invented the rest, joking the while upon the affair, at the expense of the culprit, who could have borne wrath, but not the cold and bitter irony of the Sultaun, and those who heard it.
‘Alla! Alla! this is worse than death,’ he cried at length; ‘bid me be blown away from a gun, it will be an end to all misery and persecution.’
‘Not so fast, Jaffar Sahib,’ said the Sultaun; ‘we intend, Inshalla! to make thee pay back the money thou hast taken, and to keep thee alive to serve us and eat our salt. What say ye, sirs?’ he cried to the others.