Looking from her latticed chamber sat Kummoo-bee, her heart beating so that its pulsations seemed audible to her own ear, her bosom heaving as though it would almost burst the bounds of the light boddice which enclosed it, and her eye flashing brightly, as she thought upon the sure success of her mission. Little she heeded the soft and chastening light which the moon’s rays cast upon every object around, silvering the tall white minarets of the mosque, till they stood out in perfect relief against the deep blue of the sky, and resting upon the sharp pinnacles of the ancient temples, where all else was lost in shadow. The large courts around them, into which she looked in the day-time, then filled with busy throngs, were now deserted, save by the broad giant shadows which the temple and the trees around it cast across them. Now and then the shrouded form of a Brahmin would pass noiselessly through them, the moon’s light resting brightly upon the white drapery around him; but as he hurried on the deep black shadow seemed to enshroud him, and he was no longer discernible within its influence.
As Kummoo sat thus, she would idly speculate, with vacant eye fixed upon some figure in the square beyond, or listen to the hoarse and distant noubut, which, as the night advanced, beat at the tomb of the Sultaun’s father, or to the wailing and quivering sound of the brass horns which arose from the camp, when the watch was being relieved. She heeded not the luscious perfume of orange-flowers and tube-roses, which, loading the air, came in at her open window from the garden beneath; but her whole senses were absorbed in one object, which she rather wooed than strove to turn away from her mental vision; at times too a tear would fill her large lustrous eye, and, welling over the lid, trickle down her face unheeded—a tear of burning passion—no soother to her excited mind, but rather aggravating those feelings which had now become almost too painful to be borne.
‘What can delay her?’ she said, speaking half aloud to herself; ‘by this time I might have been with him. Ya, Fatima, aid me! my liver is burnt with passion, and the air which comes to me seems hot—hot with my own breath; I can bear this no longer. Why does she tarry?—she is old, or she might be dallying with him. What if she were? but no, that cannot be—she dared not. She knows well I would tear her limb from limb if she harboured even a thought of his love; and she is faithful too. I must wait; he was away perhaps—he may have been here—here, under this roof, where he little dreamed there existed one whose greatest happiness would be to die at his feet. Holy Alla! who is that?’ she cried, as a long train of musing into which she had fallen was suddenly interrupted by the opening of her chamber door. ‘Who comes?’
‘Sozunbee,’ was the reply.
‘Sozunbee!’ she said, while the blood poured through her frame in wild pulsations; ‘and ’tis thou at last! Hither, quick! quick! sit here, and tell me all. I have long, long looked for thee; why hast thou tarried? I am ready now—even now; come, let us haste—what? thou dost not speak! Woman! hast thou done my bidding?—hast thou seen him?—if not, tell me, and I shall be cool—now I am burning!—Ya Alla kureem, burning!’ and she fanned herself violently, while her articulation showed that her mouth was quite parched. ‘Speak! why dost thou not speak?’
‘I have seen him,’ was the reply.
‘Well! Oh for patience to listen! By Alla! thou canst never have loved, Sozunbee, or thou wouldst know what it is to have fire within thee—fire!—wilt thou not quench it?’
‘It will be hard for thee to hear all, lady; shall I tell it?’
‘All—all! thou sawest him—well! why dost thou hesitate?’
‘I would spare thee pain; go now to rest, thou wilt be calm to-morrow.’