‘Ay, it was very fearful,’ she said shuddering, ‘I remember that;—who fell, didst thou say?’
‘Ibrahim.’
‘Alas! it was he that twice saved thy life.’
‘It was; but this was his destiny, thou knowest: it had been written, and who could have averted it? What sayest thou, shall I offer the Patél the place.’
‘Not Ibrahim’s, since thou askest me,’ she said; ‘as he is of gentle blood, ask him to accompany thee; or say, “Come to Abdool Rhyman at Seringapatam, the leader of a thousand horse,”—which thou wilt. Say thou wilt give him service in thine own risala, and hear his determination.’
‘Well spoken, my rose!’ said the blunt soldier; ‘verily I owe him the price of thy glorious beauty and thy love, both of which were lost to me, but for him, for ever. So Alla keep thee! I will not disturb thee again till evening, and advise thee to rest thyself from all thy many fatigues and alarms—Alla Hafiz!’
‘A very Roostum! a Mejnoon in countenance,’ thought the fair creature, as, shutting her eyes, she threw herself back against the pillows; ‘a noble fellow, my lord called him, and a scholar,—how many perfections! A widow’s son,—very dear to her he must be,—she will not part with him.’
Again there was another train of thought. ‘He must have seen my face,—holy Prophet! I was not able to conceal that; he carried me too in his arms, and I was insensible; what if my dress was disordered?’ and she blushed unconsciously, and drew it instinctively around her. ‘And he must have seen me too in the broad light when he entered this room: what could he have thought of me? they say I am beautiful.’ And a look she unthinkingly cast upon a small mirror, which, set in a ring, she wore upon her thumb, appeared to confirm the thought, for a gentle smile passed over her countenance for an instant. ‘What could he have thought of me?’ she added. But her speculations as to his thoughts by some unaccountable means to her appeared to disturb her own; and, after much unsatisfactory reasoning, she fell into a half dose, a dreamy state, when the scenes of the night before—the storm—the danger—the waters—and her own rescue, flitted before her fancy; and perhaps it is not strange, that in them a figure which she believed to be a likeness of the young Patél occupied a prominent and not a disagreeable situation.