At length she broke out aloud, and desired them to repeat the words, ‘Ai Boodboo! Ai Shekh Suddoo! Ai Nursoo! Ai Numrood! Ai Murdood! and ye who are present, having drunk blood, enter into her—into Ameena—and possess her! Let her have no rest by night or by day! As in each of your names I pierce this lime with five needles, so may your sharp stings pierce her heart! as they rot by the acid, so may her liver consume within her! Ameen! Ameen! Ameen! Ameen! Ameen!’ And as she pronounced each Ameen! she stuck a needle through the green lime she held in her hand. ‘Enough!’ she cried; ‘it is done! Leave this at her door, or at her bedside, that she may see it when she rises in the morning. You will soon hear of her, Inshalla!’
They were glad to escape from the place, for guilt was in their hearts, and terror of the demons whom they believed to have been present. They did not even stay with the old lady, but hurried home as fast as was possible in the darkness. When all were asleep, Kummoo stole softly into the outer apartment of that where Ameena was, and deposited the charmed lime at the threshold of the door, surrounding it with a circle of red powder, as she had been directed: the door opened inwards, so there was no fear that it would be displaced.
CHAPTER XLII.
We fear we can hardly convey to our readers any adequate sense of the terror with which, as she arose in the morning, and opening the door, essayed to go forth to her ablutions for morning prayer, Ameena regarded the fatal sign which lay before her; a faint cry which she had uttered roused the Khan, who darting to her side, beheld with equal or indeed greater dismay than hers, the dreadful sight.
A matter so trifling and absurd would even, to the most uneducated person in this enlightened land, only furnish matter for ridicule; but to Ameena and her husband, who with their countrymen generally were deeply imbued with the belief of jins, fairies, spirits of the air, and other supernatural agents and devils, supposed to be at the command of any who choose by study or penance to qualify themselves for the exercise of power over them, the sight was one of horror: the thought that their deaths were desired, the death of both, or certainly of one, first struck upon their hearts; a dull but a deadly blow it was to Ameena, to whom the first sight of the awful spectacle gave a terrible earnest that she was the person for whom it was intended.
The Khan could give her no comfort. She had no friend but her old nurse Meeran, who, even more superstitious than Ameena, and herself mistress as she thought of many potent charms, well knew the power which had directed such an one as that before them.
I would not assert that men of station, respectability, and education in India, among the Mahomedans, are not many of them free from the debasing belief in charms and witchcraft, even though their existence is allowed by the Koran; but no one will be hardy enough to deny that by far the greater part dare not disbelieve it; that many practise it in secret, if not themselves, at least by aid of Fakeers and old women; and that in their harems, among their ladies, to doubt the existence of it would be as sinful as to doubt that of the Prophet himself. But it must be remembered that the Khan was a man born in the lower grade of society, that he had been a reckless soldier of fortune, was ignorant, and, though he had risen to high rank and wealth, was far from having shaken off the superstitions with which he had begun life.
All that day dismay was in the household; all seemed equally struck with consternation; and the authors of the evil gave to Ameena their most hearty sympathy, while they exulted over the deed, and saw that the arrow drove home to her very heart. In the general consultation which ensued, they gave it as their opinion that it could have been intended for no other than Ameena, and that her evil destiny had led her to look upon it.
Kasim Ali was sent for by the Khan, and with better sense than the rest, tried to argue him out of a belief that there was any danger, to assure him that no one could have ill-will to one so pure, so innocent, and so unknown as his wife. But his heart misgave him as to the author of the evil; he dared not, however, mention this, and there was no cause for suspicion except in his own thoughts.