‘Rise, Meeran, this is unseemly,’ said Kasim gently; ‘again I swear to thee, if I can aid her, even by peril of my life, I will do it.’
‘Listen then, Meer Sahib,’ she continued, rising and wiping her eyes; ‘I have gained her consent—I have spoken to her already—I have told her thou art willing, that thou wilt aid her in flight—and assist her beyond the city, from whence she can escape to thy mother’s, and wait there till thou canst be freed from hence, or that she can rest there till she has strength to go on. Wilt thou not aid her? By the head of thy mother, by thy hopes of paradise, I conjure thee to do it, O Patél!’
‘But the Khan,’ said Kasim, ‘will he not let her go?—the enemy is in the path, but were it Satan I would face him for her.’
‘The Khan?’ cried the nurse,—‘thooh! I spit on him for a man; his days are wasted in dalliance with her who, as sure as Alla rules above us, is the author of this calamity. Speak to him? No, by the Prophet!—she hath asked him a thousand times, and I have too. “The enemy is out,” saith he, “the English kafirs, who would make a captive of her; it would be madness,” Bah! they do not war against women as he does. No! there is no hope from him?’
‘But will he not relent towards her?’
‘Alla is my witness, no! for a week he hath not seen her, and the poor soul is cut to the heart by the neglect; she is an angel or a peri, Meer Sahib, or she could not bear this indignity.’
Kasim sighed. ‘Has she strength?’ he said after a while.
‘Ay, enough for that; her body is weak but her spirit is stout; if once she was bent on escape, it would turn her mind from the thought of the curse, and she would recover as soon as she had escaped from these accursed walls.’
‘Alas!’ sighed Kasim, ‘how dare I leave my post at such a moment, when the English are upon us, and every man must be true to his salt? Why was not this said a week sooner?’
‘Thou wert long absent, Meer Sahib, and since thou hast returned there has not been a day, hardly an hour, when I have not spoken to her of this.’