The Khan could not reply. He rolled his blood-shoot eyes upon Kasim, and waving his hand turned and fled.
‘Ha! ha! ha!’ laughed a voice he knew to be Jaffar’s. He laid Ameena down, and looked at her with dim eyes—she seemed dead.
‘I will revenge thee!’ he cried, and darted after them.
He saw them pass the small door, close it violently; and when he had opened it, and dashed on into the open street, he saw them not, but taking the way opposite to theirs, he fled down it at his utmost speed.
A moment after him a woman with breathless haste entered by the same door. ‘O Alla! grant,’ she exclaimed, ‘thou who didst soften my heart, grant I may not be too late. I vow offerings to thee, O holy saint of Sérah! O Mullik Rhyan! if I be in time. Something hath happened; Jaffar and the Khan fled past me. Alla, Alla! how he looked!’
She hurried through the courts, traversed the little verandah, and darted into the room; her sight for an instant failed her; there was a pool of blood on the white musnud, and the lady lay there—her white sheet and long hair dabbled in it. For an instant her heart was sick, but she rallied herself. ‘If there is only life! Meeran, Meeran, where art thou? Holy Prophet! if there be only life, I vow to be her slave for ever! Lady, dear lady, dost thou hear? Meeran, Meeran, where art thou?’
‘Who calls?’ said Meeran, advancing terror-stricken from the other door in the court before them.
‘It is I, Sozun; haste hither! we may yet save her. Quick! is thy heart so cowardly?’
‘How camest thou here, Sozun?’
‘No matter, I will tell thee—so raise her up.’