She was very near him, and it was exquisite pleasure to feel her gentle touch upon his shoulder, as she assisted to hold the bandages which the Khan passed round his chest; he fancied too that once her glance met his, and he could not help trying to catch it again: he succeeded at last, through the veil. Her lustrous dark eyes flashed very brightly; he could not see their expression, but it was certain to him that they had sought his own, and met them.
‘We want still another handkerchief, or something, to tie over all,’ said the Khan when he had finished; ‘hast thou one, Ameena?’
‘I have—here it is,’ she replied; ungirding one from around her waist. ‘The Meer Sahib is welcome to it.’
‘I owe a thousand obligations,’ returned Kasim; ‘if I were your brother you could not have done more for me: how unworthy am I to receive such attention—I who am but your servant!’
‘Do not say so,’ cried both at once; ‘thou art far more than this to us.’
‘Ah!’ thought Kasim, ‘I am but a moth playing around a lamp, tempted by bright and dazzling light, and hardly as yet warned. I am a fool to think on her; but can I ever forget her face as she stood yonder and cheered me by her presence?—the second time I have seen it, but perhaps not the last.’ The Khan roused him from his reverie.
‘Lie down,’ he said; ‘there will be the less flow of blood.’
Kasim obeyed readily; for the same fair hands that had helped to bind his wound had also spread a soft mattress for him, and placed a pillow for his head. Perhaps the loss of blood had affected him a little, for in a few moments he felt drowsy and gradually fell asleep; and Ameena sate watching him at a little distance, for the Khan had gone to see what had been done with the bodies of those who had fallen.
But, as is often the case after violent excitement, his sleep, though at first heavy and profound, did not long continue thus. Perhaps too the wound pained him, for he was restless, and moved impatiently from side to side.
The Khan was long absent, and Ameena still kept her watch; she might have withdrawn, yet there was something so exciting and novel to her in her position—it was a source of such quiet delight to her to watch the features of him who had saved her life, and now had been wounded in her defence,—and she was so thickly veiled that he could not see her even were he awake—that she remained.