‘Go,’ he continued to the servants, who had suddenly entered the tent; ‘when I want you I will call again; at present I would be alone with Madar.’
‘And so thou heardest all this abuse of me, and ate dirt thyself, and had not the heart to say a word or strike a blow in return! I could spit on thee, coward!’
‘May I be your sacrifice, Khodawund, I was helpless; what could I have done in that crowd? had I only returned a word, the woman whom they set up would have poured filthy abuse on me.’
‘They shall rue the day that they uttered the words thou hast repeated: Madar, they shall wish their tongues had never said them, and that their hearts had eaten them, ere they had birth: Ul-humd-ul-illa! I have yet power, and can crush that butterfly, whose gay bearing is only for a season,—but not yet—not yet.’
‘And who is this proud fool?’ he continued after a pause to Madar, who had been drinking in every word of his master’s soliloquy with greedy ears, and rejoicing in the hope of speedy revenge. ‘Who saidst thou he is?’
‘A Patél, noble sir,—a miserable Patél of a village, Alla knows where,—a man whose mother, Inshalla! is vile.’
‘I care not for his mother,—who is he? and how comes he with the Khan? Tell me, or I will beat thee with my shoe!’
‘My lord,—Khodawund!—be not angry, but listen: he is the Patél of a village where the Khan and his young wife were nearly drowned; he saved the lady, and he fought afterwards against some Mahrattas when they attacked the village where the Khan was resting for the night, and was wounded in his defence.’
‘And this is all, Madar?’
‘It is, protector of the poor! it is all; they say the Patél is a Roostum—a hero—a man who killed fourteen Mahrattas with his own hand, who—’