At the subsequent banquet he sat in sullen, gloomy humor. He neither spoke nor feasted. At the call to drink of spirits and join in the carousal of the assembled nobles, he pleaded his religious principles as an excuse to withhold his lips from intoxicating liquors.
That the Rani was not present at the banquet was to be expected, but he marked Prasad's absence, and drew conclusions from a guilty conscience. They were together, he surmised. His duplicity was probably discovered. "What then"? he again and again asked himself.
For the vengeance of Prasad he did not fear. His arm was as strong as that of his rival. But he dreaded the form of retribution usually visited at Native courts by a powerful enraged woman. He conjectured that the Rani's resentment would not be displayed in a burst of anger, a dagger thrust openly at his breast; but in one of those covert ways, by which such offenders as himself were disposed of, to terrorize the stoutest heart. He might be invited to an entertainment that led to the dungeon of a fortress, there to die of cholera, so it would be affirmed. Obnoxious people often disappeared without an explanation. The blank of that unknown was fraught with the suggestion of torture, and a lingering death by slow poison.
As Ahmad glanced uneasily round the hall, every shadow seemed to warn him of impending danger. The palace was no safe place for him if the Rani and Prasad were together. He had better, indeed, gain the outside of the walls of Gwalior until he had made up his mind what course to adopt. He rose to carry this idea into immediate effect.
"What, art thou going"? his neighbor asked in a tone of friendly rebuke. "Thou, who art ever the first in war and the last to leave a banquet."
"To-morrow is a fast," Ahmad tersely rejoined. "I would be early at my devotions."
His neighbor laughed banteringly.
"Your devotions"! he exclaimed. "Ah, to be sure, and to a fair deity, I doubt not. It is ever the way with you Mohammedans. Your Prophet takes good care that his followers are provided with houris on earth as well as in heaven. But good luck to you. May she speedily reward your prayers."
"The fool," muttered Ahmad, as he passed from the hall by the nearest exit. "A very yielding deity is the one I have in mind."