"To be sure," she replied. "Who else should it be. Thou art becoming a tiresome fellow," she added, "with thy midnight adventures. Disclose, what manner of creature hast thou been in combat with now"?
"Alas! great Rani," Bipin returned. "It was the terrible Ahmad Khan who compelled me to point out thy sleeping place, and he has gone off with I know not whom."
"Ahmad Khan"? the Rani exclaimed, as the truth of his design flashed upon her. "Now, by Heaven"! she cried angrily. "I will bear no more with him. Go," she commanded to the captain of her guard, "mount with a troop and follow swiftly. Thou art to bring him to me alive or dead. The beast hath gone mad and must be exterminated."
The officer obeyed her order with dispatch. He rode forth in the direction it was said Ahmad Khan had taken, but in the darkness soon lost the track. At daybreak he was forced to return with the intelligence that Ahmad had escaped.
Meanwhile Ahmad galloped northward with savage joy in his heart. He clasped the insensible captive form tightly in his arms.
"Now Allah be thanked," he muttered exultingly. "The fair Rani, the fickle beauty can escape me no longer."
He rode with all speed for a long distance in fear of pursuit, but at last he could restrain his impatient desire to gaze upon her face no longer.
The day was breaking as he halted his party. He moved a little apart, and uncovered the fold of linen over the woman's head. He directed his eyes with passionate rapture upon the unveiled face; then broke out into a volley of oaths.
"Hell's fiends," he shouted, as his astonished gaze beheld an old and wrinkled countenance. "What damnable trick of fortune is this? Am I bewitched"?
His arms mechanically released the figure of an aged servant of the Rani. She fell to the ground, and, recovering her senses, sat moaning pitifully.