"Patience"! exclaimed the other with every sign of impatience. "How can I have patience when I think she may, even at this moment, be casting her ravishing smiles upon Dost Ali."
"Ah! Dost Ali," Ahmad returned contemptuously. "Think not of him. He is but a feather wafted to her feet to-day, and to-morrow blown by the wind of Fate, God alone knows whither."
Prasad cast himself wearily upon a divan.
"Ahmad," he exclaimed. "Verily am I sick. I know not what it is that ails me."
Ahmad regarded his guest with apparent concern.
"Aye," he responded, "thou dost look unwell. Thy brow is feverish. Thou art out of humor, and hadst better see a skilful physician who will soon set thee in order. One such as I have in mind, the worthy doctor and astrologer, Mohurran Goshi. He hath mastered all the ancient schools of medicine; a man of profound learning, a sure foreteller of things about to happen."
"I beg thou wouldst send for him quickly," besought Prasad, "that he may relieve me of the burden that seems to be crushing me to earth."
Ahmad readily complied. He summoned an attendant, by whom he dispatched an urgent call to the astrologer.
In the meantime he regaled Prasad with the gossip of the court. He told of the ceremony at the White Turret, referring insinuatingly to the favor displayed toward Dost Ali, and of the Rani's varying humor.