"Father!" repeated the old man, with a flash of indignation, but it was instantly subdued. "Swear!" he repeated, "if vows can bind a thing so vile!"
"My father, I embrace thy knees! Not heaven itself can annul the past, and Amrà is mine beyond the power of fate or vengeance to disunite us—but by death!"
"Hah!" said the Brahman, stepping back, "it is then as I feared! and this is well too!"—he muttered; "Heaven required a victim!"
He moved slowly to the door, and called his daughter with a loud voice: Amrà heard and trembled in the recesses of her apartments. The voice was her father's, but the tones of that voice made her soul sicken with fear; and, drawing her drapery round to conceal that alteration in her lovely form which was but too apparent, she came forth with faltering steps.
"Approach!" said the Brahman, fixing his eyes upon her, while those of Faizi, after the first eager glance, remained rivetted to the earth. She drew near with affright, and gazed wildly from one to the other.
"Ay! look well upon him! whom dost thou behold?"
"My father!—Ah! spare me!"
"Is he your husband?"
"Govinda! alas!—speak for us!"—
"Fool!"—he grasped her supplicating hands,—"say but the word—are you a wife?"