“With an equal or a better right, I might ask that of you,” was the bold reply. The clatter of arms told Siddha that the Prince had laid his hand on his sword, and he on his side did the same. Salim approached a step or two, and recognising his opponent, let his sword fall back into its sheath.
“Ha! my friend Siddha Rama,” he cried, in no little astonishment, “so we catch you in one of your nightly adventures! Still, there is not much harm in that for a young man like you. Do not fear that I shall betray you, nor need you be jealous. You must know that the chosen one of your heart is, to a certain degree, mixed up in our plans, and I come occasionally to talk them over with her in secrecy and under cover of night; but perhaps at this moment she will be hardly inclined to discuss such dry subjects, and it will be as well for me to put off my visit.”
And Salim turned towards the doorway, and, having let Siddha through, carefully shut it.
“I suppose you are now returning to your lodging? My path lies in the opposite direction,” said he; “but,” he added, to Siddha, who, not knowing what to say, stood silently listening to him, “let this meeting remain a secret between us, it will be our wisest course.” And so saying, Salim disappeared in the darkness.
“He has accidentally rendered me a great service,” muttered the Prince to himself, as he hurried on; “he has put me in possession of a secret that can be of inestimable worth. In all this I recognise that snake.”
The next day one of Salim’s most trusted men was wandering round the country house, and before long found an opportunity of talking with Gulbadan’s servant. The bargain he proposed was quickly concluded, the servant betraying her mistress’s secrets willingly, for the Prince, naturally, could pay more than she and Siddha together. On the evening of the same day the servant presented herself at the palace, and was received by Salim’s confidant, to whom she gave two papers folded in the form of letters, and hurried back to her mistress’s abode with the price she had received for them. The following day Salim was on his road back to Allahabad with a small escort.
There sojourned one solitary and sad. For a long time Iravati had heard nothing of her betrothed. In the beginning, shortly after his arrival in Agra, he had, as she well remembered, written her two letters, as overflowing as his earlier ones had been with assurances of his love that could never be shaken; since then she had received no letter from him, though she heard from others that he was well and rising in favour with the Emperor. What, then, could be the reason of his continued silence? A terrible doubt began more and more to make itself master of her, but she strove against it, drawing fresh strength from her faith in the word and honour of her Siddha. Once as she sat lost in musings, idly turning over the leaves of a book that in earlier days she had read in Kashmir with her lover, she was disturbed by the appearance of the faithful Nipunika, who approached her with a troubled face, first hastily and then hesitatingly, as though she doubted whether to speak or keep silence.
“What have you to tell me?” said Iravati. “You seem to be the bearer of bad news.”
“Alas!” answered the servant, “I would that my mouth were gagged; yet I cannot leave you in ignorance of what I have heard. It concerns you too nearly for me to dare to keep it from you.”
“Speak at once, without further preface,” said Iravati. “I am ready to hear what you have to tell.”