“Gently, Highness!” entreated Jehanara. “The Amir Sahib is ever faithful to his friends, and not easily turned from his allegiance. Such is his friendship for Nāth Sahib that the only thing that would make him join in the plot would be the hope of benefiting him.”
“But,” put in Narayan Singh, who had been wondering uncomfortably whether it would be better to tell his news at once, or to wait until he had managed to secure a moment’s private conversation with Jehanara. “I heard tidings yesterday, Highness, which seem to show that the Kumpsioner Sahib is not the friend thou didst reckon him. I could have told them sooner, but I fear they will not be pleasing in thine ears.”
“Let us hear them,” cried Bahram Khan, while Jehanara shot an angry glance at the spy. He ought to have known by this time that it was generally wiser to soften and sweeten agitating news, and not to administer it undiluted.
“It was said among the servant-people that Barkaraf Sahib had asked Nāth Sahib for his sister, Highness, and that even now he has betrothed her to him.”
There was a moment’s incredulous silence, and then Bahram Khan sprang up from the divan, sending the heavy cut-glass bottle of the water-pipe flying, and almost overturning the brazier. “And this is the fruit of your counsel, both of you!” he shouted. “Who was it that held me back when I would have fallen on the whole company of the English as they returned from their fool’s dinner in the desert, and killed them all, except Nāth Sahib’s sister? Who was it again that bade me suffer my servants to be taken prisoners and held captive, and be tried for their lives by a boy, and that told me to rejoice when I received them back unharmed? Thou, O woman! thou, dog of an idolater! Surely ye were in league with the Kumpsioner Sahib to steal the girl from me, and he has bribed you to blacken my face in the eyes of all my people.”
“Highness,” said Jehanara, with dignity, “thine anger has made thee unjust to thy faithful servants. Fear not; I know the ways of the English, and this betrothal need not lead to marriage for many months. Nāth Sahib’s sister shall yet be thine, and the Kumpsioner Sahib may wait in vain for his bride.”
“Wait!” cried Bahram Khan, sinking again upon his cushions, “nay, he shall wait for nothing but death. He shall die by inches, and before my eyes, because he has sought to befool me. If he escapes, the lives of both of you shall pay for it.”
“As thou wilt, Highness. But was it not thy admiration of her beauty which first showed the Kumpsioner Sahib that the girl was fair? Suffer thy servant to consider the matter for a moment, and she will offer thee her counsel.”
Leaving Bahram Khan to look at affairs in this new light, Jehanara established herself again in her corner, gazing fixedly into the hot coals. Both her life and that of Narayan Singh were at stake, and she knew it; and she had no desire to die. Six years before she had played a desperate game with Bahram Khan, conscious that in him she faced an opponent as cunning and as faithless as herself. The conditions were unequal, for she staked far more than he did, and he won, possibly because her sense of the risk she was running had robbed her of the perfect coolness necessary to ensure success. He had not married her, even by Mohammedan rites, and nothing short of full legal recognition could have vindicated in the eyes of her own people the course she had pursued. Robbed of her anticipated triumph, she made no attempt to escape the consequences, but set herself by every means in her power to obtain that ascendency over the Prince’s mind which she had failed to gain over his heart. Fresh failures and unspeakable mortifications had awaited her. The women of the household, from the beautiful little Ethiopian bride to whom was awarded the position Jehanara had intended for herself, to the humblest hill-girl who had been kidnapped to become at once a slave and a Muslimeh, saw to it that she ate the bread of bitterness; but in spite of taunts and revilings she kept the one end in view until her persistence was crowned with complete success. Bahram Khan would listen to no advice but hers, having learnt by experience that his confidence in her was justified. The intrigue by which first the Commissioner, and then the Viceroy, had been convinced of his wrongs, was of her devising, and had proved so successful as to convince her that had it not been for Dick’s opposition, she would already have seen Bahram Khan established as his uncle’s heir. It followed that her hatred for Dick, heightened by his cavalier treatment of herself, was at least as strong as that of the disappointed claimant. As she sat brooding over the charcoal at this moment, there was a cruel light in her eyes while she ran hastily over the points of the scheme which had sprung full-grown into her mind when Bahram Khan accused her of treachery.
“Highness,” she said at last, and Bahram Khan propped himself up on his cushions with a muttered growl, while the trembling Narayan Singh appeared to take fresh interest in life, “this perfidy of the Kumpsioner Sahib’s provides thee with what was most needed, a means of involving the Amir Sahib in our plans. Nay, through this treachery, with the blessing of Heaven, thy servants will yet behold thee seated upon his throne, with the sanction of the Sarkar.”