On the fourth morning we reached Beeder. If not so striking in its outward appearance as we approached it as Hyderabad, this city was nevertheless interesting. The summit of a long tableland broke into a gentle descent, and from it Beeder suddenly opened on our view. The walls of the town occupied the crest of a high ridge; and over them one tall minaret, and what appeared another rude unfinished one, of great height, towered proudly. On the right hand the large white domes of some tombs peeped out of a grove of mango trees, with which the hill was clothed from top to bottom; and there was a quiet solemnity about the approach to the now nearly deserted capital of Dukhun, the favourite residence of the once proud and powerful Bhamunee kings, which accorded well with our feelings, and formed a powerful contrast to the busy city we had just left. Some of our men who had gone on in advance, had chosen a spot for our encampment near the gate of the city upon the road we were to take in the morning; but separating from my party, I rode through the town, which, though now mean in comparison to what it must have been, was more striking than I had expected to find it.

I joined the encampment on the other side, which now presented its usual bustling appearance: some were already cooking their morning meal by the edge of the well, others were bathing, and all talking and conversing in that joyous manner which showed their minds were free from care and full of happiness, at the prospect of a speedier return to their home than they had anticipated, and well laden with a rich booty.

"My father, this is a city full of true believers," said I, as I joined him; "Moolas there must be in plenty, and I pray you to send for one, that the nika may be performed, and that I may receive Azima at your hands as my wife."

"I will not oppose it, my son; but, the old Moola, whoever he may be, will think it strange."

"He may think what he pleases," said I; "but I can no longer live without her; therefore pray consider the point settled, and send for him at once."

Accordingly Peer Khan was despatched for the holy person, who duly arrived: he was received with the greatest courtesy by my father, and the object for which he was required was explained to him. He expressed the utmost astonishment; it was a proceeding he had never heard of, for persons to celebrate a marriage on a journey, and was in every respect improper and indelicate. When he had exhausted his protestations, my father replied to him.

"Look you, good Moola," said he, "there is no one who pays more respect to the forms and usages of our holy faith than I do. Am I not a Syud of Hindostan? Do I not say the Namaz five times a day, fast in the Ramzan, and keep every festival enjoined by the law? And unwilling as I am to do anything which may be thought a breach of the rules of our faith, yet circumstances which I cannot explain render it imperative that this ceremony should be performed; and if you refuse, all I can say is, that there is no want of Moolas in Beeder, and if you do not perform it, some less scrupulous person must, and earn the reward which I now offer to you;" and my father laid two ashrufees before him.

"That alters the case materially," said the Moola, pocketing the money. "Since the ceremony must be performed, in Alla's name let it take place; it was no doubt fated that it should be so; and you will therefore find no person in Beeder more willing to read the form of the Nika than myself. Let me, I pray you, return for my book—I will be back instantly;" and he departed.

"There," cried my father, "I thought it would be so. No one can withstand the sight of gold; from the prince on the throne to the meanest peasant it is the same; its influence is all-powerful. With it a man may purchase his neighbour's conscience, his neighbour's wife, or his daughter; with it a man may bribe the venerable Cazee of Cazees, in any city he pleases, to declare him innocent, had he committed a hundred murders, forged documents, stolen his neighbour's goods, or been guilty of every villany under the sun; with it a good man may be better—but that is rare—a bad man increases his own damnation; for it any one will lie, cheat, rob, murder, and degrade himself to the level of a beast; young women will dishonour their lords; old women will be bribed to assist them. A man who has hoards will practise every knavery to increase them, yet is never happy; those who have no money hunger and thirst after it, and are also never happy. Give it to a child to play with, and by some mysterious instinct he clutches it to his bosom, and roars if it be taken from him. In short, its influence cannot be opposed; old and young, rich and poor—all are its slaves. Men's wisdom is nothing; men's eloquence is nothing; their character nothing; their rank nothing; but this vile metal, which has no voice, no intellect, no character, no rank—this rules our destinies on earth as surely and as potently as Alla himself does in heaven."

"Alla ke Qoodrut!" said I with a sigh; "your words are true, my father, now that one thinks on them; and we have had a precious specimen in the sudden change of opinion in the worthy Moola, who asked no further questions when he saw your gold."

"No!" cried my father; "and if one only had enough, one might rule the world. Who was Sikundur? By all accounts a petty prince, not half so powerful as he who rules this country; and yet, when he gained favour in the sight of the Jins, and afterwards by his magic got dominion over them, did they not place the treasures heaped up in the bowels of the earth at his disposal? and who could then stop his career? Is not this all written in a book, and is it not as true as the Koran?"

"It were heresy to doubt it," said I: "but here comes the subject of our conversation, with his book under his arm. I will prepare Azima."

I went to her. "Dearest," cried I, seating myself, and passing my arm round her waist—"dearest, the time is come when, with the blessing of Alla and my father's sanction, you will be mine for ever, and when the law shall bind us together, for death alone to separate us. A Moola has come; and, with your permission, now, even now, the Nika shall be performed; further delay is idle; and I am consumed with the burnings of my love."

"So soon, Ameer Ali? oh, not till we reach your home. What will your father think of my consenting to this wild union?"

"He sanctions it, beloved! 'Twas he who sent for the Moola; 'twas he who persuaded him to perform the ceremony; and they but await my return to the tent to read the words which make you mine for ever."

"Alas! I know not," said the fair girl; "I am another's wife—how can this be done?"

"Forget the hateful marriage," I cried. "Azima, these objections will kill me. Am I not your slave? are we not now on our way to a distant land, where he from whom you have fled will never again hear of you? Ah, do not continue to talk thus, for it seems like a bitter mockery that you should have fled with me, now to deny yourself to me."

"No no, no!—do not say so, Ameer Ali; you saved me from insult, and from a miserable death to which I had doomed myself. I am your slave, not you mine; do as you choose with me; let it be even as you will. I will follow you till death." And she hid her face in my bosom.

"Then," cried I, "beloved, the preparations are soon made. Call Kulloo, and let her know all."

The old woman came, and was overjoyed to hear of my proposal. "I had feared you would not have bound yourself by this tie, Meer Sahib," said she, "and my mind sorely troubled me on the subject; but now I am easy, and I will give my precious child to you with joy and confidence; may you be blessed in her, and see your children's children. Would that I could proceed with you! but I am old, and my bones and spirit would not rest easily in a strange land. Your generosity and what I have scraped together is enough to make me comfortable for life, and when my hour comes I shall die content."

"Then be quick," said I; "put up a screen, and I will call the Moola; you can all three of you sit behind it while the ceremony is read."

A cloth was stretched from one side of the tent to the other, and fastened to the ground: my father, myself, and the Moola sat on one side, the females on the other. "All is ready, Moolajee," said I; "begin."

He opened his book and read the usual service in Arabic. I did not understand a word of it, neither indeed did he; but it was sufficient that it had been read—the ceremony was complete, and Azima was mine for ever.

It would have been a pity to have left Beeder without seeing more of the town and fort, of which I had heard many praises; and in the evening, therefore, my father, myself and a few others strolled into the town for the purpose of seeing what we could. First we passed the old Madressa, a noble mass of ruins; the front was covered with beautiful enamel from top to bottom, and the immense minaret which we had seen from a distance in the morning was also covered with the same. The huge round fragments of another lay scattered about in every direction, and I could well picture to myself the noble building it must have been, ere by an unfortunate explosion of gunpowder, when used as a magazine by Aurungzebe, its front was blown out, one minaret destroyed, and the whole rent and torn as if by an earthquake.

Passing onwards we arrived at an open space before the ancient and majestic ruins of the fort. Piles upon piles of old ruined palaces, in many places built upon the walls themselves, and all nodding to their fall, while they impressed us with a stronger idea of the magnificence of their builders than anything we had as yet seen, were a lesson to humble proud man—to teach him that he too must moulder in the dust as their founders had done: they had stood for centuries; yet now the owl, the bat, and the wild pigeon were the only tenants of these splendid halls, where once beauty had dwelt and had been the adoration of the brave and glorious.

Where were now the princely state, the pomp of royalty, the gallant warriors who had of old manned these lofty walls and towers, and so oft bidden defiance to hosts of invaders?—all were gone,—all was now lonely and desolate, and the stillness accorded well with the ruinous appearance of the scene before us. Not however that the walls were dilapidated or overthrown; they remained as firm and solid as ever; and here and there the muzzle of a cannon, pointing from a loophole or rude embrasure, showed that they were still capable of defence, though, alas! defenders there were none. We thought the place absolutely deserted, and went on to the gateway. It was massive, and highly ornamented with enamel work, such as we had seen before in the old Madressa and the tombs at Golconda.

While we thus stood admiring the outside, a soldier approached us and asked us our business. "We are strangers, who have put up in the town for the day," answered my father, "and we could not leave the spot without looking at the venerable fort of which we have heard so much. May we be permitted to enter?"

"Certainly," he replied; "persons of your respectable appearance are always gladly admitted; if you will follow me, I will show you over the interior, which is worthy your inspection." We followed him, and passing through two gateways, which were defended by traverses so as to be impenetrable to invaders, we stopped under the third, and our conductor said,

"The rooms above this are well worth seeing, if you will ascend."

"Surely," said I, "we would willingly see everything." We ascended a narrow stair, which at the top opened into a small but beautiful suite of rooms, profusely adorned with enamel, far surpassing in its brilliancy of colours and minuteness of design any that we had before seen on the outside. Sentences of the Koran in white letters on a brilliant azure ground were all round the cornices, and the ceilings and walls were covered with flowers of every hue and design, their colours and the enamel in which they were worked being as fresh and bright as the day they were first painted.

"These are imperishable," said I to my father; "would that the buildings which hold them could be so too, to remain to generations yet unborn a proof of the magnificence and wealth to which they owed their erection!"

"Ay," said he, "there requires no better proof than these of the present degeneracy. The monarchs of those times were just and liberal as well as powerful: the wealth their dominions brought them was freely expended in beautifying their cities, and raising edifices by which they might be remembered. Now, with the same dominions, the wealth they bring is either uselessly hoarded or wastefully expended; now, no buildings arise as monuments of a dynasty, no armies rejoice in the presence of a brave and noble sovereign, and, stimulated by his example, win for him renown at the points of their bright swords. All now is mean and sordid, from the poor pensioned descendant of Shah Jhan and Alumgeer to the representative of the once proud Soobahs of the Dukhun."

"Yes," said our conductor; "what is the use of now calling oneself a soldier, with scarcely bread to eat? The few of us who are in the fort wander about the ruins of the noble palaces and the deserted walls, and our only enemies are the panthers and hyÆnas, who have taken advantage of the yearly increasing jungle and desolation, and bid fair to expel us altogether. But look from the window, sirs; the open ground over which you came is called the Fatteh Mydan, the plain of victory. Here the proud monarchs of Beeder, first the Bhamunee and afterwards the Beereed dynasties, used to sit, while their gallant troops poured forth from the gates, and amused while they gratified their sovereign with feats of arms. And yonder," added he, taking us to another window,—"yonder are their tombs where their mortal remains rest, though their spirits are in the blessed paradise of our Prophet."

We looked, and the view was as lovely as it was unexpected. We were on the top of what appeared to be a lofty mountain, so far and so deep did the noble expanse of valley before us descend. The blue distance melted into the blue of the heavens, while nearer and nearer to us the villages and fields became more and more distinct, till, close under us, they seemed as it were drawn out on a map; and among them stood the tombs, a cluster of noble-looking edifices, their white domes glaring in the red light of the declining sun.

"Ay," cried I, "they must have felt that they were kings, while they gazed admiringly on their gallant soldiers, and looked forth over the lovely country which they ruled."

"Come," said my father, breaking in upon my reflections, which were rapidly peopling the open space of the Fatteh Mydan with the troops and warriors of past ages, and picturing to me their manly games—their mock-fights—the shouts of the contending parties—while from the spot whereon I stood, the praises of the king, and acclamations of his courtiers, were ringing through the arched roofs, and re-echoed by the multitudes without—"come, it is growing late, and we must soon return." We again followed our guide, and as we passed over a causeway which was built across the moat, we had a noble view of its great width and depth. The bottom was partially covered by stagnant pools, the remains of the water the monsoon had deposited; for the rainy season was now past. The fosse was very curiously dug, with a view to defence having been excavated out of the solid rock to a considerable depth; three walls had been left standing, with large intervals between each; and they would certainly oppose a most formidable interruption to an invader.

We entered the fort by a large gloomy archway, within which some soldiers were lounging; and from thence traversing a large court-yard, covered with fragments of ruins and rank brushwood, we emerged into an open space beyond. Here a scene of still greater desolation than even the outside presented opened on our view; ruins of all descriptions—of palaces, stables, offices, baths, magazines for arms and ammunition—strewed the ground; it was a melancholy sight, but the whole was evidently far beyond repair, and fast hastening to destruction. We left the spot, to see the only remaining real curiosity of the place, an immense cannon, the sister, as our guide told us, of one at Beejapoor. It was on a high bastion, from which there was a magnificent view of the plain below us, over which the huge fort now flung its broad, deep shadow, while the distant country was fast fading into obscurity under the growing darkness of the evening. The herds of the town, winding up the steep ascent from the plain, alone broke the impressive silence, as their lowings, the tinkling of their numberless bells, and the melancholy, yet sweet, notes of the shepherd's rude pipe, ascended to our lofty station.

But we could stay no longer; we returned by the way we had come; and though I longed to have roamed over the ruined and deserted palaces, and explored their recesses, it was too late; dismissing our guide, therefore, with a small present for his civility, we retraced our steps to our encampment. From Beeder, Sahib, we had no adventures worth relating till we reached Ellichpoor, by which town we directed our route homewards; however, we did not travel by the same road as we had done in coming down, which would have led us by Mungrool and Oomraotee, and we had good reasons for avoiding both places; the remembrance of the fate of the sahoukar would necessarily be fresh in the memory of the inhabitants of the latter place, and our appearance was too remarkable to be easily forgotten; so we struck off from Nandair on the Godavery towards Boorhanpoor, and when we reached Akola, in the Berar valley, we turned again towards Ellichpoor, and reached it in safety. You must not think, however, that during this long journey we were idle; on the contrary, we pursued our avocation with the same spirit and success with which we had commenced and continued our fortunate expedition; and no traveller, however humble, who joined our party, or was decoyed among us, escaped: and by this means, though our booty was not materially increased, yet we collected sufficient to support us, without taking aught from the general stock, which was to be divided when we reached our home.

At Ellichpoor we encamped under some large tamarind trees, close to the durgah of Rhyman Shah Doolah. It was a quiet, lovely spot. Below the durgah ran a small river, which had its rise in the neighbouring mountains; and over its stream the hallowed buildings of the saint, embowered in thick trees, seemed to be the abode of peace and repose. Thither Azima and myself, attended by some of our men, went, as soon as we had rested ourselves a little and changed our road-soiled garments, to present our offerings at the shrine, and to offer up our thanksgivings for the continued care and protection of Alla. This done, I sent her back to our camp, and entered into general conversation with the Moolas, as was my wont, in order to gather information to guide us in our enterprises; and from so large a city as Ellichpoor, I had some hope that we should gain a valuable booty. We conversed upon many topics of every-day occurrence; at last, one of the Moolas asked me where I had come from, and whither I was going. I said I was a horse-dealer, who had been down to Hyderabad with horses from Hindostan, and was now returning, having disposed of them. "And the men who accompany you, who are they?" asked the Moola.

"My father, who is a merchant, is one," said I; "besides him, there are the grooms and attendants who accompanied us, and several travellers who have joined us from time to time as we journeyed hither."

"Then you are a kafila?" said the Moola.

"Exactly so," said I; "and feeling ourselves to be strong, we are determined to try the road to Jubbulpoor by Baitool, which, though unsafe for small bodies, presents no obstacle to our numerous party."

"Certainly not," he replied; "and the road will save you a long distance which you would have had to travel had you gone round by Nagpoor; and since you are bent on trying the jungle road, perhaps you would not have any objection to an increase to your party? and I think I could get you one."

"Certainly not," said I, "if the travellers are respectable."

"Highly so," said the Moola; "the person of whom I speak is a man of rank, no less than a Nuwab, who is returning to his nephew, who rules over Bhopal."

"Ah, I have heard of him, I think," said I; "you do not mean the Nuwab Subzee Khan, as he is called?"

"The very person, and a fine old soldier he is. It is a pity he is so addicted to the subzee or bhang, from which, however, he has gained a name which it is well known has struck terror into his enemies on the battle-field, and has fairly superseded any other he may have had."

"It is a pity," I said; "for report speaks well of the noble Khan, and his deeds of arms are known to all who have sojourned in Hindostan: I shall be right glad to accompany him, for 'tis said also that he is a rare companion."

"You have heard rightly," said the Moola. "The Nuwab will be here before sunset, as he always comes to converse with us and drink his bhang; if you will step over from your encampment when I send to you, I will introduce you to him."

"Thanks, worthy Moola," said I; "you only need to summon me, and I will attend your call with pleasure."

I left him soon after. Here was the commencement of an adventure which promised fairly to eclipse all our former ones; the rank of the Nuwab, the number of followers he would necessarily have with him, and the noise there would be made about him when he was missed,—all contributed to render this as pretty an adventure as a Thug seeking plunder and fame could desire. I did not mention a word of my hopes to any one; I was determined to have this matter all to myself, both in plan and execution. If I succeeded my fame and character were established for ever, and I could not fail with so many to back me. A momentary thought flashed across me—that the Nuwab was a man of war, that he would be armed to the teeth; and who was I, that I could oppose him? but I dismissed it in an instant as unworthy. My confidence in my own prowess, both as a Thug and with every weapon, whether on foot or on horseback, was unbounded; it had never as yet been checked, and I feared nothing living, I believe, in the form of man.

"Yes, Ameer Ali," said I, "you and all your tribe have ever feared us Englishmen. You have never yet attacked one of us, nor dared you."

The Thug laughed.—"No, Sahib, you are wrong; we never feared you, but to attack any of you would have been impossible. When you travel on horseback you are not worth attacking, for you never carry anything about your persons. In your tents you are surrounded by a host of servants, and at night you are always guarded. When you travel post, we might possibly get a few rupees from your palankeens, but you are generally armed; you usually carry pistols, and some of us must undoubtedly fall before we could effect our object; but above all, there would be such a hue and cry if any of you were missing that it would be impossible to escape, especially as any property we might take from you would assuredly lead to our detection."

"Your reasons are weighty," said I laughing; "but I suspect, Ameer Ali, you do not like the pistols, and that is the reason we have escaped you: but go on with your story; I have interrupted you."

Well then, Sahib, to continue. I waited very impatiently till towards evening, when, as I was sitting at the door of my tent, I saw a man on horseback, attended by a small retinue, among whom, to my great astonishment, was a young good-looking girl, mounted on a spirited pony, coming down the road from the city. He passed near our camp, and, crossing the river, ascended the opposite bank and entered the Durgah. Was this my new victim? I was not long in suspense: a message soon came from the Moola requesting my company; and taking my sword and shield with me, I followed the man who had come to call me.