‘Kasim! Kasim Ali! thou art not fit for this service; thou art weak—thy cheek is pale. Go, youth!’ cried the Sultaun, ‘there are a hundred others ready.’

‘Not so, Light of Islam!’ replied the young man. ‘I was the first—it is my destiny—I claim the service; if it be written that I am to fall this day, the shot would reach me even in thy palace. I am not weak, but strong as ever I was; behold my arm.’ And he bared it to the elbow; the muscles stood out in bold projections as he clenched his hand. ‘Behold I am strong—I am full of power, therefore let it be so; Inshalla! your slave will be fortunate; there is no fear.’

‘It is my right,’ cried Rhyman Khan. The hollow tone of his voice as it fell on the Sultaun’s ear caused even him to start. ‘I was before him, bid me go instead; he is young and should be spared; the old soldier is ripe for death.’

‘Prophet of Alla! what ails thee?’ said the Sultaun to him. ‘Why dost thou stare so, and roll thine eyes, Rhyman Khan? art thou ill?’

‘I am well,’ he answered, ‘quite well. Ha! ha! quite well; but as I am thy slave, and have eaten thy salt for years, could I hear thy words unmoved? By Alla, no! therefore let me go, it is my right, for I am his elder.’

‘Go, both of ye,’ continued Tippoo; ‘you have been friends, nay more, father and son; take whom ye will with ye. Go—may Alla shield ye both from danger! Go—if ye fall, your places will be indeed vacant, but your memories will dwell in the hearts of those who love brave deeds, and ye will die as martyrs in the cause of the faith; and this is a death that all covet; but we will pray for your success. Inshalla! victory awaits you, and honour and my gratitude when ye return. Go! ye have my prayers, and those of every true believer who will behold ye.’

Both saluted him profoundly, and then turning, their eyes met. ‘Come!’ said the Khan, ‘we delay.’ There was a burst of admiration from the assembly—a shout which rose and spread abroad to those without. ‘Who will follow Rhyman Khan?’ he cried aloud; ‘whoever will, let him meet me at the southern gate in half-an-hour;’ and so saying, he hurried rapidly in the direction of his home.

All was confusion there, for the lady Ameena, with Sozun and Meeran, were missing; he ordered his best horse to be prepared for action, and, without speaking, he passed into the apartments of Ameena and fastened the door.

They were as she had left them—nothing had been disturbed: her larks were singing cheerily; her looree, which knew him well, fluttered its bright wings, and screaming tried to fly to him; her gazelle ran up with a merry frisk, and rubbed its nose against his hand, and butted gently with its forehead, gazing at him with its large soft eyes. Her flowers were fresh and bright, and their odour was sweet in the cool morning air. His eye wandered around: every well-remembered object was there; but she whose joyous smile and sweet tones had made a heaven of the place, where was she? dead and cold he thought, disfigured in death by his own hand. He cast himself frantically on the bed, which remained in disorder even as she had left it, and groaned aloud.

How long he lay there he knew not: he had no thought of present time, only of the past, the blissful past, which floated before his mental vision, a bitter mockery. Some one knocked; it recalled him to his senses.

‘They wait,’ said Daood, ‘the PatÉl and a hundred others; he has sent for thee.’

‘I come,’ cried the Khan, ‘I come: it was well he remembered me; he seeks death as I do,’ he added mentally.

‘The lady Kummoo would speak to thee,’ said a slave, as he passed out.

‘Tell her I go to death!’ he replied sternly; ‘tell her I follow Ameena—away!’ The girl stared at him as though the words had stunned her, gazed after him as he passed on, saw him spring quickly into his saddle, and dashing his heels into his noble charger, bound onwards at a desperate speed.

‘’Tis well thou art come, Khan,’ said Kasim Ali, ‘we have waited for thee.’

‘Hush! why seekest thou death? thou art not fitted to die, Kasim.’

‘More fit than thou, old man,’ was his reply. ‘Come, they wait—they remark thee; when we are before the judgment thou wilt know all. Come!’

The Khan laughed scornfully, for he remembered the kiss. ‘Come, my friends,’ he cried; ‘follow Rhyman Khan for the faith and for Islam: Bismilla! open the gate.’

‘For the faith! for Islam!’ cried the devoted band as the heavy door opened, and emerging from the shadow of the gate and wall, the sunlight glanced upon their naked weapons, gay apparel, and excited horses, and they dashed in a fearful race toward the camp.

‘Show us the tent of the great commander!’ cried Kasim to a sentinel who stared at them as they passed, evidently taking them to be a body of the Nizam’s horse.

‘Yonder!’ said the man, pointing to one at some distance.

‘Follow Kasim Ali! Follow Rhyman Khan!’ were the cries of the leaders, both urging their horses to full speed in reckless emulation. They had been observed, however: a staff-officer had watched them from the first, and suspected their intention; now he could not be mistaken; he flew to a picquet of native soldiers, and drew them up across the very path of the rapidly-advancing horsemen. Kasim marked the action, as the muskets obeyed the word of command; he saw the bright sun glance on a line of levelled barrels, and heard the sharp rattle which followed; his horse stumbled; as it fell, he saw the Khan toss his arms wildly into the air and reel in his seat, and the next moment his affrighted charger was flying riderless through the camp! He saw no more, he felt stunned for an instant, and his dead horse lay on his leg—causing exquisite pain; he extricated himself and tried to rise—his leg failed him, and he fell again to the ground—it was broken. Again he looked around, a number of men and horses lay confusedly together. Some writhing in pain and crying out for mercy, while the rest of the band were flying confusedly to the Fort.

The Sepoys who had fired ran up, headed by an English officer. Kasim had lost his sword; it lay at a little distance, and he could not recover it. One of the men, seeing that he lived, raised his bayonet as he approached to kill him. He shut his eyes, and repeated the Kulma.

‘Hold!’ cried a voice, ‘do not kill him—he is an officer; raise him up and disarm him.’

‘Thou art a prisoner,’ said the officer to Kasim; ‘do not resist—art thou wounded?’

‘My leg is broken,’ said Kasim; ‘kill me, I am not fit to live, I have no desire for life.’

‘Poor fellow!’ said the officer, ‘he is in great pain. Lift him up, some of ye, and take him to my tent; he is evidently an officer, by his dress, and the rich caparisons of his horse.’

‘Yonder lies my leader!’ said Kasim, pointing to the Khan; ‘raise me, and let me look upon him once more. We were friends in life until yesterday—in death we should not have been divided.’

They were touched by his words, and obeyed him. The Khan lay on his face, quite dead. They turned the body: Kasim looked upon the familiar features—they were already sharp and livid; there was a small hole in the forehead, from which a few drops of black blood had oozed; his death had been instant as thought. Kasim heeded not the pain he suffered, he felt as though his heart were bursting; and throwing himself beside the body, wept passionately.

After a while he tried to rise, and they assisted him. ‘That was a gallant soldier!’ he said to the officer; ‘let him be buried as one, by men of my faith.’

‘I will answer for it,’ said a native officer, stepping forward; ‘thou shalt hear this evening that the rites of our faith have been performed over him. If he was an enemy, yet he was a brother in the faith of Islam.’

‘Enough! I thank thee, friend,’ replied Kasim. ‘Now lead on—I care not whether I live or die, since those I lived for are gone from the earth.’

But the officer’s curiosity had been excited by his words and his appearance, which was eminently prepossessing. He was removed gently to his tent, and a bedding laid on the ground. A surgeon, a friend of the officer, was sent for; Kasim’s leg was examined; the thigh was badly fractured above the knee, but the operation was skilfully performed, and in a manner which surprised Kasim. It was bound up, and he was soon in comparative ease. How little he had expected such kindness! And when he contrasted it with what would have been an Englishman’s fate within the Fort, his heart was softened from the bigotry it had previously entertained.

The officer was Philip Dalton. He had long thought on the possibility of saving some captive, that he might gain information of the English prisoners, and he tended Kasim kindly. In a few days they were better friends; the cold reserve of Kasim had worn off before the frank manner of the Englishman, and they now conversed freely of the war, of their own vicissitudes and adventures, and of the present chances of success. Kasim soon perceived that all hope for the Sultaun was at an end, from the vigour of the attack and the efficiency of the army, and he knew that within the Fort existed dread and discontent. After a while Philip asked him of the prisoners—at first warily, and only hinting at their existence. But Kasim was faithful to his Sultaun, though he could have told him of the fearful murders which had been openly mentioned among the army, to avenge which they supposed the English thirsted. Yet he did not reveal them, even though he knew from Philip’s own lips that the English had been informed of them by the hundreds who had deserted on the night of the first attack. Often Philip would ask him whether he had ever known any of the prisoners; whether he had ever spoken with them when on guard over them, or perchance escorting them from station to station: for he knew that the captives were frequently removed, lest they should attack those who attended them.

And when Kasim related to him his interference in behalf of an English prisoner at Bangalore, and his attempt to protect him in the Sultaun’s Durbar, risking his life for him ere yet he was himself in service, Philip’s cheek glowed, and his heart throbbed, in a silent conviction that it was Herbert himself.

‘Was he tall, and brown-haired? and had he very large blue eyes?’ he asked anxiously.

Kasim recollected himself: it was a long time ago, and his memory appeared to have been impaired by the late events; he had only seen him in times of great excitement. But after a long reflection, he thought it was the same; however, the prisoner’s features had made little impression upon him.

‘Poor youth!’ added Kasim, ‘I saw him no more.’

‘How! what became of him?’

‘He was doomed to die. While I was held back by men—for I was excited—I saw him dragged away. I heard the Sultaun give the fatal mandate to Jaffar,—a man whose heart is blacker than that of Satan.’

‘He of whom thou hast told me so much of late?’

‘Ay, the same. I heard mention made of the fatal rock, and the young Englishman was dragged forth, spat upon and insulted. Yet even then he spoke to me, and said that my action would be remembered in the judgment. Alas! I had no power to rescue him, and he must have died.’

‘Gallant fellow!’ cried Philip, ‘the pain of that thought I can save thee; he died not there.’

‘How dost thou know? what was he to thee, Sahib?’

‘He was dear as a brother to me—he was my friend. I married his sister, after years of absence from my native land. When we took Balapoor, I went to the rock thou knowest of—it was in curiosity only. His name was written there, and that renewed the hope which had never been dead within our hearts: for one of the miserable victims had written that he had been taken away ill; and by a chance, sent by Providence, we traced him to a worthy Fakeer’s Tukea,—thou mayest remember it?’

‘I do; a cool shady place, where the wearied wayfarer is ever welcomed.’

‘The kind old man tended him, administered medicine to him. He recovered, and we heard that he was taken away by that same Jaffar whom thou hast mentioned—whither, he could not tell.’

‘Alas! then I fear there is no hope of his life. Jaffar is a devil, yet in such a matter he dare not act without the Sultaun’s order. I remember,’ he added after a pause, ‘a conversation between them about an Englishman—it was before the siege; there was no one else present. Tippoo spoke of one who was skilled in fortification, in the arts of war and of gunnery, far above the French adventurers in his service, who after all are but pretenders to science. Could this be thy brother?’

‘It is! it is!’ cried Philip, catching at the idea in desperation; ‘it must be, he was eminently skilled in all. Your last words determine the idea that it was he. By your soul, tell me if you know aught of him.’

‘Alas! no,’ said the young man. ‘Yet they concealed nothing: Jaffar said it was useless; that he had sent trusty messengers to him to the fort, through the jungles, at the peril of their lives, with offers of mercy, pardon, wealth, if he would take service in the army. He had spurned all; and then the Sultaun grew furious, and swore he might die there.’

‘Did he mention the fort, the place where it was, in what direction?’ asked Philip eagerly.

‘No, and I know not, Sahib; it is not in this district. If he be still alive, he is in one of those lonely posts away to the west—in Coorg, or on the frontiers of Malabar, a little spot on the top of some lonely peak, piercing the sky, which is ever wrapped in clouds and mists, with its base surrounded by jungles, to traverse which days and weeks are required—garrisoned by the rude and barbarous infidels of the mountains, whose speech and appearance are hardly human. It is a horrible fate to think on, Sahib,’ he said, shuddering; ‘better that he should have died long ago. But, after all, it may not be your friend.’

‘Perhaps not,’ said Philip, sighing; ‘and yet I have hope; and when the Fort is stormed, and yon proud Sultaun brought to the reckoning he deserves, it will be hard if we gain not news of him we seek.’

‘May Alla grant it, Sahib! Thou hast bound me to thee by the kindness thou hast shown a stranger and an enemy, and I will rejoice, even as thou dost, that thy friend and brother should be saved. But, alas! I have little hope. Yet when I recover, and this war is over, if I live I will search for thee and rescue him.’

‘God bless thee!’ cried Philip; ‘I believe thee. Thou hast now known that we are not the miscreants which the bigots of the faith would represent us to be; and if thou canst bring me even news of his death, it will be a melancholy satisfaction, and will still the restless hopes which have so long gnawed at our hearts and excited us, only to be cast down into utter despair.’

Days passed of constant success on the part of the English: their cannon played night and day upon the breaches, till they were almost practicable. Those in the Fort looked on in sullen despair, and abandoned themselves to a blind reliance on their destiny. It was in vain that Tippoo made the most passionate appeals to them to sally out and cut the English army to pieces; it was in vain he read to them the humiliating demands of the allies; in vain he raved, as he saw the groves of his favourite and beautiful gardens levelled with the earth, and transported to construct fascines and gabions for new parallels and trenches. The sorties were weak, and driven back with loss, and with the remembrance of the fatal issue of that led by Rhyman Khan and Kasim Ali, no one dared to hazard a similar attempt, though rewards beyond thought were offered by the frantic monarch. The murmurs within gradually increased, as the breaches widened daily, and men looked to the issue of the storm in fearful dread. Women shrieked in the streets, and men were everywhere seen offering vain sacrifices of sheep and fowls to the senseless idols of the temple, that the firing might cease.

At length it did; the Sultaun in despair yielding to terms of which he could not then estimate the leniency. The firing ceased, and though the maddened English could hardly be restrained from rushing into the Fort and searching its most secret apartments and hiding-places for their unhappy countrymen, they were kept back, and the negotiations proceeded.

The event is already matter of history, and we are not historians. Although even his children had gone from him as hostages into the British camp, in a paroxysm of passion the Sultaun desperately refused the cession of Coorg to its rightful owner, whom he had dispossessed—one of the terms of the treaty, but which he well knew, if yielded, would open a road into the heart of his dominions at any time. The stern resolution of the English commander—the presence of his victorious army, the threats of which were openly stated to him by his officers—the general discontent and dread which pervaded all, in spite of his appeals to their pride, their bigotry, and their courage—the repair of the breach while the English cannon ceased—all conspired to check their spirit. He sullenly yielded to a destiny he could not avert, and accepting the conditions, he delivered up those captives who were known to be in the Fort and province.

With what agonising apprehension did Philip Dalton and Charles Hayward fly from body to body of these men—some grown aged and careworn from misery and long confinement, while others, having been forcibly converted to the faith of Islam, now openly abjured its tenets, and flung away their turbans and other emblems of their degraded condition. Alas! Herbert Compton was not among them, nor could any one tell of his fate, though his name was remembered vividly; and it was known among them from Bolton, who was dead, that he had not perished at the rock of Hyder.

Now therefore, for the Sultaun again and again protested that he had given up all, and that Herbert had died soon after his escape from the rock, Philip and young Hayward abandoned all hope. True, for a while they thought that one of the strongholds of Coorg might contain their poor friend; but there too they were disappointed; and there was no longer a straw floating upon the waters of expectation at which they could catch in desperation; and hope, which had been for years buoyant, sank within them for ever.

The news of the victory reached England; the nation rejoiced at the triumph, that their bitterest enemy in the East had been humbled and despoiled of his fair provinces, and that the political horizon of their already increasing possessions was once more clear. But there were two families among the many who mourned for those who had met a soldier’s death, which, though the bereavement was not a present one, yet felt it as acutely as if it had been recent; nay more so, since their hopes had been so long excited. They knew not that Amy had ever thought there was hope of Herbert’s life; but long ere letters came, when it was known that the army was in Mysore, they saw her look for every succeeding dispatch with more and more impatience, and a feverish anxiety she could not conceal. And when the end came, they knew, from her agonised burst of bitter grief, that she too had lingered in hope even as they had.

But Amy’s was a strong mind, and one which her affliction, though deep and heavy to bear, had never driven into repining. She looked with earnest hope to the future; and in reliance on the Divine power and wisdom, which she had early practised, and which never failed her in her need, she drew from that pure source consolation, which those who loved her most dearly could not impart; she had lived on a life of meek and cheerful piety, almost adored by the neighbourhood, and in sweet intercourse with those around her, whose constant care for her was amply repaid by her devoted affection.