The Sultaun was not humbled by the issue of the campaign, though for a time his resources were straitened. On the contrary, he burned with revenge for the indignity which he had suffered, superadded to the fierce hate for the English which he had ever retained, and which rose now to a degree of ferocity he could hardly restrain. The demand of three millions and a half sterling made for the expenses of the war—for which, and the relinquishment of the territory he had agreed to resign, his children were held as hostages—he met partly by a payment from his own treasury, partly by a demand upon his army and his civil officers, and the residue was directed to be raised in the provinces, where means were employed for the purpose at which humanity shudders. Mild as had been his civil administration previously, and flourishing as was the cultivation of his whole country under the admirable administration of Purneah, his finance minister—often in marked contrast to the desolation of the English provinces, where the rule of Englishmen was not understood, nor their information as yet equal to the complexity of revenue affairs—there now ensued a remarkable contrast. As the oppression and forced contribution proceeded with horrible rigour, thousands fled into the English possessions, where they were received and protected; and this, while it did not check the infatuated persecution of many of his people, in whose welfare lay his own safety, added fresh cause for his hatred of those from whose protecting sway he could not withdraw them.

Meanwhile his restless mind embraced every subject which came, or which he fancied could come, within his grasp; astrology and magic, with all their absurd and debasing rites, were studied with greater avidity and attention than ever under the guidance of some who had pretensions to those sciences, both Brahmins and Mahomedans. From them he drew the most magnificent auguries of his future brilliant destiny; the past, he said, was but a cloud which, as he had ascertained from the stars, had hung over him from his birth; it was now dissipated, melted into thin air before the bright beams of the rising sun of his destiny. Physic, too, absorbed his attention; to perfection in which he made vast pretensions by aid of a thermometer, the true use of which he declared he had discovered by a revelation from the angel Gabriel, with whom he seemed to have established in his dreams a perfect confidence. It is only necessary, he would say, for a sick man to hold the bulb in his hand, and then, as the mercury rose or fell, so was the disease hot or cold; and according to its scale of progression, so should the remedies, differing in potency, be applied. Often he would, in his caprice, remark upon the altered look of any one present in his court; and in spite of their protestations of perfect health, apply the test, and administer a remedy upon the spot, which it would have been death almost to refuse.

The news of the revolutionary movement of 1789-90 in France, also, for which he had been gradually prepared by the adventurers in his service, infected him with a restless desire of imitation, which ran into the most ludicrous and often mischievous channels. As the French names of years and months were altered, so were his. A new era was instituted; and this being in direct opposition to the precepts of the Koran, which direct an implicit observance of them, he had recourse to his dreams and visions once more, by which it was for the while established.

In all departments of finance, of the army, of agriculture, of justice, there were perpetual alterations, sometimes undoubtedly with good effect, at others the most puerile and absurd. Words of command, invented from the Persian language, were given to his army, and new orders for their regulation and discipline constantly promulgated. He contemplated a fleet to exterminate the English one; which, having before defeated the French, had prevented them from sending such succour to his aid as he had expected. One hundred ships of immense force was to be the complement; of these, forty were directed to be commenced at Tellicherry, Mangalore, and his other ports on the western coast; and officers were appointed to them, commanders and admirals, who had never even seen the sea, had no conception what a ship was, save from the descriptions of others. Some of these men were sent to superintend their completion, others retained at court for instruction in the science of navigation and naval warfare; in which, as in his military pretensions, his dreams, visions, and assumed revelations, alone assisted him.

He was merchant and money-lender by turns; and huge warehouses, which still exist in the Fort of Seringapatam, long open rooms in the palace, capable of containing vast quantities of merchandise, were filled with every description of goods, which in time he forgot entirely, and so they remained till his death. By his system of banking, and of regulating, as he imagined, in his own person the exchanges of his dominions, he put a stop to the operations of the bankers of his capital, by whose assistance alone he was able to administer his affairs; nor would they resume their business until he agreed to abandon this one of the thousand schemes which were on foot for fame and aggrandisement.

New and perplexing laws were for ever being coined in the fertile mint of his own brain; new interpretations of the Koran, which he pretended to receive by inspiration, when in reality he understood not a word of its language, and very indifferently Persian, in which the commentaries upon it were written. The penal enactments against the lower classes of his Hindoo subjects were horrible; the meanest offences, the wearing of any scrap of green, the sacred colour of Mahomed, about their persons, or the transgression of any one of his arbitrary rules, was punished with death, or obscene mutilations, to which death would have been far preferable. These were often done in his own presence; and with Jaffar Sahib, Madar (who had once been his servant, but who had risen in rank), and many others, he was at no loss for instruments to carry them into execution. He would call himself the Tiger of the Faith—the beloved friend of Mahomed; and while he arrogated to himself the last title, the impiety of which shocked the religious among his officers, he acted up to the first not only in words, but in deeds, such as we have alluded to cursorily, by dressing his infantry in cotton jackets printed in tiger’s stripes,—by sitting on the effigy of one for a throne, and by having two large ones chained in the courtyard of his palace, who were often made the executioners of his terrible will.

Many are the tales, too, even now very current in the country, of the ludicrous effects of his inspirations regarding particular people, whom, for some fancied lucky termination or commencement of their name, or some meaning he chose to attach to it, a fortunate horoscope, or even from lucky personal marks, he would select from the meanest ranks, to fill offices for which they were alike unfitted by education, talents, or acquirements, and who, when their incapacity was detected, were mercilessly disgraced. It has been said of him by an eminent historian,^[59] whose account of the period is a vivid romance from first to last, that ‘his were the pranks of a monkey, with the abominations of a monster’; and indeed it is impossible to give an idea of his character in juster terms.

Kasim Ali was again with him, and, rewarded, for his exertions on the day we have mentioned, had risen to a high rank among his officers. Unable to walk when the army broke up from before Seringapatam, Philip Dalton had persuaded him to travel by the easy stages at which the army proceeded, as well for the change which his weakened condition required, as for the continued attendance of the English surgeon under whose care he was placed. To this he had agreed, for in truth the representations of the noble-hearted Englishman had set many matters before him in a new light, and he now looked upon acts of the Sultaun with abhorrence which he had before considered as justifiable, nay, meritorious, when exercised upon infidels, whether Hindoos or English; and having accompanied Philip to Bangalore, he parted from him there with regret, and with a strong sense of his kind and generous behaviour, promising that should he ever discover any clue to the fate of poor Herbert, he would write; for the nations being now on good terms, the communications were open, and he could do so with safety.

For a long while, however, he was unfit to move; he made a report of his escape to the Sultaun, and receiving in return an honorary dress for his gallant behaviour, he was assured that his rank remained to him—nay, was increased; and having solicited leave of absence, he returned to his village to regain, in its quiet seclusion, the strength and peace of mind he had lost. Of Ameena he never thought but as one dead; for though he had written to his friend the Moola to endeavour to trace her fate, and to discover where she had been buried, in order that he might have the melancholy satisfaction of erecting a tomb over her remains, yet she could not be traced, nor her attendants, who were supposed to have escaped to the Nizam’s army in the confusion which ensued after the siege, and her body to have been buried in some obscure place during the night on which she had been cut down. The Moola wrote word that the matter was not known, except perhaps to a few of the Khan’s servants, who had not divulged it.

Kasim found, too, that he had been declared heir to most of the Khan’s wealth, which was large; there was a handsome provision made for his two wives, besides their dower upon marriage, and it was said their families were satisfied with the will, which, regularly drawn up, had been deposited long before his death with responsible executors. In it a large sum was assigned to Ameena; but as she did not appear, it was kept in trust for her should it ever be claimed. Hoormut, the elder wife, had gone to her relations, at some distance from the city; and it was said that Kummoo, whose beauty was much spoken of, had been transferred to the Sultaun’s zenana, the laxity of the morality of which would, Kasim thought, exactly suit her.

Kasim was thus raised to a handsome independence of station, and he spared no pains to make his mother’s declining years as happy as was possible. A new and handsome abode was erected for her; his village walls were rebuilt, and strengthened against perhaps troublous times to come. A new mosque was built; and a neat serai, near the soldiers’ tomb, marked the spot in which he had rescued Ameena. This was his favourite resort, where of an evening, spreading a carpet beneath the trees, he would remain, in conversation with those he loved and respected, the elders of his village, both Hindoo and Mahomedan, or else in silent and sad thought on the past,—on the happiness which had been so rudely dashed from his lips. His health continued very indifferent, and from time to time his leave of absence was renewed; however, at length he could delay no longer, and he once more resumed his attendance at the court of the Sultaun.

It was not, however, with the same feelings of indifference that he now regarded the monstrous acts of the Sultaun; his mind had been purged from the dross of bigotry by his residence in the English camp, where, besides Philip Dalton’s society, there were many others who, either out of curiosity or to while away a tedious hour of ennui, would come to the pallet-side of the Jemadar, and listen to his conversation; relating in turn tales of their own green land, which to Kasim’s senses appeared a paradise. Jaffar Sahib was an offence in his sight; and his increased favour with the Sultaun, his constant attendance on his person and at the Durbar, his now fearful reputation, and the memory of the past (for Kasim felt sure he was connected with that fatal night and Ameena’s death), as well as the fate of the young Englishmen,—all caused a total revulsion of feeling towards the monarch, and he felt his situation becoming daily more distasteful to him, in spite of the splendid prospects which were undoubtedly in the distance. Kasim, too, was a good Mussulman; he was regular in his prayers, and hated innovations; and the endless capricious changes, the blasphemous conduct of the Sultaun, and his pretensions to supernatural power—his devotion to unholy and magical rites, which were openly mentioned, and, above all, his acts of cruelty and tyranny—determined him, and some others of his own character, to abandon a service in which their high notions of justice, decency, and piety were daily outraged.

By the partition treaty, also, the territory in which were situated the villages of Kasim Ali had been transferred to the Nizam, and he at last found it impossible to serve two masters. As long as he remained at home, the authorities dreaded him, and were quiet; but after a time a system of annoyance commenced, of which he had such frequent accounts, that he was soon left no resource between selling his patrimony and cleaving for ever to the ruler of Mysore, or abandoning his service and retiring into seclusion. Had the Sultaun’s conduct not shocked him by its levity and brutality, he might have sold his villages, and withdrawn his family into Mysore; but he shrank from that, and, having converted his property into bills on Hyderabad, Adoni, or other towns which were readily negotiable in the district he belonged to, he prepared himself for a journey, and formally tendered his resignation to the Sultaun in open Durbar.

There were many of his friends who had advised him to ask for leave, and write his intention of not returning from his own home; but he thought this a cowardly manner of proceeding, and determined that his memory should not be reproached with cowardice, and that it should remain as it stood, high among those who were honoured in the army. At an evening Durbar, therefore, when all were present, and many eyes fixed on him (for his resolution was known), he arose, stepped forward, and having made the tusleemat, said to the Sultaun,—

‘Your slave would make a petition, if he is permitted?’

‘Surely,’ said the Sultaun; ‘what did Kasim Ali ever say that was not welcome?’

‘My lord,’ he began, ‘it is hard for one who hath received benefits at thy hands, and who in a bright prospect before him—the glorious career of the lion of the faith—seeth no end but advancement, to shut it out from his sight, and to deny himself the pleasure of seeing day by day the Light of Islam—the Lion of the Faith. O Sultaun! be merciful to thy servant, and forgive the request he makes, that he may retire from thy service into the obscurity and quiet he has long coveted. It is well known to all this assembly, that thy slave is one to whom the stirring events of life have no charm—the intrigues, the factions, the wavering politics of a court, no attraction. If I have hitherto preserved my place here, it has been by kindness and forbearance, not by merit. Another far more fitted than I am will succeed me, and I shall be content in the administration of my property, which, distant as it is, requires my constant attention and care.’

Tippoo stared at him, and Kasim felt uncomfortable; he could not remember that any one had ever made such a request before, and he could not foresee the result. Yet the Sultaun had been in good humour all the day and he hoped for the best.

‘What do I hear, Kasim Ali—that thou wouldst leave my service?’

‘Even so, Huzrut! When thou wast in peril of thy life, mine was risked freely, though others hung back. I, and he that is gone—may his memory live in honour!—led those into the English camp who might have ended the war, had Alla so willed it. In adversity I stood by thee, and I have not quitted thee since, for these six years. Thou art now prosperous: the French are thy friends; thou art courted by the nations of Hind; thou art at peace with the English—long may this continue—thou art prosperous everywhere; and now when all is fair and bright around thee, I would in the season of joy take my leave, grateful for a thousand benefactions from the liberal hand of him who has not ceased to uphold me since I was a youth.’

‘Thou art joking, Kasim Ali,’ said Tippoo; ‘and yet thou hast a serious face. By your soul, say this is not meant!’

‘It is in very truth, O Prince! I have long meditated it. I waited only till my lord’s mind was happy and free from care to announce it, for I would not have my memory linked with painful recollections, but with pleasant thoughts.’

The Sultaun’s brow darkened. ‘Thou art considerate, young man!’ he said bitterly. ‘When I was happy and merry in my heart, thou must needs mar all by this news. By Alla! I would rather thou hadst told it when the storm within me was at the highest; but no matter; thou hast served us well and faithfully—we shall long remember it; nor would we detain any one against his will. We have (blessed be the Prophet!) hundreds in our valiant army to fill vacant places. Therefore go—thou hast thy leave. Yet thou shalt not have it to say I was churlish in this; thou art dismissed with honour. Bring hither two shawls, a turban, and an ornament for the head—also a noble horse from my stables, and a sword and shield from the private armoury,’ he cried to an attendant. ‘Ye shall see, sirs, how Tippoo estimates greatness, and how he rewards it.’

Kasim was much moved: he had expected a stormy scene, an absolute refusal; he had prepared himself for it, and for flight if necessary; now he could have cried like a child; all the Sultaun’s caprice, cruelty, and impiety were forgotten. There sate before him the benefactor and the steady friend of years. He continued gazing on him, and often he felt the tears rush to his eyes, as though they would have had vent. The attendant entered with a tray; upon it were a pair of magnificent shawls of Cashmere, a superb mundeel, and a jewel of great value for the forehead. The Sultaun examined them with the air of a merchant. ‘They are a handsome pair, and worthy of him,’ he said; ‘and this too is rich, and the diamonds of good water. Approach, Kasim Ali!’

He obeyed: the Sultaun arose, cast over his shoulders the rich shawls, took the turban and jewel from the tray, and presented him with them. ‘Embrace me,’ he said,—‘I love thee: I shall ever remember thee gratefully, Kasim Ali; and thou wilt not forget the poor servant of Alla, Tippoo Sultaun: should his enemies revile him, there will be one whose tongue will speak his praise. Shouldst thou ever feel disposed to return, thy place is open to thee; or if as a guest, thou art ever welcome. Go—may Alla keep thee!’

‘Never will I forget thee, O benefactor!’ cried Kasim, completely overcome; ‘never will I allow a word to be said against thee; and in my home—in the wide world—wherever I go, men shall know of the generosity of the lion of Mysore. I go—my prayers are for thee and thy prosperity night and day.’

Kasim made low obeisances as he passed out of the audience-hall; he cast a last look round the well-known place; what scenes he had witnessed there, of joy and misery, frantic enthusiasm and fierce bigotry, torture, and even death! Dreams, visions, lewd and vile torrents of abuse against the English; poems, letters of war, of intrigue, of policy, of every conceivable kind. Enough! they were gone for ever, and he was glad that the feverish existence was at an end; henceforth before him was the peaceful and quiet existence he had so long coveted.

The horse, richly caparisoned, stood at the palace-gate, and men bearing the sword and shield. Kasim bounded into the saddle, and before the admiring spectators, many of them his kind friends, caused him to curvet and bound to show how perfectly the animal was trained; and then saluting them he rode on. Next morning he was on his way beyond the Fort.

That night Jaffar was alone with the Sultaun; they had conversed long on various matters. At last Jaffar exclaimed, ‘May I be your sacrifice! it was wrong to let Kasim Ali go.’

‘Why?’ said Tippoo.

‘He knows too much,’ was the reply.

‘But he is faithful, Jaffar?’

The fellow laughed. ‘He is a good friend to the English.’

‘To the English?’

‘Ay! remember how often he has spoken in their favour, how often he has bearded others who reviled them. May I be your sacrifice! he is unfaithful, or why should he leave thee?’

The Sultaun was struck by the remark. ‘If I thought so,’ he said quickly.

‘Why should he for months have been collecting his money?’ continued Jaffar; ‘every rupee he could collect has gone to Hyderabad, bills, hoondees, gold, all except what he has with him; he has ground the uttermost couree from those who owed him anything.’

‘Is this true?’

‘Ay, by your head! shall I bring the Sahoukars who gave them?’

‘Ya Alla!’ cried the Sultaun, ‘what a serpent have I been nourishing! Thou saidst to Hyderabad?’

‘Ay, he will go to Sikundur Jah, and fill his ears with tales of thee for the English, and give them a plan of this fort. Was he not always with the engineers?’

‘Enough, good fellow,’ said the Sultaun sternly; ‘he must not reach the city—dost thou understand?’

‘I will not lose a moment; the men will have to travel fast, but they can overtake him.’

‘Will they dare attack him? methinks there are few who would attempt that, even among thy devils.’

‘There are some of them who would attack hell itself and its king Satan,’ said the man with a grin, ‘when they have had bhang enough; trust me, it shall be done. He escaped me once,’ said Jaffar, as he went out; ‘he will be lucky if he does so again; we shall be even at last.’

Kasim Ali rode on gaily; with him were a number of men who had previously obtained leave of absence, and had stayed for the advantage of his society and safe conduct, for he was respected by all. They were proceeding, some on horseback, others on ponies, to various parts of the north of Mysore; some to his own district, some to Hyderabad. The road was light under their horses’ feet, and coss after coss passed almost without their knowledge, as they conversed freely and merrily together. At the point where the river Madoor crosses the road to Bangalore there is a good deal of thick jungle, but they heeded not the pass, though it was noted for robbers; they were too formidable a party to be attacked. As they proceeded carelessly, a shot whistled from among some bushes to the left—it went harmless; another, and Kasim felt a sting in his left arm, and he saw a man fall.

‘Upon them!’ he cried, drawing his sword; ‘upon the sons of defiled mothers!’ and he dashed into the jungle, followed by the best mounted; ten or twelve men were flying at their utmost speed—but they had a poor chance before those determined horsemen. Kasim cut at two as he passed them; they were not killed but badly wounded; three others were despatched.

‘I know that rascal’s face,’ said one of his companions, as the prisoners were brought up; ‘it is one of Jaffar’s devils.’

‘Ay, and this is another,’ said Kasim; ‘he was in the Durbar yesterday morning.’

‘Tell us why thou hast done this?’ he said; ‘why didst thou attack me? what have I ever done to harm thee?’

‘Nothing,’ said one sullenly; ‘it was the Sultaun’s order.’

‘Thou liest!’ cried Kasim, striking him.

‘Do not beat me,’ he replied; ‘but behold, here is the order to give us horses to overtake thee, shouldst thou have gone on. We knew not that thou hadst tarried in the city last night; we arose and came on to the last village; they told us there thou hadst not passed, and we waited for thee. Behold! this is the Sultaun’s seal.’

It was truly so—his private seal: Kasim well knew it; he shuddered as he looked on it. ‘Why should there have been such black treachery?’

‘Go!’ said he to the man, recollecting himself, ‘thou are but the instrument of others; go—may Alla give thee a better heart! Tell thy master I recognise his work; and bid him say to the Sultaun, or say it thyself—the love that was between us is broken for ever. Go!’

‘Let us press on, my friends,’ said Kasim, ‘not by the road, but by bye-paths. Though I know not what vengeance I have provoked, ye see I am not safe.’

They did so, and it was well that they travelled fast, for the baffled tiger raved at the loss of his prey, and many men pursued Kasim and his companions, but in vain.