The excitement of the day had prevented the Sultaun from feeling the pain of the severe sprain until late, when it became insupportable: in vain it was fomented and rubbed; that seemed only to increase the swelling and stiffness; but when he heard that Kasim had arrived in the camp badly wounded, he could not withstand the desire of seeing him to whom he owed the preservation of his life; accordingly he was lifted into a chair, and, entirely unattended, directed his bearers to carry him to the Khan’s tent, where he sent orders for his chief physician to meet him.

Such an honour was entirely unlooked for by the Khan and his household; nevertheless he was received with respect, carried into the tent where Kasim was, and set down by the side of the sufferer, who lay almost in a state of insensibility, showing consciousness only at intervals. The women servants who had been fomenting the wound, and had arisen at his entrance, now resumed their occupation; for though Daood and his other men had offered their services, the Khan had thought truly that there was more lightness and softness in the hand of woman; and Ameena’s nurse, Meeran, had set the example to the rest, aided by the instructions of her brother Zoolficar, who was busy preparing a poultice of herbs for the wound.

The Sultaun regarded Kasim intently before he spoke to the Khan, and several times stooping down felt his pulse and head.

‘Inshalla! he will yet live,’ he said; ‘we, the chosen of the Prophet, are counted to have much skill in the treatment of wounds, and therefore we say, Inshalla! he will live; his pulse is strong and firm, and he is not going to die.’

‘Alla forbid,’ echoed all around.

‘Whose advice hast thou got for him, Khan?’ asked the Sultaun.

‘None as yet, Asylum of the World! My Khanum’s women here have been fomenting the wound, and a slave of mine who has skill in such matters, for he was a barber once, is preparing a poultice.’

‘We desire to know what is in it,’ said the Sultaun; ‘there is much in having lucky herbs boiled under the influence of salutary planets; send for him.’ The replies of Zoolficar were deemed satisfactory by the Sultaun, who desired him to proceed with the work. The Hukeem too shortly afterwards attended, and began carefully to examine the patient; he had evidently but little hope, and shook his head with a melancholy air when he had made his survey.

‘There is no hope of his life,’ said the old man. ‘I have seen many shot, but a man never survived such a wound—his liver is pierced, and he must die.’

‘I tell thee no! Moorad-ali,’ said the Sultaun; ‘we have had dreams about him of late, his destiny we know is linked with our own, and we are alive—Inshalla! we shall yet see him on horseback.’

‘Inshalla-ta-Alla,’ said the Hukeem, ‘in him alone is the power, and we will do what we can to aid any merciful interference he may make.’ But his directions for an application were little different from the mixture of the cook, which was shortly afterwards applied. The Sultaun waited a while in the hope of hearing Kasim speak, but he continued to lie breathing heavily and slightly groaning, when additional pain caused a pang.

‘We can do no good,’ he said to the Khan; ‘let us leave him to the care of Alla, who will restore him to us if it be his destiny. Come then with me to the morning Durbar; we will summon the leaders, and settle some plan for the future, which we were too disturbed to arrange yesterday.’

The Khan followed him, charging the women strictly with the care of the poor sufferer until he returned; he was soon afterwards engaged in deliberation with the Sultaun and his officers. One of two alternatives presented themselves to Tippoo; either to abandon the undertaking suddenly, and while the English should think him engaged there to fall upon their territory with fire and sword,—or to send for heavy guns from Seringapatam, and breach the barrier, when an assault, such as could not be withstood by the besieged, might be made with success. The latter was in the end adopted; the army serving in Malabar was desired to join the Sultaun by long forced marches; heavy batteries of guns were ordered directly from the city; and his officers, from his manner and the eagerness with which he entered into the matter, saw how intent he was on providing for the emergency.

The pain Tippoo had suffered the whole night was intense; but the excitement of the Durbar, the dictation of the letters to his officers, and the deliberation, had prevented him from betraying it more than by an impatient gesture or ill-suppressed oath. At last he could bear it no longer, and sank back upon his musnud, cursing terribly the infidels who had caused his defeat and suffering; but he rallied again immediately, and started up to a sitting posture, while he exposed and pointed to his ankle, which he had hitherto kept concealed under a shawl.

‘Ye see what pain and grief are devouring us,’ he cried, ‘and we call upon ye to revenge it.’

‘We are ready—on our head and eyes be it!’ cried all.

‘For every throb of pain,’ continued the Sultaun, speaking in suppressed rage from between his closed teeth, while he held his ankle, ‘we will have a kafir’s life; we will hunt them like beasts, we will utterly despoil their country. Ya, Alla Mousoof! we swear before thee and this company, that we will resent this affront upon thy people to the death—that we will not leave this camp, pressing as are our necessities elsewhere, till we have sent thousands of these kafirs to perdition; and ye are witness, my friends, of this.’

‘And I swear to aid thee, O Sultaun!’ cried the Khan with enthusiasm, ‘and to revenge that poor boy if he dies.’ ‘And I! and I!’ cried all, as they started to their feet in the wild spirit of the moment; ‘the kafirs shall be utterly destroyed.’

‘I am satisfied now,’ cried the Sultaun; ‘what has happened was the will of Alla, and was pre-ordained; whatever a man’s fate is, that he must suffer;’ and the assembly assented by a general ‘Ameen!’ ‘However, Inshalla!’ he continued, ‘we have seen the last reverse; and we are assured by comforting thoughts that the army of the faith will be henceforth victorious. Ye have your dismissal now, for we are in much pain and would consult our physician.’

During the absence of the Khan, the attentions of the women to poor Kasim had been incessant, and everything was done that kindness could suggest to procure any alleviation of his pain. His wound was fomented, his limbs kneaded, his still parched and fevered lips moistened with cool sherbet. Meeran had striven to comfort her young mistress for some time, but in vain: she had not been able to repress her emotions when he was brought in wounded, although she dared not in presence of her lord give full vent to her feelings; but when she knew that he had left the tent with the Sultaun, she could no longer restrain herself, and gave way to a burst of grief, which would have proved to Meeran, had she not before known of her love for him, how deep and true it was.

‘I must see him, Meeran,’ she said at length; ‘the Khan is gone now, and canst thou not devise some means? Quick! think and act promptly.’

‘I will send away the women, my rose,—thou shalt see him,’ said the attendant; ‘when I cough slightly do thou come in; they say he cannot speak, and lies with his eyes shut.’

‘Ya, Alla kureem!’ cried Ameena; ‘what if he should die ere I see him? Oh grant him life,—thou wilt not take one so young and so brave. Quick, good nurse! I am sick at heart with impatience.’

Meeran found but little difficulty in sending away the women upon some trifling errands, for Kasim slept, or appeared to dose; so taking their place by his side, she coughed slightly, and Ameena, who had been waiting anxiously behind the screen which divided the tents, withdrew it hastily and entered.

She advanced with a throbbing heart; she could hardly support herself, as well from her despair of his life as of her own feelings of love for him, which would now brook no control; her mind was a chaos of thoughts, in which that of his death and her own misery were the most prominent and most wretched.

Nor was the sight before her, as she drew near Kasim, at all calculated to allay her fears; he lay to all appearance dead; his eyes were closed, and his breathing was so slight that it scarcely disturbed the sheet which was thrown over him; the ruddy brown of his features had changed to a death-like hue, and his eyes were sunken.

Ameena was more shocked than she had anticipated, and it was with difficulty that she could prevent herself from falling to the ground when she first saw his features, so deadly was the sickness which seemed to strike at her heart; but she rallied after an instant of irresolution, and advancing sat down by her nurse, who gently fanned the sleeper.

‘He sleeps,’ she whispered; ‘Zoolficar has bound up the wound, his remedies are always sure, and there is luck with his hand. Alla kureem! I have hope.’

‘Alas! I have none, Unna,’ said Ameena; ‘I cannot look on those altered features and hope. Holy Alla! see how he looks now—what will happen?’ and she gasped in dread, and put her hand before her eyes.

‘It was nothing—nothing, my life, but a slight spasm, some pain he felt in his asleep, or perchance a dream; but it is past; look again, he is smiling!’

His features were indeed pleasant to behold. Even in a few minutes a change had come over them; he had been dreaming, and the excitement and pain of one had been followed, as is often the case, by another of an opposite nature—one of those delirious visions of gardens and fountains which had mocked him as he lay on the battle-field again arose before him, and he fancied that Ameena was beside him, and they roamed together. They saw his lips moving, as though he were speaking, yet no sound came, except an indistinct muttering; but Ameena, whose whole soul was wrapt in watching him, fancied that the motion of his lips expressed her name, and mingled emotions of joy and shame struggled within her for mastery.

Again the peaceful vision had passed away, and his brow contracted; his nervous arms were raised above the covering over him, and his hands were firmly clenched; he ground his teeth till the blood curdled in their veins, and his lips moved rapidly. ‘Oh that I could wake him, Unna!’ said Ameena; ‘that I could soothe him with words—that I dared to speak to him. Hush! what does he say?’

‘Water! water!’ whispered Kasim hoarsely. The rest they could not hear, but it was enough for Ameena; a jar of cool sherbet stood close to her; with a trembling hand she poured out some into the silver cup and held it to his lips. She only thought of his pain, and that she might alleviate it, and Meeran did not prevent the action. The cool metal was grateful to Kasim’s dry and heated lips; they were partly open, and as she allowed a little of the delicious beverage to find its way into them, the frown from his brow passed away, the rigid muscles of his face relaxed, and as she softly strove to repeat the action, his eyes opened gently and gazed upon her.

For an instant, to his distempered fancy, her beauty appeared like that of a houri, and he imagined that he then tasted the cup of heavenly sherbet with which the faithful are welcomed to Paradise; but as he looked longer, the features became familiar to him, and the eyes—those soft and liquid eyes—rested on him with an expression of sympathy and concern which they could not conceal. For an instant he strove to speak—‘Ameena!’ The name trembled on his lips, but he could not utter it; he suddenly raised himself up a little, and coughed; it was followed by a rush of blood, which seemed almost to choke him.

Ameena could see no more; her sight failed her, and she sank down beside him unconsciously. Meeran, however, had seen all; she raised her up, and partly carrying, partly supporting her, led her away, while she called to her brother, who stood at the tent-door to watch, to come to Kasim’s assistance.

‘Thou must keep a stouter heart within thee, my pearl!’ she said to Ameena, after having with much assiduity recovered her ‘Holy Alla! suppose the Khan had come in then, when thou wert lying fainting beside him—what would he not have thought? I shall never be able to let thee see him again if thou canst not be more firm.’

‘Alas!’ sighed Ameena, ‘I shall see him but little again; his breath is in his nostrils, and there is no hope: this night—to-morrow—a few hours—and he will cease to live, and then I shall have no friend.’

‘Put thy trust in Alla!’ said the nurse, looking up devoutly; ‘if thy destiny is linked with his, as I firmly believe it is, there will be life and many happy days for you both.’ But her words failed to cheer the lady, who wept unceasingly, and would not be comforted.

Days passed, however, and Kasim Ali lived; his spirit of life within him would one while appear to be on the verge of extinction, and again it would revive, and enable him to exchange a few words with those by whom he was tended. It was in vain that he entreated the Khan to allow him to be removed to his own tent; his request was unheeded or refused, and he remained. Gradually he regained some strength; and with this, a power of conversing, which he was only allowed to exert at intervals by the physicians, and by the kind old cook, who, with the Khan’s servant Daood and Ameena’s nurse, were his chief attendants. As he lay, weak and emaciated, he would love to speak with Meeran of her who he knew had visited him on the first night of his wound, and to hear of her anxious inquiries after his progress towards recovery.

To Ameena the days passed slowly and painfully; sometimes, when the Khan spoke of Kasim, it was with hope,—at others, as if no power on earth could save him; but she believed her nurse more than him, for her hope never failed, and she was assured by Zoolficar that the crisis had passed favourably, that all tendency to fever had left him, and, though his recovery would be slow, yet that it was sure; and on this hope she lived. Day and night her thoughts were filled with the one subject, and she conversed upon it freely with the Khan, who loved to speak of Kasim, without exciting any surprise in his mind.

And often would she steal softly on tiptoe to the place where Kasim lay asleep, at such times as she knew he was attended only by Meeran; and looking upon his wasted features, to satisfy herself that he was advancing towards recovery, she would put up a fervent prayer that it might be speedy. But Kasim knew not of these visits, for Ameena had strictly charged her nurse not to mention them, lest they should excite him or he should look for their continuance. Often would the old nurse rally her upon her caution, and urge that it would gratify Kasim, and aid his recovery, to speak with her, but Ameena was resolute.

‘I should fail in my purpose,’ she would say. ‘Meeran, I dare not risk it; to look on him daily, even for an instant, is happiness to me which thou knowest not of, and such as I may indulge in without shame; but to speak to him, knowing his feelings and mine, would be to approach the brink of a giddy precipice, from whence we might fall to perdition. Am I not the Khan’s wife? he is old—I cannot love him, Meeran, but I honour him, and while he lives I will be true to him.’

‘Alla send thee power, my child!’ Meeran would reply; ‘thou art but a child, it is true, but thou hast the faith and honour of an older woman, and Alla will reward thee.’

But it was a sore temptation to Ameena, and as she gradually became habituated to her silent and stealthy visits, the thought rose up in her heart that it would be pleasant to sit by him for a while, to watch his gentle and refreshing slumbers, even to tend him as Meeran and the others did, above all, to listen to his converse; but she put these thoughts from her by a violent effort, and when once conquered they returned with less force.

Nor did Kasim occupy a less dangerous position; but his principle of honour was high, and, experiencing the constant kindness of the Khan, shown daily in a thousand acts, could he plot against his honour? His passion had imperceptibly given place during his long and great weakness to a purer feeling, which his best reflections and gratitude to his benefactor daily strengthened.

Weeks, nay months, passed. Kasim’s recovery was slow and painful; it was long ere he could even sit up, and speak without pain and spitting of blood. But as his strength enabled him to do so, he was allowed to sit for a while, then to crawl about, a shadow of his former self! He was pitied by all, and there was hardly a man in that camp who did not feel an interest in the life and recovery of the PatÉl. Often, too, would the Sultaun visit him, and overpower him with thanks for his preservation; and he showed proofs of his gratitude, in advancing him to higher rank, and to a place of trust near his own person.

But the life of dull inaction that he led was irksome to Kasim Ali; the noise of the cannon thundered in his ear, and from the Khan’s tent he could see the batteries day after day playing upon the wall, that had hitherto defied them. There was now a huge breach, through which the whole army might have marched, with little chance of opposition; the ditch became gradually filled up by the rubbish, and the fire of the besiegers was but faintly returned by those within; still, however, at times they showed a bold front, and often sallying forth, would do mischief to the advanced posts of the army.

Day after day reports of the progress of the siege, the camp gossip, the arrival of the remains of that splendid embassy which the Sultaun had sent to Constantinople, and the failure of its purpose, and the immense sums it had cost, were retailed to Kasim by the Khan and others; but he was helpless, and, though he longed again to mix in the strife and to strike a blow for the faith, the power was denied him.

Meanwhile the Sultaun had been a severe sufferer; the sprain of his foot was acutely painful, and subsided only after a tedious confinement, during which his temper had been more than usually capricious. The failure of his noble embassy to Turkey, the immense sum it had cost him, without any equivalent, except a letter of compliment from the Sultaun of Constantinople, the true value of which he could justly appreciate—the continued preparations of the English, the Mahrattas, and the Nizam, and their united power—pressed on him with force and occupied his thoughts by day and his dreams by night.

He had summoned the heaviest of his artillery from Seringapatam, and in time he had completed a breach, some hundred yards in extent, which invited attack; at length it was made. Opposition there was none, and the army, thirsting for revenge and plunder, poured upon the now defenceless territory of Travancore. Impelled by a smarting sense of the degradation they had suffered in the attack on the wall, and in the subsequent delay which had occurred before the storming of the breach, the army now gave itself up to frightful excesses. The inhabitants were hunted like wild beasts, shot and speared by the merciless soldiery—their women and children destroyed, or sent into a captivity, to which death would have been preferable. Thousands were forcibly made to profess the faith, and amidst the jeers of the rabble were publicly fed with beef and forced to destroy cows, which they had hitherto venerated.

But the necessities of his position began at length to press hard upon the mind of the Sultaun; he was far from his capital; in his present condition he was unable to strike a blow against his enemies; and, though he had endeavoured to mislead the English by plausible letters, and protestations of undiminished friendship, yet he could not disguise from himself that there was a stern array of preparation against him, which required to be met by decisive and vigorous operations.

‘They shall see—the kafir English!’—he exclaimed in his Durbar, after the receipt of a letter from his capital, which warned him of danger; ‘they shall see whether the Lion of the Faith is to be braved or not. Mashalla! we have hitherto been victorious, and the stars show our position yet to be firm; our dreams continue good, our army is faithful and brave, and those who remember the triumphs of Perambaukum and of Bednore will yet strike a blow for the Sultaun.’

These addresses were frequent, and the army was in daily expectation of being ordered to return, but as yet it did not move; the most sagacious of his officers, however, urged it at last with such force upon the Sultaun’s notice, that he could no longer delay. ‘We must utterly destroy the wall,’ he replied to them; ‘then we will return.’

And this was done. It was a magnificent sight to see that whole army, headed by the Sultaun himself, advance to the various positions upon the wall, which had been previously assigned, for the purpose of razing it to the ground. As the morning broke, the various divisions, without arms, moved to their posts, where pickaxes and shovels had been already prepared for them. All the camp-followers, the merchants, grain-sellers, money-changers, men of all grades, of all castes, were required to join in the work, and in the enthusiasm of the moment rushed to it eagerly. The Sultaun himself, dressed in gorgeous apparel, and surrounded by his courtiers, his chiefs and slaves, quitted his tent amidst a discharge of cannon which rent the air, the sound of kettle-drums and cymbals, and the shouts of assembled thousands, ‘Alla Yar! Alla Yar! Deen! Deen!’

Tippoo rode on Hyder, his favourite elephant: the umbaree he sat on was of silver gilt, the cushions of crimson velvet, and the curtains of the finest cloth with gold fringes. The housings of the noble beast, of crimson velvet trimmed with green, swept the ground. Around him were all his officers, on a crowd of elephants and horses, decked with their richest trappings, and wearing cloth-of-gold or muslin dresses, with turbans of the gayest colours, red and pink, white, lilac, or green, sometimes twisted into each other.

The Sultaun dismounted from his elephant, for which a road had been made across the ditch, and seizing a pickaxe ascended the wall. For a while he stood alone, high upon a pinnacle of a tower, in the sight of his whole army, whose shouts rose to the skies, with pride in his heart and exultation flashing from his eye: his favourite astrologer was beneath him, busied with calculations.

‘Is it the time, Sheikh?’ he asked: ‘surely it is near?’

‘My art tells me it will be in a few minutes,’ was the reply.

There was a breathless silence; at length the Sultaun’s arm was uplifted to strike—the fortunate moment had arrived!

‘Bismilla-ir-ruhman-ir-raheem, in the name of the most clement and merciful! Strike, O Sultaun!’ cried the Sheikh.

The blow descended, and a shout arose, which mingling with the cannon and the drums, almost deafened the hearers; while each man of that great host applied himself to the task and tore down portions of the wall. Gradually, but rapidly, the long extent within sight disappeared, and in six days the whole for nearly twenty miles had been so destroyed as to make it useless for any purpose of defence. This completed, the army began to retrace its steps toward the capital, soon to enter upon new and fiercer scenes.