CHAPTER V.

The daily stages of

A PLEASANT life was it to Tara. a large army encumbered with heavy materiel are necessarily slow at all times, and the country roads were not as yet dry from the recent rains, so that the force could not hurry on. The Khan himself was in no haste. On the arrival of the Mahratta ambassadors he had received them courteously, and insisted upon their being the guests of the royal camp. They had not much to say, beyond general protestations of attachment. Their master's demands were simple, they knew; but he would treat for them in person when he met the Khan. Meanwhile, supplies for the royal forces were abundant; the stages they arranged were shorter perhaps than the Khan, and especially Fazil, approved of; but they found grain and forage provided everywhere, and the camp bazar had always the appearance of a busy fair.

On his own part, Afzool Khan, yielding to the persuasions of Sivaji's agents, despatched an envoy of his own, the Bramhun Punto Gopináth, to Pertabgurh. Their master's mind, they said, would be relieved by it;

and as Sivaji had evinced confidence in sending his own servants unsolicited, so a similar mark of courtesy could hardly be refused. The Khan did not object to it. The Envoy received his instructions, to act as circumstances might require, leaving all points of detail for future arrangement; and Bulwunt Rao was placed in command of the escort which accompanied him. In this capacity he was safe against all local enemies; and he went the more willingly, as he trusted, under this opportunity, to interest the Rajah in his own affairs.

So there was no hurry, and it was a pleasant life. Every day, or nearly so, there was a change; the force moved forward a few miles, or it halted; tents were pitched, thrown down, moved, and again pitched in pleasant places; perhaps in some soft grassy plain spangled with flowers, or in a stubble field with the stacks of ripe grain standing around them. The Khan's Durbar tent was open to all comers, where the leaders of the various bodies of troops met every day for business or ceremonial visits, as it might be behind it the private tents enclosed by a canvass wall, which afforded a large area. Before all, floated the royal standard, and a place was cleared near it which was appropriated for public prayer. Five times in each day, if the force halted, did the musical chant of invitation to prayer resound from this spot; and as often did the devout among the soldiery assemble there, and perform the stated devotions. Every afternoon the priest and other divines preached to the people; and it was remarked that the sermons on the holy war, though

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they were continued at intervals, were of quieter character than they used to be at first.

Perhaps the religious zeal of the Peer had relaxed since the slaughter at Tooljapoor, and was satisfied with the fact of the idol having been overthrown and defiled. Perhaps the Khan supposed enough had been done to terrify the Mahratta people, and that the rest would follow upon negotiation.

There was very little change in the daily life: the early march, the halt for the day, the household occupations, and then the pleasant talk with Zyna and Lurlee. Her tales of the old Hindu life, and of her home pleasures and occupations, were told again and again by Tara, often with bitter tears, and yet told again and again, and heard by sympathising friends.

Two different worlds, as it were, were thus brought together. What did the simple Bramhun girl know of the grandeur of Mahomedan nobles, of which only a faint rumour had ever reached her? To her unclean, she would once have shuddered at nearer contact with them, however rich or grand they might be. Now, how different! They had respected her honour, and they also respected her faith; and every day her little cooking-place was arranged, with water brought by a Bramhun for her bath and her drinking, which no one interfered with. Sometimes, Zyna and Lurlee would look on while the little maiden dressed her simple meal, as she had often done at home, amused, and wondering at her dexterity; and it was not long before

the Khan himself was a petitioner for some delicate specimen of her handiwork, which, it was remarked, he ate with infinite relish, and pronounced better even than Kurreema's efforts to the same end.

They procured the girl the books she loved, and eagerly, and with infinite animation, she would read and expound sacred texts, which even the priest admitted contained at least moral and virtuous doctrine. Occasionally, too, he was unable to control himself, and he answered the little preacher from his own books, hurling at her texts translated from the Koran into bad Mahratta; and half angry with, and half amused by, the seeming petulance with which she resisted conversion, allowed her greater liberties, perhaps, than he had ever been known to submit to before from " an infidel."

See," she would cry, "Huzrut! here are God's holy words to us poor Hindus hundreds of thousands of years old, but yours are, after all, but a few hundreds. Surely the elder has precedence?" If she could translate the beautiful Bhugwat Geeta to him, that book so full of mystic religious doctrine, he could understand her better, she thought; but she had no words that he could comprehend, in which to convey the sense of the noble Sanscrit; and it must be confessed that her general attempts in argument were failures.

Kind Tara! gentle Tara! was any servant ill,-and the cold air and damp earth gave many fevers,-who so ready with knowledge of simples as the Bramhun girl? who so watchful, who so careful? In turn she

had tended Lurlee and Zyna, who suffered at first from the change and exposure in camp. Then Fazil grew ill too, and for several days could not ride. She could ride she had never travelled in a palankeen in her life—her father could not afford one: so she gave up her litter to him, and rode a stout ambling palfrey of the Khan's which was gentle, and a relief on long marches from his heavier war-horse; and old Shêre Khan and his men, her first escort from Tooljapoor, claimed the privilege of guarding her as she rode, rapidly and fearlessly, and managed the active horse with skill and

grace.

Once Moro Trimmul saw her riding with this escort of heavily-armed men. She was wrapped in shawls, and had twisted one round her head like a turban, which covered her face all but her eyes. He concealed his own face and person as she passed, but the fact that she was riding with so noble a company to attend on her, disquieted him. She is growing into favour, he thought, and is in danger. It is necessary to act before we reach Wye.

Whether Moro Trimmul was in camp or not, she had not thought to inquire. Fazil had told her once, with a very perceptible tone of disappointment, that he had been released, and had gone away. He was never seen in the camp, but, with Sivaji's envoys, put up in villages near where the force might halt. They did not vex her with his tale of her having been taken away under her father's sanction, which Fazil, Lurlee, and Zyna had never believed, and by common consent the