CHAPTER III.
Just as the party with their lovely captive had turned from a narrow path into an extensive plain, they perceived a large body of horsemen in full career towards them. The Mahomedan instantly halted his men, and forming a hollow square, in the centre of which he placed his prisoners, calmly waited the onset.It soon became evident that the strangers were a squadron of Rajpoot cavalry. They swept across the plain like a tempest, headed by a youthful warrior, who rode a beautiful white Arab, every vein of which might be traced through its skin as it pawed the ground, when its rider halted to array his troop for the onset of death. When his order of battle was made, he sent a trooper to summon the Mahomedans to surrender themselves prisoners or abide the issue of an encounter in which they must look for extermination at the point of the sword. This summons was received by the adverse party with shouts of defiance, and the onslaught commenced with terrible energy on the part of the assailants, who were received with great firmness by their foes.
The Rajpoots were more numerous than the Mahomedans, and by their headlong valour and the desperate impetuosity of their charge, they broke through the enemy’s line, reached the centre of the square, and scattered instant confusion through their ranks. The conflict was short but decisive. The Mahomedan commander was slain by the Rajpoot leader in a struggle hand to hand, the latter being mounted. This produced instant consternation among the enemy. The moment they saw that their chief had fallen they wavered, and the rout became general.
Brief as the conflict was, it had been extremely sanguinary; for the Rajpoots being mounted, soon overtook those who fled and instantly slew them. The Mussulman detachment was cut to pieces, and thus a signal vengeance was taken by the Hindoos upon the scoffers of their gods.
Jaya had stood in the midst of the carnage gazing with an anxious eye upon the scene of death; and although in the leader of her rescuers she traced the well-known features of one who was as dear to her as the first-born to its yearning mother, she uttered not a cry, but calculated the probable issue of the contest with a throbbing heart, whilst her outward demeanour appeared perfectly undisturbed by any inward emotion. Jeipal leaped from his horse, which he left to its own freedom, and sprang towards his beloved.
“My sita,” he cried, “you are recovered. What anxiousmoments have I endured since I heard of your sudden departure! I instantly followed with these soldiers to protect your flight. This morning I heard that a party of the enemy were close upon your track: but you are restored, my sita; and I shall now, with these brave companions, bear you company to Jesselmere.”
“Jeipal,” cried the delighted Jaya, “your presence has been my salvation. I may now bless the insolence of yonder chief, who has gone to undergo the everlasting doom of the wicked;—it has saved me from an awful separation. I attempted my own life to save myself from dishonour, but his violence frustrated the one, and your presence has prevented the other.”
The Hindoo prisoners being now set at liberty repaired to a grove of trees, under which they squatted themselves, chewed their betel-nut and chunam, smoked, and flung little balls of rice down their throats until filled almost to the uvula; then rising with the greatest apathy, as if nothing had happened to interrupt their composure, snapped their joints, adjusted their turbans, and declared themselves ready to proceed. The bullocks were once more yoked to the hackery, and, being driven by one with whose voice they were familiar and accustomed to obey, they went leisurely forward without the slightest reluctance. Jeipal rode beside the vehicle, the curtains of which, in accordance with Eastern usage, were still kept down; but the lovers found no difficulty in carrying on their conversation through them. The Rajpootni had now less time to think of the sorrows arising from her father’s captivity, her mind being occupied by one to whom she ever lent a willing ear; her countenance therefore recovered its brightness and her voice its vivacity.
There were no more interruptions to their journey, and they reached Jesselmere without any further adventures. Jeipal having delivered his affianced bride to the charge of her relations, to her surprise, declared his determination to proceed to Delhi.
“To Delhi!” said Jaya, her countenance rather expressing alarm than pleasure: “why should you repair to the enemy’s capital?”
“Is not your father a prisoner there, and do you not desire his release?”
“Yes, truly; but how can your single arm avail to break through the bars of his prison, surrounded as he is by guards, who are as vigilant as they are cruel?”
“Circumstances may arise which we cannot foresee, to render my single power available in effecting an object interesting to me, in proportion as its accomplishment is desired by you. Think that I am upon a mission of love, and be happy. You will at least hear of something before the horns of the young moon unite into a circle.”
“You go on an enterprise of danger.”
“And are not such enterprises dear to the soul of a Rajpoot? I should be unworthy of your love, if I hesitated to venture my life to secure your parent’s liberty.”
“There are perils which the brave may shun, because it is prudent to avoid them.”
“But when a man listens to the suggestions of prudence before the appeals of duty, his bravery is as questionable as his virtue.”
“Go, Jeipal, I would not withhold thee from such deeds as constitute man’s nobility. Bear my love with thee.”
“That will be a talisman which shall protect me in the hour of peril. Love is the root of all virtue; the love of good alone makes man happy. When this principle is dead within his bosom, he at once becomes a monster.” After the lapse of a few days Jeipal quitted Jesselmere for Delhi.
When Alla-ood-Deen was informed of the Rajpootni’s rescue from the detachment of his troops which had made her captive, his rage knew no bounds, and he resolved to carry a war of extermination into the fertile provinces of Rajpootana. His anger, however, at length cooled, when he considered that, having the father a prisoner in Delhi, he might still get the daughter into his power. He had heard so much of her beauty, that he determined to possess her, at whatever cost; and this determination had induced him greatly to abate the rigours of her parent’s imprisonment. He was treated with considerable lenity, and permitted such indulgences as were seldom known to be granted to the prisoners of despotic princes.
Shortly after the rescue of the Chittore Rajah’s daughter, as already detailed, the king ordered Ray Ruttun Sein, who had now been some weeks in confinement, to be brought before him. The Rajpoot entered the imperial presence with a lofty deportment, and stood before the Mahomedan sovereign, awaiting the royal communication.
“Rajah,” said Alla-ood-Deen, mildly, “you would no doubt desire to obtain your liberty?”
“Every man,” replied the Rajah, “being born free, looks upon captivity as the withholding of nature’s highest immunity. The fortune of war has made me your prisoner, but generosity is the brightest jewel in the king’s sceptre.”
“The generosity of princes is only bestowed when merited. It is no longer a virtue when unworthily dispensed: generosity therefore without discretion is an evil.”
“Sophistry, prince, is at all times a lame argument. Virtues never can become vices, employ them how we may. The mask is not the face, neither is the pretence to virtue anything more than just what the mask is to the countenance. I am too hackneyed in the world’s juggles to become the ready dupe of fair words which only cover evil thoughts.”
“Rajah, this is all beside the purpose for which you were summoned before the sovereign of Delhi. Are you willing to obtain your freedom?”
“I am.”
“At what price?”
“At any that will not commit the honour of a Rajpoot.”
“You have a daughter?”
“Well!”
“I would make her the partner of my throne.”
“Proceed.”
“Summon her to this city, and you shall be no longer a prisoner.”
“If this is the generosity of princes, such can be no longer a virtue; it must therefore be a virtue to despise it. To be thepander of kings is no honour; but for a father to bring pollution upon his child is the most flagrant enormity.”
“Then you refuse the offer of liberty?”
“Upon any other terms than those which a clean conscience may accept.”
“Enough! Guards, bear him back to his prison. A less luxurious regimen than has been allowed him may give different colourings to vice and virtue, when surveyed through the medium of his future reflections. Away with him!”
The Rajah was conducted back to the strong apartment in which he had been confined since his captivity, but on the following day he was removed to one of the dungeons of the state prison.
His confinement now became extremely distressing. Every indulgence hitherto accorded to him was withdrawn, and he was subjected to the extremest rigours of privation. The soul of a Rajpoot generally scorns to shrink from endurance, however severe. With him a contempt of death, of danger, and of suffering, is the noblest exercise of human virtue; but Rajah Ray Ruttun Sein possessed not these characteristics of his race in an eminent degree. He was fond to excess of those luxuries which his condition in life gave him the privilege and imparted to him the means of enjoying. He was an Eastern epicurean, and therefore the privations which he was now doomed to endure were to him a source of extreme distress. Everything that was not subsidiary to his love of indulgence had no firm resting-place in his heart. He had a high veneration for honour in the abstract, but he had a still higher for those animal enjoyments in which he especially delighted to indulge. He loved his own daughter well, but he loved his own pleasures better. He possessed the haughty independent spirit of his caste, but lacked their qualities of determined endurance and rigid self-restriction. He was brave when the impulse of the moment roused his energies; but as soon as the impulse subsided, the strength of his passions overcame him, and he sank into the imbecility of the mere sensualist. His bearing had been bold and determined before the king, whose prisoner hehad become; but no sooner was he cast amid the dungeon’s gloom, than the strong bias of his nature prevailed, and he became irresolute, querulous, and despairing.
Every day he felt the rigours of confinement more and more irksome, and at length thought that he had been imprudent in so resolutely opposing the king’s will. He began to persuade himself that a dutiful daughter should make any sacrifice for the advantage of her parent, and under this impression proceeded to argue that she ought, if called upon, to sacrifice her honour to his comfort. Besides, to be the object of a sovereign’s affection was not a thing to be regarded lightly. The political influence of Alla-ood-Deen might, by such an alliance with him as that monarch proposed, place the petty Rajah of Chittore at the head of the princes of his country. Such an alliance might be the stepping-stone to distinctions that should raise his family to the highest elevation of temporal distinction. After indulging in similar reasonings at different times, he finally made up his mind that he had been too rash in so peremptorily rejecting the proposal of the Mahomedan sovereign, and determined to let him know, at the earliest opportunity, the change which had passed over his thoughts like a pestilential exhalation, and that he was disposed to concur in the king’s wishes. Having come to this determination, he lay down upon his rug and slept.