The Issue of my Interview with my Wife
I found Puneeree Muckun, with the rest of my attendants, waiting at the
gate, and they immediately conducted me to my own tents in the
neighbourhood. I have been in many dangerous predicaments before that
time and since, but I don’t care to deny that I felt in the present
instance such a throbbing of the heart as I never have experienced when
leading a forlorn hope, or marching up to a battery.
As soon as I entered the tents a host of menials sprang forward, some
to ease me of my armour, some to offer me refreshments, some with
hookahs, attar of roses (in great quart bottles), and the thousand
delicacies of Eastern life. I motioned them away. “I will wear my
armour,” said I; “I shall go forth to-night. Carry my duty to the
princess, and say I grieve that to-night I have not the time to see
her. Spread me a couch here, and bring me supper here: a jar of Persian
wine well cooled, a lamb stuffed with pistachio- nuts, a pillaw of a
couple of turkeys, a curried kid—anything. Begone! Give me a pipe;
leave me alone, and tell me when the meal is ready.”
I thought by these means to put off the fair Puttee Rooge, and hoped to
be able to escape without subjecting myself to the examination of her
curious eyes. After smoking for a while, an attendant came to tell me
that my supper was prepared in the inner apartment of the tent (I
suppose that the reader, if he be possessed of the commonest
intelligence, knows that the tents of the Indian grandees are made of
the finest Cashmere Shawls, and contain a dozen rooms at least, with
carpets, chimneys, and sash- windows complete). I entered, I say, into
an inner chamber, and there began with my fingers to devour my meal in
the Oriental fashion, taking, every now and then, a pull from the
wine-jar, which was cooling deliciously in another jar of snow.
I was just in the act of despatching the last morsel of a most savoury
stewed lamb and rice, which had formed my meal, when I heard a scuffle
of feet, a shrill clatter of female voices, and, the curtain being
flung open, in marched a lady accompanied by twelve slaves, with moon
faces and slim waists, lovely as the houris in Paradise.
The lady herself, to do her justice, was as great a contrast to her
attendants as could possibly be: she was crooked, old, of the
complexion of molasses, and rendered a thousand times more ugly by the
tawdry dress and the blazing jewels with which she was covered. A line
of yellow chalk drawn from her forehead to the tip of her nose (which
was further ornamented by an immense glittering nose- ring), her
eyelids painted bright red, and a large dab of the same colour on her
chin, showed she was not of the Mussulman, but the Brahmin faith—and of
a very high caste: you could see that by her eyes. My mind was
instantaneously made up as to my line of action.
The male attendants had of course quitted the apartment, as they heard
the well-known sound of her voice. It would have been death to them to
have remained and looked in her face. The females ranged themselves
round their mistress, as she squatted down opposite to me.
“And is this,” said she, “a welcome, O Khan! after six months’ absence,
for the most unfortunate and loving wife in all the world? Is this
lamb, O glutton! half so tender as thy spouse? Is this wine, O sot!
half so sweet as her looks?”
I saw the storm was brewing—her slaves, to whom she turned, kept up a
kind of chorus:-
“Oh, the faithless one!” cried they. “Oh, the rascal, the false one,
who has no eye for beauty, and no heart for love, like the Khanum’s!”
“A lamb is not so sweet as love,” said I gravely; “but a lamb has a
good temper: a wine-cup is not so intoxicating as a woman—but a
wine-cup has _no tongue_, O Khanum Gee!” and again I dipped my nose in
the soul-refreshing jar.
The sweet Puttee Rooge was not, however, to be put off by my repartees;
she and her maidens recommenced their chorus, and chattered and stormed
until I lost all patience.
“Retire, friends,” said I, “and leave me in peace.”
“Stir, on your peril!” cried the Khanum.
So, seeing there was no help for it but violence, I drew out my
pistols, cocked them, and said, “O houris! these pistols contain each
two balls: the daughter of Holkar bears a sacred life for me- -but for
you!—by all the saints of Hindustan, four of ye shall die if ye stay a
moment longer in my presence!” This was enough; the ladies gave a
shriek, and skurried out of the apartment like a covey of partridges on
the wing.
Now, then, was the time for action. My wife, or rather Bobbachy’s wife,
sat still, a little flurried by the unusual ferocity which her lord had
displayed in her presence. I seized her hand and, gripping it close,
whispered in her ear, to which I put the other pistol:- “O Khanum,
listen and scream not; the moment you scream, you die!” She was
completely beaten: she turned as pale as a woman could in her
situation, and said, “Speak, Bobbachy Bahawder, I am dumb.”
“Woman,” said I, taking off my helmet, and removing the chain cape
which had covered almost the whole of my face—“_I am not thy husband_—I
am the slayer of elephants, the world-renowned GAHAGAN!”
As I said this, and as the long ringlets of red hair fell over my
shoulders (contrasting strangely with my dyed face and beard), I formed
one of the finest pictures that can possibly be conceived, and I
recommend it as a subject to Mr. Heath, for the next “Book of Beauty.”
“Wretch!” said she, “what wouldst thou?”
“You black-faced fiend,” said I, “raise but your voice, and you are
dead!”
“And afterwards,” said she, “do you suppose that _you_ can escape? The
torments of hell are not so terrible as the tortures that Holkar will
invent for thee.”
“Tortures, madam?” answered I, coolly. “Fiddlesticks! You will neither
betray me, nor will I be put to the torture: on the contrary, you will
give me your best jewels and facilitate my escape to the fort. Don’t
grind your teeth and swear at me. Listen, madam: you know this dress
and these arms;—they are the arms of your husband, Bobbachy
Bahawder—_my prisoner_. He now lies in yonder fort, and if I do not
return before daylight, at _sunrise he dies:_ and then, when they send
his corpse back to Holkar, what will you, _his widow_, do?
“Oh!” said she, shuddering, “spare me, spare me!”
“I’ll tell you what you will do. You will have the pleasure of dying
along with him—of _being roasted_, madam: an agonising death, from
which your father cannot save you, to which he will be the first man to
condemn and conduct you. Ha! I see we understand each other, and you
will give me over the cash-box and jewels.” And so saying I threw
myself back with the calmest air imaginable, flinging the pistols over
to her. “Light me a pipe, my love,” said I, “and then go and hand me
over the dollars: do you hear?” You see I had her in my power—up a
tree, as the Americans say, and she very humbly lighted my pipe for me,
and then departed for the goods I spoke about.
What a thing is luck! If Loll Mahommed had not been made to take that
ride round the camp, I should infallibly have been lost.
My supper, my quarrel with the princess, and my pipe afterwards, had
occupied a couple of hours of my time. The princess returned from her
quest, and brought with her the box, containing valuables to the amount
of about three millions sterling. (I was cheated of them afterwards,
but have the box still, a plain deal one.) I was just about to take my
departure, when a tremendous knocking, shouting, and screaming was
heard at the entrance of the tent. It was Holkar himself, accompanied
by that cursed Loll Mahommed, who, after his punishment, found his
master restored to good-humour, and had communicated to him his firm
conviction that I was an impostor.
“Ho, Begum!” shouted he, in the ante-room (for he and his people could
not enter the women’s apartments), “speak, O my daughter! is your
husband returned?”
“Speak, madam,” said I, “or _remember the roasting_.”
“He is, Papa,” said the Begum.
“Are you sure? Ho! ho! ho!” (the old ruffian was laughing outside)—“are
you sure it is?—Ha! aha!—_he-e-e!_”
“Indeed it is he, and no other. I pray you, father, to go, and to pass
no more such shameless jests on your daughter. Have I ever seen the
face of any other man?” And hereat she began to weep as if her heart
would break—the deceitful minx!
Holkar’s laugh was instantly turned to fury. “Oh, you liar and eternal
thief!” said he, turning round (as I presume, for I could only hear) to
Loll Mahommed, “to make your prince eat such monstrous dirt as this!
Furoshes, seize this man. I dismiss him from my service, I degrade him
from his rank, I appropriate to myself all his property: and hark ye,
furoshes, GIVE HIM A HUNDRED DOZEN MORE!”
Again I heard the whacks of the bamboos, and peace flowed into my soul.
Just as morn began to break, two figures were seen to approach the
little fortress of Futtyghur: one was a woman wrapped closely in a
veil; the other a warrior, remarkable for the size and manly beauty of
his form, who carried in his hand a deal box of considerable size. The
warrior at the gate gave the word and was admitted; the woman returned
slowly to the Indian camp. Her name was Puttee Rooge; his was -
G. O’G. G., M.H.E.I.C.S.. C.I.H.A.