I turned down the street and was soon at home. My father was asleep, and I lay down; but, Alla! Alla! how my heart beat and my head throbbed! A thousand times I wished I had carried off the beautiful Azima; a thousand times I cursed my own folly for having left her, when by a word from me she would have forsaken home and every tie and followed me; but it was too late. In the midst of conflicting thoughts and vain regrets I fell asleep; but I had disturbed dreams. I thought her dishonoured lord had surprised us as we tasted draughts of love, and a sword glittered over his head, with which he was about to revenge his disgrace. Again I fancied one of the Moolas of the Durgah to be him; and just as she was about to depart with us, and was stepping into a cart, he rushed to her and seized her, and I vainly endeavoured to drag her from him. I woke in the excitement of the dream, and my father stood over me. "What, in the name of the Prophet, is the matter with you, Ameer Ali, my son?" cried the old man. "It is the hour of prayer, I came to awake you, and I find you tossing wildly in your sleep and calling on some one, though I could not distinguish the name; it sounded like a woman's--Azima, I think. What have you been about? Had you any bunij last night?" Bunij was the cant phrase for our victims, and I shuddered at the ideas it called up. "No, no," I said, "nothing. Let me go and perform my ablutions; I will join you in the Namaz. It will compose my thoughts, and I will tell you." Our prayers finished, I related my adventures of the past night. He laughed heartily at my relation of the scene with Zora's mother, and declared I had served her rightly; but when I came to that with Azima, his countenance was changed and troubled; however, he heard me to the end without interruption, and I augured favourably from it. I concluded all by throwing myself at his feet and imploring his sanction to our union. "You have gone too far to retract, Ameer Ali," said he. "If you do not fulfil your promise to Azima she will drink the poison she has prepared; you will be one cause of her death, and it will lie heavy on your conscience; therefore on this account I give you my sanction. I am now old, a few years must see my end, and all I have long wished for is to marry you respectably and to see your children. I endeavoured to effect a marriage-contract in Hindostan before we left, but I was unable to do so. There is now no occasion for one; you have made your choice and must abide by it; Alla has sent you your bride and you must take her--take her with my blessing; and you say she is beautiful, in which you are fortunate. Money you will want, as you have promised some to the nurse; if she is faithful, give her from me an additional fifty rupees; and you had better take gold with you,--it will be easier carried."