Who, that midst a desert’s heat Sees the waters fade away, Would not rather die than meet Streams again as false as they? The tone of melancholy defiance in which these words were uttered, went to LALLA ROOKH’S heart;—and, as she reluctantly rode on, she could not help feeling it to be a sad but still sweet certainty, that FERAMORZ was to the full as enamoured and miserable as herself. The place where they encamped that evening was the first delightful spot they had come to since they left Lahore. On one side of them was a grove full of small Hindoo temples, and planted with the most graceful trees of the East; where the tamarind, the cassia, and the silken plantains of Ceylon were mingled in rich contrast with the high fanlike foliage of the Palmyra,—that favourite tree of the luxurious bird that lights up the chambers of its nest with fire-flies.[208] In the middle of the lawn where the pavilion stood there was a tank surrounded by small mangoe-trees, on the clear cold waters of which floated multitudes of the beautiful red lotus;[209] while at a distance stood the ruins of a strange and awful-looking tower, which seemed old enough to have been the temple of some religion no longer known, and which spoke the voice of desolation in the midst of all that bloom and loveliness. This singular ruin excited the wonder and conjectures of all. LALLA ROOKH guessed in vain, and the all-pretending FADLADEEN, who had never till this journey been beyond the precincts of Delhi, was proceeding most learnedly to show that he knew nothing whatever about the matter, when one of the Ladies suggested that perhaps FERAMORZ could satisfy their curiosity. They were now approaching his native mountains, and this tower might perhaps be a relic of some of those dark superstitions, which had prevailed in that country before the light of Islam dawned upon it. The Chamberlain, who usually preferred his own ignorance to the best knowledge that any one else could give him, was by no means pleased with this officious reference; and the Princess, too, was about to interpose a faint word of objection, but, before either of them could speak, a slave was despatched for FERAMORZ, who, in a very few minutes, made his appearance before them—looking so pale and unhappy in LALLA ROOKH’S eyes, that she repented already of her cruelty in having so long excluded him.