“Nay, Peirup Singh, the siege is still going on. I cannot comply with your wishes until the Moslem tyrant is either slain or driven from the neighbourhood of our homes. If you were to steep your sabre in his heart’s blood, my consent to an immediate union would be won. It may be worth your thinking of, Peirup Singh.” In Akbar’s army was a Rajpoot, who having quitted Chittore in disgust, had enrolled himself among the Mogul troops. The cause of his abandoning his countrymen was this:--Having become attached to the younger daughter of the governor, who encouraged his addresses, her parents had refused their consent, not considering him eligible in point of rank for such an alliance. The girl, in consequence, implicitly obeying the directions of her parents, rejected him. His mortification was extreme. All the passions of these fierce warriors are proportionably strong, and his disappointed feelings immediately urged him to an act of treachery. He went over to the enemy, and made those communications which greatly facilitated the progress of the siege. Akbar well knew how to profit by the information received, but did not trust the man beyond the line of wary policy. The Rajpoot was allowed to see nothing by which he could betray the Emperor’s designs to his countrymen, yet he was apparently treated with confidence and kindness. He, however, soon perceived that he was suspected. This discovery raised his indignation, and he immediately embraced the hollow maxim, suggested by his passions, that the man suspected of being a traitor is justified in becoming one. He was a fierce hot-blooded desperado, who sacrificed everything to the gratification of his feelings. Thinking that he might by a second act of treachery win the consent of Jugmul to wed his daughter, and thus gratify at once his love and his revenge, he determined to seek the governor of Chittore and propose, as the price of his consent, to slay the Mogul monarch.