Yet the course of their love was not fated to "run smooth," though, in the care of Shireen Khan, no such perils menaced them as those which beset Mabel and her companion, or, still more, those who were the immediate prisoners of Ackbar, unless we refer to the watch kept on the Kuzzilbash fort, by some of the fanatical Ghazees, who, on discovering that Feringhee prisoners were there, thought to add to their own chances of salvation by cutting them off. In this late affair with Zohrab, Shireen had permitted Denzil to go, armed and mounted, with a party of twenty Kuzzilbashes in search of him and Mabel, round by the hills of Beymaru, the borders of the Lake of Istaliff, and other places over which he and Waller had hunted and shot together, often in the more peaceful time that was past. After his months of seclusion and useless inactivity, Denzil, apart from the natural excitement and anxiety resulting from the object in view--the rescue of Mabel and reunion of the sisters--felt a joyous emotion on finding himself once more an armed man, astride a magnificent horse, and spurring like the wind along the steep mountain slopes, through fertile valley and foaming river, at the head of twenty soldierly fellows, in fur caps with red bags, flaming scarlet chogahs, and glittering lances. Shireen had perfect confidence in according to him this unusual liberty, knowing, as he said drily to the Khanum, his wife, that "while they retained the hen in the roost, the cock-bird would not go far off." He was surprised, however, that Denzil, when on this expedition, could by no means be persuaded to wear his remarkable yellow silk robe, with the embroidered letters and sphynxes, which was supposed to be his war dress, or to indicate his rank as a great Nawab or Bahadoor of the Queen of England. In the ardour of the chase, Denzil took a wrong direction, and over-exerted himself to repair the error; he rode with his party beyond Loghur, and the reach of all probable places where the abductor was likely to be found; and then, at a time when the midsummer sun was intensely hot, and the atmosphere filled with steamy and miasmatic exhalations from the rice-fields, he swam his horse through three rivers, at points where the water rose nearly to his neck. A fever and ague--nearly regular jungle-fever--combined with some other ailment, were the result of this rashness; and on the second day after, Denzil found himself prostrate on a bed of sickness.