"The Hindoo ayah in the red garment?" suggested Saleh, pointing with the amber mouthpiece of his pipe to an old nurse who was passing, with two of the captive children. "The devil--no! One who is beautiful as the rose with the hundred leaves--one with a skin as fair as if she had bathed in the waters of Cashmere; an idol more lovely than ever adorned the house of Azor! She was under yonder tree asleep, when I lifted her veil and looked on her." "Allah Ackbar--now we have it!" exclaimed Saleh Mohammed, with something between irritation and amusement. "Well, know, aga, that to quote a Parsee or Hindoo banker's book in lieu of Hafiz might be more to the purpose." "Perhaps so: we have more metal in our scabbards than in our purses, in the desert here." "They have tempers, these Feringhee women, I can tell you," said the Dooranee, with a quiet laugh. "So have ours, for the matter of that, and are free enough with their slipper heel on a man's beard at times." "Ah! all women, I dare say, are like the apples of Istkahar, one half sweet and one half sour," said the old Khan, shaking his long beard. "You must seek the well of youth again," rejoined the young Toorkoman, laughing. "There is another Kaffir damsel whose voice sounded sweetly, as if she had tasted of the leaves that shadow the tomb of Tan-Sien," he continued, using in his ordinary conversation figures and phraseology that seem no way far-fetched to an Oriental; "yes, aga, tender and soft, for I heard her sing her two children to sleep in yonder hut. Yet she may never have been in Gwalior," added Zoolficar; for the lady was an officer's widow, young and pretty, with two poor sickly babes; and the _tomb_ he referred to was that of the famous musician, who once flourished at the court of the Emperor Ackbar, and the leaves of a tree near which are supposed to impart, when eaten, a wondrous melody to the human voice. "Then am I to understand that you have set eyes upon both these prisoners?" asked Saleh Mohammed, his keen black eyes becoming very round, as he seemed to make up more fully to the matter in hand. "Please God, I have. In a word," said Zoolficar Khan, lowering his voice, "I shall give you a purse of five hundred tomauns for them both--peaceably, and help you to plunder the Hazarees on your way home." "And what of the Sirdir?" "Tell him they died on the way: moreover, I don't want the two children--you may keep them." This liberality failed to find any approbation in Saleh Mohammed, who affected to look indignant, and exclaimed-- "I am Saleh Mohammed Khan, chief of the Dooranees, and not a slave-dealer, staferillah!--God forbid!" "Neither is Ackbar Khan--a son of the royal house of Afghanistan; yet he has sent hither those people for sale, in _your_ charge--for sale to the Toorkomans; and what am I?" "I have no final orders--as yet," replied the Khan, doggedly. "For their disposal, you mean?" "No." "For what, then?"