Chapter Forty Two

Fatherless, all alone, she lay upon a bed of sickness — and Jagatsingh sat beside her. Days passed and nights came; nights passed and days returned. He who was the pride and glory of the Rajput line sat by her broken pallet and tended her; he lent his aid to that silent, word-forsaken widow in her unceasing labours. His one longing was to watch the wasted, sorrow-stricken face — to see whether she turned her eyes toward him at all, whether upon that dew-bruised lotus-countenance the old smile might come again.

Where was the camp now? Where the soldiery? — The camp had broken, and the troops had marched away to Patna. Where were his attendants? They waited upon the bank of the Darakeshwar for their lord's return. And where was their lord? He watered with the tears of his eyes a tender flower-bud parched and withered by a fierce sun, and coaxed it back to bloom.

Little by little the flower-bud revived and opened. Love is the supreme enchantment of this world; tenderness is the sovereign medicine against all affliction. Without it, who can heal the sickness of the heart?

As a lamp nearly spent leaps once more into brightness when fed drop by drop with oil; as the creeper seared by summer drought unfolds again, leaf by leaf, at the touch of the first rains of Ashadh — so Tilottama, having Jagatsingh beside her, day by day recovered life.

In time she grew strong enough to sit up upon her pallet. In Bimala's absence the two sat close together and spoke of the long-pent thoughts of many days. Many things were said; many secret transgressions of the heart confessed; many a presumptuous hope was avowed — hope that had risen only within the mind and died there unspoken; many a sweet dream told, dreamed alike in waking and in sleep. One day she recounted to him a dream she had dreamed while lying senseless upon her sick-bed:

It seemed as though on a little hill glorious with the beauty of new spring she was at play among the flowers with Jagatsingh. Heaps upon heaps of vernal blossoms she gathered and wove into garlands; one garland she placed about her own neck, and another she hung about the neck of Jagatsingh — but it caught upon the sword at his hip and broke asunder. "I will put no more garlands about thy neck," she said; "I shall bind thee with fetters" — and with that she fashioned shackles of flowers. She moved to clasp them upon him, but Jagatsingh stepped aside. Tilottama gave chase; Jagatsingh went swiftly down the slope of the hill. In the way ran a slender brook; Jagatsingh leaped it and was across; but Tilottama — being a woman — could not leap, and so she ran along the bank seeking a narrower crossing, and so descended the hill. Yet the brook, far from narrowing, grew wider with every step; the brook became a small river; the small river became a great one. Jagatsingh was nowhere to be seen. The bank was steep and broken; her feet would no longer carry her. And now the very earth crumbled away beneath her in great clods that fell with a hollow roar into the water below; beneath her the current churned in a terrible whirlpool that she dared not look upon. She turned to climb back up the hill and fly from the river's embrace, but the path was rough and her feet refused her, and she wept aloud — when suddenly Katlu Khan rose up before her in a shape of doom, blocking her way. The garland at her throat became forthwith a heavy chain of iron; the flower-fetters fell from her hands and fastened about her own feet; those too became fetters of iron and closed upon her; all at once her limbs were numb; and then Katlu Khan seized her by the throat, whirled her round, and flung her into the rushing torrent.

When the dream was told, Tilottama looked up at him with eyes full of tears and said, "Prince, this was no mere dream. The flower-fetters I fashioned for thee have in truth become iron fetters upon my own feet. The garland of flowers I placed upon thee has been severed by a sword."

The prince smiled, and drawing the sword from his hip laid it at Tilottama's feet. "Tilottama," said he, "see — I am disarmed before thee. Give me the garland again, and I will break this sword in two before thy face."

Seeing her silent, the prince said, "Tilottama, I do not speak in jest."

Tilottama bowed her head in silence, and a blush came upon her.

That same evening, in the dusk, Abhiram Swami was sitting in an inner room, reading his beads by lamplight. The prince went to him and said with all respect, "Sir, I have one request to lay before you. Tilottama is now able to bear the fatigue of a journey, and there is no reason she should suffer longer in this ruined house. If tomorrow be not an ill-omened day, let us take her to the fortress of Mandarana. And if it be not displeasing to you, I beg that you will bestow your granddaughter upon the house of Amber and make me a blessed man."

Abhiram Swami flung down his beads, rose, and clasped the prince in a close embrace — quite unaware that he was standing upon the scattered beads.

When the prince had gone in to the Swami, Bimala and Ashmani, reading his purpose, had crept quietly behind him and stood outside the door, hearing all. When the prince came out he found Bimala suddenly restored to her former self: she was laughing without pause and pulling Ashmani's hair and buffeting her about the head; Ashmani, counting blows as nothing, was performing a little dance before Bimala for her judgement. The prince slipped away by another way.