in peace that night, if 'peace' it is to know that the dreadful death
you have prepared for another now overhangs you. Moussa Isa kept watch
through the night. And in the morning came Abdul Haq and Hussein Ali
and the servants and _oont-wallahs_, save a few who had been sent with
laden camels by the Caravan Road. And, when all had eaten and rested, my
brother held _durbar_,[34] having placed Ibrahim Mahmud in the midst,
bound, and looking like one who has long lain upon a bed of sickness.

[34] Meeting.

"This _durbar_ proceeded with the greatest solemnity and no man smiled
when my brother said: 'And now, touching the matter of my beloved and
respected Ibrahim Mahmud, son of our grandfather's Vizier,--the learned
Ibrahim, who shortly goeth (perhaps) across the black water to Englistan
to become a great and famous pleader,--can any suggest the cause of the
strange and distressing madness that hath come upon him so suddenly?
For, behold, I have to keep him bound lest he do himself an injury, and
constantly he crieth, "Kill me, Mir Saheb, kill me with thy knife and
make an end." And when I go to bathe his poor eyes, so sore and red with
weeping, behold he shrieketh like the _rêlwêy terain_ at Peshawar and
weepeth like a woman.'

"And Abdul Haq spoke and said: 'Is it so indeed, Mir Saheb?' And my
brother said: 'It is so;' and Hussein Ali said: 'Is it so indeed, Mir
Saheb?' And my brother said 'It is so;' and all men said the same thing
gravely and my brother made the same answer.

"Sahib, I shall never forget the joy of that _durbar_ with Ibrahim the
Weeper there, like a trapped rat, in the midst, looking from face to
face for mercy.