?when she came, she almost always came attended by Osman. As in winter the sun imperceptibly glides away from the body of a shivering person, as it gets late, even so did Aesha disappear from Jagat Singha as he recovered.
One evening the Prince stood at the window, looking beyond the fort. Men intent on business or pleasure were streaming to their respective destinations. Sadly the Prince fell to comparing his lot with theirs. At one place some people had formed themselves into a ring round some person or thing. The Prince's glance fell that way. He gathered that the men were engaged in some amusement; and that they were attentively listening to something. What the person or the object in the middle was like, the Prince could not see. He felt rather curious. After sometime, several of the audience went away; and his curiosity was satisfied. He saw a man was treating the people to some reading from a few leaves, which resembled a puti.[1] The person of the reciter rather awakened his curiosity. He might pass either for a man, or for a middle-sized palm tree 'scathed by heaven's fire,' and shorn of its leaves. He was as tall and as broad; but the palm is never loaded with so huge a proboscis of a nose. His manner was of a piece with his shape. The Prince fell to studying most heedfully the various gesticulations of the hand, the head and the proboscis with which the reciter accompanied his reading. Now Osman entered.
When they had saluted each other, Osman asked,
"Pray, Sir, what are you looking at so intently at the window?"
"Something like a piece of wood," replied the Prince. "You can see it, Sir, if you like."
- ↑ A Ms. of palm-leaves.
