"Have mercy, noble Khan!" cried out Diggaja, rubbing his hands with might and main. "Do not belabour me, I beseech you; I am your slave."
"Are you in your senses?"
"Yes, your honor! I am your slave, Sir; I am your own, Sir!"
"No fear, man," said Jagat Singha, with the view of calming the Brahmin. "Pray, entertain us with a reading from your book."
The Brahmin fell to reading the puti in a sing-song way, his eyes still bedewed with tears. His tone was as much a borrower from crying as from sing-song. So sings a little boy who has just been pulled by the ear by the opera master.
After he had read for sometime, the Prince asked,
"Being a Brahmin, why were you reading a book on Manikpir?"
"I am a convert now," answered the Brahmin, stopping his sing song.
"How's that?" asked the Prince.
"When the Musalman Babus entered the fort," said Gajapati "they said to me, 'Come, Brahmin, we'll spoil your caste'; and thereupon they dragged me away, and forced me to eat the fowl palo."[1]
"What is palo?"
"The atapa[2] rice boiled in clarified butter."
The Prince understood what was meant.
"Go on"—said he.
"Then they made me read Kalmi,"[3] said Diggaja.
