BLOOD
"Thou hast a keen eye, gay youth, for a maiden's weaknesses! But pardon me if I look a little bewildered. Need a maiden confess her tremor after—after—a secret kiss?"
"Thou losest valuable time by this ill-seasoned joke, Jelekha. The morning is nigh, and we both may be in peril. I heard a shriek from afar which was not a cry of love, and a hollow groan which was not the sound of a lover's kiss."
"Ah! thou hast been a listener too! But thou art a novice yet in this palace. Many are the meetings from which lovers part not again. Many are the embraces which last till the Judgment Day!"
"Compose thyself, Jelekha, thou art talking wildly."
"Ay! if the palace walls could speak," continued Jelekha, speaking to herself rather than to Noren. "Begums are but women of flesh and blood, and many a court lady knows the dark passages of the Zenana. Fair slaves, who look so demure with their eyes bent on the floor, have their secrets; and black eunuchs pursue them with a man's lust, and drink their blood with a tiger's thirst!"
"Hush, hush, Jelekha. Thou art talking like one demented. Listen to one who is thy true friend. Sit thee down by me and place thy trembling hands in mine. Thou hast often tended me in my illness. I would fain solace thee in thy distress. For thy eye is troubled, Jelekha, and the smile on thy lips is not the smile that I have seen before."
Jelekha slowly yielded. She allowed Noren to take her hand and sat by him, and her wild looks softened as she looked silently on that kind-hearted soldier who shared her peril and solaced her fears.
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