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Afterwards the Nabob Shamut Jung, upon the marriage of Ikram ul Dowlah, brother to the Nabob Surajah ul Dowlah, sent for Bissoo Beg's set of dancing-girls from Shahjehanabad, of which Munny Begum was one, and allowed them ten thousand rupees for their expenses, to dance at the wedding.
And while Ram Lal Singh, secure in his zenana, calmly greeted the cool morning hour with a smiling face and a happy heart, in the lonely marble house, stern old Hugh Fraser Johnstone slept the sleep that knows no waking. The Chandnee Chouk awoke to its busy daily chatter, and old Shahjehanabad sought its pleasures languidly again, or bowed its shoulders once more under the yoke of toil.
Some few aged Mussulmans there may be yet living who heard from their sires or grandsires, who saw it with their mortal eyes, of the glories of the magnificent Aurungzebe, ere the Persian, or the Affghan, or the Mahratta had carried fire and sword into Shahjehanabad.
"At a village called Balkonda, near Sekundra, there lived a widow, who, from her great poverty, not being able to bring up her daughter Munny, gave her to a slave-girl belonging to Summin Ali Khân, whose name was Bissoo. During the space of five years she lived at Shahjehanabad, and was educated by Bissoo after the manner of a dancing-girl.
And all this, and much more, did he deliver with abject humility to Ram Lal Singh, when that worthy appeared the next day to crave his mysterious patron's orders. It seemed a tough nut to crack, this tripartite household arrangement. The dawn found Madame Berthe Louison as alertly awake as bird and beast stirring in the ruined splendors of old Shahjehanabad.
"It's the same old road in life!" murmured Alan Hawke, "whether called Inderput, Shahjehanabad, or Delhi the same old game goes on here forever, here by the sacred Jumna!" He was dreaming of the artful part which he had to play in the fierce modern race for wealth. "They used to fight for it like men in the old days," he bitterly murmured.
Next day we took train for Agra, which might be called Shah Jehan's "other city," for it was only after building the lovely monument to his queen the Taj Mahal which has made Agra famous all over the world, that he removed to Delhi, or that part of it known as Shahjehanabad. Agra, in fact, first attained its grandeur under Akbar, and is still known among the natives as Akbarabad.
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