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Incredibly soon, so stealthy swift is time, came this last term of Rosalie's at the Sultana's. Time does not play an open game. It's of the cloak and dagger sort. It stalks and pounces. Rosalie was astonished to think she was leaving; and now the time had come she was sorry to be going.
THE TURKISH SULTANA'S HOUSE. In the north-east angle of the Mahal-i-Khas quadrangle is a small, picturesque building, one of the gems of Fatehpur, called the Turkish Sultana's House. It contains only a single apartment, surrounded by a verandah, but in the carving of every surface within and without there is a wealth of invention and decorative skill rarely achieved even by the Mogul artists.
The gardener upon this related the circumstance of his having found them exposed at the gate of the palace, and mentioned the times, which agreed exactly with those of the sultana's delivery.
The sultan had been told that Cousrouf Pacha was in the habit of being secretly conducted to the sultana's chamber at night by a female slave. As the sultan stealthily approached and opened the door of the chamber, he heard a rustling and whispering, but was so dark in the room that he could see nothing. He called slaves with torches to his assistance. They searched the room, but found nothing.
As her chamberlain drew near the house, Abu Nowas caught sight of him. 'There is the Sultana's chamberlain, he exclaimed in a fright. 'Now it is my turn to die. Be quick and spread the sheet over me. And he laid himself on the bed, and held his breath when the chamberlain came in. 'What are you weeping for? asked the man, finding the wife in tears.
The Bashibazook, once or twice encountered in her last terms at the Sultana's, though never spoken with, had looked at her in a horrible way, not understood, but felt to be frightening and horrible; Mr. Ponders, on a dreadful occasion after handing over the medicine for Miss Keggs, had horribly said, "Well, now, wouldn't a kiss be nice? I think a nice kiss would be very nice."
Had Murad possessed his brother's discretion, he would not have been on the point of losing his head, for selling rolls which he did not bake: he would not have been kicked by a mule, or bastinadoed for finding a ring: he would not have been robbed by one party of soldiers, or shot by another: he would not have been lost in a desert, or cheated by a Jew: he would not have set a ship on fire; nor would he have caught the plague, and spread it through Grand Cairo: he would not have run my sultana's looking-glass through the body, instead of a robber: he would not have believed that the fate of his life depended on certain verses on a china vase: nor would he, at last, have broken this precious talisman, by washing it with hot water.
Room might be made for them by removing or destroying the letters from friends who had left the Sultana's with her, but about those letters there was a peculiar attraction; they were from other emancipated One Onlys who watched with admiration the progress in her wonderful adventure of brilliant, unconventional Rosalie, and it was nice thus to be watched.
That is why in old days it was called the Sultana's Chamber, for there at the end of it was where she bathed in the summer season. What say you of spies? Oh! yes, in the palace there are many, but to look towards this place, even for the Guardian of the Women, was always death. Here there are no witnesses, save the flowers and the birds."
It came to Rosalie complete and word for word; and with perfect clearness, as though she saw and sensed them, all its attendant circumstances: the attic room at the Sultana's, the strange smell mingled with the smell of the oil lamp, Keggo in the wicker chair, she beside her, her head against Keggo's knee; and Keggo's voice reciting the lines and her young, protesting, loving cry, "O Keggo!"
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