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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[JANUARY, 1897.
On the first night of the second month, Kesava Bhat paid his peons not only ten pons each as their salary, bat made them presents of five pons each, and addressed two of them as follows:--- "My faithful servants: you know well how liberally I pay you for the short service that I take from you. The more faithful you are to me the greater will be your reward. I am going soon to entrust to you an important task. You must deliver some treasure to Indumukhi the favourite concubine of the emperor of Vijayanagar. I shall bring it to-morrow. You must take it and deliver it to her, stating that it is a present from the Subhadar of the Cot, for one day's expenses. You must be ready to start to-morrow with the consignment. Engage seven carts to carry the treasure, and be ready here to-morrow night. You can go home now at once."
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Thus two of the four peons were sent away a little early that night. And at the usual time the council broke up, and our Subhâdâr returned home. He reserved a hundred pons from ench of the seven pots, and packed the remainder in seven cases, locked and sealed them well, and wrote the following letter that very night :
"The Subhadar of the Cot to Indumukhi-greetings. We have heard of your unparalleled beauty and the high favours lavished upon you by the emperor of Vijayanagar. We can, of course, bear no comparison with the emperor; bat, as becoming our own humble position and as ardent admirers of your world-famed beauty, we send you as a present, for one day's expenses of your ladyship, a small contribution, which we hope you will accept. Signed this day the 30th day of the month of Vaisakha of the year Manmatha, in oar mansion the Dhanavilása. Kattil Subhadar."3
The letter too was put in a cover and sealed. The next night, the two peons, with money for expenses on the way, started with the treasure and the letter, and reached Vijayanagar after journeying for a month. The contribution for one day's expenses was safely delivered. Indamukhi read the flattering note, counted the treasure, and was dumb with astonishment. Who could be the person who has remitted such an enormous quantity of wealth for her expenses for one day? What must be his own worth? These thoughts passed and repassed her mind, and she was not able to get any clear information from the peons that had accompanied the treasure. But she set down the Subhadar of the Cot to be the richest man in the world, and resolved to send him, as a token of her appreciation of his gift, some present in return. She went into her treasury, and after a careful search found a costly throne set with diamonds and other precious gems. She thought that this would be a proper seat for the Subhâdar of the Cot. So she brought it out, carefully packed it, wrote a letter thanking the Subhâdar, and intimated to him that she was to be considered henceforth as one of his humble maid-servants, and that she also in her own humble way was sending him a return present. She rewarded the peons that came from the Subhâdâr amply, as befitting their position as servants of the Subhâdâr, and entrusted the throne and the letter to them.
The joy of the peons knew no bounds. In one tip they had almost made their fortune It is only such high persons that they should serve, thought they. In their eagerness to reach home and thank their master, they performed the return journey in twenty days, and safely delivered the present of Indumukhi and her note to the Subhâdâr of the Cot.
He was delighted at the receipt of his own gift by the most beautiful of womankind and of her return present. But what could he, an humble Brâhman priest, do with a costly throne? His fertile imagination soon suggested a way of disposing of the gift. He had heard of an yet more famous beauty called Narzana, who was the chief of the concubines of the emperor of Delhi. He resolved to send the throne presented by Indamukhi as a gift to the famous eoncubine of the Delhi emperor. He repacked the precious throne, wrote a letter similar to the one that he had written nearly two months previously to Indumukhi, and sent all the four peons to Delhi with the packet and the note.
* Kattil Subhadir The Subhader of the Cot; kattil meaning cot.
[Is it possible that the fame of Nur Jahfn has thus descended to the peasantry of Madras!-ED.]
