When the sun had gone down, and it was cool enough to walk abroad, Lall Singh led me into the extensive gardens which surrounded his temporary abode. The Lallah had left us, and I was now alone with the ex-Commander of the Seik Cavalry and the ex-Prime Minister of Lahore. I felt much more pleasure in his society than I should have felt had he been in the plenitude of his power; for he bore his altered condition with great dignity and cheerfulness, and discoursed upon all sorts of topics without any restraint or reserve. He even talked about the Ranee of Lahore--with whom his name had been so frequently coupled--and with a chivalrous spirit (whether his assertions were true or not is another matter) assured me that his intrigues with her had been confined exclusively to politics. I asked him where this helpless woman had fled to, after her miraculous escape from Benares, in the garb of a man? He replied that he knew not. He was sure she was not in Nepal--where the authorities supposed her to be--but somewhere in our own provinces.
"No; and never had been," was his reply. "But she had eyes which could charm like those of a snake, and a voice sweeter than that of a bird."
"They say she was the Messalina of the East," and I explained to him what the allusion signified.
"It is not true," he exclaimed vehemently. "She was a vain and clever woman; but the very opposite of the character that she has been described. She was proud of the influence she possessed over men in making them subservient to her will and her caprices."
"Had she great power over Runjeet Singh?"
"None. She was his doll, his plaything, and the only being who could calm him when he had the horrors. Nothing more."
"Runjeet Singh began life as a petty chieftain, with a few hundred followers. He acquired a vast kingdom, and had the most powerful army that the East ever saw, or will see. Whilst he went on conquering, shedding blood, and plundering, he was easy in his mind; but, when he found that he had got as much as he could manage, he stopped; and then came his disquiet. His great fear then was that he could not retain what he had become possessed of--and his chief horror was that the Koh-i-noor would be carried off--that diamond which Runjeet Singh stole, and which the Ranee has worn a thousand times as a bracelet. That diamond which is now in the crown of England."