Mr. Hartley’s interest was thoroughly aroused. “Was Premi always in the fort?” he inquired of Kripá Dé; “or can you remember her first arrival?”
“I remember Premi being brought in one night,” said Kripá Dé; he spoke slowly, like one trying to recall impressions of the distant past. “She was then quite a little girl, some years younger than myself. I recollect that the bibis crowded around her, and that Darobti jested me about the child’s skin being as white as my own.”
“She said that you were like brother and sister?” suggested Robin.
Kripá Dé shook his head and looked embarrassed; which made the questioner shrewdly guess that Darobti had joked the boy on the coming of a little white bride for a little white bridegroom. Marriage, even of infants, forms a large subject of interest in the Indian zenana.
Harold, who had been briefly informed by Alicia of what had occurred, now took the place of catechiser.
“How many years have elapsed since the child was brought to Talwandi?” he asked.
“Who knows?” was the reply. Native children keep little count of time.
“Have you no sort of idea? Think again.”
“I was just tall enough then to see over the wall. It seems a great many years ago.”
“Perhaps ten or twelve?” suggested Robin. “You know that you are now eighteen. Have you no sort of guess how old you were then?”