There was a pause.
“Is the woman here?” asked the interpreter impatiently.
“She is here,” returned the officer from without.
There followed sounds of persuasion, amounting almost to entreaty, such as are unusual from the mouths of minions of the law. Then when expectation had been wrought to the highest dramatic pitch, the sunlight from the door was darkened, and there burst upon our dazzled gaze a vision of gold ornaments and gauzy draperies.
“The Princess,” whispered the overseer, with a deprecating smile.
She was tall and willowy, and her slender limbs seemed to be weighed down with the burden of the bangles that almost hid them. Heavy gold circlets seemed to crush the tiny ankle-bones, and every slender toe was be-ringed. Besides earrings and the gold stud that emphasises the curve of the nostril, she wore no head ornaments, but the shawl that fell from her hair was of the finest striped gauze. She must have been fully twenty, but the brightness of her eyes was still undimmed by time. She surveyed the thatched court-house with a glance of cool contempt, and walked proudly to the reed fence that did duty for a dock.
“You are charged with absence from work.”
The Princess glanced sideways at the interpreter, and then stared straight at the beam over my head.
“She told the sirdar she didn’t mean to do any work.”
The evidence is interpreted to the accused.