'Do you deny that they are Feringhees?'
'They are holy women, bound under a vow to travel by night to the sacred river. Touch them and you incur the guilt of sacrilege!'
The leader laughed out loudly. 'Tell a better tale next time, son of an ass,' he said scornfully. 'We will run the risk and see the colour of their faces for ourselves!'
Upon this the unhappy guide began to dance wildly round the cart. 'Let my lord have pity!' he cried out. 'Feringhees or not, they are women and children who have done no wrong——'
He was not allowed to finish. The leader pushed him aside, and, amid the jeers of his men, began to feel along the sides of the cart. At his touch the ladies screamed, sprang out, and fell on their knees.
How the poor girl in the nullah preserved her senses, how she kept back the scream that was clutching at her throat, she never knew. Grace, palpitating with horror, grasping with her one hand at the sides of the nullah, and with the other pressing Kit's face to her bosom, so that he could neither cry out nor see, she stood, yet never for one moment did she lose her presence of mind.
Her friends rose, ran a few paces, saw by the flare of the torches that they were surrounded, and then knelt again, and implored piteously for mercy. For a few moments no one stirred. Then the voice of the leader broke the silence. 'I want one of you. The rest may go on their way in peace.'
Here the guide interposed with a shrill cry: 'What my lord wishes is impossible. We go on together or not at all.'
'Be silent! Who spoke to you?' said the leader.
'Excellency, for the love of the Prophet—by your hopes of Paradise, listen to me!'