'An English voice,' cried another lady hysterically. 'Thank God!'
'An English voice, and an English heart,' said the young rajah. 'I am taking you to my house, dear ladies. Command me as if I were your brother.'
He tried to go on, but he could not. The words choked him, and his heart was like to burst. Motioning to Hoosanee to take the cart on, he fell back behind it. As he went he heard the ladies' voices. They were speaking joyfully one to the other, congratulating themselves on their escape. Hungrily he listened, hoping still against hope that he might have misinterpreted Hoosanee. He heard two voices—then a third, much weaker than the other two, and, now and again, piercing his heart to a pity that almost slew him, the feeble wailing of a little child; but that voice, for the least of whose vibrations he would have given his life, he heard not. And so, with a dull heart that had yet to realise the fullness of its woe, he plodded on.
The syce brought up Snow-queen, but he refused to mount her. The mechanical movement, the contact with the dull earth, seemed fittest for him; now and then it would be to him even as if he were walking in a funeral procession—as if his youth, and all the hope and gladness of his life, were being carried out to be buried under fathoms of earth.
In the palace Chunder Singh and Aglaia had been busy, and everything was ready for the reception of the ladies. Ah! how delightful it was to the tired wanderers—all the little luxuries to which they were accustomed, the deep baths filled with warm scented waters, and the daintily spread meal, and the soft couches on which presently they would rest their weary limbs, above all, the tender, the reverential welcome. There was a solemnity—a sadness—about it that touched them curiously. But none of them knew what it had cost their entertainer to step forward as he did, and to hand them out of the cart, and to speak those kind words of sympathy and welcome.
'I am thankful to God,' he said earnestly, 'that you have found your way to me. You are safe here, for we are prepared for any number of enemies. Do me the favour of treating my house as if it was your own.'
'Oh, thank you! thank you!' they cried in one breath. But poor little Lucy, when the hand of the rajah touched hers, broke into a torrent of tears. 'Can nothing be done for Grace?' she wailed.
'Is she alive?' said the rajah.
'Yes! Yes! Oh! she was carried away, and we let her go—she, who had done so much for us! I shall never forgive myself that I did not go with her. Couldn't I go now—couldn't some one?'
'I will see Hoosanee. I will try,' said Tom chokingly. 'I think—but forgive me, I can't talk now, and you must rest. My people——'