'Ask us!' cried Lucy hysterically. 'What does the strange man mean?'
'Madam,' said Chunder Singh, bowing low, 'you must have the goodness to come with me.'
'I?' shrieked Lucy. 'Why? What do you want with me? Oh!' falling on her knees, 'have pity! If he has gone, I know nothing about it. I may have meant to ask him; but I hadn't the chance. Ask the others. We saw him for a few little moments last evening, and to-day we have been alone. Indeed! indeed! no one has come to us. Oh! don't you believe me?'
'Let me assure you, before those here, who will remember my words,' said Chunder Singh, 'that we mean you no harm. If you fear, let Missy Sahib and her ayah come with you. Our rajah has gone. How he has gone, or why, we cannot as yet find out; and as Hoosanee, the servant who brought you to Gumilcund, has gone also, we would ask you the questions which we would have asked him had he been here. Miss Sahib I ask to come because she is most interested in what has happened. But if one of the Mem Sahibs——'
'No, no, no. Take me! I will tell you all I can,' sobbed Lucy.
Terribly solemn and staggering beyond the power of language to express were Lucy's next experiences. There was first a brief journey in a litter, with Aglaia, to whom she had clung as her only hope and consolation, for a companion. The litter was put down, and, upon drawing its curtains aside, they found themselves in a small, dimly-lighted hall, in the presence of four men, all of them as grave and mysterious of aspect as Chunder Singh. They were seated on cushions at the upper end of the hall; but when Lucy drew the curtains of her litter aside, one of them rose to his feet and greeted her reverently. There followed a few moments of silence, during which the poor little creature, who could not imagine what all this solemnity meant, felt her heart beating as if it would burst.
Aglaia had made the acquaintance of all these grave persons, and she was not in the least awed. Yet they constituted the inner council of the Gumilcund State. One was Chunder Singh, the prime minister, and another—he who had risen—was Lutfullah, the representative of the merchant class, and the third was Vishnugupta the priest, and the fourth was the exalted citizen who headed the warrior caste and directed the organisation of the rajah's little army.
These good persons wore their dresses of state, and the dignity of their manners was fully equal to the grandeur of their appearance. When Aglaia, who, as I have said, had no fear, ran up to the magnificent Lutfullah, and began chattering to him in her baby Hindoostanee, nodding gravely meanwhile to her other friends, Lucy felt half afraid that the roof of the hall would drop down upon them.
But nothing happened, and she began presently to feel a little more composed. Then Lutfullah, who, having a bland manner and reassuring aspect, and being, moreover, well versed in the English tongue, had been commissioned to ask the questions which the council had decided to be necessary, said, in a soft voice, that he trusted she would not feel the least alarm. It was true that a calamity had fallen upon the State, and it was true also that they, into whose hands the direction of its fortunes had come, were for the moment embarrassed and disheartened; but that was no reason why the guests of the State should suffer. As far as she was concerned, all they wished was an account of the events that had intervened between the moment of their leaving the station of Nowgong and the present, with special reference to the unfortunate occurrence that, as he understood, had preceded their arrival.