Perhaps Sobrai saw something of this in his eyes. Anyhow, with a fierce exultation, she threw back her veil, and the hour-glass drum, twirled above her head, sent its message out over the clustering crowd.
So it came to pass that Lady Arbuthnot, driving home, saw in the flesh what she had seen in her mind's eye--the woman's figure centring a circle of eager men's faces.
'Stand back! clear the way! Hut! Hut!' came the orders of policemen, recalled to a sense of duty. Then came a louder one, as an inspector on his way back rode up to see what caused the block.
In an instant there was an uproar, a boy's voice, 'Don't you touch her, you----' a scuffle, a blow, a fall, a girl's shriek.
Finally there was a lull, with two red-coats, under the orders of a passing officer, holding back a third, Miss Leezie protesting innocence, and a girl, still defiant, shrinking back into the darkest corner of the narrow entrance.
'She doth not belong to me,' shrilled Miss Leezie. 'She comes from the city. I am not responsible. I will prove her thief.'
'It is a lie! I am no thief,' gasped Sobrai, shrinking still farther from the policeman, who stepped up on to the plinth, while the red-coat, held by the other two, struggled madly.
'Oh! dash it all,' muttered the officer to himself, 'this can't be allowed. Sergeant, send your prisoner to the quarter-guard under escort, and see that every one returns to barracks at once. Constable, arrest both women.'
Miss Leezie fell on her knees and shrieked.
'Huzoor! I can prove her thief. She hath pearls like the Lady-sahib's pearls. She offered them to me as a bribe to take her into my house this very day, and I, dissembling, said I would see, and kept the pearls to show the police. I have them. She is thief for sure!'