“How long will your daughter be before she comes? It is horrible waiting here.”
“You must have patience, sahib. It will be no easy work to get the lady away. There will be guards and women to look after her. A lady is not to be stolen out of a zenana as a young bird is taken from its nest.”
“It is all very well to say 'Be patient,'” Bathurst said, getting up and walking up and down with quick angry strides. “It is maddening to sit here doing nothing. If it were not that I had confidence in your power and will to aid me, I would go into the palace and stab Nana Sahib to the heart, though I were cut to pieces for it the moment afterwards.”
“That would do no good to the lady, sahib,” Rujub said calmly. “She would only be left without a friend, and the Nana's death might be the signal for the murder of every white prisoner. Ah, here comes my daughter.”
Rabda came up quickly, and stopped before Bathurst with her head bowed and her arms crossed in an attitude of humility. She was dressed in the attire worn by the principal servants in attendance upon the zenana of a Hindoo prince.
“Well, what news, Rabda?” Bathurst asked eagerly.
“The light of my lord's heart is sick. She bore up till she arrived here and was handed over to the women. Then her strength failed her, and she fainted. She recovered, but she is lying weak and exhausted with all that she has gone through and suffered.”
“Where is she now?”
“She is in the zenana, looking out into the women's court, that no men are ever allowed to enter.”
“Has the Rajah seen her?”