There are times when it really seems as if Heaven was unmindful of our sufferings, and with only human hearts and brains to endure, we appear to have more than human sorrow thrust upon us. We cry aloud for help, but it comes not; we pray for death, but it is withheld; we totter beneath our burden, and yet it is not lightened.
Flora Meredith experienced something of this—whichever way she turned her eyes she saw no help, only darkness and sorrow, and she almost impiously believed that the Christian’s God had forsaken her. It was scarcely to be wondered at that she should feel like this; for she had been borne like a reed on the current of swift-flowing events, and though she had prayed for help, no help had come.
In a little while she rose from her kneeling position at the couch, and made an inspection of the apartment. She scarcely knew why, though perhaps in her breast was some half-formed hope that a way of escape might present itself. At one end of the room was a carved archway, and before this archway hung a massive velvet curtain. She drew this curtain on one side, and there was revealed a small and exquisitely furnished boudoir. A long window, before which was a half-drawn amber silk curtain, stood open, and a verandah was visible.
Flora could scarcely suppress a cry of joy as she noticed this, and, darting forward, she found that from the verandah a flight of steps led to a portion of the ramparts. It was a small, gravelled terrace, evidently used as a private walk. Scarcely conscious of what she was doing, she hurried down the steps. There was a refreshing breeze stirring, and it seemed to her that she was once more breathing the air of liberty.
She gazed over the fortified wall. There was a perpendicular depth of at least sixty feet, so that all chance of escape that way was shut off. She hurried along the terrace to an angle in the building, and then her heart sank, for she was confronted with a Sepoy, who was on guard.
The man, however, took no notice of her. She turned back to the other end of the terrace, and again stood face to face with a Sepoy sentry. She once more turned in despair. Escape that way was impossible. As she reached the centre of the terrace, she was startled to see the old King standing on the verandah, gazing at her. Seeing that she observed him, he descended the steps and approached her.
“We are glad to see you here,” he said, as he twisted his withered hands one about the other. “Too close confinement might cause your health to suffer. We allowed Zula to walk here, and we shall accord you the same privilege. It will be your private ground, and you need not fear intrusion. Our sentries are keen-eyed and vigilant. No one could pass them, and no one could come up that wall without the certainty of being mangled into an unrecognisable mass.” As he said this, his weazened face was puckered with a smile, and he fixed his bleared eyes upon the pale face of the trembling girl. “We know how to reward fidelity, and how to punish treachery,” he went on. “See,” pointing below, “see that group of men. They carry a burden. It is the body of Zula. I have ordered them to cast her carrion out on the plain, as food for the vultures and jackals.”
Flora shuddered as she turned her eyes to the spot indicated, and saw some men carrying a body. In a few minutes they threw it on the ground, and Flora could discern that one of the rascals caught hold of the long hair of the victim, and dragged the corpse by it for some distance. Then the body was left, and the men returned.
“This is a dastardly deed,” Flora exclaimed, as she turned fiercely upon the King, and feeling that, had she been possessed of a weapon, she could, without any compunction, have slain the grey-headed monster of iniquity, who stood before her smiling in triumph.
“Not a dastardly deed,” he answered, “but a summary act of justice. That woman confessed to you her intention to take my life, if opportunity presented itself; but, the Prophet be praised, we overheard the creature proclaim her purpose, and we were enabled to mete out a fitting punishment. Heaven is merciful. Glory be to the Prophet!”