“But who’s going to chaperon them?” enquired Aunt Lucy. “It seems I’m not invited.”
The Colonel thought the khan’s guard would be sufficient.
“But it’s a heathen country, and they’ll have to bandage their faces,” declared the old lady.
“We’ll wear veils until we are out of Mekran,” said Bessie. “Then there will be no masculine eyes to see us, and we’ll take them off.”
So at daybreak Janet and Bessie were ready for their ride, and soon a grizzled Baluch warrior rode up to the house leading two magnificent bays from the famous stables of Mehmet. The one that Janet rode was the very animal that had carried Ahmed on his swift journey from the monastery, and Bessie’s horse was but little inferior.
The warrior saluted and assisted the ladies to mount. It was Dirrag. He led them through the streets, around the palace enclosure and out at the south gate. A beautiful country lay spread before them, and as the keen morning air saluted their nostrils, brightened their eyes and flushed their cheeks, the girls dashed away at a canter with Dirrag silently following a few paces behind.
After their long confinement within the walls of a city dwelling this free, invigorating exercise was a great delight to the two girls, and they enjoyed the ride thoroughly. Passing through the city on their return they closely veiled their faces, yet were evidently objects of curiosity to those of the natives who were abroad so early.
Dirrag held the stirrups for them to dismount and then silently touched his cap and led the horses back to the khan’s stables. But next morning he was again at their door with the mounts, and their ride became a daily event to the girls.
Dirrag knew no English, but Janet and Bessie had come to understand many of the Baluch words—a dialect evidently founded upon Arabic—and could even speak a few simple sentences, learned by contact with the native servants and somewhat puzzling explanations from David. So the silence of their first rides began to be broken by laconic observations on the part of the battered old warrior, who seemed not to object to acting as escort to the charming infidel women. Occasionally they passed the house of Agahr the Vizier and Maie, who was informed of all that occurred in the capital, watched from her latticed window the graceful forms of the American girls riding by and on several occasions when they neglected to arrange their veils caught glimpses of their fair faces.
It was enough to set the vizier’s daughter wild with envy and chagrin. Why should the Khan favor these outcasts-these women of another world? Was it for them the harem was being prepared, despite her father’s protestation that Ahmed had never seen the foreign women nor ever would see them? The girl well knew that their beauty could in no way compare with her own in the eyes of any true Baluch. The Americans were deformed by being laced and belted at the waist and wearing heavy, close-fitting draperies that must not only be uncomfortable but were decidedly ugly in appearance. But Maie could not deny they sat their horses gracefully and with rare self-possession, and men have queer ideas of beauty. Perhaps Ahmed Khan might admire the novelty of their white faces, their queerly arranged hair and the pink finger nails that lacked any trace of the beautifying henna.