No more unpleasing revelation could have been made. Walter was fully aware of the difficulties which faced Europeans in India at that date. The vain and proud Orientals lost no opportunity of humiliating strangers. A cool and resolute bearing was the only sure fence against the insults and petty annoyances offered by minor officials. It was, therefore, vexing to the uttermost degree that Edwards had endured contumely and not even prepared them for a hostile reception. For the moment, Mowbray felt so disturbed that he was minded to retire to the caravansary to consider his next step, when Sainton, who understood the latter part of the conversation well enough, strode forward.
“Where be the peons you spoke of, friend?” said he. “’Tis fine weather, and the exercise you spoke of, if practised on me, will give them a zest for the midday meal.”
This time the stranger laughed as heartily as etiquette permitted.
“No, no,” he cried, “such minions demand their proper subject. Now, do you two come with me and I shall put your business in a fair way towards speedy completion.”
Talking the while, and telling them his name was Sher Afghán, he led them through the garden towards the house. The deep obeisances of the doorkeepers showed that he was held of great consequence, and none questioned his right to introduce the two Englishmen to the sacred interior. They passed through several apartments of exceeding beauty and entered another garden, in which, to the bewilderment of the visitors, who knew what the close seclusion of the zenana implied, they saw several ladies, veiled indeed, but so thinly that anyone close at hand might discern their features.
Courteously asking them to wait near the exit from the house, their Persian acquaintance quitted them and sought a distant group.
He salaamed deeply before a richly attired female and pointed towards Mowbray and Sainton. Then he explained something to a dignified looking old man, robed in flowing garments of white muslin, whose sharp eyes had noted the advent of the strangers the moment they appeared.
With this older couple was a slim girl. When the others moved slowly across the grass towards the place where Mowbray and Sainton stood, Sher Afghán hung back somewhat and spoke to the girl, who kept studiously away from him, and coyly adjusted her veil so that he might not look into her eyes. He seemed to plead with her, but his words fell on heedless ears.
Indeed, ere yet the aged Diwán had conducted Queen Mariam Zamáni, sultana of Akbar and mother of Jahangir, heir to the throne, sufficiently apart from her attendants to permit the strangers to be brought before her—the rank of the august lady enabling her to dispense with the Mahomedan seclusion of her sex—Sher Afghán’s gazelle-like companion ran forward and gazed fearlessly at Mowbray, wonderingly at Sainton.
“Their skins are not white but red!” she cried joyously. “Nevertheless one of them must come from the land of Tokay, which is famed for its white elephants.”