“Oh, no,” Rukh answered softly; “I think it foolish and futile. But there is a romantic as well as a practical side to my nature, and, from the romantic point of view, I rather admire it.”
“Then, sir,” Crespin blustered, rising, “the less we intrude on your hospitality the better. If you will be good enough to furnish us with transport to-morrow morning—”
“That,” the Raja interrupted him suavely, “is just where the difficulty arises.”
“No transport, hey?” Crespin’s tone was bullying now. Oh, those English! Those English abroad!
“Materially it might be managed,” the Raja said with an amiable shrug; “but morally I fear it is—excuse the colloquialism, Madam—no go.”
“What the devil do you mean, sir?”
Still Rukh showed no resentment And Lucilla, trying to cover a little her husband’s blunder, asked gently, “Will Your Highness be good enough to explain?”
“I mentioned,” the Raja asked, turning to her with a pleasant smile, “that the religion of my people is a primitive superstition? Well, since the news has spread that three Feringhis have dropped from the skies precisely at the time when three princes of the royal house are threatened with death at the hands of the Feringhi government—and dropped moreover in the precincts of a temple—my subjects have got it into their heads that you have been personally conducted hither by the Goddess whom they especically worship.”
“The Goddess—?” Lucilla asked.
“Here”—the Raja turned and pointed to the statuette—“is her portrait on the mantelpiece—much admired by connoisseurs.”