Something animal was scrambling slowly, cautiously down a far mountain’s knife-like edge—a caravan of the miracle-footed hill-ponies bringing luxuries from half the globe to the King of Rukh.
The long, twisted palace, when they reached it, was even larger and more impressive than Mrs. Crespin had thought. Whatever the interior might prove, the exterior was not unbeautiful; the details of the great open arches, some scalloped, some sharply pointed, no two quite alike, yet all in harmony with the others and with the splendid and panoramic mountain site, were beautiful and significant—they told a story of years of lavish labor and thought; and through several of the open arch spaces exquisite vistas of courtyards and pools, colonnades and gray, intricate walls showed cool and inviting.
The Raja helped the Englishwoman out of her litter as deferentially as he had assisted her into it. Servants hurried to meet them at the opened door—women among them, and at a flicker of the ruler’s hand, one more handsomely dressed than the others came to Lucilla and salaamed before her.
“She will attend you to your apartments, Madam,” the Raja said, “and wait upon you. She has my command to obey you in all things, and she will. You will find her not unskillful, and she is trustworthy. She is yours.”
Mrs. Crespin looked at the native woman searchingly, afraid to go, afraid to refuse to do so. The woman, uncommonly tall and most decidedly handsome, had a comfortable, not unkind face, Lucilla decided. But she temporized.
“I will wait until Major Crespin comes, I think, Your Highness.”
“By no means,” the potentate said smoothly, “See how far the gentlemen are behind us—and I cannot allow you to fatigue yourself farther than you already must have done to-day.”
Lucilla still hesitated. The chairs were far in the distance. If she showed the fear she felt, how might it not anger this now smiling man who spoke to her so courtly, whose power was so absolute?
“Until dinner, Madam,” he said, bowing low. But there was finality in his silken voice, and Lucilla Crespin, praying that she might choose of the perils swarming about her the least, turned and followed the swarthy ayah.
“Thank you,” she said, “until dinner then, sir.”