As the request for an audience had been made upon the spur of the moment, the Commissioner regarded it as a favorable sign that the Rani consented to receive them without delay.
They were ushered through an inner courtyard surrounded by cloisters, in the shade of which a few Natives awoke to salute the Foreign Sahibs as they passed. Thence through dark halls and ante-chambers, in which the echo of their footsteps alone broke the profound silence that had descended on the palace. At last they crossed the threshold of the Darbar hall.
At the further end of the noble chamber, where for centuries it had been the custom of the Princes of Jhansi to dispense justice, she, from whom justice had been withheld, stood to receive her visitors. In the sight of the two officers as they gazed down a nave of pillars supporting the ornately decorated roof, she appeared as the statue of some divinity in the far perspective of an ancient temple—a youthful, white robed, graceful figure, brought into strong relief by a dark background of gold embroidered arras.
As if to emphasize the powerless condition to which she had been reduced, the Rani was attended by a single waiting woman, who remained throughout the interview a few paces in her rear, motionless and apparently unobservant.
The officers advanced to within a few paces of her position and saluted her respectfully.
With a slight inclination of her head, she acknowledged their greeting and waited to learn the nature of their errand.
The Commissioner had anticipated that the Rani would have hastily surrounded herself with numerous retainers to impress him with a semblance of her power. He realized that a hundred splendidly attired courtiers could not have added a shade of prestige to this girl, who stood alone.
It was not only the majestic pose, nor the beautiful contour of her face, crowned by a mass of dark hair, ornamented with a chaplet of pearls, that quickly confirmed the Commissioner's previous impression that Lachmi Bai, Rani of Jhansi, was far removed from the generally accepted type of her countrywomen. But there was a strength of character emphasized in every line of her distinctly Aryan features, a force of will, a mystical power in every flash of her lustrous eyes, in every movement, in every word, however gently spoken, warning him at the outset that he had to deal with no shrinking, simple, zanana maiden.
He had come prepared to assume a firm, if necessary a dictatorial attitude; but now in her presence he found himself slowly paving the way by conventional compliments.
Her silence at last compelled him to come to the point.