“Oh, these are the women?” Wazira Begum vouchsafed them a casual glance. “This is the first time that Farangi beggars have come to our door, but Zulika will find them a quilt to sleep on, and there are plenty of scraps.”
“O my sister, the Memsahibs are our guests,” began the boy distressfully, but Lady Haigh interrupted him.
“It strikes me you are making a mistake, young lady,” she said, marching across the room, and taking, uninvited, the place of honour on the charpoy, at the hostess’s right hand. “Penelope, sit down here,” indicating the next seat. “When the Sheikh-ul-Jabal returns, will he be pleased to hear that his daughter has insulted two English ladies who sought his hospitality? The English are his friends, and he is theirs.”
The girl had sprung from the charpoy as Lady Haigh sat down beside her. “The English are pigs!” she exclaimed. “O Maadat Ali! O Zulika! who is lady here, I or this Farangi woman? Will ye see her thrust me from my own place?”
“Nay, my sister, it is thou who art wrong,” returned the boy boldly. “The women are great ladies among the English, and friends of Kīlin Sahib, for so their servant told me. Thou art not wise.”
“Then be thou wise for both! I will not stay here with these shameless ones. Zulika may look to them.”
“You are going to bed?” asked Lady Haigh placidly. “I think you are wise, after all. And let me advise you to think things over. I don’t want to get you into trouble, but the Sheikh must hear of it if we are not properly treated.”
Wazira Begum vouchsafed no reply, quitting the room in such haste that she dropped one of her slippers by the way, and Maadat Ali, taking the responsibility upon himself, ordered the old women to bring in supper. While he was out of hearing for a moment Penelope turned to Lady Haigh—
“You know much more about it than I do, Elma, but we are quite alone here. Is it prudent to make an enemy of the Sheikh’s daughter? She has us in her power.”
“That she hasn’t, I’m thankful to say. She is the little fury that Dugald and Major Keeling fell in with when they were here, and the Sheikh made short work of her then. She has some grudge of her own against the English, evidently, and she thinks this is a good time to gratify it. Why, Pen, to be prudent, as you call it, now, would make every native in the place think that the day of the English was over in Khemistan, and that we knew it, and were trying to curry favour with them in view of the future. You must be more punctilious than ever in exacting respect—in fact, I would say bully the people, if I thought you had it in you to do it. It’s one of the ways in which we can help the men at Alibad.”