Eveleen looked at him with absolute abhorrence. “And that’s all you have to say about it?” she demanded.
“My dear lady, what can I say? The custom of the country permits the rulers to recruit their zenanas in this way, and how is a stranger to prevent it?”
“Go to the Khans and get her back! Tell me now, what’s the use of their calling you their father and their mother if they’ll not do what you tell them?”
“I fear their confidence stops short on the threshold of the zenana,” said Colonel Bayard gravely. “But suppose, to gratify me, they consented to the release of this girl—do you think she would choose to be released? Nay, she would hug her chains, as you consider them, and entreat to remain in the Fort.”
“The worse for her, then, the wretched creature! But sure you’d have brought the Khans to book, and shown them the law was stronger than they are.”
“What law? They would have been constrained by friendship, nothing more. The English law don’t run here. The will of the ruler is the law—at least, it comes to that.”
“And Colonel Bayard can reconcile it with his conscience to use all his endeavours to prop up a system under which such things can happen!” she cried. Her husband glanced round aghast to see the effect of this blasphemy, but the other two men had discreetly faded away, Colonel Bayard looked at her sadly.
“What can I say? I do my best for these people, but they will do nothing to help me—to justify me. Yet to use force—to compel them to virtue—would be an outrage, an iniquity. Ain’t it better for them to govern themselves, even badly, than to be governed, however well, by us?”
“Ah!” cried Eveleen suddenly, “that’s it, that’s it! You think of them and of us—and not for one moment of the creatures they misgovern, the women and the poor.”
“As Heaven is my witness, I do think of them—and constantly,” he replied, with deep solemnity. “It is my earnest hope to ameliorate their condition by influencing the Khans—in time. But never will I be a party to seizing more territory under the pretext of seeing justice done.”