"So far away as to be between this place and the river that parts it from Agpur, sahib."
"This is very serious." It was quite certain that Mr James Antony would not approve of the Rani's taking up her residence so close to her former capital, when she was supposed to be at Benares. "You know that I must report it to the Resident Sahib at Ranjitgarh?"
"Your honour will do as it is decreed you should do," said the
Mohammedan tranquilly.
"But what is her Highness's object?"
"To avenge the blood of her house, sahib. She devotes herself wholly to the practice of austerities, after the manner of the idolaters. The women say that to behold her is to behold the corpse of one that has died in famine-time."
"You cannot mean that she is wholly destitute? Yet what is she living upon? Her allowance has not been paid to her, because she has not subscribed to the conditions upon which it was granted."
"Her Highness will never subscribe to those conditions, sahib. She will neither receive money at the hand of the murderer, nor covenant to bequeath him a single anna that she possesses. For her maintenance, she received from Antni Sahib's brother at Ranjitgarh the ten thousand rupees your honour carried with you to Adamkot from the treasury, and of his grace he added to them, by way of an advance, a sum sufficient to enable her to perform her pilgrimage to Kashi." Gerrard suppressed a smile when he realised that James Antony's eagerness to avert political complications by getting the Rani safely out of Granthistan had thus over-reached itself by giving her the means of remaining on its borders. "The sum was not a great one, to maintain the warriors from her father's state who have vowed their swords to her vengeance, as well as those who have remained faithful to their lord's memory, but it will suffice for a month or two longer," added Rukn-ud-din; "and it is the word of her Highness that this will be long enough. The time is near at hand."
"Will her Highness receive me?" asked Gerrard hastily, planning strong remonstrances in his mind. "You say she has returned to pardah?"
"She broke pardah once, sahib, designing to expiate her shame when she had seen justice done, but death and justice were alike denied her. She will break it again when she leads her troops in the field against the murderer, and that day she will rejoin her lord."
"Now look here, Rukn-ud-din; you are a sensible man and a follower of Islam. I want you to do your best to induce her Highness to allow me to pay my respects through the curtain, so that I may try to get her to lay aside these intentions."