From the crypt they proceeded to the palace zenana (harem), which
surrounded a court of exceeding beauty. Three ladies of the harem were
sitting in the portico, attended by slaves. All were curiously
interested at the sight of a woman with white skin, tinted like the
lotus. Umballa came to a halt before a latticed door.
"Here your majesty must remain till the day of your coronation."
"How did my father die?"
"He was assassinated on the palace steps by a Mohammedan fanatic. As I
told you, he died in my arms."
"His note signified that he feared imprisonment. How came he on the
palace steps?"
"He was not a prisoner. He came and went as he pleased in the city."
He bowed and left her.
Alone in her chamber, the dullness of her mind diminished and finally
cleared away like a fog in a wind. Her dear, kind, blue-eyed father
was dead, and she was virtually a prisoner, and Winnie was all alone.
A queen! They were mad, or she was in the midst of some hideous
nightmare. Mad, mad, mad! She began to laugh, and it was not a
pleasant sound. A queen, she, Kathlyn Hare! Her father was dead, she
was a queen, and Winnie was all alone. A gale of laughter brought to
the marble lattice many wondering eyes. The white cockatoo shrilled
his displeasure. Those outside the lattice saw this marvelous
white-skinned woman, with hair like the gold threads in Chinese
brocades, suddenly throw herself upon a pile of cushions, and they saw
her shoulders rock and heave, but heard no sound of wailing.
After a while she fell asleep, a kind of dreamless stupor. When she
awoke it was twilight in the court. The doves were cooing and
fluttering in the cornices and the cockatoo was preening his lemon
colored topknot. At first Kathlyn had not the least idea where she
was, but the light beyond the lattice, the flitting shadows, and the
tinkle of a stringed instrument assured her that she was awake,
terribly awake.
She sat perfectly still, slowly gathering her strength, mental and
physical. She was not her father's daughter for nothing. She was to
fight in some strange warfare, instinctively she felt this; but from
what direction, in what shape, only God knew. Yet she must prepare for
it; that was the vital thing; she must marshal her forces, feminine and
only defensive, and watch.
Rao! Her hands clutched the pillows. In five days' time he would be
off to seek John Bruce; and there would be white men there, and they
would come to her though a thousand legions of these brown men stood
between. She would play for time; she must pretend docility and meet
quiet guile with guile. She could get no word to her faithful
khidmutgar; none here, even if open to bribery, could be made to
understand. Only Umballa and the council spoke English or understood
it. She had ten days' grace; within that time she hoped to find some
loophole.