Shortly after we were installed in our position of trust, and the officers had left us, we discovered several pairs of bright eyes peeping out at us through the partly shattered venetians forming the doors and windows of the house; and the person whom I had taken for a shrivelled old woman came out and entered into conversation with me, at first in Hindoostânee, but afterwards in very good and grammatical English. I then discovered that what I had mistaken for a crack-voiced old woman, a second edition of "the mother of the maids," was no other than a confidential eunuch of the palace, who told me he had been over thirty years about the court of Lucknow, employed as a sort of private secretary under successive kings, as he was able to read and write English, and could translate the English newspapers, etc., and could also, judging from his villainous appearance, be trusted to strangle a refractory begum or cut the throat of any one prying too closely into court secrets. He was almost European in complexion, and appeared to me to be more than seventy years of age, but he may have been much younger. He also told me that most of his early life had been spent at the court of Constantinople, and that he had there learned English, and had found this of great use to him at the court of Lucknow, where he had not only kept up the knowledge, but had improved it by reading.
By this time one of the younger begums, or nautch girls (I don't know which), came out to see the guard, and did not appear by any means too bashful. She evidently wished for a closer acquaintance, and I asked my friend to request her to go back to her companions; but this she declined to do, and wanted particularly to know why we were dressed in petticoats, and if we were not part of the Queen of England's regiment of eunuchs, and chaffed me a good deal about my fair hair and youthful appearance. I was twenty-four hours on that guard before the begums were removed by Major Bruce to a house somewhere near the Martinière, and during that twenty-four hours I learned more, through the assistance of the English-speaking eunuch, about the virtues of polygamy and the domestic slavery, intrigues, and crimes of the harem than I have learned in all my other thirty-five years in India. If I dared, I could write a few pages that would give the Government of India and the public of England ten times more light on those cherished institutions than they now possess. The authorities professed to take charge of those caged begums for their own safety, but I don't think many of them were over-thankful for the protection. Major Bruce, with an escort, removed the ladies the next day, and I took leave of my communicative friend and the begums without reluctance, and rejoined my company, glad to be rid of such a dangerous charge.