"Maharaj, I can do nothing until the whole matter has been inquired into and fairly decided."
"Oh, words, words! such as the English ever speak, and do nothing until it is too late! You then, soldiers of Partab Singh Rajah! Will you see your king's son murdered unavenged? Avenge me on his murderer!"
No one moved, but from the back of the crowd a murmur arose which swelled into a cry, "Sher Singh Rajah! Sher Singh Rajah!" The Rani started as if she had been stung.
"Will you set this wretch before my eyes on the _gaddi_ from which he has swept his father and his brother?" she shrieked. "Can the heavens look down on such a sight of shame, and not grow black?"
The soldiers cowered before her, but a short thick-set man pushed his way to the front. "I am not wise," he said, and a laugh answered him, "but a plain man may ask questions that the learned cannot answer. Her Highness desires us to slay Sher Singh. For whose benefit? say I. She says he is a murderer, but even if it were so--which I see no cause to believe--he is the last of Partab Singh's house. To whom should the kingdom fall, if he were slain? To her Highness herself--who might then be less desirous of death? To her friends the English? perhaps to Jirad Sahib--who would not be the first to owe a throne to a woman's favour. Not one of these has any cause to desire the death of Sher Singh, of course--I lay my hand upon my mouth for having even uttered the thought--but who then does desire it? Not the soldiers of Partab Singh, say I."
"And thou sayest well, brother!" burst from the soldiers. "Sher Singh Rajah! We will set him on the _gaddi_, and by the might of the Guru! if the English interfere, we will fight them." Out of the tumult in the ranks a high thin voice rose above the rest. "Back to the zenana, shameless one! Wilt thou disgrace thy lord, as she of Ranjitgarh doth daily?"
The two Englishmen and their followers moved towards the Rani to protect her, but she waved them back with measureless contempt, then turned upon the jeering soldiers with eyes glowing like live coals.
"Truly Jirad Sahib spoke well when he warned me that you, for whom I have stripped myself of the very jewels of my marriage-portion, designed only to play me false. Ai Guru! what a lot is mine, to dwell in a land where the men are as women, even as those that sell themselves for gain! Hear then the curse of the widow, the childless one. Behold the unavenged ashes of my son!" she thrust forth the brazen urn. "As I cover them from your unworthy sight with the cloth stained with his innocent blood"--sweeping her veil over it--"so shall the blood of Agpur extinguish the burning embers of her houses. As you have cried shame upon me, seeking to avenge my dead, so shall your childless mothers and your widowed wives find shame in seeking to avenge you, and the death of honour shall be denied them. For innocent blood shall the doom come, though my eyes shall not behold it, and through these two Feringhees"--she indicated Gerrard and Charteris--"who shall execute justice on the murderer in the day when they shall make a road for a corpse through the great wall of Agpur."