"You underrate your own importance, old boy. They can't do without you in the city, and the Rani has come in person to fetch you back."
"Oh, stop your chaff! No, but I daresay Kharrak Singh has insisted on coming, and she has sent him in a closed howdah, so as to be safer. He was uncommon set on coming with me. I wouldn't hear of it, but he may have teased her into giving her consent."
They entered the camp, and descended from their elephant in the space before their tents, just as the other elephant and its escort were challenged at the outskirts. Charteris and Gerrard both saw the curtains of the howdah put aside, and a head, apparently that of a woman, thrust forth. They could not hear what was said, but the newcomers were instantly allowed to pass, and staring soldiers began to gather and follow behind them. All eyes were turned on the two Englishmen as they went forward, but no one said anything, though it seemed to Gerrard that there was a feeling of awe in the air.
"It must be either the Rani or Kharrak Singh, for there are Amrodh Chand and the Rajputs," he murmured to Charteris. "And Rukn-ud-din in command of a scratch lot of guardsmen from all four troops! What is this, Komadan-ji?" he inquired of the officer.
"It is an order, sahib, but the mouth of this slave is shut," replied Rukn-ud-din, wheeling his men apart to allow the elephant to advance. It knelt down, and two or three zenana attendants, who had been riding behind, came forward and helped a veiled female figure to descend.
"Is it the Rani?" whispered Charteris eagerly.
"How should I know? I have never seen her," said Gerrard impatiently. "I shall know when she speaks, I suppose. But look at her cloth, half brown and half white! Has she gone mad, to show herself to the troops in this way? No _pardah_, no sheets!"
"Perhaps she will go into one of the tents," suggested Charteris, as much puzzled as his friend, and Gerrard advanced hesitatingly, unable to conceive why the troops did not actively resent this unheard-of violation of etiquette. The veiled figure stood solitary against the gorgeous trappings of the kneeling elephant, but there were still two or three women in the howdah, as he could tell by their whispering. The widow's white garments made it probable that the one on the ground was the Rani, but what was the extraordinary stain which disfigured one end of her veil? Perhaps her silence arose from horror at finding herself stranded in public view instead of being properly conducted from howdah to tent without allowing onlookers a glimpse of the passage. He spoke with diffidence, keeping his eyes on the ground.