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Updated: June 8, 2025
"I have no wish to anger these people who are on a holy pilgrimage by going into their temples as a Moslem." "You are going to the shrine of Omkar?" the Gulab asked aghast. "Are you again?" Barlow parried. "Yes, Sahib, soon." "I am going with you," Barlow declared. Bootea expostulated with almost fierce eagerness; with a fervour that increased the uneasiness in Barlow's mind.
But Bootea will know the eyes will not be hidden." Then he thought of Hunsa, and asked, "But aren't you afraid to go with that beast, Hunsa?" The girl laughed. "The decoits have orders from the Dewan to kill him if I complain of him; but if they do not he is promised the torture when he comes back if I make complaint.
"The Resident will protect you against the Mahratta," Barlow declared. "Bootea could do that," and in her small hand there gleamed in the moonlight the sheen of her dagger blade. She thrust it back into her belt. "What then do you fear, Gulab?" he queried. "The Sahib." "Me, Gulab?" "Yes, Khudawand.
The Chief, knowing this was the one Bootea had spoken of, wrote on a slip of yellow paper something in Persian and tendered it to Barlow, saying, "That will be your passport when you would speak with me if there is in your heart something to be said." Hunsa, too, had watched for the coming of Barlow.
"Get into the cart, Bootea," Hunsa commanded, for the girl had not moved. "I will not!" she declared. "I'm going back to Ajeet; he is not dead it is a trick." "He is dead," Hunsa snarled, seizing her by arm. The Gulab screamed words of denunciation. "Take your hands off me, son of a pig, accursed man of low caste! Ajeet will kill you for this, dog!"
And Barlow, conscious of his helplessness unless Bootea would now yield to his entreaties and forswear the horrible sacrifice, turned to the girl, his face drawn and haggard, and his voice, when he spoke, vibrating tremulously from the pressure of his despair. He held out his arms, and Bootea threw herself against his breast and sobbed. "Come back to Chunda with me, Gulab," Barlow pleaded.
Once more he pleaded, "Renounce this dreadful sacrifice." But the girl smiled up into his face, saying, "I die happily, husband. Perhaps Indra will permit Bootea to come back in spirit to the Sahib."
"Confusion!" he exclaimed in moral trepidation. Bootea's hand touched his arm, and she turned her face inward to hide the hot flush that lay upon it. "No, Sahib, not because of Bootea; one does not sleep in the lap of a god." "All right, girl," he answered "sorry."
Barlow woke him: "There's a thief prowling about the bungalow. Do not sleep till I give you permission. See that no one enters," he commanded. He went back to his room, closed and barred the door, and told Bootea to come. When the girl entered he said: "You should not have come here; there are eyes, and ears, and evil tongues." "That is true, Sahib, but also death is evil sometimes."
When Amir Kahn passed an order that Bootea was to be treated as a queen, his officers smiled in their heavy black beards and whispered that his two wives would yet be hand-maidens to a third, the favourite. Hunsa saw all this, for he was the one that often carried a message to the Gulab that her presence was desired in the palace. Hunsa was getting impatient.
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