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Updated: June 6, 2025
The river winds in and out, an unknown little stream in the inmost zenana of Bengal, neither lazy nor fussy; lavishing the wealth of her affection on both sides, she prattles about common joys and sorrows and the household news of the village girls, who come for water, and sit by her side, assiduously rubbing their bodies to a glowing freshness with their moistened towels.
They waited patiently, until they saw the lights in the zenana windows extinguished. Then they crept quietly up, and placed the ladder under the window at which the signal had been shown; and found that their calculations were correct, and that it reached to a few inches below the sill. Half an hour later, the lattice above opened. They heard a murmur of voices, and then all was quiet again.
Since it was not to be supposed that this was a mere flying visit to the frontier, undertaken for a purpose, it must have all the characteristics of a royal progress, court, zenana, troops, elephants and guns, all accompanying their lord.
As I came out into the passage leading to the zenana I found my sister-in-law, standing near a window overlooking the reception rooms, peeping through the venetian shutter. "You here?" I asked in surprise. "Eavesdropping!" she replied. The Jupiter Pluvius of Hindu mythology. When I returned, Sandip Babu was tenderly apologetic. "I am afraid we have spoilt your appetite," he said.
But before he had time to listen to them, the circle of soldiers round the zenana tents opened, and a little procession came out. Between the Rani's scribe and her spiritual adviser, a large Brahmin, came Kharrak Singh, with the royal umbrella held over his head, and a guard of the Rani's own Rajput servants following him.
"O my friend, I have tried you with gold and with fear and with the lust of power, and you have stood the test. Now I am about to repose such confidence in you as hardly one man of your race has known since the world began. You will come with me into the zenana, that the mother of Kharrak Singh may know whom she is to trust.
The girl herself was so hurt by the neglect that she had scarcely strength enough to relate the strange happenings of the night. Her husband found it difficult to make his peace; he said that he believed her to be with the ladies of the family. In zenana families even the most devoted husband has little voice in his wife's movements, as all arrangements are left in the hands of the mother-in-law.
At any rate, he was talking loudly to his friends, and the words which Gerrard overheard occasionally assured him that they were devising unpleasant experiences for him. Beside him the great beast swung patiently along, and behind came the zenana litters, their golden draperies covered by way of mourning with coarse cotton cloth, so as to shut out every possible breath of air.
These are the country, forts, cars, elephants, cavalry, foot-soldiers, the principal officials of state, the zenana, food supply, computations of the army and income, the religious treatises in force, the accounts of state, the revenue, wine-shops and other secret enemies. They are, I hope, all obedient to thee.
The Zenanese, from being a savage people, had become, in a wonderfully short space of time, practically civilized; and recent travelers to Zenana had returned with the most glowing accounts of the continued progress of the good work in that country.
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