ty of his youth and person. This one,
tradition tells, conceived a burning passion for the favourite wife of
his master, having seen her face by chance, unveiled, at the bars that
protected her window;--a girl of extreme loveliness, and as slender as a
wand, whom custom prevented from disclosing her features to the eyes of
men who were not her near relatives. She had therefore been closely
guarded within the harem walls in company with other women of her lord's
establishment, and left to find entertainment for herself in the
priceless jewels that adorned her person.

"Every day the Rajput, by name Ramjitsu Singh, would pass and repass
below the high wall that enclosed the women's quarters, hoping again to
see, by favour of the gods, this beauteous vision whose wondrous charms
were the talk of the bazaars; their fame having been spread by her
female attendants. Small was she, they said, with eyes like a gazelle's,
and lips of the redness of ripe berries. Her hands and her feet were the
hands and feet of a babe, so slender were they, and soft; and the hair
of her head could have robed her.

"One day, the Rajput's patience was rewarded by a sight of the beautiful
face which made his senses swim as in a sea of delight. She stood again,
unveiled, at the bars of her window, and gazed down at him with great
sadness and yearning. Like a bird in its cage she looked upon the free
world with longing, and sighed. The foolish one!--The faithless one!"

"How can you call her foolish and faithless?" Joyce interrupted
indignantly.

"That is how the Indian story-teller speaks of her."

"It was only natural. Think of her youth and the conditions to which she
was obliged to conform!"

"Well, see what happened. Are you interested?"

"I am thrilled. Go on!"

"Thereafter, the Rajput neither ate nor slept till he had devised a plan
for carrying her away; for what are laws to lovers? or bolts and bars?
Neither caste nor creed can hold a man back whose soul is on fire for a
woman." He paused to allow his words to take effect.

"How very romantic!" laughed Joyce, unmoved. "It is like a poem, as
unreal as it is picturesque!"

"Don't you believe a man's soul can be aflame with love and desire for a
woman?" he asked, picking up a stone idly and flinging it after a
disturbing crow.

"Books tell one so, but how am I to know?"

"It must have been proved to you times without number!--but I said you
were asleep!" he remarked with his insc