a beauty like your companion, without a guard, that I am still here."
"Sir," replied the woman, "your kindness towards us has been very great—indeed so great that it alone prevents me from speaking out my mind fully to you lest you think us ungrateful. But, sir, what shall I tell you of woman's cursed luck? We are naturally looked on with suspicion. It would indeed be a very happy thing if you accompanied us, but pray consider when my master, who is the father of this girl, will ask her, 'Under whose safeguard have you come at this dead hour?' what shall she answer?"[1]
The young man mused a little and then replied, "Why, even thus, 'Under the safeguard of Jagat Singha, son of Maharaja Kinorh Man Singha?'"
Had the thunder burst there at that moment, the females could not have been struck with greater surprise. Immediately both stood up. The damsel slinked away behind the image; the clever-tongued dame wound the flowing border of her cloth round her neck and with clasped hands said, "Pardon, noble Prince. We have unwittingly been guilty of a thousand transgressions."
"Such grave transgressions are past all pardon," replied the Prince laughing, "but I'll forgive if you let me be acquainted with you; otherwise yon cannot escape condign punishment."
Soft words invariably breathe courage into a clever woman. "Name it, sir,—issue your fiat, we agree."
"Nothing but this," replied Jagat Singha, "that I will conduct you home."
- ↑ The English reader is requested to remember that a Hindu lady can not, for the life of her, dare be found in the company of a male stranger—so tremendous is the power weilded by society over the weaker sex.
