THE WOMAN'S VOICE
so the people said in the palace, and spells and charms would come from her lips. And once they saw her walking with a sprite."
"Indeed! and in what shape did the sprite appear?"
"Why, they say the sprite came in the shape of her sister. And when the chief eunuch challenged it with his sword, on which texts from the holy Koran were inscribed, the spirit disappeared in a line of smoke, as you see when you blow out a candle."
Noren was listening gravely to the child's story. But here he was overtaken by a fit of laughter so violent that the frail bedstead on which he reclined shook under him. It was some time before he could recover and bid the boy proceed with his tale.
The minstrel boy went on. "You will not laugh, Master, when you have heard the end of the story. Jelekha entered the gate alone, and when she went to the rooms of the Persian lady—what is her name?"
"Thou speakest of Begum Mihr-un-Nissa, I suppose."
"When Jelekha was in the rooms of that Begum the sprite appeared once more by her side, and this time in the garb of an Eastern Chief."
This was no matter for laughter. If the story of a man's entrance into the palace Zenana was known and talked about there, Noren's life was not safe in Rajasthan or in Bengal. "Go on!" he cried in a low, hoarse voice.
"The Eastern Chief," went on the boy, with the same imperturbable coolness, "had a noble face, Master, and a true heart, and he held Jelekha kindly and spoke to her tenderly. But the
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