The girl’s description of Ajeet was trite.  The Chief’s face was almost perfect; the golden-bronze tint of the skin set forth in the enveloping background of a turban of blue shot with gold-thread draped down to cover a silky black beard that, parted at the chin, swept upward to loop over the ears.  The nose was straight and thin; there was a predatory cast to it, perhaps suggested by the bold, black, almost fierce eyes.  He was clothed with the full, rich, swaggering adornment of a Rajput; the splendid deep torso enclosed in a shirt-of-mail, its steel mesh so fine that it rippled like silver cloth; a red velvet vestment, negligently open, showed in the folds of a silk sash a jewel-hilted knife; a tulwar hung from his left shoulder.  As he moved here and there, there was a sinuous grace, panther-like, as if he strode on soft pads.  At rest his tall figure had the set-up of a soldier.

As the three in the brake studied the handsome Ajeet, a girl stepped forward and stood contemplating them.

“By Jove!” the exclamation had been Captain Barlow’s; and Elizabeth, with the devilish premonition of an acute woman knew that it was a masculine’s involuntary tribute to feminine attractivity.

She had turned to look at the Captain.

Nana Sahib, little less vibrant than a woman in his sensitive organisation, showed his even, white teeth:  “Don’t blame you, old chap,” he said; “she’s all that.  I fancy that’s the girl they call Gulab Begum.  Am I right, Sirdar?”

“Yes, Prince,” Jean Baptiste answered.  “The girl is a relative of the handsome Ajeet.”

“She’s simply stunning!” Captain Barlow said, as it were, meditatively.

But Nana Sahib, knowing perfectly well what this observation would do to the austere, exact, dominating daughter of a precise man, the Resident, muttered to himself:  “Colossal ass! an impressionable cuss should have a purdah hung over his soul—­or be gagged.”

“One of their nautch girls, I suppose;” Elizabeth thus eased some of the irritation over Barlow’s admiration in a well-bred sneer.

“Yes,” Baptiste declared; “it is said she dances wonderfully.”

“You name her the Gulab Begum, General,—­that is a Moslem title and, from the turbans and caste-marks on the men, they seem to be Hindus; I suppose Gulab Begum is her stage name, is it?”

Elizabeth was exhibiting unusual interest in a native—­that is for Elizabeth, and Nana Sahib chuckled softly as he answered:  “Names mean little in India; I know high-caste Brahmins who have given their children low-caste names to make them less an object of temptation to the gods of destruction.  Also, the Gulab may have been stolen from the harem of some Nawab by this bandit.”

The Gulab suggested more a Rajput princess than a dancing girl.  No ring pierced the thin nostrils of her Grecian nose; neither from her ears hung circles of gold or brass, or silver; and the slim ankles that peeped from a rich skirt were guiltless of anklets.  On the wrist of one arm was a curious gold bangle that must have held a large ruby, for at times the sun flicked from the moving wrist splashes of red wine.  Indeed the whole atmosphere of the girl was simplicity and beauty.