Her father looked at her for about a minute, sadness and pride in her fighting in him for the mastery.  Then he rose and crossed the little space between them.

“Lassie!” he said.  “Lassie!”

She took his hand—­the one little touch of human sentiment lacking to disturb his emotional balance.  The Scots will talk readily enough of sorrow, but at showing it they are a grudging race of men.  Unless a Scotsman thinks he can gain something for his cause by showing what emotion racks him, he will swallow down the choking flood of grief, and keep a straight face to the world and his own as well.  Duncan McClean turned from her—­drew his hand away—­and walked to open the slit shutters.  A moment later he came back, once more master of himself.

“As things are, dear,” he said gently, “how would it be possible for us to get away?”

“’We canna gang awa’!” she quoted, with a smile.

“No, lassie.  We must stay here and be brave.  This matter is not in our hands.  We must wait, and watch, and see.  If opportunity should come to us to make our escape, we will seize it.  Should it not come—­ should Jaimihr, or some other of them, make occasion to molest us—­it may be—­it might be that—­surely the day of martyrs is not past—­ it might be that—­well, well, in either case we will eventually win.  Should they kill us, the government must send here to avenge us; should we get away, surely our report will be listened to.  A month or two—­perhaps only a week or two—­even a day or two, who knows?—­ and the last suttee will have been performed!”

He stood and stroked her head—­then stooped and kissed it—­an unusual betrayal of emotion from him.

“Ye’re a brave lassie,” he said, leaving the room hurriedly, to escape the shame of letting her see tears welling from his eyes—­salt tears that scalded as they broke their hot-wind-wearied bounds.

Five minutes later she arose, dry-eyed, and went to stand in the doorway, where an eddy or two of lukewarm evening breeze might possibly be stirring.  But a dirtily clad Hindoo, lounging on a raised, railless store veranda opposite, leered at her impudently, and she came inside again—­to pass the evening and the sultry, black, breathless night out of sight, at least, of the brutes who shut her off from even exercise.

CHAPTER XIV

So, I am a dog?  Hence I must come
To do thy bidding faster? 
Must tell thee—­Nay, a dog stays dumb! 
A dog obeys one master!

Not many yards from where the restless elephants stood lined under big brick arches—­in an age-old courtyard, three sides of which were stone-carved splendor and the fourth a typically Eastern mess of stables, servants’ quarters, litter, stink, and noisy confusion—­a stone door, slab-hewn, gave back the aching glitter of the sun.  Its only opening—­a narrow slit quite near the top—­was barred.  A man —­his face close-pressed against them—­peered through the interwoven iron rods from within.