Samson rode on.

“A narrow squeak that!” said Dick to himself, stowing away the map that he had held the whole time in his right hand in full view of the commissioner.

Chapter Nineteen

The East to Columbia

Sister Columbia, wonderful sister,
Weariless wings on aerial way! 
Tell us the lore of thy loftiness, sister,
We of the dark are astir for the day! 
Give us the gift of thy marvelous wings,
Spell us the charm that Columbia sings!

Oversea sister, affluent sister,
Queen inexclusive, though out of our reach! 
How is thy genius ever unruffled? 
What is the talisman altitudes teach? 
Measureless meed of ability thine,
What is the goal of thy heart’s design?

How shall we learn of it?  How shall we follow? 
Heavy the burden of earth where we lie! 
Only a glimpse of thy miracle stirs us,
Stay in our wallow and teach us to fly! 
How shall we spring to Columbia’s call? 
Oh, that thy wings could unweary us all!

“I am as simple as the sunlight!”

Tess was in something very near to paradise, if paradise is constant assuaging of the curiosity amid surroundings that conduce to idleness.  There were men on that country-side in plenty who would not have dared admit a Western woman into their homes; but even those could hardly prevent wives and daughters from visiting Yasmini in the perfectly correct establishment she kept.  And there were other men, more fearless of convention, who were willing that Tess, if veiled, should cross their private thresholds.

So there followed a round of visits and return calls, of other marvelous rides by elephant at night, because the daytime was too hot for comfort, and oftener, long drives in latticed carriages, with footmen up behind and an escort to ride before and swear at the lethargic bullock-men—­carriages that bumped along the country roads on strange, old-fashioned springs.

Yasmini was welcome everywhere, and, in the cautious, tenfold guarded Eastern way, kept open house.  The women reveled in her free ideas and in the wit with which she heaped scorn on the priest-made fashions that have kept all India in chains for centuries, mocking the priests, as some thought, at the risk of blasphemy.

Almost as much as in Yasmini’s daring they took ingenuous delight in Tess, persuading Yasmini to interpret questions and reply or, very rarely, bringing with them some duenna who had a smattering of English.

All imprisoned folk, and especially women in the shuttered zenanas of the East, develop a news-sense of their own that passes the comprehension of free-ranging mortals.  They were astonishingly well informed about the outer world—­even the far-flung outer world, yet asked the most childish questions; and only a few of them could have written their own names,—­they who were titled ladies of a land of ancient chivalry.