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