Page:Indian tales of the great ones.djvu/59

Rh But one old man, who wrote the longest tale of her gifts and virtues, tells us the reason of her failure to rule India: "She was a great monarch; but she was a woman, and she ruled as a man."

The Moslem people of those days could not forgive her that. They could not forgive her that, being a woman, she came before them with face unveiled; that, being a woman, she did successfully the work of a man, and asked no woman's reward. And so, though they took her love and protection for so long that they forgot the cruelty of her brother who had reigned before, they turned against her in the end and dethroned her, and put her in prison.

From prison later, she escaped, and led an army to regain her kingdom. And perhaps she might some day