Page:The Autobiography of an Indian Princess.djvu/28

14 lord, my husband, my Maharajah, not even for an hour. If I am not allowed to go to the battlefield with you, I, your Maharani, will leave the palace and go wherever you like to send me. If it is your fate to return victorious, I shall return as your Maharani to the palace."

The husband, although a commander and a ruler, spoke to her very gently in a voice full of love and sympathy: "My beautiful little wife, where will you go ? How can I leave you in discomfort? You are my Maharani and do not know the hardships of the world."

"Oh," she said, "my lord, do you think that I would be happy without you in this place of luxury and wealth? No, my lord, let me go. You and I will leave the palace together. You are going to fight for your country, my brave and handsome young husband, and I, your little wife, will be thinking of you and your love wherever I may be."

The story goes that the Maharajah granted his wife's request, and had this little house built in one night on a single piece of rock among the hills. There she anxiously awaited news of him. Alas! the enemy was victorious and the Maharajah killed. Never would he return and take her from that place of waiting, back to the palace where they had lived and loved.

Then came the supreme act of devotion, the willing sacrifice. The widowed Maharani offered herself to the flames upon a funeral pyre near the