Page:The Slave Girl of Agra.djvu/278

 "Hush, hush, child. Thou art a shrewd dog in spite of thy innocent looks. But tell me how thou wert taken to her."

"She heard me one evening as I was playing to the eunuchs and the slave women of the palace, and she was pleased to send for me."

"I wonder not, child, thou likest thy trade if Queens and Begums have loved to hear thy music. Didst know many of the women slaves?"

"They are a wicked lot, Master, with secret passions and secret jealousies. I was always afraid of them."

"And didst thou know among them a Tartar slave who belonged to Queen Jodh Bai, and whom they called Jelekha."

"Her I feared most, for she was the wildest and fiercest among them. They said she was mad, and they talked of chaining her in a palace dungeon."

"No dungeon will hold Jelekha again, my boy. She is free as the winds of her native mountains. But why did they call her mad?"

"That I know not, Master. But they said she was born of a woman who was not a woman, but one of the tribe of the Ginii. She could call them at her will, and they heard shrieks and wild laughter in her room at night. Has Master ever heard any such sounds?"

"I have heard them often, child, in Agra, and I heard some strange sounds here to-night. But there are beings on earth wilder than the spirits of the air. Go on with thy story, child. What more didst thou hear of Jelekha?"

"She would commune with the spirits of the air,