excitement as best she could, she asked, as she knelt to him, "What does all this mean, my lord?"
"Foul and degraded being," he answered, "it means that you have dishonoured my name and house, and I am going to kill you."
The Princess rose to her feet proudly, and, believing that her lover was not known, and had effected his retreat, she cared nothing for herself.
"If you think I have dishonoured you," she said courageously, "kill me, but not here. Make not our trouble public. Let me go in, and I will kill myself quietly, and you can say I have died of some sudden illness."
"She fell quivering to the ground."
To this her husband's only reply was a terrific blow with a staff he carried. And he beat her until she fell quivering to the ground. But in a few moments she sprang up by a desperate effort, and exclaimed with fiery energy:
"My lord, I am not a bullock, that you should beat me thus. I am of royal blood, and demand such treatment as is due to a Princess."
Again her husband's only reply was a savage blow that once more felled her to the ground. Then, ordering some of the servants to convey her to her chamber, he told others to follow him. And he made his way to the courtyard, and to the quarters occupied by the guard of the Palace. His object was to see Saadut's father, and compel him to produce his son; for Naudba's spies, who had conveyed the information that the Princess had escaped from her room, also stated that Saadut was the lover. But what was Chundra's surprise, when he reached the guardhouse, to find the youth calmly seated, surrounded by companions, to whom he was singing. For the moment the Prince's suspicions were allayed, so far as the lad was concerned. He thought that he must have been misinformed; and, without speaking, he strode back to the Palace, still maddened with jealous rage.
In the meantime Princess Rajkooverbai had been taken to her apartments. She was battered and bruised by the severe beating her husband had given her. But she showed no signs of fear; she uttered no moan. And now the savage Chundra burst into the room.
"What is the name of thy lover, false one?" he cried menacingly.
She drew herself up with all the pride of her race, and made answer:
"Think you, my lord, that even if I had a lover I should betray him?"
"Do not seek to deceive me," roared Chundra, "or I'll hack you to pieces."
"Kill me," she answered calmly, "as it so pleases you. But forget not that I am your wife, and of birth as noble as your own. And if you kill me there are those who will avenge my death."
This answer seemed to enrage him more, and he ordered the cowering servants to seize her, and make the cord by which she had lowered herself from the window fast to her ankles. This being done, she was drawn up by means of the hook in the ceiling, and, while she hung in this terrible position, head downwards, her brutal husband belaboured her with a staff until it broke. Then he called for a tulwar, and beat her with the flat part until her dainty
