"A bold leap, sahib! Did you mean to scale the fort on horseback? And why not have chosen a spot where the water was cleaner?" Before he could see the speaker, so smothered was he in dripping moss and weeds, Malcolm knew that some lady of rank had watched his adventure. She used the pure Persian of the court, and her diction was refined. Luckily, he had studied Persian as well as its Indian off-shoot, Hindustani, and he understood the words. He pressed back his dank hair, squeezed the water and slime off his face, and looked up. To his exceeding wonder, his eyes met those of a young Mohammedan woman, a woman richly garbed, and of remarkable appearance. She was unveiled, an amazing fact in itself, and her creamy skin, arched eyebrows, regular features, and raven-black hair proclaimed her aristocratic lineage. She was leaning forward in an embrasure of the battlemented wall. Behind her, two attendants, oval-faced, brown-skinned women of the people, peered shyly at the Englishman. When he glanced their way, they hurriedly adjusted their silk saris, or shawls, so as to hide their faces. Their mistress used no such bashful subterfuge. She leaned somewhat farther through the narrow embrasure, revealing by the action her bejeweled and exquisitely molded arms. "Perhaps you do not speak my language," she said in Urdu, the tongue most frequently heard in Upper India. "If you will go round to the gate--that way--" and she waved a graceful hand to the left left--"my servants will render you some assistance." By that time, Malcolm had regained his wits. A verse of a poem by Hafiz occurred to him. "Princess," he said, "the radiance of your presence is as the full moon suddenly illumining the path of a weary traveler, who finds himself on the edge of a morass." A flash of surprise and pleasure lit the fine eyes of the haughty beauty perched up there on the palace wall. "'Tis well said," she vowed, smiling with all the rare effect of full red lips and white even teeth. "Nevertheless, this is no time for compliments. You need our help, and it shall be given willingly. Make for the gate, I pray you." She turned, and gave an order to one of the attendants. With another encouraging smile to Malcolm, she disappeared. Leading the Arab, who, with the fatalism of his race, was quiet as a sheep now that he had found a master, the young officer took the direction pointed out by the lady. Rounding an angle of the wall, he came to a causeway spanned by a small bridge, which was guarded by the machicolated towers of a strong gate. A ponderous door, studded with great bosses of iron fashioned to represent elephants' heads, swung open--half reluctantly it seemed--and he was admitted to a spacious inner courtyard.