The maharaja was skilled at the art of dinner conversation, when it suited his fancy. Before long I found myself telling him about Oxford degrees and the education of women, and he asked some intelligent questions, and seemed even to think about what I had to say, unusual enough in an Englishman. Perhaps his boredom with danger and side-show curiosities was driving him to, how had Miss Kaur put it? “Administering roads projects and building schools” in order to assuage his ennui.

We were still on the topic when the final plates were cleared. Our host gestured for the glasses to be filled again, and as that was being done, he said to me, “We shall talk further about this, Miss Russell. It is time the women of my country were taught more than forming chapatis and making ghee.”

Then he rose with his glass held high and declared, “I should like to propose a toast. To Miss Mary Russell, the most beautiful Oxford bluestocking ever to take both first blood and a kill in the entire history of Khanpur.”

I blushed furiously at the unexpectedness of it, and accepted the applause from my companions. Then I stood and raised my own glass to say, “And to our host, as deft with words as he is with his spear.” I then sat down hastily.

When the meal was over, the musicians who had been playing softly in the background filed out, leaving their violins and flutes on their chairs. It appeared as if we were to follow them, the maharaja leading us to a room I had not been in before, somewhat smaller than the durbar hall he used for dining, but none the less ornate. Its floor was strewn with carpets, rich maroons and indigo colours that gleamed with silk, across which had been scattered cushions and couches, and the walls were alive with frescoes of hunts and life in palaces. The wall nearest me showed an elephant with a tiger climbing up its side, the men on the huge beast’s back fighting the cat off with spears. In the background, a pair of English soldiers in red coat were riding furiously away, one of them having lost his stirrups so that he was about to tumble off his horse. My eyes followed the paintings to the far end of the room, where the painted musicians were echoed by their living counterparts, setting up on a low stage. Now, instead of the familiar implements of chamber music, they were wielding drums and woodwinds and stringed instruments of peculiar construction and more peculiar sound. After a minute or two I decided that they were merely tuning up, not playing some spectacularly atonal piece of music.