In a way it resembled the forest noise when a breeze stirs the tree-tops at night--irregular enough, and yet with a kind of pulse in it, increasing and decreasing.
"You recognize that ?" asked the Mahatma.
I shook my head.
"Veiled women, walking!" "You mean the princesses have come ?" "A few, and their attendants." "How many princesses ?" "Oh, not more than twenty.

But each will bring at the least twenty attendants, and perhaps a score of friends, each of whom in turn will have her own attendants.

And only the princesses and their friends will enter the audience hall, which, however, will be surrounded by the attendants, whose business it will be to see that no stranger, and above all no male shall see or overhear." "And if they were to catch Athelstan King up there ?" "That would be his last and least pleasant experience in this world!" That was easy enough to believe.

I had just had an experience of what those palace women could do.
"She, who learned our secrets, will take care that none shall play that trick on _her_," the Mahatma went on confidently.

"These women will use the audience hall she lent to us.