As soon as it was cool enough to drive out in the State carriages and
motor-cars that waited in the outer courtyard, the afternoon was devoted to
sight-seeing. Chunerbutty, in the leading car with Noreen and the District
Superintendent of Police, acted as guide and showed them about the city.
Dermot noted the lowering looks of many of the natives in the narrow
streets, and overhead more than one muttered insult to the English race
from men huddling against the houses to escape the carriages.
The visitors were invited by Chunerbutty to enter an ornate temple of
Kali, in which a number of Hindu women squatted on the ground before a
gigantic idol representing the goddess in whose honour the Puja festival
is held. The image was that of a fierce-looking woman with ten arms,
each hand holding a weapon, her right leg resting on a lion, her left on
a buffalo-demon.
"I say, Chunerbutty, who's the lady?" asked Granger. "I can't say I like
her looks."
"No, she certainly isn't a beauty," said the Brahmin with a contemptuous
laugh. "Yet these superstitious fools believe in her, ignorant people that
they are."
He indicated the female worshippers, who had been staring with malevolent
curiosity at the English ladies, the first that most of them had ever seen.
So these were the _mem-logue_, they whispered to each other, these
shameless white women who went about openly with men and met all the world
brazenly with unveiled countenances.
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