"Spiritually, that is what held me up for 36 days."
The 55-year-old former Women's and Culture Minister said the first two weeks were the most terrifying, with frequent sexual remarks from coup supporters camped in the Parliament grounds when she walked to the bathroom in another building.
"When we had taken a shower we would be walking up the stairway back to Parliament and men would deliberately run under the stairs and stand there looking up at us."
Mrs Padarath was so frightened that she would drink fluids only in the morning to avoid having to go to the toilet at night.
It was the same going outside to exercise - even at 5.30 in the morning.
"We were just like monkeys in the zoo. They would just gather around as if we were showpieces.
"But the soldiers did tell us that one thing Speight had told them was we must never be hurt by anybody."
Mrs Padarath said the women feared for their safety at night and took over the public gallery to one side of the parliamentary chamber.
At first they slept on padded public benches with personal bed linen that was delivered, along with Bibles, the day after the coup.
In the second week, the Red Cross provided mattresses for the hostages.
Every night, however, the women were protected by one of the male hostage MPs, Methodist church minister the Rev Eloni Goneyali. He pulled up one of the long public benches in the passageway to the public gallery and slept there.
And during the early stages of the hostage drama, when the women felt terrorised by the sound of boots patrolling Parliament after lights went out at 7 pm, the male MPs took it in turns to stay awake outside the women's quarters.
Mrs Padarath said that when Speight and his squad of nationalist gunmen stormed Parliament on May 19, "I thought somebody was playing cowboy with a play gun."
The hostages were tied up with plastic belts, starting with Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry, who was made to kneel on the floor.
Mrs Padarath said the Fijian and Indian hostages were separated, the Fijians held in the debating chamber and the Indians taken to Government offices next door.
During the first week of negotiations, the hostages were allowed newspapers, but "at some time we were cut off from the outside world."
"They screened our personal letters from family members and blotted out anything that looked political."
Mrs Padarath's husband, a former journalist, also sent her political books and novels to fill in the long days.
She said the hostages looked forward to meals, at first twice a day, then three times when the tension eased.
"For breakfast they gave us a piece of cake or a piece of pikelet and for lunch a quarter of apple and orange and one-third of a banana."
Dinner was the main meal, usually chicken, fish or lamb shanks and, if the hostages were lucky, vegetables.
"We had to fall back on our own supplies sent by family members, like baked beans or spaghetti on hard biscuits."
Mrs Padarath said the hostages thought on Friday that they might be released but it was not until the lights went out on Saturday night that Speight told them they were about to be reunited with their families.
Adishwar Padarath thought he was dreaming when he heard his wife calling from the bottom of the driveway early in the morning. "It was a feeling of exhilaration and relief."
The other women freed about 12.30 am were Tourism Minister Adi Koila Nailatikau - daughter of former President Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara - Associate Health Minister Marieta Rigamto and backbench MP Akanisi Koroitmana.
* Fiji's political crisis worsened last night with the complete breakdown of peace talks.
Lieutenant-Colonel Filipo Tarakinikini said the military had given George Speight all the concessions it would.
"We are willing to sign the accord as we agreed ... but beyond that we just see an endless list of demands."
The Army hinted yesterday that the freeing of the women removed one of Speight's trump cards and an impediment to an assault to free the remaining 27 hostages.
George Speight talks to IRN's Barry Soper
(10 min).
