Meer Ahmed Ali found his pillow comfortable, and only woke in the dawn to see Mytâb standing beside him.
"Feroza!" she cried. "Where is Feroza?"
A dull remorse came to his drowsy brain. "It was so late--I--"
"Holy Prophet, she is not here! Thou hast not seen her! Then she hath gone to the Missen to be baptised. Why didst turn her brain with books? Fool! Idiot!"
"The Mission!" Meer Ahmed Ali was awake now, and the peaceful party, gathered in the verandah for early tea, stared as the young man burst in on it with imperious demands for his wife. Then his surroundings recalled his acquired courtesy, and he stammered an apologetic explanation.
"She has gone away?" cried Julia, with a queer catch in her breath. "Oh, Meer sahib! what a mistake we have all made. It was too late to write, and then I got ill; but, indeed! I was going down this very morning to try and make you understand."
"Understand what?" asked the Meer, helplessly confused, adding hurriedly, "but I can't stay now. She must be found. I will not have her run away. I will have her back--yes! I will have her back."
Half-an-hour later Julia Smith, driven to the Moulvie's house by remorseful anxiety, found the wicket-gate ajar. She entered silently upon a scene framed like a picture by the dark doorway of the men's court.
Feroza had come back to those familiar walls. She lay beside the well, and the water from her clinging garments crept in dark stains through the dust. She had wrapped her veil round her to stifle useless cries, and so the dead face, as in life, was decently hidden from the eyes of men. She lay alone under the cloudless sky, for her friends, shrinking from the defilement of death, stood apart: Kareema sobbing on Mytâb's breast, with Ahmed Ali, dazed yet indignant, holding her hand; the Moulvie, repeating a prayer; the servants still breathless from their ghastly toil. Julia Smith saw it all with her bodily eyes; yet nothing seemed worth seeing save that veiled figure in the dust. She knelt beside it and took the slender cold hand in hers. "My dear, my dear!" she whispered through her sobs. "Surely you need not have gone so far, so very far--for help."
But the dead face was hidden even from her tears.
IN THE HOUSE OF A COPPERSMITH.
I.
The clangour of metal upon metal filling the low, dark workshop, pulsating out into the hot sunshine of the courtyards behind, and the hot shadow of the narrow street in front. Pulsating musically, yet with an undercurrent of jarring vibration like a north-country burr on a woman's tongue. The whole best described, perchance, in the native name for the copper which the workmen were hammering and welding into pots and pans--tambur.
Tâm bur, tâm-burr-urr-ur.
Thus endlessly through afternoon sunshine and afternoon shade, as the shine fell full on a woman who was sitting silently beside a row of mud cooking-places in the first courtyard. So still, so silent; it seemed as if the waves of sound must break baffled upon the carven folds of the coarse, whitey brown veil which, covering her almost from head to foot, was drawn tight over the forehead to conceal the hair, and wound tight under the chin so as to hide all save the oval face barred by level black brows, and the brown curves of a wide mouth. Only about her feet a voluminous petticoat showed its dingy red and green borderings like a frill. The typical dress of a widow in Northern India, and the face matched it. More indifferent than sad; the lack of vitality, inseparable from the conviction that the life is not worth living, written on every feature, blurring its beauty. For Durga-dei had been beautiful a year ago when sunsetting had sent the master coppersmith to tell her so, and praise the order of a well-kept house. Now the shadow creeping inch by inch along the sunlit dust, and up the sunlit mud wall, brought her no emotion save the mechanical hope that the lentils would be properly cooked by supper time, and the vague wonder why her sister-in-law's shrill voice had not recommenced the conjugation of the imperative mood from the inner court. Parbutti had been sleeping longer than usual; she who but a year agone would no more have dared to sleep! And as for command? Was not a dewarani--the husband's younger brother's wife--bound by every principle of religion and decency to obey? Durga-dei's black brows grew straighter at the thought of the change one short year had wrought. And Gopâl, Parbutti's husband, was the master now. A pretty master for all his good looks, for all his learning! yet what else could one expect, seeing he had spent his youth over books at the Municipal School, while his elder brother, despite his crippled condition, had kept the ancestral business a-going? Yes! on that point the dead husband had been weak; and yet how proud he had been of the handsome lad who was to bring sons to the ancestral hearth! But he had not even done so much, though to be sure, for that Parbutti was to blame; a jealous wife, too selfish--
"Durga! Durga-dei! The broom, quick! Am I to sit in the dust like a lone widow because thou art lazy? The broom, I say!"
The voice which overbore one clamour by another was not pleasant; but it was so in comparison with Durga's face as she rose reluctantly. A thousand times more so than that same face when, after a few minutes of listening to the high-pitched voice, the shrouded figure showed again through the doorway leading to the inner court. Not an ungraceful figure, despite its shroud, as it leant despondently against the lintel, while the black eyes shifted in a sort of helpless indifference over the blank walls imprisoning them.
A year ago; only a year ago!
Her unpractised brain attempted no other complaint; but this unformulated sense of injury possessed her utterly, and everything in heaven and earth became an outrage on that capable past when she had held the reins of government. Of a truth, in that small kingdom of hers behind the coppersmith's shop naught had been wanting that she could compass. Naught save children; for that Parbutti, feckless Parbutti, with youth and health and strength on both sides, was far more responsible than she. If the curse had been hers, would she not gladly have given a handmaiden to her lord? But they had waited for the brother's child which would be as their own, and in that hope had refused to adopt a son while yet there was time. Even now--the small supple hands sought the crevices beyond the door lintel against which they had been resting slackly--sought them as if intent on finding some flaw, some finger-hold in the blank brick wall--yes! even now, but for Parbutti's indecent jealousy, the old customs might bring a tardy comfort, and give her, the widow, back something of her lost power and position. The Mosaic maxim, "Let him take the woman and raise up children to his brother," was so familiar to Durga-dei that its fulfilment in this case seemed to her quite commonplace. Married to Gopâl by kurao, she would not, of course, regain her status as the wife, but she might find solace as the house mother, if there were children. The passion of hearth and home was strong in her, as it is in most good Hindu women; and it is not too much to say that the disregard of time-honoured custom towards herself counted for far less in her resentment than the disregard of a time-honoured custom which was clearly for the good of the family; since she would then have the right to keep handsome, lazy Gopâl and his work together for the sake of the son who might be born to the old trade. She was of the stern old school; but those two were not; and so, between the hearth and that calm perpetuity in which lay its only chance of success, stood a strong woman's jealousy and a weak man's cunning. For Gopâl knew well that sooner or later even the most indecent of barren wives must give her lord a child-bringer. And in such case, without being bad to the heart's core, a handsome fellow like Gopâl might well speculate on a youthful bride in the future, rather than take a widow in the present, since Parbutti would never allow both. So, on the whole, he was not so much to blame. Men were men when all was said and done. They loved beauty. Yet she had been beautiful--surely she had been beautiful.
The clangour ceased suddenly, leaving, as it were, an echo in the chime of the police office gong at the nearest gate striking the hour--five o'clock. Durga, as she counted the strokes, smiled contemptuously. As usual Gopâl was seizing on the first excuse for knocking off work, though a good two hours of daylight remained for the industrious--for the old style masters, such as her dead husband had been. But this one did not even trouble to see the shop properly closed, the implements put aside, or guard against the prentice trick of concealing a handful or two of snippings and filings; for there was his lithe figure at the door, about to cross to the inner courtyard--to ease and indolence--to his supper--to--to Parbutti!
A flash of intense vitality came to Durga's face: despite its silence, its absolute stillness, her whole figure was instinct with life as she stood looking at the man opposite her. He was about her own age, and the scanty clothing of the artisan clashes left the strength and beauty of his limbs unconcealed. The face was handsome also, and pleasant in its beardless contours, surrounded by the fringe of silky black hair showing beneath the artisan's round calico cap. Both figure and features displaying at their best the characteristics of that curious guild which for thousands of years has defied the Sudra origin imputed to it by the Brahmans, and worn the sacred thread of the twice-born in the smithy, the mason's yard, and the carpenter's shop. It curved now like a piece of whipcord across the bronze body to which the afternoon sunshine sent gleams of gold as it shone on the sweat-dewed muscles. A fine young fellow certainly, with the thin, deft hands and feet which are the outcome of generations on generations of manual dexterity displayed in one and only one direction. So far, a type of past ages when Nasmyth hammers and Archimedean drills were unknown. Yet they were not unknown to Gopâl the coppersmith. He had not been idle at the Municipal School, where the primers discourse glibly of all the wonders of the world, all the marvels born from that curious potentiality--the human brain. So the forty and odd ounces of grey matter in Gopâl's own skull were leavened with ideas foreign to those which had been transmitted to him through ages of slow heredity. A curious anomaly; one which has to be taken into account by the master builders of the Great Imperial Institute when they count the cost of progress. And yet as he paused, arrested by the glow on Durga's face, his thoughts defied his education. For it came home to him suddenly, causelessly, that this woman, the widow of his dead brother, was beautiful, and that he had a right to her--if he chose. Yes! she was beautiful--far more beautiful, despite her widowhood, than the jealous wife awaiting him within; and she was his by right--if he chose. Why should he not choose? These thoughts were crowding culture from his brain, as he crossed the courtyard without a word; for convention so far held him fast. Only as she stepped aside from the door to let him pass, their eyes met.
When he had gone, and the sound of Parbutti's shrill welcoming rose over the high partition wall, Durga crouched down beside the fireplace, and blew softly at the smouldering embers under the pot of lentils. It was woman's work to fan a flame if--if it were not fierce enough to do its duty to the hearth. Easy work also: a woman could do it with no more exertion than would make the bosom rise and fall a trifle quicker, or send a tremble through the arm supporting the bowed shoulder. No more than that. And even that Parbutti did not notice, as she bustled out, full of wifely service and housewifely blame, to set the finishing touches to the meal and carry it off to the hungry master, leaving a shapeless bundle of widowhood waiting indifferently for such dog's share of food as might be left when other appetites were satisfied. Then a great silence seemed to take possession of and fill the outer court, just as the clangour had filled it, and still Durga sat waiting, her eyes upon the fire. The sunlight left the wall to dull shadow, the flames died down, but no one called; perhaps they had eaten everything, and she must stave off her whole day's hunger with a handful of parched grain. Well! 'twould count as a virtue, not for herself, but for the dead husband who had gone down to death sonless; not by her fault, though--not by her fault! The old vague sense of injury returned, lulling her to a sort of resignation.
"Durga! Durga-dei!"
She started from a half doze to see Parbutti pausing on her way to the outer door, in order to exclaim at laziness--exclaiming all the louder because Gopâl, also on his way to the world beyond those four walls, stood by listening both to the scolding and the silence. Suddenly he moved impatiently to the door.
"Come, wife! There is no time for such things nowadays. Stay wrangling if thou wilt. I hate it all. Holy Lukshmi! it hath been so since the world began, and I am tired of it!"
He scarcely knew his own meaning; only this was clear--the old customs, the old conventional ways were an annoyance. Yet, as he walked moodily down the narrow street towards the police station, his mind circled round one thought--he had a right by immemorial usage to claim Durga if he chose. A queer medley altogether was Gopâl, the coppersmith, seated in the growing darkness on a certain flight of steps leading at one and the same time to a small Hindu temple and the back door of a native printing-office. Just over the way a yellow-trousered constable was pacing up and down in front of the police and octroi station, between a patent Birmingham-made weighing machine, warranted all the latest improvements, and a primitive water-clock; thus as it were keeping watch over the due measurement of the two great staples of civilisation--Time and Money, and looking with equal impartiality at the rising beam registering its burden accurately, and the copper bowl--made no doubt by a forebear of Gopâl's--sinking lower and lower as the water filtered through the hole in its bottom, until it marked the whereabouts of an hour by having to be fished up and set afloat once more on the Sea of Time--like the soul of a man according to the theory of metempsychosis. This flight of steps was a favourite resort of the idle, for, lying as it did just within the city gate, it was a coign of vantage whence things new and old might be seen clearly side by side. Gopâl liked it, because he himself was compounded of ancient characters and modern ideas. He sat gossiping over an ill-printed newspaper, watching the worshippers go up to do pooja in the temple, commenting on the last police news, and the chance of so and so being run in for a breach of the bye-laws; while through the high arched gateway, showing in shadow against the darkening sky, the herds of cattle came trooping dustily, undriven save by custom and the homing instinct. A packed throng, streaming through the gate in unison, then separating into flocks, and so, by endless unswerving subdivision through highways and byeways, into units, arriving each at last in the familiar stall. One of them, a big, pearl-grey, soft-eyed creature, walked in composedly to the courtyard where Durga-dei still crouched by the ashes of the fire, and, sidling into her accustomed corner, lowed for her supper. The woman rose and brought it mechanically. The cow at any rate must not fast. As she mixed the portion of parched grain with the fodder it smelt appetising, but she did not taste it. The hunger that was on her was not to be stayed by food. She did not envy Parbutti away at the wedding festivities at a neighbour's house--those festivities whence the ill-omened widow's face was barred; she did not envy Gopâl sitting on the steps watching the current of life slip into the old and the new channels, but in a vague way she envied Motiya, the milk-giver, her honoured place by the hearthstone. She envied her the calf which the milker on his rounds loosed from its tether in the dark shed, and an answering quiver seemed to run through her limbs as she saw the mother yield to the first rough touch of the sucking tongue. When that was over, she crouched down again to brood over the empty house. Parbutti would not be back till all hours, and Gopâl--what of Gopâl?
The night settled down. There was no moon, only a spangled star or two showing in the narrow slip of sky above her. The noise of the city without seemed lost in the stillness of the courtyard, where, through the darkness, you could hear the sound of Motiya chewing the cud of content.
That in one corner; in the other something different, and yet--
"Durga! Durga-dei!"
It was Gopâl's voice through the darkness.
II.
The dark nights had yielded to light ones, and drawn back into darkness again more than once, before the second act of the drama began. Such a still night! The moon over-riding the high walls shone straight down upon a man and a woman standing beside the row of fireplaces where the dead ashes of the past day's flame showed white. Through the stillness and the moonshine a man's voice petulant, almost peevish.
"Lo! I told thee from the beginning it must be so. There is time yet. Have patience awhile, Durga; when there is no escape Parbutti will yield--that is woman's way. Thou knowest that I love thee; were it not so why should I have sought thee?" Durga's clasped hands fell from their hold upon his arm listlessly.
"Yea! thou didst love me; that is true. And I? Knowest thou, Gopâl, why my heart sinks now as it never did when first I yielded to thy plan for peace? Then it seemed naught to keep it secret awhile--no harm--no blame; but now--Gopâl! knowest thou it comes upon me even as if I were a shameless one--since--since I have learnt to care--"
Her voice died away to a whisper, her dark eyes sought his with a passionate gloom in them before which his shifted uneasily.
"A wife should love her husband, surely? so say the Scriptures--and thou lovest old sayings, O Durga! Yea! and she should obey him also. So let the question be awhile. When due time comes Parbutti shall be told that the old custom hath prevailed, and that the child is of the hearth. She is quick-witted, and will see that after all 'tis better for her than a stranger wife."
A certain aggressiveness of accent provoked a sharp, half-questioning protest.
"And for thee also, Gopâl; surely 'tis best for thee--if as thou sayest I am dear unto thee?"
"For me also, if thou desirest it so, though we men ask first that our women live in peace. But see, the moon climbs high; Parbutti will be returning, and she must not suspect yet awhile. Look not so troubled, Durga! Sure I love thee, else wherefore should I have sought thee?"
The repetition of this argument seemed as much for his own conviction as for hers, and there was something of the same motive in the half-hearted kiss he stooped to bestow upon her. To his surprise she shrank from it, and the unexpected rebuff bringing sudden stimulus to his passion, he slid his arm under the widow's shroud and drew her towards him with a patronising laugh. "Lo! thou art a fool, Durga! Afraid because thou hast found a weak spot in thy heart for lazy Gopâl, when thou shouldest be thanking thy namesake,[23] Mai Bhavani, for sending pleasure in the path of duty. Afraid lest folk should blame thee, when, woman-like, thou shouldest be praying the gods Parbutti might return even now to see thee preferred before her."
The words were spoken lightly, and the speaker's eyes smiled into the earnest ones raised to his. So neither saw a muffled form at the entrance behind them--a form which showed itself for a second, then shrank back behind the strip of wall, built like a screen, across the outer door.
"If she came, Gopâl, wouldst thou tell her the truth?"
The night was so still that every word of the passionate whisper was audible to that unseen listener.
"Sure would I, sweetheart, if only to prevent her claws from scratching. For look you, once 'tis known that you and I have settled it, she can do naught--save quarrel. That is why I say wait till the last. There will be no time then for words--or wiles. Now, Durga, I must go--I would not she had the knowledge secretly--that were an evil chance."
The night was so still that a keen listener might have heard a light footfall behind the screen, as if some one were stealing away from it. But those two only heard their own soft breathing as their lips met.
"Durga! Durga! asleep as usual, and I bade thee keep the fire aglow lest I should need aught."
The familiar fault-finding rang through the courtyard, and not even a tremble in Parbutti's voice betrayed knowledge of that unseen listener, who, five minutes before, had hid behind the screen. Gopâl was right; her wits were quick to seize on what was to her own advantage. Anger and reproach were desirable, doubtless, but what if they left her helpless? Besides, there was time to spare for such things when she had accepted the inevitable. So through the still summer night she lay awake piecing together a plan of revenge against the woman who, on the other side of the mud wall, lay awake piecing together her plan for peace. Revenge! That was the first consideration; if it could be combined with comparative comfort. Peace! Yes! peace; if it could be had without that gnawing sense of shame which had come so unexpectedly to complicate the situation. So much for the women's thoughts; as for the man's, as he sat in the dawning light eating his morning meal, they might have been inferred from a certain irritation towards both the women who, in one way or another, were engaged in ministering to his comfort. For polygamy is not altogether tragic; it is often comic--at times almost farcical.
The clangour of metal upon metal rose with the sun, and all through the long hot day the beat and the burr filled the courtyards where those two women went about their daily tasks. When evening came it brought Gopâl an unusual display of platters at supper time--an unusual sweetness both in the viands and in Parbutti's voice.
"Lo! 'tis like a wedding feast, wife," he said, well pleased.
She gave an odd little hysterical laugh. "Perhaps 'tis time there was a wedding, O Gopâl!" Then she grew grave. "Thy people say so, and mine also. Even last night Mai Râdha spoke to me of her daughter. And perhaps 'twere better so. Thou wouldst not cease to love me, O Gopâl! because I brought thee fair sons; ay! and a fair wife too."
Her face was turned away; she spoke softly, regretfully, dutifully, as a good Hindu wife should under the circumstances, and her husband could hardly believe his ears. Parbutti--jealous Parbutti--suggesting a wife of her own choice! Here indeed would have been a chance of peace, were it not for Durga. What a fool he had been to be so precipitate! A sudden regard for the wife who was prepared to sacrifice so much to him mingled not unnaturally with a corresponding resentment against the woman whose love was certain to stand in the way of his pleasure. Yet he was too much taken aback for real assent or denial, and murmured something incoherently about there being no need for hurry, no need to bring a strange woman to the house--as yet. Parbutti's conventional decorum gave way before even this faint allusion to realities, and she turned upon him sharply.
"Wherefore no stranger, Gopâl? Sure it must be so, seeing thou wouldst not mock me by thinking of a widow--a childless widow. 'Tis not as if thou didst set store by foolish old ways. 'Tis not as though thou wast old and foolish thyself. Thou canst choose a virgin bride, and thou shalt choose one, else will I not yield thee. For thine own sake, husband, I will not. Mai Râdha's daughter is worthy of thee. Lo! I have seen her, but if thou heedest me not inquire of her secretly. Durga is old and a widow. We want no more childless ones in this house--nor her sons, even if fate were kind; for look you, I hate her--I hate her."
Gopâl's faint protest died down before Parbutti's vehemence; if she hated, she hated, and there was an end of it. No use in words, or for the matter of that in deeds. He went moodily out into the bazaars for comfort, telling himself he had been a fool to let his fancy for a woman as old as he was fetter his future. He might have known it would not last. That was the worst of it! Had he braved Parbutti's shrill wrath at first when the passion was there, it might have seemed worth while to suffer discomfort; now it was hard to hark back dutywards. What a fool he had been! halting as it were between the new and the old. He had glozed over the secrecy by appealing to the customs of his forefathers, and now he hated the tie they imposed upon him. Durga was his dead brother's widow, but what right had she to more consideration than any other woman who had yielded to a man's promise? She was no better than those others, would be no worse off than those others if he-- Even Gopâl could not put the thought plainly before himself; so he took refuge in a general sense of injury.
"Let be! Let be," he said angrily, the next time that Durga, with a growing passion in her voice, demanded that he should admit the truth. "And if thou sayest a word--I swear I will deny it. Nay! look not so, Durga! I meant only if thou wilt not obey."
She stood as if turned to stone.
"Thou wouldst deny it? deny thy brother's child? Thou durst not, lest the gods should slay thee for the infamy."
He gave an embarrassed laugh.
"Thou believest in the gods more than I, Durga; but I mean no harm to thee. None shall say aught against thee if thou wilt have patience."
III.
"And see that thou cleanest them well; they may be wanted ere long."
There was jeering malice in words, tone, and manner as Parbutti handed over the tarnished silver ornaments; but Durga took them without a word--that aggressive silence of hers seeming, as it always did, to defy the ceaseless clang of the copper which, as usual, filled the sunlit courtyard. And yet to a woman less restrained than she here was an occasion for bitter outcry. The ornaments had been hers in those past days of honoured wifehood; now they were Parbutti's to wear, or to give, as she chose. But what did that matter? what did anything matter if only Gopâl could be kept content--if only Gopâl could be kept to his promise? Two months of patience, two months of growing anxiety had told against Durga-dei's good looks according to native standards, though to Western eyes the face had gained more than it had lost. There was no indifference in it now. That had given place to an eagerness almost painful in its intensity; and Parbutti, as she watched the widow begin her task, smiled to herself at the certainty of its being well performed; for Durga displayed a vast anxiety to please nowadays--a most convenient state of affairs for the household generally. Parbutti smiled again, thinking what Durga would say when she knew the truth--that the ornaments were to go in the wedding baskets of the virgin bride who was to be the reward of Gopâl's treachery.
"They will need tamarinds to give them back their whiteness," thought Durga, looking at the silver with experienced eyes. This interest in the drudgery and detail of her life was not a conscious effort on her part; of late a sort of dull comfort had come to her in the knowledge that already, in a thousand ways, she was standing between the household and that disregard of old ways which to her meant disgrace, if not disaster. And so it was with a certain pride in her work that, while Parbutti was sleeping, she watched the tamarind pulp boiling away in the copper vessel over the fire, until her critical eye told her that its office was over, and that the ornaments boiling in it would need no silversmith's aid to enhance their lustre. With a certain pride, also, in her own carefulness, she let the pulp stay on the fire till it had regained its original consistency, and then set it aside in the storeroom against future use. Parbutti would not have thought of such economy. Parbutti, in a reckless modern fashion, would have thrown the pulp away, and bought more when next she wanted some. The thought cheered her as, still with the same careful conservatism, she went on to some other process, approved by old tradition, for the due cleansing of tarnished silver. It was no light matter, that keeping of the household ornaments as if they were fresh from the goldsmith's hands; for did it not redound to the credit of the hearth? When she had worn them, none could have told they were not newly-made out of new rupees; but Parbutti thought only of wearing them in a becoming manner.
Well! this time she should acknowledge that there was some good in having Durga in the house.
There was something infinitely pathetic in the slow workings of this woman's mind, as she sat busy over the ornaments--something infinitely pathetic in the pride with which, after the two or three days of treatment prescribed, she showed them white and glistening to her rival.
"Ay!--they are as new--Mai Râdha will deem them so at any rate," said Parbutti, with studied carelessness. The time had come for revenge. Gopâl's passion for pleasure had been aroused, he would allow nothing now to stand in the way of this projected marriage, and so--and so there was no harm in springing the mine upon Durga. There is nothing in heaven or earth so cruel as a jealous woman even when her nature is kindly, and Parbutti's was not.
"Mai Râdha! What hath she to do with them?" The quick anxiety of the widow's tone was as balm to the other's ears.
"What a mother hath to do with her daughter's trousseau for sure," she answered lightly. "I meant to tell thee ere this, but Gopâl would not have it, and 'tis true that widows are ill meddlers with marriage. He weds the girl next month by my consent. The house needs a child."
So far Durga had stood staring at her enemy incredulously. Now she flung out her arms in sudden passion, letting the widow's shrouding veil fall from her figure recklessly.
"'Tis a lie--an infamous lie! The house needs no stranger's child. Thou knowest it! Yea, thou hast known it, and this is thy revenge. But it shall not be. Gopâl shall speak! Gopâl, I say! Gopâl!"
Parbutti's hands gripped her rival's as in a vice despite her struggles.
"So! is it that? And thou wouldst lay the burden of thy shame on Gopâl, base walker of the bazaars, betrayer of thy dead lord! On Gopâl who weds a virgin; let us see what he saith. Gopâl! I say, Gopâl!"
It almost seemed as if their clamour must have pierced that of the coppersmith's shop, for the latter ceased suddenly in the slow chiming of five o'clock. Instinctively the women fell away from each other, feeling that the crisis had come. Another minute would bring the man to answer for himself. So they stood waiting for the well-known figure on the threshold.
"Gopâl!"
He recoiled from the sight of them, coward to the backbone.
And Parbutti knew it--knew the man with whom she had to deal a thousand times better than Durga knew him; so her shrill voice came first, allowing no compromise, no shilly-shallying. Durga had claimed him as the father of her child. Was it true? for in that case there was no need to bring a bride to the house, nor indeed under such circumstances would Mai Râdha ever consent to her daughter's marriage. Let him take his choice without delay.
And Durga, still gauging him by the measure of her own nature, claimed the truth also. Between the two Gopâl stood irresolute, divided between fear and desire.
"'Tis thy choice, O husband!" came Parbutti's shrill voice; "the widow or the bride, thou canst not have both."
He knew it perfectly. It was one or the other, and a sudden fierce dislike leapt up against poor Durga.
"It is a lie," he muttered, his eyes upon the ground; "I have naught to do with her, naught."
Durga fell back as if she had been struck, but Parbutti's laugh of triumph failed before the sombre fire of those big blazing eyes. For an instant it seemed as if the former would give herself up to vehement upbraiding; then suddenly she passed into the silence of the outer court without a word, and crouched down in her favourite attitude beside the smouldering fires. She felt sick and faint with horror, shame, incredulity. In all her known world of custom and conduct she seemed to find no foothold on which to recover her balance. He had denied her, he had denied the hearth. Her tense fingers hung rigidly without clasp or grip on anything, just as her mind seemed to have lost hold on all her beliefs, all her knowledge.
In a dim, half-dazed way she knew what would happen. By and by, when opportunity occurred, Gopâl would creep out, as he had crept out many a time before, and seek to soothe her. There need be no scandal, no open turning into the streets, if she would promise to make no fuss. Perhaps, once the marriage were accomplished he might even be induced to acknowledge the child. And at this thought something that was not shame, nor anger, nor horror, but sheer animal jealousy, leapt up within her; for she had learnt to care, as women do learn, even when they know that he for whom they care is not worth it.
So Parbutti and this new woman were to have him, and she--
When the brain is quick its owner may suffer more from the very variety and complexity it gives to grief; but the grief for all that is less absorbing. Durga was so lost in hers that she scarcely noticed Parbutti coming in after a time to see about the supper. There was no call on her for help this evening, no blame because the fires were slack and nothing ready. To tell truth, even Parbutti did not care to drive the stunned look from Durga's face, lest it should be replaced by seven devils; so she was left alone. Yet even so, something made her start, and for a second her hand moved as if she were about to thrust it out in a gesture of dismay; then it sank back listlessly. The impulse had come and gone--the housewifely impulse of warning to the younger woman that tamarind pulp which had been kept for days in a copper vessel was not likely to be a wholesome ingredient in a man's supper. After all, what did it matter to her? Surely Parbutti should know such things without being told them; if not, what right had she to be house-mother, ousting those who did? A curiously petty spite against her simmered up in Durga-dei's mind, and like the bubbles on boiling water served for a time to break up the surface of her hot anger against Gopâl. What! was she to save Parbutti from the consequences of her own ignorance and negligence? There was no more than that in Durga's mind as she watched the cooking; no more than that, and a dumb conviction that somehow the future must be changed, utterly changed. It could not be as the past had been; so much was certain. Yet as she sat, thinking not at all, something must have been juggling with her brain, for Parbutti's first words, when an hour or so afterwards she came bustling back into the outer court, found their reply ready on Durga's lips.
"He is not well," she fussed. "Durga! thou art more learned in simples than most. What shall I give to stay the burning in his throat and keep the sickness from him? God send it be not the great sickness; but 'tis in the city they say." The widow stood up mechanically, and her right hand sought once more the crevices of the wall against which she was leaning.
"I know not. Give him tamarind water an thou likest. 'Tis not my work, but thine."
Revenge had sprung full-fledged from her slow brain in familiar face and welcome form. And it would not be her doing, but Parbutti's! A sort of sensual delight in the idea surged through her, making her add--as if to, give an edge to the sword of fate--"yet if the sickness be about 'twere well to have more skill than mine. I would not have it said I killed him!"
Once more the spite against the woman overbore all other feelings for the time. That, and a dull recognition of the fact that if Gopâl died he would be beyond the reach of them all--that it would benefit no one; save that in good sooth the child would be fatherless instead of--and then, suddenly, those black eyes of hers blazed up fiercely. Yes! that was the only possible end; as well now, when opportunity offered a beginning, as later.
"Ay! give him tamarind water--'tis best for such as he."
Not a shadow of regret came to her as she watched Parbutti follow her advice. It was as if since all time this thing had been ordained, as if aught else were beyond her control. The curious calm with which the Oriental regards death, even for himself, does not count for nothing in such situations as this. We of the West, who reckon the measure of guilt without it, judge harshly, even while we judge equitably. Durga-dei did not think out the question at all. Chance gave her quick opportunity, and she took it. Yet as the night wore on, bringing a succession of gossiping neighbours, she became restless, asking herself if the native doctor, summoned from the sahib-logue's hospital beyond the walls, to satisfy that curious streak of education in the sick man's mind, said sooth in declaring it to be a case of cholera? or whether the wise woman sent by Mai Râdha was right in hinting at the evil eye? Was it, briefly, God's judgment, or man's? The uncertainty oppressed her.
So the dawn breaking over that unseen, unknown world beyond the house of the coppersmith found three haggard faces within it. Found the same thought in each heart: was it to be death, or death in life for one, or for all? yet each awaited the answer with a strange indifference.
"Yes! 'tis the great sickness; he grows blue and cold already," said the neighbours in frank wisdom as they looked in. The air was cooler then with the sudden freshness which seems to come with the sun's first rays; a thin blue smoke began to rise over the awakening city; the sparrows sat preening themselves on the tops of the walls; the loose slippers of the visitors, as they shuffled over the empty courtyards, had whispering, gossiping tongues of their own, which seemed to echo the ominous cackle of the wearers as they left those three faces to their task of waiting. One turned passively to the brightening sky from the low string bed; the other two bent on the ground as passively. A vessel full of tamarind water stood by the sick man, but he had scarcely touched it. Perhaps after all it was the great sickness. Durga scarcely knew whether she were glad or sorry at the thought.
So the sun climbed up until, with one clear distinct "tam-burr-urr-ur-r," the daily clamour of the shop began. Maybe the master would not die, maybe he would; either way work must be done, and no one had said the workers nay--as yet.
"Gopâl is still alive," commented the neighbours cheerfully as they listened; "they will stop, likely, when they hear the death wail, and 'tis as well for him to end as he began with the ring of the metal in his ears."
The water-clock from the stairs where Gopâl used to sit chimed noon. The heavens were as brass. A perfect blaze of light beat down on the courtyard and those three faces. But one of them waited no longer, though it still gazed passively into the pale sky from the ground where it lay. And Parbutti, the new-made widow, glared in terrified hatred at the face of that other widow who stood looking down at the dead man.
Then suddenly the death wail rose loud and clear in a woman's voice.
"Naked he came, naked has gone. This empty dwelling-place belongs neither to you nor to me."
The clangour ceased, ending in a faint vibration like a dying breath.
"Listen!" said the policeman watching the waterclock; "there is death in the coppersmith's house. I heard he was ill of the sickness. God save him--he hath no son."
FAIZULLAH.
He was beating his wife--an occupation which annihilates time, dissolves the crust of culture, and reduces humanity in both hemispheres to a state of original sin. It is therefore immaterial what Faizullah and Haiyat Bibi did or said during the actual chastisement, for they behaved themselves as any other couple in the same circumstances would have done, that is to say, after the manner of two animals--one injured in his feelings, the other in her body.
She screamed vociferously, but for all that took her punishment with methodical endurance; indeed, there was a distinct air of duty on both sides which went far towards disguising the actual violence. Finally he let her drop, decisively but gently, in one of the dark corners of the low windowless room, and laid aside the bamboo in another. From a third crept an older woman, silent, but sympathetic, carrying a lotah full of water with which she administered comfort to the crushed victim. Faizullah Khan watched the gradual subsidence of his wife's sobs with evident satisfaction.
"Hast had enough for this time, O Haiyat?" he asked mildly. "Or shall I catch thee peeping through the door at the men-folk again like a cat after a mouse? True, 'tis the way thou caughtest me for a husband, Light of mine Eyes; but I will have none of it with other men. Or rather, thou shalt pay for the pleasure. Ay! every time, surely as the farmer pays the usurer for having a good crop. And if there be more than peeping, then I will kill thee. Think not to escape as a mere noseless one; some may care to keep a maimed wife, secure that none will seek her; but not I, Faizullah Khan, Belooch of Birokzai. Did I not marry thee, O Haiyat, Marrow of my Bones, because of thy fair face? Then what good wouldst thou be to me without a nose? Therefore be wise, my heart, or I shall have to kill thee some day."
"The sahibs will hang thee in pigskin if thou dost," whimpered the woman vindictively. "Yea, I would die gladly to see thee swing like the wild beast thou art!"
The sense of coercion was evidently passing away, nor were there wanting signs that ere long tears would be dried at the flame of wrath fast kindling in Haiyat's big black eyes. Faizullah, standing at the open door, through which the yellow sunshine streamed in a broad bar of light, looked across the mud roof of the lower story, past the sandy stretches and broken rocky distance to where a low line of serrated blue mountains blocked the horizon. They were the Takt-i-Suleiman, and beyond their peaks and passes lay Beloochistan.
"There are no sahibs yonder," he said, stretching his right hand towards the hills; "no one to come between a man and his right of faithful wife. God knows I am ready for my father's house again; 'tis only thy beauty, Skin of my Soul! Core of my Heart! that keeps me dawdling here a stranger in the house of mine ancient enemies. Why wilt thou not come with me to the mountains, O Haiyat?"
"I am not a wild beast as thou art," she retorted, still with speech checked by sobs. "I will stay here and get thee swung, for the sahib-logues worship a woman away over the black water and do her bidding. They will fill thy mouth with dirt, and burn thy body, and curse thy soul to the nether--"
"Nay! innermost Apple of mine Eye! do I not worship thee? And art thou not a Belooch also by race, though thy people have dug the grave of their courage with the plough, and tethered their freedom beside their bullocks? They were not always dirt-eaters, mean-spirited, big-bellied--"
"Hai! Hai!" That was the beginning of the storm. What followed drove big Faizullah into the court below, where the voices of the two women ceased to be articulate; for it is one thing to beat the wife of your bosom in order to correct a trifling indiscretion, another to deny her and her attendant the right of subsequent abuse. So he smoked his pipe placidly, and amused himself with polishing his well-beloved sword which he kept in defiance of the Arms Act.
The poorer women of the village nodded at each other as the shrill clamour, floating over the high encircling wall, reached the well where they came to draw water.
"The stranger hath big hands," chuckled one; "yet are they smaller than Haiyat's eye. That comes of being a widow so long."
"There will be murder some day, mark my words!" muttered an old hag with a toothless leer. "What else canst thou expect from a Belooch of Birokzai? Peace! Peace! that is what our men say nowadays. In my time, if a man of his race had laid a finger on a woman of ours, there would have been flames over the border, and blood enough to quench them afterwards. But they are afraid of the sahibs and the pigskin; not so Faizullah; he is of the old sort, knowing how to keep his wife."
"He will not keep her for all that, mai," sneered a strapping girl, who by the handsome water-vessels she carried showed herself to be a servant in one of the richer houses. "We shall get her back some day, despite her father-in-law's wickedness in letting her marry a good-for-nothing soldier, just because of keeping a hold on her jewels."
"Hold on their honour, O thou false tongue!" shrilled another of the group. "The daughter of thy house would have brought shame on ours. She needed a fierce one to keep her straight."
"After the man--woman, thy house gave her first, O depraved tongue that tasteth not the truth. Had thy people sent her back, our house would have kept her safe enough."
"And her jewels doubtless--"
So the war of words, begun on the top story of Faizullah's house, found its way into the narrow village street, and thence into many a mud-walled courtyard where the women set down the pots of water and rested themselves in wrangling. It even went further, for in not a few of them, when the men came back from their day's work in the fields, the subject of Haiyat Bibi's peeping eyes and covetous jewels gave rise to slow, deliberate conversation over the evening pipe. Faizullah was right to beat her, of course; on that point all were agreed. The rest was open to argument, and had been so any time these last two years, ever since the bold Belooch of Birokzai, on his way home from short service in a frontier regiment, had halted in his retreat at the sight of a pair of big black eyes behind the chink of a door. Long before that, however, the question as to whether those jewels of Haiyat Bibi's were to come back with her in search of a new bridegroom among her own relations, or to remain with her in her late husband's family, had greatly exercised the minds of this little village, which lay, as it were, safely tucked away between the sheets of sand in the bed of the Indus and the soft pillow-like curves of the rising ground. It was given to be excited over trifles, this far-away, peaceful-looking cluster of mud huts; for beneath the newly acquired placidity of the peasant which its inhabitants presented on the surface, the lawlessness of the border bravo remained ready for any emergency. On the whole, however, it afforded a beautiful example of the civilising effects of agriculture, and as such figured in many reports having as their object the glorification of British rule. Consequently it was watched with jealous eyes by the district and police officials, who felt their sheet-anchor of reference would be gone did any serious crime occur to throw discredit on the converted community. Despite this constant care, the village might have been situated in the moon for all the authorities knew of the pretty intrigues, the hopes and fears, which formed the mainspring of its life. Even the ordinary human interests of its inhabitants were all too low in tone and insignificant to secure alien sympathy. So Haiyat Bibi's peeping eyes and her Delhi-made jewels were disturbing elements unknown to those who signed the monthly criminal reports with placid self-satisfaction at their own success in securing virtue. Even when, egged on by the family, her best-looking male cousin made bids for possession of both these charms in various underhand ways, the consequent employment of Faizullah Khan's marital discipline did not resound so far as the hâkm's ears.
Therefore it was an unpleasant surprise when, some six weeks after the original homily against peeping, the significant red envelope which proclaims the shedding of blood found its way into the Deputy Commissioner's mail-bag, and brought the news of Haiyat Bibi's murder by her husband, and his subsequent flight to the hills. Furthermore, it was reported by the sergeant of police, whose very writing showed signs of trepidation, that the whole village was in an uproar, and he himself quite unable to cope with the situation. As luck would have it, some eighty miles of desert and alluvial land lay between the excited village and the fountains of law and order; for when the red envelope arrived, the responsible officials were in camp at the other end of the district. Nearly a week passed ere they could arrive on the scene, and by that time the villagers had sworn to renew a blood-feud which in past days had thriven bravely between their clan and that of the murderer. They were, in fact, on the point of turning their ploughshares into swords--an example which is dangerously contagious among the border tribes. Owing, therefore, to the necessity of persuading the people to trust the far-reaching arm of the law for revenge, instead of seeking it for themselves, the actual murder itself dropped into comparative insignificance. Indeed, the details of the crime were meagre in the extreme, though the evidence of previous jealousy on the husband's part, even to the point of grievous hurt, was copious. Nor did the family of the murdered woman's late husband hesitate to accuse her blood-relations of a deliberate attempt to seduce her from the path of virtue, in order to bring about a poisoning of the bold Faizullah, and a subsequent transference of her affection, and her jewels, to a more suitable husband. Inquiry, indeed, opened up such a vista of conflicting rascality, that the district-officer was fain to draw a decent veil over it by accepting the result, namely, that on a certain specified night, between certain specified hours, Faizullah Khan, not content with having beaten his wife to the verge of death during the day, had stealthily completed his devilish work, dragged the corpse of his victim a mile or two from the village, stripped it of ornament, and left it to be devoured by jackals and hyenas. In support of which statements, gruesome remains, found, it was said, some days after the woman's disappearance, were produced and sworn to vociferously by all. Relics of this sort are apt to be somewhat indefinite; this objection, however, was met by the subsequent discovery of portions of Haiyat Bibi's clothing, and a golden ear-ring which the murderer had evidently dropped in his flight. The latter whetted the desire for revenge to a point, for, as the district-officer sorrowfully admitted to himself, the old-fashioned wrath at injury to their women, so conspicuous among these border clans, was now freely intermixed with that greed of gold which civilisation brings in its wake. Finally, since nothing else could be done, a reward of two thousand rupees was put upon the capture of one Faizullah Khan, Belooch of Birokzai, accused of murdering his wife and stealing her jewels, value twelve hundred rupees. In addition, vague promises were made that on the next punitive expedition into the mountains an eye would be kept on the escaped criminal's particular village, and some indemnity exacted. There the matter rested peacefully, and so, on the whole, did the village, though the friction between the blood-relations of the murdered woman and her connections by marriage remained a fruitful source of petty disturbance.
"There is something odd about that case," remarked a new magistrate when some fresh complaint of quarrel came in for settlement. "It is always more satisfactory to have a real, whole body; but when there is neither corpse nor criminal it is useless depending on facts at all." The police officer, however, declared, that having personally conducted the inquiry no mistake in either facts or conclusions was possible.
Eighteen months passed by and early spring was melting the snows on that great rampart of hills which, properly guarded, would make the rich plains of India impregnable to a western foe. The border land was astir, its officials busy, for the long-talked-of punitive expedition was about to thread its way through the peaks and passes, bearing the rod which teaches respect, and perhaps fidelity. On the outermost skirts of British territory the district-officer sat in front of his tent writing a rose-coloured report on the progress of education. It was long overdue owing to the pressure of martial preparations, so he was in a hurry and superlatives came fast.
"A Belooch from beyond the border is seeking the Presence with insistence," pleaded a deferential myrmidon.
"Let him come," was the prompt reply; and the pen, laid aside, rolled over, blotting the last sentence. What matter? Reports have various values, and the Belooch might bring information that would make force more forcible.
An old soldier, by the look of him, tall and well set up, with merry brown eyes and a determined face. He brought himself to the salute gravely. "May the life of the Presence be prolonged and may his gracious ears bear with a question. Is it true that the armies of the Lord of the Universe march against the village of one Faizullah of Birokzai?"
"The armies of the Kaiser-i-Hind march against all thieves and murderers, no matter who they are."
"The words of the Presence are just altogether. Yet may the Protector of the Poor bear with this dust-like one. Is it true that he who brings Faizullah captive will receive two thousand rupees reward?"
"It is true."
"Wah illah! The purse of the great Queen is big if the long tongue of the Presence wags in it so freely. The sum is great."
"The crime is great. He murdered his wife; besides, he stole twelve hundred rupees' worth of jewels."
The smile of contempt which had crept into the listener's face at the first part of the sentence gave place to a frown at the sequel. "The Presence says it; shall it not be true?" he remarked with deference after a pause. "Nevertheless the sum exceeds the purchase. Does not the price of the calf buy the cow also?[24] There is no wisdom in a bad bargain."
The Deputy Commissioner looked at the new comer sharply. "Doubtless; yet none have given the man up, though all know we will keep our threat of burning the village next month."
The sudden clenching of the slender, nervous hands and quick inflation of the nostrils convinced the Englishman that there was an envoy prepared with concessions, but asking for some in return.
"The Presence hath said it, shall it not be true?" came the urbane reply. "Yet we Beloochees do not give up our friends readily. Still Faizullah is no friend of mine, so for twelve hundred rupees I will bring him to the Presence, dead or alive, if his honour pleases."
The Deputy Commissioner stared. "But the reward is two thousand; why do you ask less?"
"The price of the calf is the price of the cow, Huzoor! I lack but one thing, and the sum is enough for the purchase. Am I a pig of baniah to fill my stomach with rupees I cannot digest? Nevertheless the task is hard, and those who go near violence may suffer violence. What good then would the money be to me if I were dead?"
Like many of his race, he had a curiously round mellow voice that seemed to linger over the slow, stately periods as he went on deliberately. "Surely God will reward the Presence for his patience! But a man's son is as himself. And I have a son, Huzoor, a babe in his mother's arms--may the Lord bring him safe to man's estate! If the great Purveyor of Justice would cause a writing to be made, setting forth that my son is as myself, and my earnings as his earnings--nay, surely the Presence will have the best bliss of Paradise reserved for it specially! And if the munificent Keeper of the Purse of Kings would cause the twelve hundred rupees to be set apart from this day in the hands of some notable banker--not that this slave doubts, but the Presence knows the guile of all women, and that all men are born of women, and therefore guileful. It knows also that without the hope of money naught but the stars in heaven will move; and if I say, 'Lo, I will give, when I have it,' who will listen? But if I say, 'Lo! there it is safe, do my bidding and take it,' 'tis a different matter. If, therefore, the Presence will do this, his slave will bring Faizullah, Belooch of Birokzai, to him alive or dead, and there will be no need to burn the village."
"And the jewels?"
Once more the frown came quick. "If I bring Faizullah to the Halls of Justice alive, surely the mightiness of the Presence will make him speak. If I bring him dead, can this slave follow him and find speech in the silence of the grave? Say! is it a bargain? Yes or no?"
The anxious brevity of the last question showed the sincerity of the man more than all his measured words, and after some further parley, the conditions were arranged. That is to say, the sum of twelve hundred rupees was forthwith to be paid into the hands of a responsible third party, and the informer was to bring Faizullah to the Deputy Commissioner dead or alive, before reprisals had been taken on the village, when, even if he lost his life in the capture, the reward was to be paid to his heirs and assigns. He positively refused to give either name or designation, asserting with the measure of sound common sense which characterised all his utterances, firstly, that no one would know if he gave a false one; secondly, that if he failed to keep his promise he would prefer to remain in oblivion; thirdly, that if he did succeed in bringing Faizullah to book, the Presence would be sure to recognise his servant and slave. Thus he departed as he came, a nameless stranger.
Three days after an excited crowd rode pell-mell into the magistrate's compound. "Huzoor! we have found him! we have found him!" rose a dozen voices, as the more influential men of the party crushed into the office room.
"Who?"
"Faizullah the Belooch! Faizullah the murderer! The reward is ours, praise be to God and to your honour's opulence. Wah, the glad day! Wah, the great day!"
"Salaam alaikoum, Friend of the Poor Man!" came an urbane voice from their midst. "The dust-like slave of the Presence hath kept his word. Behold! I bring to you Faizullah Khan, Belooch of Birokzai, alive, not dead."
A sudden hush fell on the jostling crew as the prisoner raised his fettered hands in grave obeisance, and then solemnly, vigorously, spat to right and left ere he began: "Snakes gorged to impotence by their own greed! Bullocks with but one set of eyes to seven stomachs! Listen! whilst I recount the tale of your infamies to the ear of this wise judge. Huzoor! I am Faizullah, husband of the virtuous Haiyat, mother of my son, dwelling content in the house of my father. Yea! it is true. For her jewels' sake, her father-in-law bound me by promises, when he found me caught in the meshes. So for her sake I stayed in a strange land, and the fields and the jewels were as his. Then the old man yonder, her uncle, wroth at the marriage, set his son to beguile her; so I beat her till she had no heart to be beguiled. For all that they would not cease from evil ways. Therefore said I to her father-in-law: 'Let me go, for surely if I stay thy daughter-in-law will have to die some day, and then her blood-kin will claim all. Let me go in peace with the Core of my Heart; but keep thou the jewels, for I have no need of them.' So in the night, he consenting, I crept away with her in my arms, for she had eaten her full of the bamboo that day, and could not walk. The Presence knows what came next--how they called me murderer and thief, her blood-kin claiming the land, her father-in-law denying that he had the jewels--and I nursing her to health in the mountains! Huzoor! the sahib-logues are like eagles. They look at the Sun of Justice and see not the maggots it breeds in carrion like these men. Yet what cared I, away in the hills, what men called me here, save that my house wept for her jewels, and I knew not how to get them; for the reward was heavy and oaths are cheap in your land. Then came word that the armies of the Lord of the Universe were to march on this slave's village, and I said, 'What is life to me? I will try and speak them fair.' The Presence knows what came next. When the paper concerning the twelve hundred rupees had been writ, I knew that my house would have her rights anyhow, even if the eyes of the Just Judge were blinded by false oaths, or that I came dead into the Presence. So I said by message to the carrion: 'Dispute no longer among yourselves. Let me buy the jewels at the price ye have put on them. Let one take the money and the other the land, or half-and-half. Only give me the jewels, and say in the Court of Justice,--"Lo! we were mistaken! Faizullah hath not killed his wife. He nursed her back to life, and she hath a right to the jewels and her son after her. But the land is ours by agreement."' And to this they said 'Yea' guilefully. But when I went to the village, trusting them not at all, they seized me and brought me hither for the reward, not knowing that the Presence had deigned to cast his gracious eye on this poor man before, and that the reward was for me, or my son. It is spoken. Let the Presence decide!"
Nothing is more surprising than the rapidity with which a got-up case breaks down when once the judge is seen to have an inkling of the truth. Suave qui peut is then the motto; especially when nothing more is to be gained from consistency. Haiyat's relations professed themselves both astonished and overjoyed at her return to life, and before the inquiry was over had arranged for the discovery of the jewels, which were found carefully hidden away in the house of Haiyat Bibi's female attendant, who had died of cholera the year before, an ingenious incident productive of injured innocence to all the living.
"It has not emptied the purse of the great Queen after all," said Faizullah with a broad smile, as he stood beside the Deputy Commissioner on the crest of a hill, and pointed to a terraced village on the opposite side of the valley. "Nor hath the house of the poor suffered; for the dwelling of this slave will not burn."
The jewels were in a bundle under his arm, and he was taking leave of the expedition he had accompanied so far. He turned to go, then suddenly saluted in military fashion. "If this dust-like one might give freedom to his tongue for a space, the wisdom of experience might reach the ear of those above it. Yea, of a surety the patience of the Presence is beyond praise! Huzoor! if the reward writ in the police stations had been for me, alive or dead, peace would have been beyond my fate, for the great mind of the Protector of the Poor will perceive that a man hath no power against false oaths when once his own tongue is stilled by death; and that even the justice of kings avails little when the case has been decided already. Let this memory remain with the sahibs, 'Peace bringeth Plenty, and Plenty bringeth Power.' So it comes that false oaths are easy under the rule of the Presence."
That was his farewell.
The snow still lay low, but the orchards were ablaze with blossom as, next morning, the little force led by white faces straggled peacefully along the cobbled ledges of the steep village lane. On either side strips of garden ground, where the heart-shaped leaves of the sweet yam pushed from the brown soil, led up to the low houses, backed by peach and almond trees and festooned by withered gourds. On the steps leading to a high-perched dwelling overhanging the lane, stood Faizullah Khan with a sturdy youngster in his arms. The Deputy Commissioner happening to come last and alone, stopped to look at the child with kindly eyes. As he did so a door above was set ajar, and through the chink he caught a glimpse of a singularly beautiful pair of black eyes, and a flash of jewels.
"It is my house, Huzoor," said Faizullah with rather a sheepish grin. "I gave her leave to peep this time."