← catalogue

The Potter's Thumb

by Flora Annie Webster Steel · English · Gutenberg #39985 · 722,062 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Potter's Thumb
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The Potter's Thumb

Author: Flora Annie Webster Steel


        
Release date: June 13, 2012 [eBook #39985]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39985

Credits: Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by
        Google Books (Indiana University)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POTTER'S THUMB ***




Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by
Google Books (Indiana University)











Transcriber's Notes:

   1. Page scan source:
      http://books.google.com/books?id=LyHQAAAAMAAJ
      (Indiana University)

   2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].






                          THE POTTER'S THUMB




                                  BY

                          FLORA ANNIE STEEL





                                LONDON

                          WILLIAM HEINEMANN

                                 1900






_All rights reserved_





                          THE POTTER'S THUMB




                              CHAPTER I


'Tis only the potter's thumb, Huzoor.'

As she raised the parti-coloured rag covering the child's body, the
noonday sun streamed down upon a pitiful sight. Yet her eyes, despite
the motherhood which lay in them, accepted it, as the sun did, calmly.
Emotion, such as it was, being reserved for the couple of Englishmen
who stood by: and even there curiosity and repulsion froze the surface
of pity, especially in the younger of the two faces.

In good sooth, not a pleasant sight for mankind, to whom sickness does
not as a rule bring that quick interest born of a desire to aid which
it does to most women. The brown skin was fair with the pallor of
disease, and the fine, sparse, black hair showed the contour of the
skull. The unnatural hollows of the temples emphasised the unnatural
prominence of the closed eyelids, round whose ragged margin of clogged
lashes the flies settled in clusters. Below this death's-head was an
over-large body, where, despite its full curves, each rib stood sharply
defined, and whence the thin limbs angled themselves in spidery
fashion.

'The potter's thumb?' echoed Dan Fitzgerald interrogatively. He was a
tall man, broad in the shoulders, lean in the flank, and
extraordinarily handsome; yet the most noticeable quality in the face
looking down at the very ordinary woman squatting upon a very ordinary
dust-heap, was not its beauty, but its vitality. 'Is that a disease?'
he added, almost sharply.

She gave the native cluck of emphatic denial. 'No! Huzoor. The child
dies because it does not drink milk properly; yet is it the potter's
thumb in the beginning. Lo! many are born so in this place. The
doctor-sahib who put the _tikka_ on the arms for smallpox said
Hodinuggur was too old for birth--that it was a graveyard. I know not.
Only this is true; many are born with this; many die of it.'

'Die of the potter's thumb--what potter?'

Her broad face broadened still more into a smile. 'The Huzoor doth not
understand! Lo! when the potter works on the clay, his hand slips
sometimes in the moulding. It leaves a furrow, so,'--her brown finger,
set with tarnished silver rings, traced a girdle round the baby's naked
breast--'then in the firing the pot cracks. Cracks like these,'--here
the finger pointed to the sherds among which she sate,--'so when
children are born as this one, we say 'tis the potter's thumb.
Sometimes there is a mark,'--again the finger softly followed the line
it had traced before--'this one had it clear when he came; sometimes
none can see it, but 'tis there all the same, all the same. The
potter's thumb has slipped; the pot will crack in the firing.'

Her voice took a cadence as if accustomed to the words.

'What _is_ she saying?' interrupted George Keene impatiently. He was a
middle-sized lad of twenty or thereabouts, powerfully made, with grey
eyes and white teeth gleaming in an aquiline, sunburnt face.

'Something ghastly,' replied Dan. 'It always is so, you'll find, my
dear boy, when you dip below the indifferent calm of these people. It's
like deciphering a tombstone. But come on. We are due already at the
World, the Flesh, and the Devil's.' Then he paused, gave a short laugh,
and flung out his hands in an impulsive gesture. 'By the Powers!' he
went on, his face seeming to kindle with the fuel of his own fancy,
'it's gruesome entirely. This heap of dust they call Hodinuggur, as
they call thousands of such human ant-hills all over India; for
wherever when you dig, the bricks grow bigger and bigger till, _hocus
pocus_! they vanish in the dust from which God made man--_that_ is
Hodinuggur; the old city, it means. What city? who knows! Then in the
corner of this particular one a survival'--his eager hand pointed to
the pile of buildings before them--'not of those old days, for no
Moghul in India dates beyond Timoor, and these people are Moghuls; but
of that Mohammedan civilisation which overwhelmed the older one, just
as we in our turn are overwhelming the Moghul--who in the meantime
bullies the people by virtue of an Englishman's signature on a piece of
parchment----'

'But I suppose we found the Diwan in possession when we annexed----'
began George stolidly.

Dan scorned the interruption and the common-sense. 'Oh, 'tis queer,
looked at any way. A mound of sherds and dust higher than the gateway
of the palace. I'll go bail that reed hut yonder on the top is higher
than old Zubr-ul-Zaman's tower. He lives up there winter and summer,
does the old Diwan, looking out over his world and the strength of
it--that's what his name means, you know. His son, Khush-hal Beg, lives
in the next storey. A Jack Falstaff of a man--that's why I call him the
Flesh. Then Dalel, the Devil, roams about seeking whom he may devour.'

'A charming trio; and what part have I to play in the drama?' asked
George with a laugh.

'St. George, of course.'

The lad laughed louder. 'So I am in baptism. George for short. Born on
the saint's day--father a parson--fire away, old chap--don't let me
pull Pegasus.'

'Sure! my dear boy, and aren't you sent to fight them all? Sent into
this wilderness of a place to be tempted----'

'Oh, don't talk rot, Fitzgerald! I suppose you mean about the
sluice-gate; but it's sheer folly.'

'Is it? My two last subordinates didn't find it so. Perhaps the
potter's thumb had slipped over their honesty. So the authorities gave
me you--a real white man--and said it was my last chance. Think of that
now, my boy, and be careful.'

George Keene frowned perceptibly.

'That's a fine old gateway,' he said, to change the subject. As they
approached it a flock of iridescent pigeons rocketed from the dark
niches to circle and flash against the sky. It was a great square block
of a building cut through by one high arch of shadow, and showing the
length of the tunnel in the smallness of the sunlit arch beyond. On the
worn brick causeway, as they entered, half in the sunshine, half in
shade, lay the scattered petals of a pomegranate blossom which some
passer-by had flung aside.

'By Jove, what a colour!' said Fitzgerald: 'like drops of blood.'

George Keene frowned again. 'If I had your diseased imagination I'd
engage lodgings in Bedlam. Seriously, I mean it. Fellows like you are
get rid of it in words--all froth and fuss; but if that sort of thing
ever got a real grip on me--Hullo! what's that?' He flushed through his
tan in sheer vexation at his own start. From the deep recesses, which
on either side of the causeway lost themselves in shadow, came a clash
as of silver bells, and something through the arches showed white yet
shadowy; something of exceeding grace, salaaming to the _sahib-logue_;
something sending the scent of jasmine flowers into the hot air.

'That is Chandni,' said Dan, passing on regardless of the salutation,
'she generally sits here.'

George, imitating his companion, felt the thrill still in his veins.
'Chandni!' he echoed, 'that means silvery, doesn't it?'

'Moonshine also. They call her Chandni-rat or Moonlit-night as a rule.
If tales be true, there is a good deal of the night about her. She and
Dalel--but here he comes, innocently, from a side door. The Devil loves
moonshiny nights.'

The figure approaching them was not outwardly of diabolic mould, being
altogether too insignificant. The oval face was barely shadowed by a
thin beard curling in an oiled tuft on either side of the retreating
chin, and the only Mephistophelian feature was the narrow line of
moustache waxed upwards towards the eyes. The dress was nondescript to
absurdity. A biretta-shaped Moghul cap, heavy with church embroidery,
sate jauntily on the long greasy hair; a blue velvet shooting-coat, cut
in Western fashion, was worn over baggy, white cotton drawers, and
these again were tucked away into sportsmanlike leather gaiters, ending
in striped socks and patent leather highlows. Such was Mirza Dalel Beg,
the Diwan's grandson. Behind him came lesser bloods of the same type:
one with a falcon on his wrist; all with curious eyes for George Keene,
the new-comer.

'Hullo, Dalel sahib!' cried Dan in English. 'Keene, let me introduce
you in form to his Highness.'

The Mirza thrust out a small, cold, clammy hand; but thereinafter
relapsed into such absolute inaction, that George found no little
difficulty in finishing the ceremony.

'Ana, I see!' said his Highness jerkily, in a voice many tones too low
for his chest measurement. 'Glad to see you, Keene. You shoot, I lend
you gun or rifle. You hawk, we go hawk together. You hunt, you use my
crocks. Come, see my stable.'

Dan's eyebrows went up expressively. 'Don't tempt him to-day, Mirza
sahib,' he interrupted gravely. 'We are already due at the State
audience with your grandfather. Aren't you to be there as
heir-presumptive?'

Dalel crackled with a high-toned laugh which did not match his voice.
'Bosh! My gov'nor is there in swagger dress. He likes. I am different.
Good-bye, Keene. You must come often, and we will go shoot, hunt, polo,
billiard, and be jolly. Ta, ta! I go to stables.'

The two Englishmen walked on in silence for a while. Then George Keene
looked at his companion with a queer smile.

'So, that's the Devil?--that--that heterogeneous bounder----'

'Heterogeneous bounder is good--parlous good,' replied Dan, still
gravely; 'but here is our reception party, so, for heaven's sake, look
dignified, and don't shake hands, mind, unless they offer to do so.
They know their own rank, you see; you don't know yours--as yet.'

The lad, as he obeyed orders, felt that he knew very little of anything
in India; the fact being evident in the surprise with which he noted
the squalid appearance of all things, save the ruinous masonry; even of
the state-room where, on a cane-bottomed chair, set on a filthy striped
carpet, a mountain of flesh awaited them. It did not need his
companion's whisper to make him understand that this must be the
heir-apparent Khush-hal Beg, for the fat man, coming forward to the
appointed stripe--thus far and no further--held out his hand.

'The Huzoor is young,' he wheezed in a stately dignified voice. 'But
youth is a great gift. With it even the desert need not be dull. 'Tis
only as we grow older----' He paused and crossed his hands over his fat
stomach with a sigh, as if to him the only consolation for age lay
there. Dan shot one of his almost articulate looks at his companion as
they passed on to a narrow stone stair where there was barely room for
single-file order up the steep steps. Up and up it went seemingly in
the thickness of the wall, with little loopholes sending a faint light
at the turns; up and up, breathlessly, till the party emerged on the
roof of the Diwan's tower, where, in a pavilion set round with arched
arcades, they found the old man himself, backed by a semi-circle of
shabby retainers, whose gay clothes showed tawdry in the pitiless
sunlight.

Yet Dan's whisper of 'the World' provoked no smile in his companion,
for there was nothing to smile at in Zubr-ul-Zaman, old and shrunken as
he was. So old that those steep stairs cut him off from his kind; so
old that his chin lay upon his breast, his palms upon his knees, as
though both head and hands were weary of the world. What his heart
thought of his ninety and odd years of life none knew. None could even
guess, for the simple reason that Zubr-ul-Zaman had never showed that
he possessed a heart. Of brains and skill he had no lack even now; but
of pity, love, tenderness, only this was certain, that he had never
sought them even in others. Yet the English boy had eyes only for that
wrinkled, indifferent face, while Dan Fitzgerald, seated on one of the
two cane-bottomed chairs set opposite the Diwan's red velvet one,
explained in set terms why George came to be seated in the other. Not a
pleasant tale altogether, told as it was with official boldness of
expression. Briefly, the sluice-gate of the canal had been opened too
often, and Government did not intend it to occur again.

When he ceased, the Diwan raised his head slowly, and George felt an
odd thrill at his first sight at those luminous dark eyes; a thrill
which continued as, at a sign from the old man, the court rhetorician
standing surcharged with eloquence at the Diwan's right hand, burst
into a stream of polished Persian periods which, hitting the keynote of
the empty pavilion, roused a murmurous echo in its arcades. It reminded
George of the general confession in his father's church on a week-day
when the choir was absent; one certain note followed by faint efforts
after repentance. The fancy, indeed, clung closer to facts than his
ignorance of the language allowed him to perceive, as the speech dealt
chiefly in regrets for the untoward events in the past which had made
it incumbent on '_Gee Uff Keene sahib bahadur_' to languish in the
wilderness of Hodinuggur, though doubtless the presence of the said
'_Gee Uff Keene sahib bahadur_' would cause that desert to blossom like
a rose, despite the want of water. These reiterations of his own name
made George feel a sense of unknown responsibility, as of a baby at its
own christening. He looked anxiously at Dan, his sponsor, but the
latter was now conversing with the Diwan in the usual explosive
sentences followed by the decorous silences due to dignity, while the
attendants brought forward divers round brass trays covered with
Manchester pocket-handkerchiefs and laid them at the visitors' feet.
George's share consisted of three, one containing dried fruits and
sugar, one of various rich cloths topped by a coarse white muslin
_pugree_, the third conglomerate. A French clock, with Venus Anadyomene
in alabaster, some pantomime jewelry, a green glass tumbler, a tin of
preserved beetroot, a lacquered tray with the motto 'for a good boy,'
and various other odds and ends. Among them a small blue earthenware
pot. Was it blue after all, or did a gold shimmer suggest a pattern
beneath the glaze? A queer, quaint shape, dumpy, yet graceful. That
broad, straight ring around it should have marred its curves but failed
to do so; strange! how these people had the knack of running counter to
recognised rules, and yet---- Here George was recalled to the present
by Dan whispering--

'Take it, man! Take it!'

Looking round he saw the latter removing something from a tray, and his
own head being full of the blue pot, his hand naturally went out
towards it.

'No! no!' continued Dan, in the same voice, 'the _pugree_.'

'But I've got one already!'

The instinctive greed of the reply made his companion smile as he
explained that the _pugree_ was put there on purpose. But, as he spoke,
the Diwan signed to an attendant who stepping forward, transferred the
blue pot to the tray of dried fruits.

'It is nothing,' came the courteous voice, setting aside all
disclaimers; 'our potter makes them.'

'I did not know they could put such a good glaze on nowadays,' remarked
Fitzgerald, yielding the point. 'A first-rate piece of work indeed;
does the man live here?'

Khush-hal Beg turned to the speaker breathlessly. 'He is crazy, Huzoor.
The Lord destroyed his reason by an accident. The old wall fell on his
house one night and killed his daughter. Since then he lives away,
where naught can fall, like the crazy one he is.'

The stress and hurry of the speech were evident, even though the fat
man was still suffering from the stairs.

'Thank the Lord! that's over,' said Dan piously, when the last
diminishing tail of escort left them with but one orderly to carry the
spoil. 'I ought to have warned you about the _pugree_--but there! you
might have done worse--the French clock, for instance. Come! let's
strike home across the mound. I want to show you a dodge of mine on the
canal cut.'

He plunged headlong, after his wont, into professional matters till
even George, fresh from college technicalities, could scarcely follow
him, and found himself wondering why a man of such vast capacity should
have succeeded so indifferently; for Dan Fitzgerald was not a _persona
grata_ at headquarters. To be that, a subordinate often has to conceal
his own talents, and this man could not even conceal his faults. Some
folk are so self-contained that a burden of blame finds no balance on
their shoulders; others are so hospitable that they serve as hold-alls
both for friends and foes; and there was plenty of room both for praise
and blame in Dan Fitzgerald's excitable Celtic nature.

'What's that?' cried George suddenly. With the best intentions his
attention had wandered, for everything in that circle of dun-coloured
horizon domed with blue was new to him. Dan paused, listening. An odd
rhythmic hum came from the highest hut, which was separated from the
others by palisades of plaited tiger-grass shining in the afternoon
light like a diaper of gold.

'The potter's wheel!' he cried, his face changing indescribably in an
instant. 'Come on, Keene, and let us see the man who made your first
bribe!'

He gave no time for reply, but turning at right angles through a gap
threaded his way past piles of pots and sherds until he ran the sound
to earth. Literally to earth--a circle of the solid earth spinning
dizzily in front of a man buried to his waist. At least so it seemed at
first to George Keene's ignorance of potters and their wheels. A
circle, dazzling at its outer edge, clearer at the centre where
something beneath a steady curved hand shot up, and bulged; then, as
the whirr slackened, sank into a bomb of clay.

'Salaam alaikoom!' came a pleasant voice as the worker sat back in his
seat-hole so as to ease his feet. He was a mild-faced old gentleman
with nothing remarkable about him save a pair of shifty eyes--the light
hazel eyes seen so rarely in a native's face.

'Salaam alaikoom,' returned Dan. 'The little sahib has never seen a
wheel worked. Will you show him?'

'Wherefore not, Huzoor? The sahib could come to none better, seeing we
of Hodinuggur have spun the wheel of life for years--for ages and ages
and ages.'

The words blent with the rising cadence of the wheel as he leant
forward to the task again. Faster and faster upon the wheel with a
swaying motion. Only the potter's hand poised motionless above the
whirring clay which showed--as children say--like a top asleep. Then
suddenly came the turn of the potter's thumb, bringing a strange weird
life with it. One protean curve after another swelling, sinking,
shifting, falling. The eye could scarcely follow their swift birth and
death, until the potter, sitting back once more, the slackening wheel
disclosed the hollows and bosses.

'The clay is good,' he said, as if deprecating his own skill, 'and it
fires well.'

'When the thumb does not slip,' put in Dan quietly. The potter turned
to him in sudden interest.

'The Huzoor knows the sayings of the people, that is well; it is not
often so. Yea! it slips--thus.' The wheel still span slowly, he shifted
his hand almost imperceptibly and a deep furrow scored itself upon the
biggest boss. 'So little does it,' he went on, 'a grit clinging to the
skin--a wandering thought. It is Fate. Fuzl Elahi, the potter, cannot
help it.'

'Fuzl Elahi? Then you are a Mohammedan?'

He shook his head. 'I am as my fathers were. The Moghuls call me so,
the Hindus otherwise; but it means the same. By the grace of God,
potter of Hodinuggur since time began. Lo! my fathers and my children
are in the clay. I dug a grave in the dust for the boy; the girl dug
hers for herself. It was deep, Huzoor. I search for it always; in vain,
in vain.' The wheel set up its rhythmic hum once more, but the hands
lay idle.

'Poor old chap,' said Dan aside, 'I suppose he is thinking of the
accident; but by the powers, Keene, it is a situation. Seated here on a
pinnacle--a crazy irresponsible creator----'

'Ask him if he made the pot, please,' interrupted George brutally. 'If
I could get a pair, I'd send them to the _mater_. Those things are
always in pairs, you know.'

'Pairs! you intolerable Philistine! A potter's vessel trying to be
matched before it's broken in pieces. Think of the tragedy--the humour
of it.'

'Will you ask, or shall I?'

Fitzgerald grinned maliciously. 'You. I like to hear you stuttering.'

George smiled, rose, and taking the blue pot from the attendant's tray
laid it on the potter's wheel.

'Did you make that?' he asked, in English. His meaning was palpable.

'No, Huzoor.'

'If you did not, who did?' he continued, his triumph mixed with anxiety
for the future; but the old man's thoughts did duty for an answer.

'Without doubt my fathers made it; since it is an Ayodhya pot.'

'Ayodhya,' broke in Dan, 'that means old, Keene; you'll have to send it
back. I half suspected it was valuable, from that old fox's look. But
he said it was made here, the sinner! Can you make pots like that, oh!
Fuzl Elahi?'

The old man smiled. 'None can give the glaze, Huzoor, there is a
pattern in it, but none can catch the design. Even I know it not; that
is the secret of Ayodhya.'

'What is he saying? What is Ayodhya?' asked George irritably.

'Same as Hodi--old; it means here the half-forgotten heroic age. Well,
as you can't get a pair, we had best be moving. Salaam! potter-ji, and
don't let your thumb slip too often in the future.'

'God send it hath not slipped too often in the past,' he replied, half
to himself.

An hour afterwards the two Englishmen sat on the low parapet of the
canal bridge looking out over a world-circle of dusty plain, treeless,
featureless, save for the shadowy mound of Hodinuggur on one side, and
on the other a red brick house dotted causelessly upon the sand. A
world-circle split into halves by the great canal, which eastwards
towards the invisible hills showed like a bar of silver; westwards
towards the invisible sea like a flash of gold, at whose end the last
beams of the setting sun hung like the star on a magician's wand.

'_Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink_,' murmured Dan
Fitzgerald discontentedly. 'Upon my soul, it must be rough on them
watching it all day long, and knowing that if they could only get _you_
to open the sluice _they_ would get rupees on rupees from the Rajah.
That's how it stands, you see. It isn't so much for their own bit of
land, but for the bribe. I sometimes wish the overflow cut had been
higher up, or lower down; but we had to protect the big embankment
against abnormal floods. Confound the thing! what business has it to
put hydraulic pressure on us all?'

'Don't feel it much as yet,' said George cheerfully, with his eyes on
the palace, which was gaining an unreal beauty from the dust of ages.
For the village cattle were homing to the thorn-set folds, and the
cloud from their leisurely feet lay in a golden mist between the
shadowed plain and the shadowed mound rising against the golden sky. A
lingering shaft of light showed the white fretwork of the Diwan's tower
clear against the pale purple of the potter's thatch beyond.

'Perhaps not. You will, though. The wilderness plays the dickens with
civilisation sometimes.'

'Does it? I don't believe it will with mine. Not that sort. I haven't
your imagination, your sensitiveness, your poetical----'

'Pull up,' said Dan, laughing. 'You'll come to my vices soon, and as
I've pet names for most of them, I object to have them scientifically
classified. But I wish I hadn't to leave you there.' He pointed
distastefully to the red parallelogram of a house with the initials of
the Public Works Department stamped on each brick like the broad arrow
on a convict. 'It isn't fit for a youngster like you. But as it can't
be helped, there's the key. For my sake don't let the World, the Flesh,
or the Devil wheedle it out of you.'

'All right,' replied the boy, pocketing the Chubb. 'If you are engaged
to be married, go and do it right off. Promotion in due course
guaranteed.'

Dan Fitzgerald, looking down at the sliding water, was silent for a
minute. 'You've hit the right nail on the head,' he said at last.
'That's why I'm anxious; but by the powers! your work is cut out for
you if you are to keep me from getting into hot water.'

'It isn't the water that does it,' muttered George, as they strolled
off to dinner, 'it's the spirits.'

That was the truth in more senses than one. George had been living with
his superior officer for two months at headquarters, and his cool,
clear head had noted the fascination which stimulants of all kinds had
for Dan's excitable nature. But he had said nothing, after the manner
of men. Therefore it came as a surprise even to himself when that
evening something made him say hurriedly--

'Better not, Fitzgerald; you've a long ride before you.'

Dan, his hand on the whisky bottle, paused, surprised in his turn; but
George seemed to feel that key in his pocket outline itself against the
thumping of his heart.

'Are you afraid I won't leave you any?' asked the elder quickly. 'I'll
send you a bottle by post, if that's it. Come! hands off, youngster;
don't be a fool! That's enough.'

The angry red was not on his cheek only. It had spread to the boy's, as
he stood back in a sudden flare of utterly unexpected dignity.

'Quite enough, Mr. Fitzgerald. 'I've been your guest for two months, I
know; but you are mine now. This is my house, and that's my bottle.
I'll trouble you to put it down.'

For an instant it seemed on its way to the speaker's head; then it was
pushed aside scornfully; the next Dan held out his hand.

'Thanks. No one has taken that trouble for years. What made you do it?'

But the English boy's shame at his own impulsiveness was on George now,
and he laughed uneasily. 'I--I believe it was that confounded key,' he
began. Dan's smile was transfiguring.

'God bless the boy!' he cried, with the ring of tears and laughter in
his rich brogue. 'So you're the Keeper of the Key of the King's
conscience, are you? The saints protect you; for see! your sort don't
know mine. We leave off the effort after virtue where you begin, and I
spend more solid holiness in refusing a glass of sherry than you do in
keeping all the Ten Commandments. Sure the sun's got into my head, and
I must be off to the water cure.'

He was out of the room, out of the house, standing on the bridge
abutment and stripping as for dear life before George caught him up
breathlessly and asked if he were quite mad.

'Not yet!' came the joyous voice. 'I'm going to swim up stream till I'm
beat, and come down with the current--an epitome of my life!'

The rapid Indian twilight had fallen into night, but the moon had
risen, and the air was warm with tho first touch of spring which in
Northern India treads close on the heels of the new year. Fitzgerald
pausing for a second showed like a white statue on the buttress; then
his curved body shot into the shadow with the cry--

'I come, Mother of All!'

Tristram's cry when he sprang to 'the sea's breast as to a mother's
where his head might rest,' thought George, watching with the vague
anxiety inseparable from the disappearance of life beneath the water.
Ah! there he was--safe; turning his head to call out 'Don't wait,
please! Tell the syce to have the mare ready for me in half an hour.'

Yet George did wait, watching the arrowy ripple cleaving the steel-grey
path which led straight up to the steel-grey sky where the stars hung
sparkling. If, he thought, they were reflected in the still water ahead
as they were in the still water below the bridge, Dan must feel as if
he was swimming in the ether!

Decidedly, imagination was catching. George Keene was reminded of the
fact again as he stood looking over to the mound of Hodinuggur, and
listening to the last echo of the horse's hoofs bearing Dan away from
the wilderness. There was a light in the Diwan's tower, another in the
potter's hut. He wondered vaguely which was really the highest; then,
to check such idle thoughts, began on the first duty of youth in a
foreign land--home letters.

'Dear father,' he wrote fluently, 'I arrived at Hodinuggur, my
headquarters, to-day. It is----'

Half an hour afterwards he tore up the sheet angrily and went to bed.




                              CHAPTER II


It was band-night in the public gardens; mail night also; a combination
of dancing and picture papers, ensuring a large attendance in the big
hall, which had been built, gravely, as a memorial to some departed
statesman. But now English girls hurried through its dim corridors to
the ladies' dressing-room, intent on changing tennis shoes for dancing
slippers. English women took possession of the comfortable nooks
between the pillars where there was room for two. English boys lounged
about the vestibule, finishing their cigars and waiting for the band to
strike up. English men drifted to billiards and whist, or to their own
special corner in the reading-room.

A weird-looking place even at noon was the big hall set round with
paste and paper mementoes of the semi-historic festivals held beneath
its high arched roof; with shields from the Prince of Wales' ball,
flags from the Imperial installation, trophies from the welcome given
to our soldiers after an arduous campaign. But seen now by the few
lamps lit at one end it looked positively ghostly, as if it must be
haunted by a thousand memories of dead men, and women, and children who
had flitted across the kaleidoscope of Rajpore society. Up in the
gallery the native band, after playing 'God save the Queen' to the
Aryan brother outside, was tuning up for dance music. And by-and-bye a
couple would come waltzing out of the shadows into the bright
reflections of the polished floor, and waltz back again. Then three or
four couples, perhaps ten or a dozen; not more. Viewed from the other
end, where the non-dancers sat in darkness, the scene looked like a dim
reflection of something going on in another world.

And outside, under the rising moon, the builders of the hall trooped
home to the packed highways and byways of the native city, full, no
doubt, of that silent, evergreen wonder at the strange customs of the
ruling race which is an integral part of native life; that ruling race
which, with all its eccentricities, rules better than even the fabled
Vicramiditya himself!

In the far corner of the inner reading-room a girl stood looking at the
new number of the _Scientific American_, keeping a stern watch the
while on the present possessor of the _Saturday Review_. A tennis bat
lay on the table beside her, and her workmanlike flannels and tan
shoes showed what her occupation had been. For the rest, a well-made,
well-balanced girl, looking as if she walked well, rode well, danced
well, and took an honest pride in doing so. Her face was chiefly
remarkable for a pair of beautifully arched eyebrows, and her best
point was undoubtedly the poise of her head with its closely plaited
coif of hair.

A sort of snore followed by a thud, told that people were passing in
and out through the swing-doors of the outer room. Here, however, as
befitted the abode of more serious literature, all was peaceful; almost
empty in fact, and its only other female occupant was a medical lady
deep in the _Lancet_.

'Oh Gordon!' called a voice from the outer room, 'have you seen my
daughter?'

'Miss Tweedie is here, sir,' replied the young man addressed. 'She has
been for the last five minutes trying to make up her mind whether to go
and dance, or brain Dr. Greenfell for keeping the _Saturday_ so long.'

'Really, Mr. Gordon!' cried Rose Tweedie aghast. 'No indeed not--Dr.
Greenfell! I didn't really--I mean I was of course, but I don't
now--Oh, it's awfully good of you.' Then as the apologetic little
doctor moved away, pausing to say a few words to a tall grey-haired man
who was entering, she turned aggressively to the offender: 'Why did you
say that, Mr. Gordon?'

'Why, Miss Tweedie? Because you insisted yesterday that women preferred
the truth, even when it was rude. And it was true. I suppose, as your
father wants you, I have no hope of this dance; and I'm engaged for all
the others.'

Rose Tweedie's eyebrows went up. 'How lucky for you--I mean, of course,
how unlucky for me.' Then she added in more conciliatory tones, 'I'm
not dancing to-night; these shoes won't do.' She thrust out her shapely
foot with the careless freedom of a child.

'I can see no fault,' he replied artificially, putting up his
eye-glass, 'they appear to me quite perfect.'

'Your knowledge of women doesn't apparently extend to their
understandings,' she retorted quickly, her voice, as usual when she was
irritated, showing a trace of Scotch accent. 'Oh father! if you want me
to come home, I'm ready.'

Colonel Tweedie hesitated. A single glance at him suggested that the
late Mrs. Tweedie must have been a women of strong individuality, or
else that Rose had reverted to some ancestral type.

'Not, not exactly, my dear. I only--wanted to--er--speak to you.'

'Good-bye, Miss Tweedie,' said Lewis Gordon, taking the hint. 'Oh! by
the way, sir, if your daughter will remember I'm a personal assistant,
and excuse shop for an instant--Fitzgerald came back to-day from
Hodinuggur.'

Rose Tweedie's face lit up. 'Did he say how Mr. Keene liked it?' she
asked eagerly.

'I'm afraid not; but he can scarcely be expected to like the desert
after--Rajpore. I shouldn't--under the circumstances. That is all, sir;
except that he reports everything satisfactory, so far.'

The Colonel gave a little cough; it was his way of starting the
official machine inside the social one. 'I hope--for Mr. Fitzgerald's
sake it--it--er--may remain so. The past scandals have been a
disgrace--er--to the Department.

'Not to him, though,' broke in Rose hotly. 'I think he is quite one of
the nicest people I ever met.'

'And what is more, the ablest man we have in our service,' added Lewis
Gordon heartily. The girl's face softened at his tone. If he would only
speak like that always, instead of simpering and scraping!

'Well, father, what is it?' she asked when he had gone. The other
readers had drifted away, and the medical lady looked as if even the
last trump would not rouse her from the post-mortem she was perusing,
so to all intents and purposes they were alone. Colonel Tweedie gave
another little cough; it was an unusual occurrence in private matters,
and she repeated her question with quickened interest.

'I want you, my dear, to go and speak to--to Mrs. Boynton. I've--I've
asked her to come into camp with us this time.'

'Why?'

Pages full of words would fail to give a better idea of Rose Tweedie's
mental outlook than this simple interrogation. Briefly, she must have a
reason, good, bad, or indifferent, for everything. Her father, being
her father and knowing this, had several ready.

'Dacre's wife isn't strong enough to face the sand, and you must have a
chaperon--I mean another lady--you never need a chaperon of course, my
dear--but if anything happened--besides, we shall be very busy, and it
will be lonely--I thought it better than leaving you at home--it isn't
as if she were quite an outsider--she is Gordon's cousin, and he is my
personal----'

'The widow of a cousin, you mean,' she interrupted with emphasis. 'A
cousin he scarcely knew; and he never even saw _her_ till he returned
from furlough last year.'

'Didn't he, my dear?' said the Colonel feebly. 'Still, they are
relations. Call each other by their Christian names, and----'

This time a laugh interrupted him; rather a hard laugh for a girl.

'What a number of cousins the Rajpore ladies must have!' she began.

'Not Mrs. Boynton, Rose; not Mrs. Boynton,' protested the Colonel with
spirit.

'No, I admit it. She is perfectly lady-like. I don't really dislike her
a bit.'

'Dislike! my dear Rose! who could dislike so--so----'

'I admit it again, father. She is charming. I catch myself watching
her, just as if I were in love with her like all the nice men are.'

'Really, my dear Rose----'

'Well, dear, why not? She is perfectly sweet. Then she has such tact.
Do you know she never allows an ungentlemanly man to fall in love with
her? I often wonder how she manages it. It's awfully clever of her.'
Rose, standing by the fire, shifted a log with her foot and the sparks
flew upwards. 'Of course I would rather have had a girl; but I suppose
it wouldn't have done. There! don't worry, dear! Go off to your whist.
I'll settle it all.'

'My dear girl----'

She told him calmly that there was no need for gratitude, and Colonel
James Tweedie, R.E., head of a great Department, slunk away abashed to
the card-room. Rose was very fond of her father, though she understood
him perfectly--after the manner of modern children; accepting him
reasonably, with all his weaknesses, as the parent Providence had
assigned to her. And why, if she would have him, should he not marry
Mrs. Boynton? The mother, who had died when Rose was born, had been
well remembered; the Colonel was still middle-aged, and when his
daughter married might have long years of solitude before him. Would it
be fair for her to object? It was another of Rose Tweedie's
characteristics that this question came uppermost in her dealings with
both friends and foes. No! it would not be fair; there was no reason
against it. None.

So she walked off calmly to the big hall, waiting to see Gwen Boynton's
graceful figure--paired with some worthy partner, of course--come
swaying out into the ring of light. But she was disappointed; for the
very simple reason that the lady she sought was sitting with Lewis
Gordon in the most comfortable corner in the whole building.

'Miss Tweedie!' said an eager voice behind her, as she stood
instinctively marking the rhythm of the dance with one foot. 'Have you
seen Mrs. Boynton? I can't find her anywhere.'

She turned gladly. It was Dan Fitzgerald, representing, as he always
did, humanity at its handsomest. 'So you're back! No, Mr. Fitzgerald.
She is not dancing, anyhow; but as those are the last bars, that is
cold comfort. What a pity! when you came down to the hall on purpose.'

He flushed up like a girl; and she pointed to the gardenia in his
button-hole.

'You don't go in for decoration except on state occasions,' she
continued, 'and then you weren't at tennis. I always keep a look-out
for you there; that back-handed return of yours from the line beats me.
I've been trying it with the _chuprassie_ bowling at me, but it didn't
come off somehow. You must teach me when we are in camp.'

'Of course I will,' replied Dan cheerfully. Lewis Gordon would have
simpered and said, 'Delighted, I'm sure.' The remembrance vexed Rose by
its very appearance; as if it mattered what Gwen Boynton's cousin said
or did. And the vexation accounted for the phrasing of her next words.

'Mr. Keene sent me a message, didn't he? No! How stupid of him! It was
about his _Nature_. I was to have it, and he was to let me know what he
wanted me to do with it.'

Dan's face, which had showed perplexity, cleared. 'Ah, it's the
magazine you're meaning. Sure you puzzled me entirely, for it is not
nature you want, Miss Tweedie, though, 'tis true, one can't have too
much of a good thing.'

It was a distinct compliment, or meant to be one, but Rose listened to
it gaily, and five minutes after, despite her shoes, was whirling in
and out of the shadows, full of the keen enjoyment which dancing brings
to some people.

Lewis Gordon, lounging lazily in his dark corner, noticed her with a
certain irritated surprise. It was a more inconsequent, therefore a
more womanly action than he expected in a girl who annoyed him by
refusing to take either of the two places he assigned to women folk in
his Kosmos. There were those of whom wives and mothers could be made
discreetly, safely; and those who would be utterly spoilt by the
commonplace process. He turned to his cousin feeling no such difficulty
in regard to her classification. Yet in the dim light nothing could be
seen save the outline of a small head, a huge fur boa, and long curves
ending in a bronzed slipper catching the light beyond the shadow in
which they sat.

'Shall we not dance?' he asked. 'It is the best waltz of the three.
Then I could bring you some coffee and we could rest--on our laurels.'

'No, thanks. I was engaged to Mr. Fitzgerald for the last, and I must
give him time to cool down.' The voice was sweet, refined, careless.

'I believe you are afraid of Fitzgerald.'

There was a touch of hauteur in the sweetness now.

'It is the second time this evening you have hinted at that, Lewis. I
suppose--being a sort of relation--you know something of that boy and
girl entanglement before I married your cousin. Is it so?'

Her unexpected and unusual frankness took him aback into faint excuse.

'There is nothing to apologise about, I assure you,' she went on,
regaining her carelessness. 'You may as well know the facts. I was
engaged to Mr. Fitzgerald. We were both babies, and my people
disapproved. Then your cousin proposed, and good sense came to us; for
we were not suited to each other. _Du reste_, Mr. Fitzgerald and I are
still friends, and he is the best dancer in Rajpore.'

There was a pause, before he said quietly, 'Why not be quite frank,
Gwen, and say he is in love with you still? Surely that is palpable.'

'Perhaps. But I prefer to leave such questions alone, even with my
cousin. Especially since that cousin has done me the honour of telling
me many times that he is devoted to me himself.'

He smiled at her deft evasion.

'What is the use of any one being devoted to you, Gwen, if you are
going to marry Colonel Tweedie?' he replied half jestingly.

'I did not know I was going to marry him; but I am certainly going to
look after Miss Rose Tweedie in camp--if she will have me. Do you think
I shall want a new riding-habit, Mr. Gordon?'

'I really cannot help you on that question, Mrs. Boynton.'

She leant towards him, so that he could see the laugh pass from her
pretty eyes. 'Don't be foolish, Lewis. You have been too good and kind
to me for that. You, who know my affairs as well as I know them myself,
must see that I have scarcely any choice between marrying again, and
going home to live with my mother-in-law, or starving in some horrid
poky lodging. How I should hate either! I can't live without money,
Lewis. I don't spend much--but it goes somehow. Then my pension as a
civilian's widow is but genteel poverty. Clothes are so expensive to
begin with; yet even your best friends don't care for you unless you
are well dressed.'

The real regret in her tone made him quote a trite saying about beauty
unadorned.

'Rubbish!' she interrupted, sinking into her cushions again. 'Beauty is
like the blue teapot; you must live up to it. I must marry some one who
can afford a well-dressed wife. I must indeed, in common honesty to my
future creditors. Personally I should prefer it to the mother-in-law.
Besides, if I went home I should never see you again, Lewis. I should
not like that--would you?'

If the words in themselves were a direct challenge, they came from the
shadow where she sat, so daintily, so airily, that half a dozen replies
were possible without trenching on sober affirmation or denial. Yet her
hearer hesitated. There must always be a time when a man settles
whether or no he shall ask a certain woman to be his wife, and this was
not the first time the idea of marrying his cousin had occurred to
Lewis Gordon. He was not the head of a Department, but he was in a fair
way to become one in the future. He had money of his own, and she liked
him in a way. As for her? she was perfection as a companion. As a
wife?----

'My dear Gwen! I should hate it,' he said fervently, being certain of
so much. But when he had said the words, they sounded too little, or
too much, so he took refuge in jest again. '_Faute de mieux_ I should
prefer the family party; that is to say, if you could induce your
future stepdaughter, Miss Rose, to bear with my presence.'

The light on the bronze slipper shifted, showing an impatient movement
of the pretty foot.

'Impossible, I should say,' came the voice, airy as ever; 'but as you
seem to be imitating the barber's fifth brother to-night, why not
settle that she should marry? Girls do, sometimes, especially in
India.'

As she spoke a couple swooped out into the almost empty circle of
polished floor. The waltz, nearing its end, gave them a swinging
measure, and those two were dancers indeed. One could not choose but
look, until, as the last chord crashed, they stopped as if petrified,
to smile at each other, before hurrying away. Lewis Gordon watched
them, his hands on his knees, a cynical smile on his face.

'By all means!' he said languidly. 'Suppose we say Dan Fitzgerald, and
so get rid of our two _betes-noir_ at once.'

Mrs. Boynton started from her cushions and gathered her boa together.

'What nonsense we are talking! Stupid nonsense into the bargain--which
is intolerable. I am ashamed of myself. Come! let us have some coffee
and forget our folly.'

Her companion rose to accompany her with a shrug of his shoulders. I
beg your pardon, even though I fail to see the enormity of my offence.
Fitzgerald, if he were once settled----'

She interrupted him with a gay laugh. 'So you aspire to the barber's
office in other ways; would like to _ranger_ your friends. When I am
duly installed as chaperon I must consult you on matrimonial questions;
but not till then, if you please, Lewis. Ah! there is Mrs. Dacre, I
haven't seen her for an age; not since I went to Meerut.'

He took his dismissal placidly, as men do in a society where they
cannot claim the undivided attention of at least one woman. Besides,
Gwen Boynton's chief charm lay in the impossibility of forgetting
that--provided she did not wish to do something else--she would be
quite as gracious to the person who cut into your place as she had been
to you. Furthermore that he was sure to hold as good a hand, and know
the game as well as you did; for Mrs. Boynton, as Rose Tweedie had
remarked, admitted no inferior players to her table. Seen now in the
full light of the coffee-room she showed slight and graceful in the
soft grey draperies which she wore as half mourning for the late Mr.
Boynton--a perfectly unexceptional man who, on the verge of retirement,
had lost all the savings of a long bachelorhood in one unfortunate
venture, and had died of the disappointment. Beyond a perfectly lovely
mouth and the faultless curves of chin and throat, there was nothing
remarkable in her face; nothing at least to account for her remarkable
charm. That, however, was indubitable; even Lewis Gordon, sipping his
coffee outside the circle which gathered round her quickly, kept his
eyes upon her. So he noticed hers turn more than once to Dan
Fitzgerald, who stood at the table waiting to replace Rose Tweedie's
tumbler of lemonade. 'She is afraid of him,' he thought. 'I wonder why?
Perhaps she hasn't got over her fancy either; that is the only thing I
can think of likely to create a difficulty.' Then he went off to
button-hole another Secretary about business, and forgot even Gwen
Boynton.

Yet, if half an hour afterwards he had by chance wandered into that
portion of the gardens devoted to zoology he would have seen something
to confirm his suggestion. For the two figures leaning over the iron
rail surrounding the ornamental water were those of Mrs. Boynton and
Dan Fitzgerald. The moon shone on the water; the clumps of bamboo and
plantains on the central island showed softly dark; masses of feathery
tamarisk trees and the sweeping curves of a sandhill or two beyond the
garden shut out the world. Otherwise it was not a suitable spot for
sentimental interviews, by reason of the ducks and geese, whose sleepy
gabblings and quackings were apt to come in unsympathetic chorus to
lovers' talk, while the adjutants, standing in pairs side by side,
their heads under their wings, were over-suggestive of Darby and Joan.
The conversation between these two, however, was sufficiently sensible
to stand the test of their surroundings.

'It is really absurd,' she said in (for her) quite a querulous voice.
'I accept a pleasant invitation to make myself useful to the Tweedies,
who have always been most kind to me,--and my cousin. And why every one
should jump to the conclusion that I am going to marry a man who is
almost old enough to be my father I cannot imagine. Really the world is
too idiotic.'

'You don't lump me in as the world, do you, Gwen?' he answered in a
lower tone. 'Surely you make a difference--surely there's some excuse
for me, dear? I haven't seen you for six weeks, Gwen; you've been away,
remember. And I hurried so for that promised dance, which you forgot.
Yes; we'll say you forgot it. Then every one is talking of your going
into camp with the Tweedies, wondering at your giving up the pleasures,
the society, hinting at some reason----'

'If you can't trust me, Dan, that is an end of everything,' she
interrupted sharply. 'No, don't!--please, don't! One never knows who
mayn't come this way. Do let us be reasonable, Dan. We are not boy and
girl now, to squabble and make it up again. You tell me always that I
love you--have always loved you--will never love any one else; and
perhaps you are right. Isn't that confidence enough for you?' She tried
her utmost to keep an even tone, but something made the unwilling smile
on her lips tremulous.

'It is, dear, and it isn't,' he said, his face showing soft and kindly
in the moonlight. 'If I were only as sure of the rest of you as I am
that you love me! But it was so, Gwen, in the old days; yet you threw
me over. I knew it then, and it made me go to the devil--more or less.
For if I had had the pluck to say, "You sha'n't," you would have been
happier. I spoilt your life as well as my own by my cowardice. And I'm
as bad as ever now, Gwen,--afraid to make you poor. Why don't I speak
up, Gwen, instead of giving in to the worst part of you?--instead of
waiting for promotion and making you more extravagant by paying the
bills?'

'You needn't have reminded me of that!' she cried hotly; 'I'm not
likely to forget it.'

He stared at her for an instant in sheer downright incredulity. Then he
laid his hand on hers sharply, and with the touch something that was
neither dislike nor fear, yet which seemed to alarm her, came to her
face.

'Don't say that, Gwen! you don't--you can't mean it. For you know it is
all yours--that I'd starve to give you a pleasure. Ah, Gwen! if you
would only marry me to-morrow you'd never regret it. Why shouldn't you,
dear? There's no fear; look how I've got on since you gave me the hope
two years ago when I came to you in your trouble. If I had only had the
pluck then to marry you straight away----'

'But it was impossible,' she broke in quickly, as if to lure him from
the point. 'What would people have said? It was so soon.'

'What do I care? But now there is no reason--no reason at all. I'll get
my promotion all right. Keene is there at Hodinuggur, so nothing can go
wrong again. Gwen, why shouldn't you marry me to-morrow?'

'To-morrow!' she echoed faintly; yet for the life of her unable to
repress that tremulous smile.

'Yes. Ah! my darling, you don't know what the uncertainty means to a
man like I am. You don't know--you don't understand. If I only had you
to myself, I would not fear anything. And you wouldn't, either, if I
had the chance of teaching you what it means to a woman to have some
one between her and the world--some one to hold her fast--some one----'

She shrank now from his increasing emotion.

'Don't! oh, don't! you frighten me. And don't be hurt or angry, dear.
I've promised to marry you sometime--I have indeed. Oh, Dan, how
foolish you are!'

She laid her delicately gloved hand on his arm, as he leant over the
railings, trying to hide the bitter pain her look had given him; but he
only shook his head.

'You can't make me different from what I am,' she went on almost
pettishly; 'you can't, indeed.'

'I could, if I had the chance. That is all I ask.'

'And you will have it some day, Dan. Perhaps you are right, and I
should be happy. Only, what is the use of talking about it just now? We
have settled so many times that nothing can be done until your
promotion comes. That will be next year, won't it? if nothing goes
wrong at Hodinuggur. Oh, Dan, do cheer up. I have to go out to dinner,
and it is getting late; but I'll drop you at the Club, if you like. I
didn't mean to hurt your feelings; you know that; but you are so
impetuous. Dan, do come! the geese are making such a noise, I can
scarcely hear myself speak.'

It was true. Something had disturbed the peace of the pond, for a
confused gabbling and quacking filled the air. Dan tried to fight
against it for a minute, then with an inward curse gave up the
struggle. As they walked back to the carriage Gwen felt grateful to the
birds. They had saved the Capitol, for a very little more of Dan's hurt
feelings might have made her promise anything. It was her way when
brought face to face with pain. To make up for what he had suffered she
was very gracious to him as they strolled along the winding walks set
with English flowers, and the barred cages where big yellow tiger's
eyes gleamed out of the shadows; gleamed quite harmlessly of course.
But when she returned that evening to the rooms in the hotel which she
occupied during the winter months her mood had changed; for Lewis
Gordon had been at the dinner. She went over to her writing-table, took
out a bundle of receipted bills and looked at it with a distaste seldom
displayed towards such a possession. How foolish, how wrong, how unfair
to poor Dan it had been to let him pay; and what a dreadful tie to her,
for of course if he did not get his promotion she could not possibly
marry him and then the obligation would be unbearable. Gwen, brooding
over the situation by the fire, felt aggrieved. She was one of those
women who, paradoxical as it may seem, gain the power of exciting
passion by their own absolute lack of comprehension as to its first
principles. To say she had no heart would have been an unkind calumny.
She was really very fond of Dan; more fond of him when he was absent
perhaps than when he was present, but she had not the remotest
conception of what his love meant to him. So as she sat thinking of him
in her seamless dress--Gwen's evening dresses always had a seamless
look, and the lace about her fair shoulders always seemed pinned on
with cunning little diamond brooches glittering and sparkling--she told
herself that it all depended on promotion, and that, in its turn,
depended largely on a boy whom she had never seen, who had gone to live
in the desert with the sole purpose of forcing her to keep her promise.
A queer tie indeed between that branded bungalow set in the sand, and
her refined little sitting-room.

And at that moment George, pondering over a cigar in the verandah
before turning in, was meditating, not upon the mysterious mound of
Hodinuggur, with the light in the Diwan's tower challenging the feeble
flicker in the potter's house, but on something far more mysterious
than either--his dinner. That dinner of six courses, compounded out of
the desert fowl in various stages of existence, to which his factotum,
a man whose imaginative faculty outran his creative power, had given
such topsy-turvy yet familiar names. Wherefore? Why was it deemed
necessary to feed a sahib on salt-fish concocted out of chicken and
anchovy sauce, and then to give dignified support to the fraud by
handing round the conventional egg-sauce? George gave up the puzzle and
went to bed depressed by the consideration that if Hodinuggur was
strange and unkenned to him, he was quite as strange and unkenned to
it.




                             CHAPTER III


Chandni was standing in her cool recesses of shadow at the farther end
of the gateway which adjoined the little strip of bazaar leading past
the palace. A bazaar but a few yards long, yet retaining in that small
space a specimen of all the vices which in past times had made the
Moghuls of Hodinuggur infamous. A couple of young men with uncovered
heads were dicing on a string bed thrust under a patched, dyed awning
stretched from balcony to balcony. A group of half-a-dozen more were
quarrelling vilely over a quail fight beside the liquor-seller's booth,
gay in its coloured bottles. Two or three of various ages, heavy with
drugs, were sprawling and nodding in the gutters. Just across the
street a sutara-player was twanging away, and above him a girl,
powdered and painted, bent over the wooden balcony flinging snatches of
hideous song on the passers-by, and shrieking with coarse laughter at a
naked monstrosity who, as he begged, made capital of his misfortunes.
On this girl, with her grease-smirched hair and Brummagem jewelry,
Chandni, from her shadows, cast glances of scorn, which she transferred
after a time to Dalel Beg, who sat crouched up against a plinth smoking
a rank hookah and sipping a 'rajah's peg' of brandy and champagne. He
had discarded European dress entirely, and the few clothes he wore
smelt horribly of musk.

Against the darkness of the arch behind her the woman's tall figure
showed like a white shadow. Not a scrap of colour anywhere save in her
stained lips and the pomegranate sprig she twirled idly in her hand.
Keeping time with it to the thrum of the sutara; keeping time also with
a clash of the silver anklets hidden by the long gauze draperies of her
Delhi dress.

'Yea! Dalel!' she said mockingly, and the creamy column of her throat
vibrated visibly with her smooth round voice. ''Tis over true what the
little sahib said of thy coarse attempts. The pack of us are fools. The
sahib-logue's drink yonder steals what brains God gave thee; then Meean
Khush-hal was never aught but a big belly, and the Diwan--Heaven keep
him for the best of the lot--sits too high. There remains but Chandni
the courtesan, and she----'

'Hath failed,' broke in Dalel with a forced explosion of malicious
laughter. 'Lo! thou hast not had a civil tongue for others since he
flouted thee. Sure the plant must be trampled in the dust ere it
blossoms. Have patience, heart's delight.'

He was too weary even in his malice to seek the amusement of watching
the rage grow to her face as she stood behind him.

'Whose fault----' she began hotly; then with a louder clash of the
anklets ended in a laugh. 'Lo! 'tis past. And what care I? 'Tis naught
to me, but if the treasure-chest of Hodinuggur be empty, 'tis good-bye
to Chandni. She goes back to Delhi.'

'Nay! nay!' whimpered Dalel with a maudlin shake of the head, as he
sought comfort in finishing the tumbler. 'We will succeed yet; but the
boy hath no youth in his veins. I know not how to take him as the
others. Yet have we done our best----'

'Best,' echoed the woman scornfully. 'Stale old tricks. A gold piece
under his plate at dinner forsooth! That was soon over in a beating for
the servant who should have seen it put there. A dish of oranges
stuffed with rupees which the same servant, wise man, kept for himself.
A gun he would not take! a dinner he would not eat! a horse he would
not ride! Even a woman he would not look at. What care I? there be
others who will. Stale old tricks indeed! insipid as uncooled water on
a summer's day, or that thing yonder'--she pointed to the opposite
balcony--'compared to me. Think not I did not see thee ere I came out,
oh! Dalel. Not that I care. There be others, and Delhi is but a day's
journey.'

'Mayhap the tricks are old,' he muttered in sullen discomfiture. 'Hast
new to advise?'

She laughed. 'Not to thee; thou hast not the wit for it. And there is
naught new. The crazy potter is right when he saith the world is in the
dust. Sure every ploughman knows, that no matter what the surface be,
the sand lies under all. Thou hast but to dig deep enough.'

She had moved forward to lean against the plinth. In the action her
thin draperies clung to the long curve of her limbs from hip to ankle.
Her right hand supported her head, which was thrown back against it, so
that the arm framed her face. It was the attitude of the Medea in
Pompeian frescoes; the face of a Medea also till the downward glance of
her eyes met an upward one from the sutara-player. Then with a flash
and a laugh the pomegranate blossom flew out into the sunlight and fell
at the young man's feet. Dalel clutched at her savagely amid a volley
of coarse English oaths.

'Let me go, beloved!' she giggled. 'Did I not say the sand lay under
all? What! art jealous? jealous of Chandni the courtesan? Wouldst have
me Dalelah since thou art Dalel? If that be so, I will put thee in good
temper again.'

She snatched at an old banjo hanging on a nail, sank down amid her
draperies like a cobra on its coil, and began recklessly to sing
'Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay,' while Dalel waggled his head, but half
mollified.

'Thou canst not dance it though,' he maundered sleepily. 'Not as 'twas
pictured in the English papers at the Jubilee Institute. Thou art no
good at all. I will change thee for a half-caste girl. Yet if there be
no money in the treasury? Lo! Fate is hard, and I have done my best.'

And still the song of civilisation went on, full of incongruous
barbaric intervals. The girl in the balcony retreated in a huff before
an accomplishment unknown to her: the quail-fighters laughed at the
noise. Only George Keene, wandering about one of the inner courts of
the palace, seeking a good spot whence to sketch a certain blue-tiled
mosque, found himself unconsciously whistling a refrain, and paused to
listen in sickening suspense. Yes, it was! Fitzgerald was right when he
said the country was being ruined by culture! What an inconceivable,
unthinkable contrast to that great ruined courtyard, its blue tiles
decorated in endless writing with the Attributes of God. At least how
inconceivable it would have been six weeks ago, when he had first seen
the mosque with Dan as his companion. For George Keene was becoming
accustomed to being, as it were, depolarised. It would have made him
very angry had any one told him that Hodinuggur had already altered his
outlook on life, though it could scarcely have failed to do so. To
begin with Dalel Beg's occidental follies, grafted on to a sound stock
of ancestral vices, made him, as he leered over a billiard cue and
tried to induce George to bet, quite a startling study. Not so
disturbing, however, as the sober, gentle, inoffensive villagers with
the confession, 'It is God's will,' on their patient lips. Content to
toil and die, smiling over the fact. Surely, something ailed the
terminology of religion if these were Heathen, and certain Western folk
in his father's suburban parish were Christians? Then there was the mad
potter in whose walled yard George listened to the oddest old-world
tales, and the Diwan with whom the lad played chess. To tell truth, he
never climbed up for that purpose to the tower without a breathlessness
not altogether to be accounted for by the steepness of the stairs. Face
to face with the old man, sitting still as a statue before the pieces,
George felt himself face to face with something he could not set aside
with a sneer. Yet he might have been playing with an automaton for all
the interest Zubr-ul-Zaman displayed, while he, on his part, was
agonising in anxiety. But once his hand had left the piece, the old
man's would rise from his knee, hover over the board for a second, then
swoop down unerringly with the murmur, 'My play is played.' And the
move generally disposed of all George's deep-laid plans, for the Diwan
was a passed master in chess. Yet the lad returned again and again for
a beating, being dogged in his turn. He was, in fact, on his way from
one when Chandni and the banjo started his thoughts along a familiar
channel. Certainly they were an odd people, and somehow it was
difficult to write home letters which should at once reflect the truth
and give satisfaction to the British public.

Meanwhile Chandni, desisting with Dalel's first reliable snore, threw
the banjo aside and reviewed the position. There was no mist of reserve
between her and her profession. She had been born to it, as her
forebears had been. Her success in it was rather a matter for pride
than shame; her only anxiety being the future. Should she linger on as
she had been doing in hopes that out of sheer conservatism Dalel Beg
would attach her to him permanently by some of the many possible
marriages? Or should she risk the life of a go-between in her old age,
return to Delhi and amuse herself? The reappearance of the painted girl
in the balcony decided her; she would not give way to such creatures as
that until the emptiness of the Treasury was indubitable. Yet as she
sat rolling the little pellets of opium for her midday dose between
her soft palms she looked at her lover distastefully. He was no good,
and if the sluice-gates were to be open that year she must bestir
herself--she and the Diwan. So much was settled before she swallowed
the dream-giver and threw herself full length on the bare string bed
set deep in the shadows. Then the silence of noon fell on that sinful
slip of bazaar. Even the quails ceased to challenge from their hooded
cages, and the sutara-player with the pomegranate blossom stuck in
behind his ear had forgotten the giver in sleep. But out in the fields
the peasants were at work on their scanty crops, and George Keene as he
entered the red brick bungalow paused to listen to a cry which never
failed to impress him. The cry of praise to the giver with which the
villagers drew water from the wells which stood between them and
death. Truly in that wilderness of sand, water was the mother of all
things. What wonder if it became the motive power in life? What wonder
that, like the silver sword of the big canal, it cut the world into
halves--the people who wanted, and the people who did not want the
sluice-gates opened. With a laugh at his own fancy he went in to
lunch, wondering this time what form the desert fowl would take: it
certainly was the mother of all food! Hodinuggur might have its serious
aspects, but on the whole it was farcical as well as tragical, and
'Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay, counterbalanced that cry of thanksgiving.

And that same evening, while he was reading the last number of the
_Nineteenth Century_ in the verandah, Chandni had an interview with the
old Diwan on his tower, which, had George been aware of it, would have
seemed to him farcical beyond belief, though it was deadly earnest to
the actors. She sat at the old man's feet so as to be within earshot of
a whisper, since walls, especially in an Indian palace, have ears. That
was why Diwan's chair was set out in the open under the star-gemmed
dome of the sky which paled to its circled setting of plain that, seen
from the height, seemed in its turn to curve, cup-like, to meet the
sky. The decent domino she had worn on her way was cast aside out of
sheer coquetry, so that her supple figure, unadorned save for the heavy
chaplets of jasmine flowers shrouding the filmy muslin, might stand
outlined above the low parapet among the stars. For Chandni was shrewd.
The ordinary jewels of her class might have aroused memories in the old
man, and she wished to impress him with her individuality.

'Nay, daughter,' he said approvingly, 'I well believe failure was not
thy fault. As for thy plan--speak.'

She drew her lips closer to his ear, and laid one hand on his knee, as
if to hold his attention.

'Father! all men care for something. He cares not for what he has been
given. Let us try others. If they fail, well and good. Now there is one
thing such as he favour--God knows why?--but I have seen them myself in
the bazaar at Delhi--sahibs who have come over the black water to buy
ragged rugs and battered brass pots. Why? Because, forsooth, they are
old! The crazy potter would say it was because they remember them. I
know not. But this boy pokes about the old things--questions of the old
tales.'

Zubr-ul-Zaman nodded approval. 'True, he favoured the Ayodhya pot; but
he returned it.'

Chandni's eyes sparkled, then fell. 'So! that is one thing to begin
with. Then he is of those who watch flowers grow and birds build their
nests; who paint colour an paper for the love of it. Again, when the
fowler fails in all else he baits the snare with pity, and sets a
decoy-bird a-fluttering within the net. This boy gives quinine to
the old wives, and fish-oil to the babes born with the Potter's
thumb-mark.' Her laughter crackled joylessly.

'Words--words,' muttered the old man impatiently. What wouldest thou
do?'

She drew closer, and the movement sent a wave of perfume from the
jasmine chaplets into the air.

'Lend me Azizan for a week, and thou shalt see.'

Scent, so people say, is the most powerful stimulant to bygone
memories; perhaps that was the reason why her words brought such a
pulse of fierce life to the old face. 'Aziz! Nay! she is of the house.'

'Why not say of the race, father?' retorted Chandni coolly. 'Nay! in
such talk as ours truth is best. Thinkest thou I am a fool when I
go to dance and sing in the women's quarter? Is it not sixteen years
since the potter's daughter disappeared on the night of the great
storm'--hath not this fifteen-year-old the potter's eyes--Heaven shield
us from them!' Her hand went out in the two-fingered gesture used to
avert the evil eye in West as well as East.

Zubr-ul-Zaman scowled at her.

'There be other girls and plenty; take them,' he began. 'Besides, she
is betrothed. I will not lose the dower.'

'Wherefore shouldest lose it? I said a week, and Zainub, the duenna,
will see to safety. He will but paint her picture.'

The Diwan spat piously. 'And what good will such accursed idol-making
do?' he asked more calmly.

''Twill bring the quarry within reach; he lives too far away now. Give
me the girl, my lord, else will I know that the Diwan Zubr-ul-Zaman
Julal-i-dowla Mustukkul-i-jung is afraid of the potter's eyes.'

'As thou art, daughter of the bazaars,' he retorted fiercely. 'Shall I
set them on thee and thine?'

Chandni essayed an uneasy laugh. 'I will do her no harm,' she muttered
sullenly. 'I will not even speak to her if thou wilt. Zainub shall do
all.'

Half-an-hour afterwards Chandni, wrapped in her white domino, paused on
her way home at the door leading to the women's quarters and knocked.
After a while an old woman appeared at the latticed shutter. The
courtesan whispered a word or two, the door opened, and the two
disappeared down a dark passage.

''Tis Chandni come to dance.' The whisper ran through the airless,
squalid rooms, causing a flutter among the caged inhabitants. Out of
their beds they came, yawning and stretching, to sit squatted in a
circle on the bare floor, and watch Chandni give a spirited imitation
of the way the mem-sahibs waltzed with the sahib-logue. It was not an
edifying spectacle, but it afforded infinite satisfaction to the
audience. An audience which has to take its world at second-hand, and
in the process has grown careless as to abstract truth. The young women
tittered, the old ones called Heaven to witness their horror, and then
they all sat without winking an eye while the courtesan sang the songs
of her profession.

But little Azizan's light eyes saw nothing at which to smile or to cry
in either performance. She was young for her years, and very sleepy;
besides, she was betrothed to an old man whom she had never seen,
because, as all the other girls took care to tell her, she really was
too ugly to be kept in the family. And that sort of thing takes the
zest from life.

When the entertainment was over, Chandni sat and talked with Zainub,
the duenna, until dawn, with that careless disregard of bed-time, which
makes it quite impossible to foretell at what hour of the day or night
a native of India will be asleep or awake.

But George Keene, over the way in the branded bungalow, was safely
tucked up in sheets and blankets, whence nothing short of an earthquake
would have roused him.

An earthquake, or else a prescience of the hideous caricature Chandni
had been making of the _trois temps_ over in the palace.




                              CHAPTER IV


George Keene was trying to translate the cloth-of-gold sunlight into
cadmium yellow, with the result that the blue of the tiles in his
sketch grew green, and the opal on the pigeon's breasts as they sidled
along the cornice, was dimmed to dust colour.

The courtyard with its blind arcades of Saracenic arches surrounding
the mosque, lay bare and empty, as it always did save at the hours of
prayer. He looked across it with a dissatisfied expression, noting the
intense colour of certain tiles which were mixed up with those more
modern ones bearing the Arabic letterings. The former reminded him of
the Ayodhya pot, and set him a-wondering if he should ever have an
honest chance of procuring one like his first bribe. The old potter,
his authority in such matters, had told him they were still to be
found, more or less broken, in the digging of graves, or the sinking of
wells. Hitherto, however, he had failed to hear of one. Yet, the
possibility remained, since those tiles, which must be centuries older
than the _cafe chantant_ sort of proscenium on which they were inlaid,
had survived. The latter he saw clearly, now he came to draw it, had
been added on to an older building behind; probably a Hindu temple. So,
when all was said and done, that figure of a grave and reverend
Mohammedan moulvie, which he had intended to put in the foreground,
might not have so much right to be there as a priest of Baal. It was a
confusing country!

When he looked up again from his work, he gave a start; for a totally
unexpected model was squatting on the flags of his foreground. A mere
slip of a village girl; and yet was she of the village? More likely a
stranger--perhaps one of the southern tribes of whom the potter told
tales--since her dress was odd.

It consisted of a reddish purple drapery, more tike wool than cotton in
texture, with a stitched border in browns and creams such as the desert
folk embroider on their camel trappings. It was an admirable piece of
colouring against that blue background, and he began upon it at once,
reckless of the averted face; for he was accustomed to be thus watched
furtively from afar, and knew that the least notice would end in
instant flight, as of a wild animal. Besides, the faces were apt to be
disappointing. This one, however, was not, and his first glimpse of it
gave him quite a shock. Without being beautiful, it was most peculiar;
a golden brown face, with a long straight nose, and a wide, curved
mouth; golden brown hair under the reddish purple of the veil; golden
brown eyes, and a golden brown arm circled with big bronze bracelets
stretched out so that the hand rested on----!

He gave an irrepressible exclamation and half rose from his seat. Down
fell his box and brushes, and over went the dirty water streaming
across his hard-won sunshine. He mopped at it hastily with his
handkerchief--as hastily as he dared; but when he looked up the girl
had gone. He sat down and eyed the spot where she had been
suspiciously; not because of her disappearance--there had been time for
that--but because he was doubtful of his own eyes in thinking that her
hand had rested on an Ayodhya pot. If so, what a rare chance he had
lost; if not, he must be going to have fever, and had better go home
and take some quinine. Go home, however, _via_ the potter's house, and
ask that inveterate gossip if he knew anything of an odd-looking child
with light eyes--here George gave a low whistle, paused in his packing
up of paint-boxes, and looked round again to where the girl had
squatted, feeling that it was foolish of him not to have noticed the
resemblance before. Doubtless the girl was a relation of some sort,
though the old man had always strenuously asserted that he had none
living. Perhaps he had meant no male ones; yet, strangely enough, Fuzl
Elahi did not seem to share that contempt for girls which all the other
natives of George Keene's acquaintance professed. He often talked about
his dead daughter, and whenever he talked he became excited and
restless; indeed, the fear of thus arousing him made George somewhat
reticent in his description of the girl he had seen, which he confined
as far as possible to the dress.

'She is not of Hodinuggur, Huzoor,' declared the old man confidently.
'They who wear wool live far to the south. They never leave the
hearthstone where their fathers lie buried. 'Tis the old way, Huzoor,
and we of this place did it also long ago.' Suddenly his eyes lit up,
he let the wheel slacken and clasped his hands closely over the dome of
clay in its centre. It shot up under the pressure like a fountain.
'Perhaps the Huzoor hath seen one of the old folk; they come and go,
they go and come. I see them often; my fathers and their fathers, but
never my daughter. She will not come, she will not come.' As his voice
died away the cadence of the wheel recommenced, only to stop with a
jar. 'Huzoor! Have _you_ seen her? A slip of a girl with a fawn face
tinted like a young gazelle's? Not black like these people--but sun
colour and brown--all sun colour and brown with little curls on her
forehead----'

For the life of him George could not help acknowledging the thrill that
ran through him. The man was mad, of course, hopelessly mad; yet if he
had seen the girl he could scarcely have given a better description.
Perhaps he had seen her, knew all about her, and only pretended
ignorance, to serve his own ends; that overweening desire, for
instance, to pose as one apart from commonplace humanity, at which
George alternately laughed and frowned.

'Your daughter is dead, potter-ji, how can I have seen her?' he said
rather brutally; yet what else was there to say with that glaring
daylight shining down remorselessly on the squalid reality of the
scene? It was an ordinary potter's yard, no more, no less; the kneaded
clay on one side of the wheel, the unbaked pots lying on the other. In
the outer yard a couple of children were playing in the dust, while
their mother sought a satisfactory ring in one of the pile of
ready-baked water-pots before bringing it with her to haggle and
bargain over the price. Overhead a kite or two wheeled in circles, and
down the slope, of course, lay the palace and its inhabitants; who were
very ordinary examples of impoverished native nobility in its worst
aspect. So George Keene meant to be brutal, his common-sense demanded
it of him. But that evening, as he sat smoking as usual in the
verandah, he saw a light flickering about the ruins, and told himself
that, despite his reticence, the potter was in one of his restless
moods, when he would seek for his daughter all night long, returning at
dawn with a handful of dust, which he would knead to clay and mould
upon his wheel into odd little nine-pins. Sometimes he would bury these
in pairs upon the mound--George had seen him doing it--more often he
would give them to the village children as toys. George had seen them,
too, with sticks for arms and bits of charcoal for eyes, doing duty as
dolls. He had laughed at the oddity of it all; but now in the soft
darkness the thought sent that thrill through his veins once more. This
would never do! He had been too long mooning about Hodinuggur sketching
and playing chess. It was time to ride down the canal, bully the
workman at the brick-kilns, and have a day or two at the bustard in the
desert; so then and there he called to the factotum and gave his orders
for breakfast to be ready twenty miles off the next morning. That would
settle his nerves.

When he returned, after four days, absence, he set to work rationally
to finish his sketch. The cloth-of-gold sunshine was brilliant as ever,
the blue tiles glowed, the prismatic pigeons sidled along the cornices.
He told himself that Hodinuggur was not such a bad place if you refused
to allow imagination----

'The Huzoor gives medicine to the poor,' came a voice behind him.
'Mother is ill; I want quinine.'

It was the girl with the Ayodhya pot in her hand. George Keene laughed
out loud in the satisfaction of his heart at his own wisdom.

'What is the matter with your mother?' he asked judiciously.

'She is sick, I am to get quinine,' repeated the girl. 'I came once
before, but the Huzoor jumped up; so I became frightened and ran away.
Since then I have come often, but the Huzoor was not here.'

George felt vaguely that he too had run away before something
ridiculously commonplace and simple, and in the effort to bolster up
his dignity, his tone became pompous and condescending.

'You are not frightened now, I hope?'

The queerest demure look came to her downcast eyes.

'Wherefore should I be afraid? The Huzoor is my father and mother.'

George had heard the saying a hundred times. Even now, incongruous as
it was, it pleased him by its flattering recognition of the fact that
his benevolence and superiority were undeniable.

'But, unfortunately, I don't carry quinine with me,' he began.

'If the Huzoor were to bring it to-morrow when he comes to put paints
on paper, his slave could return and fetch it,' she interrupted
readily. He looked at her more sharply, wondering what her age might
be. 'Shall I come, Huzoor?' she continued, with a certain anxiety in
her grave face.

'What else?' he answered quickly. It would suit him admirably, since he
could come armed with rupees wherewith to bribe the Ayodhya pot from
her, and with canvas and oil-colour more suitable to the portrait
which, as he looked at her golden brown face and reddish purple
draperies, he resolved to have. He would paint her against the dark
mound of the ruins rising formless and void upon a sunset sky, and he
would call it----

'You had better tell me your name,' he said suddenly, 'then I shall
know to whom I have to send the quinine in case you can't come.'

Her white teeth flashed between the long curves of her mouth.

'I am Azizan, Huzoor. I am quite sure to come, and I will bring the pot
for the medicine.'

It was almost as if she had divined his intention, he thought, as he
watched her pass out through the gateway behind him. It was a queer
chance altogether, all the greater because the name Azizan was
familiarly commonplace. Briefly, it happened to be that of his
factotum's wife. He had, of course, never seen that estimable female,
but he had often heard her addressed in tones of objurgation when delay
occurred between the courses, thus--'_Azizan! egg sarse. Azizan! salt
fish is not without egg sarse_.' From which George inferred that she
was responsible for the kitchen-maid's portion of the Barmecidal feast.
The remembrance made him smile as he packed up his colours, resolving
to do no more till he could begin in earnest on that most interesting
study. He would have thought it still more interesting if he could have
seen it slipping into the white domino which old Zainub, the duenna,
held ready at the gate, where she had been warding off possible
intrusion by the bare truth, that one of her palace ladies was within.
For the custom of seclusion renders intrigue absolutely safe, since
none dare put the identity of a white-robed figure to the test, or pry
into the privacy of a place claimed by a veiled woman.

'Now mind,' scolded Zainub, as they shuffled back to the women's
apartments, 'if thou sayest a word of this to the girls thou goest not
again; but the old bridegroom comes instead.'

'I will go again,' said the girl gravely, 'I liked it. But the sun made
my eyes ache without the veil. Yes! I will go again, amma-jan'
(nursie).

To tell the truth, she had small choice. We have all heard of an empire
whereon the sun never sets, and where slavery does not exist. Even
those who shake their heads over the former statement, applaud the
latter. But slavery, unfortunately, is as elusive as liberty, and when
not a soul, save those interested in making you obey, is even aware of
your existence, individual freedom is apt to be a fraud. This was
Azizan's case. Born of an unknown wrong, she might have died of one
also, and none been the wiser. The zenana walls which shut her in, shut
out the penal code of the alien. If she had chosen to be prudish, the
alternative would have been put before her brutally; but she did not
choose; for naturally enough, as she said, she liked the masquerade,
even if the sun did make her head ache. So she sat all that afternoon
under the lattice-window, whence, if you stood on tiptoe, you could see
the flags in front of the mosque, and thought of the morrow; naturally,
also, since it was a great event to one who had never before set foot
beyond the walls of the women's quarter.

Yet George had to wait a long time the next day ere she appeared and
squatted down before him confidently. 'It was the black man who came
with the Huzoor's things,' she explained quite openly. 'Mother would
not let me come while he was here. The Huzoors are quite different;
they are our fathers and mothers.'

The repetition of the phrase amused George, and tickled his sense of
superiority. It scarcely needed stimulus, for, like most of his race,
he was inclined to consider the natives as automata, until personal
experience in each case made him admit reluctantly that they were not.
So he wondered vain-gloriously what certain politicians at home would
say to this candid distrust of the black man, produced the quinine, and
then offered Azizan five whole rupees if she would let him draw a
picture of her, as he had of the mosque.

'Is that the mosque?' she asked dubiously.

George's reply was full of condescension, which it would not have been
had he looked on Azizan in the light of a girl capable, as girls always
are, of mischief; for the sketch was accurate to a degree. It ended in
an offer of ten rupees for a finished picture of that odd, attractive,
yellow-brown face. It was now resting its pointed chin on the tucked-up
knees, round which the thin brown arms were clasped; and the smile
which lengthened the already long curves of the mouth George set down
to sheer greedy delight at an over large bribe, which, to tell truth,
he regretted. Half would have been sufficient.

'Then the Huzoor must really think me pretty.'

The words might have been bombs, the sigh of satisfaction accompanying
them a thunderclap, from the start they gave to his superiority. So she
was nothing more nor less than a girl; rather a pretty girl, too, when
she smiled, though not so picturesque as when she was grave.

'I think you will make a pretty picture,' he replied with dignity.
'Come! ten rupees is a lot, you know.'

'I'll sit if the Huzoor thinks me pretty,' persisted Azizan, now quite
grave. And her gravity, as she sat with the reddish purple drapery
veiling all save the straight column of her throat and the thin brown
hands clasping the Ayodhya pot, appealed so strongly to George Keene's
artistic sense, that he would have perjured himself to say she was
beautiful as a houri twenty times over if thereby he could have made
her sit to him.

She proved an excellent model; perhaps because she had done little else
all her life but sit still, with that grave tired look on her face. So
still, so lifeless, that he felt aggrieved when, without a word of
warning, she rose and salaamed.

'I must go home now, Huzoor,' she said in answer to his impatient
assertion that he had but just begun. 'I will come to-morrow if the
Huzoor wishes it.'

'Of course you must come,' he replied angrily, 'if you are to get the
ten rupees. Why can't you stay now?'

Azizan might have said with truth that a hand from the gateway behind
the sketcher's back had beckoned to her, but she only smiled
mysteriously.

George, left behind in the sunny courtyard, looked at the charcoal
smudges on his canvas with mixed feelings. He had the pose; but should
he ever succeed in painting the picture which rose before his mind's
eye? To most amateurs of real talent, such as he was, there comes some
special time when the conviction that here is an opportunity, here an
occasion for the best possible work, brings all latent power into
action, and makes the effort absorbing. Something of this feeling had
already taken possession of George; he began to project a finished
picture, and various methods of inducing his sitter to give him more
time. Perhaps she had found it dull. Native women, he believed,
chattered all day long. So when she came next morning, he asked her if
she liked stories, and when she nodded, he began straightway on his
recollections of Hans Andersen; choosing out all the melancholy and
aggressively sentimental subjects, so as to prevent her from smiling.
He succeeded very well so far; Azizan sat gravely in the sunshine
listening, but every day she rose to go with just the same sudden
alacrity. Then he told her the tale of Cinderella, and the necessity
for her leaving the prince's ball before twelve o'clock; but even this
did not make Azizan laugh. On the contrary, she looked rather
frightened, and asked what the prince said when he found out.

'He told her that he thought her the most beautiful girl in the world,
so they lived happy ever after,' replied George carelessly.

It was two nights after this incident that old Zainub the duenna paid a
visit to Chandni in her shadowy recesses.

'What is to come of this foolishness?' she asked crossly. ''Twas a week
at first; now 'tis ten days. She used to give no trouble, and now she
sits by the lattice in a fever for the next day. That is the plague of
girls; give them but a glimpse outside and they fret to death. So I
warned Meean Khush-hal sixteen years agone, when the mother took refuge
with us during her father's absence on the night of the storm; but he
listened not when he had the excuse of the wall. Yea, that is the
truth, O Chandni! 'tis well thou shouldst know the whole, since thou
hast guessed half. Mayhap thou wilt think twice when thou hast heard.
Ai! my daughter! I seem to hear her now; I would not pass such another
year with this one for all the money thou couldst give. Nor is it safe
for me, or for thee, Chandni, with those eyes in the child's head. Let
be--'tis no good. Would I had never consented to begin the work! I will
do no more.'

'True!' yawned Chandni, lounging on her bed. 'Thou art getting old for
the place--it needs a younger woman. I will tell the Diwan so.'

Zainub whimpered. 'If aught were to come of it, 'twould be different;
but thou thyself hast but the hope of beguiling him to some unknown
snare within the walls.'

'An unknown snare is the deadliest,' laughed the other shrilly. 'What
care I for the girl? 'Tis something to have him meet a screened inmate
of the palace day after day; many things may come of that. If Azizan
pines, tell her the wedding is delayed; tell her anything----'

'Tell her!' broke in the old duenna between the whiffs of the hookah
whence she sought to draw comfort. 'Sobhan ullah! There is too much
telling as it is. _He_ tells her--God knows what!--not sensible
reasonable things, like the tales of a parrot, about real men and
women; but upside-down rigmaroles about beggar-maidens and kings and
sighs without kisses. Lo! she hath them pat! But now, because I bid her
hold her tongue from teasing me with them when I wished to sleep, she
flung out her hands so, quite free like, saying if she might not speak
them she would think them, since they were true words. He had told her,
and the sahib-logue ever spake the truth.'

Chandni burst into high pitched laughter. 'So! the little Moghulani
learns fast! 'Tis not strange, seeing the blood which runs in her
veins. The cross breed hath but given it strength. Lo! if this be as
thou sayest, she would not thank thee for stopping her ears with the
cotton of decency. Thus, for the eyes' sake, Zainub, thou hadst best
let well alone, and give the girl the rein--while thou canst.'

In good sooth the old dame felt the truth of Chandni's words, and
knew herself to be between two stools. Either by interference, or
non-interference, she ran the risk of Azizan's anger; more, perhaps, by
the latter than the former. So the girl in her odd dress continued to
steal out in the fresh mornings--for March had come with its hot
glaring noons--to sit between George and the mosque, and to steal back
again, obedient to that beckoning hand from the gate; Zainub's
authority remaining sufficient for that, backed as it was by an
ill-defined fear on the girl's part, lest the fate of Cinderella should
befall her before the proper time. There was little conversation
between the odd couple; chiefly because Azizan had none, and seemed to
know nothing of her neighbours and the village. Her mother? Oh yes! she
was better for the quinine. She was a purdah woman, more or less, and
lived yonder--this with a wave of the hand palacewards. Yes! she had
heard there was a potter, but she had never seen him. Oh, no! they were
not related. Her dress? It was very old because they were very poor.
Her mother had had it by her; it was very ugly. She would rather have
'Manchester'; but they--that is to say, her mother--would not give it
her. The Ayodhya pot? That was old also. She had asked her mother, and
she was willing to sell it. When the Huzoor had finished the picture
her mother would come, if she were well enough, and settle the price.
If not, the Huzoor might go 'yonder' and speak to her mother. The
Huzoors were their fathers and mothers. It was not like a black man.
This much, no more, George gleaned during the morning hours which
passed so swiftly for them both. He in a novel absorption and pride in
the success of his own work. She? It is hard to say. She sat listening,
while the pigeons sidled and coo'd, the blue tiles glowed, and the
blind arcades shut out all the world save George and his stories. They
were of the simplest, most uncompromising nature; partly because his
sense of superiority made him stoop, perhaps unnecessarily, to Azizan's
level; partly because his knowledge of the language, though long past
the stuttering stage, did not extend to niceties of emotion. But loving
was loving, hating was hating, when all was said and done. Sometimes
the crudity of his own words made the lad smile, as, by the aid of his
own complexity, he recognised how entirely they dealt in first
principles; and then Azizan would smile too, not from comprehension,
but from first principles also. The woman's smile born of the man's.

It was different, however, when he laid down his brush with an elated
laugh. 'There! that's done! and you have sat like--like anything.
Earned your ten rupees and--Azizan! my dear little girl--what is the
matter?'

First principles with a vengeance, and the sunlight turning tears to
diamonds as they rolled down those sun-coloured cheeks! He rose,
divided between pity and impatience, and stood looking at her almost
incredulously. 'Come, don't cry--there's nothing to cry about. Look!
how pretty you are in the picture; but it wouldn't have been half so
pretty if you hadn't sat so still. I owe you more than the ten rupees,
Azizan, and that's a fact. What shall it be--money or jewels? What
would you like best?'

She did not answer, and with the same careless superiority he stooped
and turned her downcast face to his; he was used to turning it this way
or that at his pleasure. But this somehow was different; so was the
sun-colour and brown he saw. Sun-colour indeed! He was only
one-and-twenty, and the brightness and the glamour which seemed to fall
in a moment on everything, as he saw the heart-whole surrender of her
eyes, dazed him utterly; only one-and-twenty, and he had never before
seen such a look as this that came to him from the sun-coloured face;
but it was brown also! Truth is truth. It was not a sense of duty, it
was a sense of colour which prevented him from kissing it then and
there. So much may be said for him and his morality, that the
difference between a brown and a white skin was the outward sign of the
vast inward gulf between sentiment and sheer passion. The transition
was too abrupt; for the time it shocked his culture, and brought a look
to his face before which poor little Azizan gave a cry, and fled, just
as she had fled on that first day when George had spilled the dirty
water over the sunshine. He had spilled it now with a vengeance,
and--over the sunshine of her face, sent shame--needless shame.
'Azizan!' he called after her, his pulses bounding and beating,
'Azizan!'

Then he paused, since she would not; and told himself that there was no
need for pursuit. She would come back, for there, as she had left it,
lay the Ayodhya pot. Yes! she must come back. He could scarcely think
of her without it clasped in her thin hands; so silent--yet all the
time----? He gave a little laugh, tender, half regretful. Dear little
Aziz! What a brute, what a fool he had been to bring that look to her
face! His brain was in a whirl; he could think of nothing save her shy,
confident eyes, and ask himself if, when all was said and done, that
world beyond the desert held anything better despite its palaver and
pretension? Did it not come back in the end to the old ways, to the
first principles? He laughed recklessly at his own thoughts more than
once as, scarcely seeing the ground beneath his feet, he made his way
homewards to the branded red brick bungalow.

The factotum was standing in the verandah.

'The mem-sahib is waiting for the Huzoor,' he said calmly,

'The mem! what mem?'

'This slave knows not. She came half an hour gone, and said she would
await the Huzoor's return.'

'Wait! where?'

The man pointed to the sitting-room. 'In there, Huzoor. She has since
fallen asleep in the sahib's arm-chair.'

George stared helplessly at the bamboo-screen which, hanging before the
open door, prevented him from seeing inside. Who could it be? Rose
Tweedie? The mere thought sent the first blush of the morning to his
cheek, by bringing him back with a round turn to civilisation.

'Here! take these things,' he said, thrusting the picture and the pot
hastily into the servant's hand; 'and see!--wipe my boots--they are not
fit to be seen.'

And as the factotum carefully brushed the dust of Hodinuggur from
George's feet, the latter had forgotten everything in wonder as to who
the 'mem' could possibly be.




                              CHAPTER V


It was a lady, whom he had never seen before, fast asleep in his
arm-chair; _the_ arm-chair of bachelor's quarters, which, having served
as a deck lounge on the way out, brings a solitary luxury afterwards to
the bare sitting-room.

Its present occupant appeared to find it comfortable, for she did
not stir. It must be confessed, however, that there was not much to
disturb even a light sleeper, for George's entrance was shy, and his
surprise sufficient to petrify him for a time. She was dressed in a
riding-habit, and a pair of neatly-booted feet rested on the only other
chair in the room. Evidently she had made herself quite at home, for a
helmet and veil lay with her gloves familiarly beside the cup and
saucer set out on the table for the young man's breakfast. Altogether
there was an air of easy proprietorship about the figure which lay with
throat and cheek sharply outlined against the Turkey red cushions; one
hand tucked behind the fair, rumpled hair, the other resting slackly on
the knee. It increased George Keene's shyness by making him feel an
intruder even in his own room, and without a word he turned,
instinctively, to leave it. As he did so a glitter on the floor at his
feet made him stoop to find a diamond pin. He stepped aside to lay it
out of harm's way on the mantelpiece, and in so doing caught a closer
view of the half-averted face.

When he slipped out again into the verandah, he stood with his hands in
his pockets and whistled softly; it was a habit of his when taken
aback. A most surprising adventure indeed! An Englishwoman--a perfectly
beautiful one into the bargain--at Hodinuggur alone! How on earth had
she come there? From Rajpore, seventy odd miles of sheer desert to the
north, or from the south? The Chief's camp had arranged to cross the
sandy strip in that direction, perhaps on its return to look in on
Hodinuggur, but that did not account for her being alone.

The factotum having disappeared into the cook-room, George, in order to
avoid calling, strolled thither, intent on further information. In so
doing he became aware of his groom at work on a strange horse. The
Huzoor was right, said the man with a grin, it was the mem's, and was
it to have three or four pounds of grain? George, noticing the little
Arab's hanging head, suggested a bran mash, and went on feeling as if
he had tumbled into another person's dream. Yet no more was to be
discovered. The mem had come, sent her horse round, and gone to sleep
in the sahib's arm-chair. Furthermore, what did the Huzoor mean to do
about his breakfast?

George, who, to tell truth, was beginning to feel the pangs of hunger,
hesitated between awaking his guest and taking his bath. He chose the
latter alternative, moved thereto by the remembrance that he would be
none the worse for a clean collar and what he termed 'all that sort of
thing'; but half an hour afterwards, when he returned to the verandah
with the refreshingly clean look of a newly-tubbed young Englishman,
the situation had not improved. It had become worse, for, while the
lady still slept, George felt ravenous; nor could he turn to his pipe
as a palliative lest she should wake suddenly to find him reeking of
tobacco--for he had always been a bit of a dandy, and fastidious over
such things. This did not prevent him from feeling injured. No woman,
be she ever so beautiful, had a right to take possession of a fellow's
breakfast as she had done; and yet it was not so much her fault as the
detestable Indian lack of pantries and larders, which led to every
plate and knife, every eatable, save the desert-fowl in the cook-room,
being, as it were, under the immediate guardianship of the Sleeping
Beauty. Even if the store-closet had been in the bedroom, he might have
'vittled free, off sardines and captain's biscuit. And still she slept.
At last, in sheer desperation, he determined to wake her; and, raising
the screen, was beginning a preparatory cough, when the sight of the
breakfast-table suggested the possibility of a raid. The next instant
his shoes were off and the boyhood in him uppermost, as he stole in,
his eyes on the sleeper. 'A good conscience, and no mistake,' he
thought, as he annexed the loaf and a tin of sardines. 'One of the
Seven Sleepers, surely!'--this as he passed more leisurely to a pat of
butter and a knife and fork; these he piled on the loaf, with a
spoonful or two of marmalade. Apparently she had no intention of
awakening for days! This thought led to a cup and some tea from the
canister, finally to a milk jug; the latter proving fatal, for in
retiring backward with his spoil through the screen, its contents
dribbled on to his best suit, and the effort to prevent this,
overbalanced the spoon of marmalade, which fell with a clatter.

Some people wake to the full enjoyment of their faculties, and with the
first glance of those grey-blue eyes, George saw that concealment--with
half the breakfast-table clasped to his bosom--was impossible. He
blushed furiously, and began to apologise; which was foolish, since
excuses, if due at all, were clearly owed by the sleeper. She did not,
however, make any.

'How kind of you not to disturb me before, Mr. Keene,' she interrupted
in a charming voice. 'Have you been in long?'

Her coolness increased his apologies, making him assert on the
contrary, he had but just returned. Only being rather in a hurry for
his breakfast----

'Apparently,' she interrupted again. 'Dear me, what a very
miscellaneous meal it would have been! But, as I am awake, hadn't you
better put it all down before the marmalade runs into the sardines?
Then, as I am quite as hungry as you can possibly be, you might tell
the man to bring breakfast.'

George, if a trifle taken aback by her nonchalance, felt grateful for
the opportunity, given with such easy grace, of getting at his shoes
again before beginning explanations. On his return he noticed that she,
also, had made use of the time to tidy her hair and restore a general
daintiness of appearance. As he entered she was stooping to look under
the table as if to seek something she had lost.

'It is a little diamond pin,' she said; 'I left it here with my
gloves.'

'No,' he answered quickly, off his guard. 'It was on the floor--I
mean--I--I think it is on the mantelpiece.'

'Thanks, so much!' She took it gravely ere going back to the arm-chair.
Then she looked up at him archly.

'Was I snoring dreadfully when you came in first, Mr. Keene?'

For the third time since he had become aware of her presence he
blushed.

'Snoring?--oh dear no,' he began angrily.

'That is a relief. I was afraid I must have been, to make you perjure
yourself so. As if any sane woman could believe that you went about
Hodinuggur in that costume! I believe you have been in for hours and
hours, and I'm so sorry, Mr. Keene; but you will forgive me when you
hear my tale of woe.'

George, with an odd little rapture at the thought, told himself he
could forgive her anything because she was so beautiful.

'I'm Mrs. Boynton,' she went on; 'you will have heard of me, I expect,
from Rose?'

He told her that he had heard of her from most people at Rajpore, which
was the truth; but he did not say, which was also the truth, that their
praises of her looks seemed to him miserably inadequate. No doubt,
however, she saw this in his eyes, though she had too large an
acquaintance with the expression to take any interest in it. Nice boys
always admired her immensely, and this one looked very nice, with the
beauty of cleanliness on him from head to foot, so she detailed her
adventures with that confidence in sympathy and help which is such a
charm to very young men. To say sooth George deserved it, for he was
one of those who are born to stand between their womenfolk and that
necessity for taking the initiative which--_pace_ the strong-minded
sisters--most women cordially detest, and which is the cause of half
the nervous exhaustion of the present age. So after a very short time
he took possession of her future even more decidedly than she had taken
possession of his bungalow. Briefly, the case lay thus. Colonel
Tweedie's camp, owing to the increasing heat, had changed its route
slightly, and was due, as the incoming post would doubtless let George
know, at Hodinuggur next morning. To do this it had doubled up two
marches across the desert into one, so as to include some inspection
work before turning at right angles along the canal. Owing to this and
some good sport on the way, every one had started by daybreak through
the Bar; that is to say, hard waste land dotted with tufts of grey
caper-bushes, and stunted trees, just high enough and thick enough to
prevent one seeing more than twenty or thirty yards in any direction,
since beyond that the clumps became a continuous hedge shutting out the
world. Colonel Tweedie and his immediate staff having ridden on in
haste, the shooting party, beguiled by the prospect of bustards, had
spread themselves through the jungle on one side of the track, followed
by their horses and grooms. Mrs. Boynton, however, preferring such road
as there was, had been walking her horse along it in the expectation of
being rejoined, when the sudden firing of an unseen gun made her Arab
bolt. First along the track, then missing it at a bend, the beast had
swerved into some bushes, where a thorny branch had caught in his long
tail, making him perfectly unmanageable. After a mile or more, he had
apparently broken into the track again, and sobered down to a walk,
much to her delight. Then a solitary native traveller had passed, and
assured her, as she imagined, that she was right for the sahib-logue's
camp; so she had trotted on, until, fearing she might lose the track
once more, she had been foolish enough to walk her horse back on its
traces, thus completely losing all her bearings. Finally, at a fork in
the almost invisible path, she had been forced to confess that she had
not the least idea in which direction her destination lay, north or
south, east or west; the sun, therefore, being of little use to her as
a guide. (Here her pretty smile growing a trifle tremulous, made George
profusely indignant with the desert.) Then, regaining her head, she
remembered to have heard Mr. Fitzgerald--who, as Mr. Keene would know,
had of course joined the camp on its entrance into the division--say
that the more open country lay eastward, and so she had ridden as
straight as she could into the shadows, that being her best chance of
steering aright. (Here George grew clamorous over her courage.)
Nevertheless, it had almost failed, she said, when on a sudden the
great silver streak of the canal had appeared from among the bushes,
and she had ridden along its banks till she came to a treeless waste
with a big mound looming in the far distance.

'I knew it must be Hodinuggur,' she finished with a sort of caress to
her own comfort among the pillows, 'by Mr. Fitzgerald's description,
and I knew you from Rose Tweedie's, so I felt it was all right. And
now, Mr. Keene! don't you wonder I didn't snore, considering I had been
in the saddle for eight hours?'

George protested it was virtue itself for her to wake at all; but that
she would have the whole day to rest, as it was manifestly impossible
for her to return to the camp; absurd also, since the latter was to
come on to Hodinuggur next day. So he would send to the Diwan and
borrow a camel sowar, who would ride over with a note telling of her
safety in the bungalow, and asking for anything she might require. For
the rest, all he had was at her service.

'But I shall be turning you out of house and home, shan't I?' she asked
kindly.

The young fellow's eyes softened. 'I don't think I ever thought of it
as a home before,' he said with an embarrassed laugh at his own words;
'but won't you come to breakfast? It's awfully nasty, I'm afraid----'

'Then we can fall back on the sardines and the marmalade,' she
interrupted gravely. This gravity was with her a perfect art, and gave
a great charm to her gentle raillery.

Perhaps the food was nasty; if so, George, for one, did not mind except
for her sake. He thought of nothing but her comfort; of how he could
welcome her to take possession of everything, himself included. Was she
not the most beautiful, the most fascinating, the most perfect woman he
had ever seen? Did she not deserve the best he could give her? So,
while she was writing the note for the camel sowar, George slipped away
to give instructions to the factotum. The bedroom must be swept and
garnished, and the things pitched away anywhere. The drawers must be
re-papered, a towel put on the dressing-table, and---- What a beastly
hole it was, he thought ruefully as he left the man to his own devices;
but half an hour afterwards his face cleared; for the factotum, having
been in good services, had risen to the occasion. Not only was there a
towel on the dressing-table, but two empty beer-bottles had been
modestly draped into candlesticks, with the gilt ends of the pugree he
had received from the Diwan, while the remainder of the muslin was
festooned about the looking-glass. Azizan's portrait stood on the
mantel-shelf with the Ayodhya pot in front, and two dinner plates on
either side, the arrangement being completed by two of his best ties
knotted in bows about his hunting crop, and the kitchen fan. A tinsel
veil, borrowed from the compounder of _egg-sarse_, did duty as a
bed-spread, supported by his Cooper's Hill tennis muffler as an
antimacassar. In the middle of the room the factotum still lingered,
benign and superior, one hand holding a hammer and tacks, the other a
pair of striped silk socks, with the decorative effect of which he was
evidently enamoured. In addition, a figure swathed in white sat
modestly behind the dressing-room door.

'It is my house,' said the man, with a large smile. 'Since it is not to
be tolerated that the abode of princes should lack a female slave, the
woman, at my command, takes the part of ayah. The Huzoor may rest
satisfied. Azizan's knowledge of the mems equals this slave's of the
sahibs.'

Azizan! The smile left George's lips at the name; and before leaving
the room he thrust the portrait into a cupboard, replacing it by an
illuminated text which was lying neglected under a pile of wire
cartridges.

'The Huzoor is right,' declared the factotum cheerfully. 'The mems have
them ever in their rooms. Lo! nothing is amiss.'

George, as he turned at the door for a last look, felt that the advice,
'Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together' emblazoned in
Gothic characters, holly, and mistletoe, which a maiden aunt had sent
him as a Christmas present, did indeed put the finishing touch to the
solitude of the wilderness.

'But where are you going?' asked Gwen.

'I? Oh! they'll give me quarters in the palace, I expect. Perhaps I'd
better go over now and see about it. Then I've inspection work,
and--and a heap of other things. So perhaps I'd better say good-bye.
I've told the servants about lunch and all that sort of thing. And your
traps will be here before dark.'

A very nice boy, indeed, thought Mrs. Boynton, and showed her thought.
So George went over to the palace feeling quite intoxicated because he
had been instructed without fail to dine in his own house; and after he
had settled about his quarters with Dalel, and had ridden off on his
fictitious tour of inspection, he dug the spurs into his pony out of
sheer lightness of heart, and went sailing away over the desert,
careless even of the direction in which he went.

Dalel meanwhile had repaired to the shadowy arches in a state of
boastful superiority. His friend Keene was coming over to stop in the
palace. They would play cards, and be jolly, and drink. And the lad
always carried the key of the sluice-gate on his watch-chain.

'It is a chance indeed,' said Chandni, with a queer look. Then after a
time broke in on Dalel's vapourings by snatching the banjo from the
wall and breaking into a respectable and plaintive love-song.

'Lo! thou hast thy way, and I have mine,' she laughed recklessly. 'Let
us see who succeeds best.' So slipping on the decent white domino, she
set off for the palace, and turned down the dark passage leading to the
women's apartments. Doubtless it was a chance which must not be
neglected.

Between his desire not to disturb Mrs. Boynton's kindness too early,
and his dislike to becoming a prey to Dalel at the palace, George in
the end had to gallop his pony the last four miles, and then found
himself with but ten minutes in which to dress. But he dashed up the
narrow stair leading to the odd little arcaded room placed at his
disposal by the Diwan, feeling confident in the factotum's forethought;
and, sure enough, on the silk coverlet of the high lacquered bed lay
his dress-clothes and white tie complete. Nothing else, except his
sleeping-suit; so, choice being denied him, he flung himself into
ceremonious black, discovering as he did so that two or three jasmine
blossoms and a sprig of maidenhair fern had been pinned into the
button-hole of his coat. The factotum was evidently determined he
should play the right game. As he ran down the stairs again he wondered
whence the man could possibly have procured the fern, and then
remembered having seen a few fronds clinging, far down on the
masonry of his well, into which the canal water filtered. The seed
of this hill-born plant must have filtered with it; just as these
strange items of knowledge--the shibboleth of dress-clothes and
button-holes--filtered into the brains of these odd people. Life in
Hodinuggur was really very amusing, and full of delightful surprises.
Yesterday he had been waiting--without a collar!--for a Barmecidal
feast, to-day in swallow-tail and a button-hole he was going to dine
with the most beautiful woman in the world! and there, like a fairy
tale, was the branded bungalow illuminated out of all recognition. And
inside were more wonders in a table set out with flowers, and Mrs.
Boynton coming forward to greet him with a bouquet of jasmine and
maidenhair amid the soft ruffles of her white dress. It was humiliating
yet still amusing, having to confess it came, not from his courtesy,
but the factotum's sense of duty. Then the very sight of the man
himself, in spotless raiment, lording it over Mrs. Boynton's kitmutgar
was pure comedy. In fact when, dinner being over, George was left face
to face with three napkin-swathed black bottles hung with foolscap
tickets of port, sherry, claret, engrossed in the village
schoolmaster's best hand, he gave one look at Mrs. Boynton before
exploding into laughter, while she vowed to keep the _menu_ to her
dying day, if only to show the folly of allowing facts to interfere
with fancy.

By and by, when coffee came in--the factotum diffident over the
breakfast cups but triumphant over the under-footman with hot milk and
sugar on a dinner-plate--they laughed again; yet the laughter brought a
moisture to George Keene's merry grey eyes. In a vague way the boy knew
what had happened, knew that the most beautiful woman in the world had
not only taken possession of house and home, but of body and soul; and
he was glad of it, despite the moisture in his eyes--glad to the
heart's core as he chattered away confidentially, while she listened
graciously, thinking what a charming boy he was, and what an excellent
husband he would make by-and-bye for any girl. What an admirable
son-in-law, in short, he would have made if she had had a daughter and
he had had money; for women of her sort view mankind chiefly from the
matrimonial point of view, and seek to give variety to the question by
importing into it all their female friends.

'That reminds me,' she said, as she listened to the hope that she was
fairly comfortable which George tacked on to his good-night. 'You have
the most fascinating blue pot on your mantelpiece. Where did you get
it?'

'Do you really like it?' he asked eagerly; 'if so, you can have it.'

'My dear boy!' she laughed, 'I don't mean to appropriate _everything_
you possess.'

He looked at her with shining happy eyes. 'But it isn't mine as yet; it
belongs to some one, though, who wants to sell it, and if you would
give it to me, now, I'd finish the bargain to-morrow morning and you
shall have it back by breakfast-time if it is to be had for love or
money.'

Love or money! The old formula came carelessly to his lips.

Azizan meanwhile, crouching behind one of the palace arcades, and
wondering when she would hear his foot on the stairs, was echoing the
thought in another language. She was trembling all over from
excitement, and fear, and hope; of what, she scarcely knew, she did not
understand. They had dressed her in her best beneath the flimsy white
veil which pretended to conceal the finery it really enhanced, and
surely, she thought, if he had deemed her pretty when in that dreadful
old shroud, he would be still kinder now. They had bidden her ask for
the Ayodhya pot, and take him to settle the price with her mother. But
of doing this she was not sure; she was sure of nothing save that she
must see him again--must see him to make certain that he was not vexed.
And then she would tell him that traps were being laid for him--at
least she might tell him--but come what might she must see him; ay! and
he must see her as she ought to be seen.

It was not a very safe interruption for George to have found awaiting
him in the long moonlit shadows of the arcades had he been in the same
mood as the girl; not even though all the plotting and scheming would
have seemed incredibly absurd to him at any time, and in any mood.
Indeed, even by the dim light of the cook-room, where the factotum was
putting away a copy of the _menu_ among his certificates as proof
positive of his acquaintance with the appetites of the ruling race,
Chandni's snare would have met with the derision it deserved; but in
the dark intricacies of palace politics it seemed simple enough,
especially to one of her vile experiences.

But as it so happened George never went near the palace. He sat on the
canal bridge till dawn, smoking one pipe after another, and looking
aimlessly, dreamily at the dark windows of the bungalow. No one could
have foreseen this, not even the lad himself. He had no intention of
out-watching the stars when the balmy air and a feeling of measureless
content first tempted him to pause and set aside the forgetfulness of
sleep for a time--or would it have been sleep when _she_ was in the
desert alone, with God knows what ruffians about? A rage grew up in him
at the thought of Dalel and his kind, until the palace itself became
distasteful. So, almost before he realised that he was on the watch,
the gurglings of many camels and the thud of a mallet told him that the
advanced guard of the big camp had arrived, and sent him across to the
camping ground to warn the tent pitchers to be as quiet as possible.
'May the angels of the Lord pitch their tents around us this night,
used to be the favourite bidding prayer of a certain Scotch divine when
he ministered to a volunteer congregation, until one day a veteran
happening to be there said audibly, 'Then I'm hopin, they'll no mak
muckle noise wi' the tent-pegs.' A tale which shows the danger of
imperfect local colouring; a fact which was to be brought home that
night both to Dalel and Chandni, for even then George did not return to
the champagne and the snares. That incomprehensible love of the
picturesque on which the latter had counted, kept him engrossed in the
novel sight of a canvas city rising like magic from the bare sand.
First came an autocrat with measuring tape and pegs mapping the ground
into squares; then, one by one, in its appointed place, a great ghost
of a thing, flapping white wings against the purple sky, to rise stiff
and square above? fringe of even silvery ropes.

It was not until a saffron-coloured glint in the east startled him into
the thought that he was a confounded ass, that George, out of sheer
lightheartedness, ran all the way back to the palace, stumbled up the
steep stairs, and threw himself into the high lacquered bed to fall
asleep before the saffron had faded into daylight. Perhaps it was as
well, since even the Hodinuggur sun, which had been at work since the
beginning of all things, might have stared to see a masher in dress
clothes knocking into a Moghul palace with the milk. It stared instead
at a more familiar sight; at a girl, face down on a bare string bed in
the women's quarters, sobbing as if her heart would break.




                              CHAPTER VI


Naturally enough George overslept himself. Naturally also he woke to
feel himself hustled and bustled, for he was due to meet the incoming
camp at the borders of his district at a certain hour; a feeling he
proceeded to vent on the factotum for being late with the early tea
which that worthy had had carried over from the bungalow in an odd
little procession, tailing off to some of the large-eyed village lads
and lasses learning betimes the customs of their rulers. In addition,
George had promised Mrs. Boynton an answer about the Ayodhya pot, and
now, even by hurrying, which he loathed, he could scarcely find time to
seek Azizan in the old place. Still he did hurry, and leaving the camel
which he was to ride gurgling in the courtyard, wasted five minutes in
tramping up and down the flags in front of the mosque; finally, in
vexation, returning by the short cut through the bazaar. In these early
hours it had a deserted, yet still dissipated air, the few loungers
looking as if they had been up all night. Only the quails challenged
cheerfully from their shrouded cages. In the arched causeway, however,
he came on Dalel Beg, most offensively European in costume and manner;
for he too was bound on reception-duty.

'Aha! Keene, old chappie,' he began with a leer, 'you sleep well after
burra-khana (big dinner) with the mem. By Jove, you keep it up late.'

George could scarcely refrain from kicking him then and there. But the
thought that these people had possibly put their own construction on
his absence from the palace made him feel hot and cold with rage and
regret. To avoid the subject--the only course open to him--he hastily
held out the Ayodhya pot which he was carrying, and asked the Mirza if
he had any idea to whom it belonged.

Now the Mirza's oblique eyes had been on it from the first; but at the
question they narrowed to mere slits of compressed cunning.

'Ah, so! very good. I know. Yes, yes! it belong to you, Keene, of
course. Bah! it is worth nothing. I hate old trumpery matters. You are
very welcome.'

'You mistake, sahib,' retorted George haughtily, 'this does not, did
not belong to your grandfather; it belongs to an old woman who lives
near the palace. She promised to sell it to me, and now I'm rather in a
hurry to complete the bargain. Mem Boynton sahiba wants it, and they
leave to-morrow or next day.'

Dalel Beg, who had been turning the pot over and over in his hand,
laughed.

'So you say it is another----'

'Certainly it is another,' interrupted George, annoyed beyond measure
by his manner; 'it belongs, as I said, to an old woman. She has a
daughter called Azizan----' he paused, doubtful of putting Dalel on any
woman's track.

'Azizan!'--the Mirza signed his attendants to fall back with unwonted
decision before he went on,--'Azizan! tell me, Keene, a young girl?
with eyes of light like potter's?'

Evidently he knew something of, and was interested in, the girl, and
George, now that it was too late, regretted having mentioned her name.

'Can't wait any longer now, I'm afraid,' he replied, glad of the
excuse; 'just send one of your fellows up to my quarters with the pot,
will you? Thanks, I've no time to lose.'

Left thus cavalierly, Dalel Beg scowled after the young Englishman;
then with a compendious oath turned back to the side door whence he had
emerged, and, stumbling in his anger up the dark stairs, appeared again
in Chandni's presence. He almost flung the pot beside her as she lay
curled up on her bed, and then, driven to words by her arrogant silence
began a volley of furious questions.

What mischief had the woman been up to? How came it that the English
cub had seen Azizan? Azizan, who after all was his half-sister, one of
the race, though they did keep her out of his sight. And that oaf, that
infidel---- His wrath was real, for beneath the veneer of modern
thought the fierce jealousy of the Moghul lay strong as ever.

Chandni gave a jeering laugh, 'Thou art too handsome for the maidens, O
Dalel; too wicked also even for the race. Thou needest one like me to
keep thee straight. Lo! there is nothing to know, nothing to tell.
Hadst asked last night, the answer might have been other. I set a snare
and it failed; for thou wert right--the boy is no boy, but a milksop.
May fate send him death and us a black man in his place, else I stop
not here!'

Her jingling feet struck the ground with a clash and she yawned again.
In truth she was tired of Hodinuggur, and longed for the Chowk at
Delhi. Dalel, with a sneer adulterating his frown, looked at her
vengefully, 'Wah! thou art a poor creature, putting the blame on
others, after woman's way. Thy wiles are useless, forsooth, because
the boy is a milksop. Then a strange mem comes and he sits drinking
wine--my wine, look you, for his servant required it of me--until the
dawn; then comes home tipsy after losing himself among the tent-pegs.'

This was Dalel's version of the incident. It interested his hearer into
provoking details by denial.

'It is a lie,' she said calmly.

'Daughter of the bazaars, 'tis true! did I not wait till nigh three
with champagne and devil-bone, yet he came not? Did not his servant
tell me but now I had stinted them in wine? Did not the tent pitchers
say he wandered as a madman among the pegs? Was he not at me, even now,
to get this pot for this mem, this woman?' So far his anger had swept
him past its first cause; now he remembered and harked back to it. 'How
came he by the pot, I say? how hath he seen a woman of our race?'

'Ask the Diwan,' she replied coolly; 'for me that measure is over, I
will dance to another tune.' And as she spoke, though her feet scarcely
shifted, a new rhythm came to these jingling bells. ''Tis odd,' she
murmured in a singing tone, as she lifted the pot and held it out at
arm's-length, 'we come back to this old thing at every turn, and now
his mem wants it. Leave it with me a space, O Mirza Dalel Beg. I will
set it yonder in the niche where I take the seed of dreams; it may
bring wisdom to them.'

Dalel gave a contemptuous grunt.

'Thou art no better than an old spay-wife with thy dreams and omens and
fine talk. Sure the Hindu pig, from whom I took thee, hath infected
thee with his idolatrous notions----'

'See, I go not back to them and him,' she interrupted quickly, 'leave
it, I say, if thou art wise. If the sahib seek it of thee, say one of
thy women knows the owner and makes arrangement. Tis true, and thou
lovest the truth, O Dalel.'

As usual, her recklessness cowed him, and when he had gone and she sat
rolling the opium pellets in her palms, the Ayodhya pot lay in the
niche. Something had declared in its favour, and wisdom lay in
humouring the mysterious will which nine times out of ten insisted on
playing the game of life in its own fashion. Then she lay back half
asleep, half awake, her hands clasped behind her smooth head, her eyes
fixed on the shifting pattern beneath the glaze. The sun climbing up
sent a bar of shine through a chink in the balcony roof. It slanted
into the recesses, undulated over her curved body and reaching the
niche made the Ayodhya pot glow like a sapphire. But by this time
Chandni was dreaming, so she did not hear the merry laughter of a
cavalcade passing through the Mori gate on its way to the canvas city
in the camping ground. A cavalcade of aliens, with Rose Tweedie on a
camel, her English side-saddle, perched on the top of a native pad,
giving her such height that she was forced to stoop.

'Another inch, Miss Tweedie,' cried George gaily, 'and you would have
had to dismount; you will have to cultivate humility before trying
Paradise!'

'Sure Miss Rose is an angel already,' put in Dan Fitzgerald.

But Lewis Gordon rode gloomily behind; partly because he himself was in
a shockingly bad temper, partly because the camel he rode was a
misanthropist. And these two causes arose the one from the other, since
it was not his usual mount. That, when Rose Tweedie had taken advantage
of Mrs. Boynton's absence to desert the dhoolies which were the only
alternative conveyance across this peculiarly sandy march, had been
impounded for the young lady on account of its easy paces. He
remembered those paces ruefully, as, with low-pitched indignation he
wondered why she could not have stuck to the more ladylike dhooli. Yet
she looked well on the beast and rode it better than most men would
have done on a first trial; than he would, at any rate. But these were
aggravations, not palliations, of her offence; still, when, on
dismounting, she came straight up to him, her natty top-boots in full
evidence, the huge sola hat, borrowed from her father, making her slim
upright figure show straighter and slenderer than ever, he was forced
to confess that if she did do these horrible things she did them with
infinite _verve_ and good taste.

'I'm so sorry, Mr. Gordon!' she exclaimed eagerly, 'indeed I didn't
know of the exchange father made till we had started, or I'd have stuck
to the dhooli--indeed I would. What an awful brute it was! I saw it
giving you a dreadful time. Do let me send you over some Elliman?'

'I'm not such a duffer as all that, Miss Tweedie,' he began.

'I didn't mean that, you know I didn't; but if you won't have the
Elliman, take a hot bath, it's the next best thing I know for
stiffness. You can tell your bearer to take the water from our
bath-fire. And thanks so much, I enjoyed the ride immensely. Mr.
Fitzgerald raced me at the finish, and I beat by a good head.'

'A particularly good head, I should say,' he replied, out of sheer love
of teasing, for he knew how intensely she disliked his artificial
manner with women. The fact annoyed him in his turn. It was another of
her unwarrantable assumptions of superiority; nevertheless he followed
her advice about the bath.

Indeed Hodinuggur for the rest of the day claimed suppleness of joint,
in the mind at least. We all know the modern mansion where, entering a
Pompeian hall you pass up a Jacobean staircase, along Early English
corridors, and Japanese landings to Queen Ann drawing-rooms; mansions
of culture, where present common-sense is relegated to the servants'
attics. Hodinuggur was as disturbing to a thoughtful person unused to
gymnastics; perhaps more so because a certain glibness of tongue in
slurring over chasms and ignoring abysses, became necessary when, as
fell to Lewis Gordon's lot, most of the day passed in interviews.
Solemn interviews of State, then personal interviews with an ulterior
object, finally begging interviews _pur et simple_. The other members
of the camp, however, had an easy time of it, their attendance not
being required. Dan Fitzgerald passed most of his day in vain hopes of
a _tete-a-tete_ with Mrs. Boynton, for he was on tenter-hooks to
explain the feeling with which, on returning late to the camp, he had
found it in commotion over her loss; but Gwen, who always dreaded Dan
when he had reasonable cause for emotion, avoided him dexterously,
chiefly by encouraging George, who was nothing loth to spend his day in
camp. At first the lad felt no little vexed to find himself shy and
constrained among so large a party; but this feeling wore off quickly,
and when he came, ready dressed for tennis, into the drawing-room tent
at tea-time it seemed quite natural to be once more amid easy-chairs
and knick-knacks, to see the pianette at which Rose sang her Scotch
songs with such spirit littered with music, and to find her busy at a
table set with all manner of delightful things to eat. He was boy
enough to try so many of them, that Dan had to apologise for his
subordinate's greed before they trooped out laughing to the very
different world which lay beyond the treble plies of the tent--that
mystical veil of white, and blue, and red, which, during the camping
months, hangs between India and its rulers, giving rise to so much
misunderstanding on both sides. It is the fashion nowadays to
accentuate the faults of the latter, but much of the bad name given by
superficial observers to Anglo-Indian society, is the result of that
curious lightheartedness which springs from the necessity for
relaxation, consequent on the gloveless hold India exacts on the
realities and responsibilities of life. The saying, 'Let us eat and
drink and be merry, for to-morrow we die,' is hurled unfairly at
pleasure-seekers all the world over, simply because merriment has
become associated with a low type of amusement. If we change the verbs,
the blame vanishes; since to live happily is the end and aim of all
morality. For happily means worthily to those who have any moral sense.
Then in India the pursuit of pleasure must needs be personal, for there
are no licensed purveyors of amusement. You cannot go to a box-office,
buy seats, spend the day seriously, dine at a restaurant, and take a
hansom to the play. As a rule you have to begin by building the
theatre. So it is in all things, and surely after a hard day's work in
bringing sweetness and light (and law) within reach of the heathen,
even a judge with a bald head may unbend to youthful pastimes, without
breaking the Ten Commandments!

But Colonel Tweedie was not bald, and he played tennis vigorously
in what Rose called the duffers' game, with Mrs. Boynton, the
under-secretary, and Lewis Gordon who pleaded shortsightedness as an
excuse for not joining the Seniors against the Juniors, where Rose and
George challenged all comers. Yet he owned it was pretty enough to see
the former sending back Dan's vicious cuts with a setting of her teeth
ending in a smile either at success or failure. Pleasant to see the
alertness, confidence, confidentialness between the boy and girl; to
hear his quick 'Look out,' evoke the breathless 'I've--got it,' as the
ball whizzed to some unguarded spot. It was a fierce struggle and the
wide-eyed villagers who had trooped out to see the strange doings on
their ancestral threshing-floor, gathered instinctively round the
harder game.

'Ari, sister!' murmured a deep-bosomed mother of many to her gossip, as
they squatted on one of the heaps of chaff which had been swept aside
from the hard beaten floor. 'That one in the short skirt is a
_budmarsh_.[1] Her man will need his hands.' Yet an unrestrained
chuckle ran round the female portion of the audience as Dan,
over-running himself in a hopeless attempt after the impossible,
scattered a group of turbaned pantaloons, who, retreating with shaking
heads to re-form further off, muttered in wondering rebuke, 'Hai! Hai!
does not shame come to her.' But a third section, ranged in rows, gave
an exotic 'hooray!'--a ridiculous, feeble little cheer, started by a
young man in a black alpaca coat, and accompanied by still feebler
clapping. This was the village school and its master, claiming its
right to be a judge of 'crickets.'

'You have the better half of creation on your side, Miss Tweedie,'
remarked Lewis, when, the games being over, the men were resuming their
coats. 'What is more, the rising generation of the worser half also.
The boys were unanimous for the "Miss"; we miserable men being left to
the support of past ages. India is doomed. Another decade will see
woman's rights rampant.'

She turned on him readily, as she always did. 'The boys applauded
because the rising generation, thank heaven, is being taught to love
fair play--even towards women.'

'At it again!' interrupted Mrs. Boynton plaintively, 'really I must get
you two bound over to keep the peace.'

'Then I shall have to hire another camel for my luggage,' said Lewis
gravely, 'for Miss Tweedie knocks me and my arguments to bits.'

Gwen turned aside impatiently, saying in a lower voice, 'How foolish
you are, Lewis! One would have thought you would have tired of it by
this time.'

'On the contrary,' he replied in his ordinary tone: 'the bloom is
perennial. I wither beneath the ice of Miss Tweedie's snubs, and revive
beneath the sun of her smiles like--like a bachelor's button.'

And Rose did smile. Her contempt always seemed to pass by the man
himself, and rest on his opinions. Even there, much as she loathed
them, she was forced to confess that they did not seem to affect his
actions; that it was impossible to conceive of his behaving to any
woman, save as a gentleman should behave. Yet this thought aggravated
the offence of his manner by enhancing its malice aforethought, and
made her frown again.

'Come! there is light enough for a single yet, Mr. Keene,' she said
imperiously, and George, with one regretful glance at Mrs. Boynton,
obeyed. Lewis Gordon looked after them, shrugged his shoulders, and
strolled off to the messroom-tent.

'It really is shameful of Lewis to tease Miss Tweedie as he does,'
began Gwen, who, finding herself unavoidably paired with Dan, instantly
started what she thought a safe topic of conversation. He looked at her
with absent eyes.

'A shame, is it? but when a man likes a girl he is very apt----'

She broke in with a petulant laugh. 'Are you asleep, Dan? What could
induce you to think that?'

'What? Why, love of course! Set a thief to catch a thief. A man can't
be in love himself without----'

He certainly was not asleep! but she managed to double back to safer
ground. Yet his words recurred to her that evening during the half hour
_tete-a-tete_ which she accorded with the utmost regularity to Colonel
Tweedie in his capacity of host; Rose meanwhile singing songs to the
younger men who gathered round the piano, leaving those two decorously
to the sofa.

'There is a little song I want Mrs. Boynton to hear,' called the
Colonel during a pause. 'I forget its name--you haven't sung it
for a long time, and I used to be so fond of it. A little Jacobite
song--really a charming air, Mrs. Boynton.' Rose flushed visibly--at
least to the feminine eyes in the party--and shook her head.

'But you must remember it, my dear,' persisted her father; 'do try.'

'Oh yes! please do try! I should so like to hear it,' echoed Gwen
curiously, her eyes full on the blush. Rose, conscious of it, felt
herself a fool, and looked still more uncomfortable.

'Talking of Jacobite songs,' remarked an indifferent voice beside her,
'I wonder, Miss Tweedie, if you know a great favourite of mine, called
"Lewie Gordon"--don't laugh, you boys, it's rude. If so, please sing
it. I haven't heard it for years; people are always afraid of making me
vain.'

She gave him a quick, grateful look, as, with a nod, she broke into the
song.


             'O send Lewie Gordon hame,
              And the lad I daurna name,
              Tho' his back be to the wa',
              Here's to him that's far awa'.'


She sang with greater spirit than before, a sort of glad recognition of
his kindly tact leading up to the decision of the climax:


             'That's the lad that I'll gang wi'.'


Yet after all, amid the chorus of thanks, she heard him say in his
worst manner, '"The lad I daurna name!" how like a woman!' And he added
to the offence; for, when the little under-secretary remarked
diffidently that he had always understood that the song referred to
Charles Edward, though whether to the old or the young Pretender he
could not say, Lewis, as he dawdled away to his nightly task of
breaking up the _tete-a-tete_, murmured that at any rate it referred to
a _pretendu_. But Rose had caught Gwen's appealing look from the sofa
also, and rising, closed the piano with a bang and suggested a round
game. If her intention was to punish the offender, who hated that form
of amusement, she failed ignominiously; for he sat on the 'Stool of
Repentance' with perfect nonchalance, and, when it came to her turn,
paid her such double-edged, charmingly caustic little compliments, that
she had to join in the laugh they raised. It was, in fact, past
midnight ere the Colonel, with many allusions to the delight of such
company, said they really must go to bed, and they trooped in a body
out of the big tent to seek their several quarters.

'I'm glad not to make a casual of you to-night,' said Mrs. Boynton
softly to George.

'Almost wish you were,' he replied, giving a rueful look towards the
red brick prison on the farther side of the canal. 'This is home; that
is exile.'

Dan nodded his head sympathetically. 'I know that feeling. It comes
from jungle stations. And the bungalow does look cheerless in
comparison. Odd; for one naturally associates a camp with wars and
tumults, battles, murders, and sudden death; all the evils of a
transitory world, in fact. But you must have noticed, Mrs. Boynton, the
extraordinary air of peace, security, almost of permanence which tents
have in the moonlight. Look! might they not be solid blocks of marble
fastened by silver cords?'

'I noticed it last night when I was watching them being put up,' began
George unguardedly. Mrs. Boynton looked up quickly. Rose, who was
leaning against a rope by the door of her tent which stood next the
mess, glanced along the line of the camp.

'Silver cords and marble blocks,' she echoed. 'Yes! but it sounds like
the New Jerusalem.'

'I always thought,' remarked Lewis Gordon argumentatively, 'that it was
the tents of Midian. I'm sure some one told me so when I learnt hymns.
Or was it hosts of Midian and tents of Ishmael? Anyhow, they had
nothing to do with Paradise, and I for one have been prowling round
long enough. So good-night, Gwen; don't grow wings in the night,
please; it would be so disconcerting. Good-night, Miss Tweedie.'

Being close beside her he held out his hand.

'Good-night; I hope you are not very stiff.'

'I almost wish I were, for then you would sympathise with
misfortune--like a woman,' he replied in a low voice, and as he passed
to his own tent next hers, she heard him quote the lines--


             'Tho his back be to the wa',
              Here's to him that's far awa'.'


She looked after him, her face showing soft in the moonlight, then,
with a good-night to the others, disappeared in her turn.

George lingered, giving still more rueful glances at the bungalow. 'I
suppose I must be off too. Oh! by the way! it's all right about the
Ayodhya pot. Dalel Beg tells me his women know the owner, so you will
have it to-morrow. Good-night, Fitzgerald.'

Dan, thus left alone to walk two tents-length with Gwen, felt that fate
was on his side at last; more probably _she_ was, since her fine tact
told her it was never wise to ignore his passion entirely. Besides,
something in her shrank from treating him always as a mere outsider.

'I've been longing for this chance all day,' he began at once in a tone
that was in itself a caress.

'Do you think I am quite blind?' she interrupted, a trifle petulantly;
'the only wonder is that every one in the camp didn't see it also. You
are so reckless, Dan! Of course you wanted to tell me how you felt when
I was lost, and all that; as if I couldn't imagine it!' she gave in to
a smile that was almost tender as she spoke--'Why, Dan! I can see you!
with a face yards long, and the whole camp, Chief and all, under orders
in half a minute. Fire-escapes, life-preservers, first aid to the
wounded, everything mortal man could devise to avert disaster, ready
before the rest had time to think! Do you suppose I don't know what you
are, Dan?' The odd, composite ring in her voice sank as she added, in a
lower tone, 'sometimes I almost wish I didn't.'

They had reached the place where their ways separated; hers to the last
tent forward, his to the second row, and she held out her hand with a
smile to say good-night. His heart beat hard at her half-reluctant
admission of praise; besides, Gwen Boynton was not the sort of woman
who could smile thus, and yet expect to end the interview then and
there; perhaps, again, she did not wish it so to end. In her relations
with this man, she often found it difficult to know what she did, or
did not, desire.

'Gwen,' he said eagerly, standing close, with his warm nervous hands
clasping hers, 'did you think of me--then?--when you knew you were
lost, I mean--did you, Gwen?--I don't often ask anything of you, my
darling--you might tell me--It isn't much to ask--Did you, Gwen?'

She gave something between a laugh and a sob. 'Did I? Oh! Dan, you
know I did. There, that is enough--you said that was all you wanted.
Good-night, Dan.'

He went over to his quarters happy as a king. As for Gwen, the personal
influence his immediate presence had over her passed away quickly, and
that which his real absence from her life invariably produced did not
come to soften the curious dread with which she recognised, that in her
trouble of the day before, her first thought had indeed been for him.
How foolish she had been in letting him re-enter her life at all! but
he had come back in her first loneliness when the future had seemed
very black. Now it was different, now it was once more that choice
between poverty and comfort which she had made in her girlhood. With
what pain, none--save Dan, who, alas! always understood--would believe.
And if the choice was necessary then, what was it now with her acquired
habits, her knowledge of the world? They would both be miserable if
they married without money. Then the thought of the bills came, as it
always did to remind her of the tie they imposed. Even if Lewis, whom
she liked and respected, were to make up his mind to marry, she could
not accept him without dismissing Dan. Yet how could she dismiss him,
even for his food, until that money was repaid? Poor Dan! he loved her
dearly, and in a way she cared for him as she had never cared for any
of her other lovers. Yet the decision which had turned out so
comfortably ten years before was still the right decision. Many of
those lovers had been as devoted to her; and yet they had recovered
from their rejection. Then the remembrance of George Keene's admission
that he had been out watching the stars made her smile. He was a nice
boy, who already deemed her an angel; but Lewis objected to wings, and
of the two that was the most convenient view for the woman.

While she was coming to this conclusion George had been looking after
her interests, for on his return to the bungalow he had been startled
by the sudden uprisal of a veiled female from a shadowy corner of his
verandah.

'I am Azizan's mother,' said a muffled voice. 'The Mirza sent me. I
have been waiting the Huzoor's return. There is the pot if the Huzoor
will give ten rupees for it. It is much, yet the pot brings luck.'

'Ten!' echoed George in delight, taking it from her. 'Yes! you shall
have that; then I owe Azizan also. Shall I pay you?'

'My daughter is as myself,' replied the voice. 'It is ten for the
picture, and ten for the pot.'

George fetched the money and counted it carefully into the shrouded
hand.

'That is all, I think?' he asked.

'Huzoor, that is all. May the blessing of the widow and the fatherless
go with the merciful Protector of the Poor.'

But while he was thinking, as he undressed, how pleased Mrs. Boynton
would be, the veiled figure was pausing in the moonlight to speak to
the factotum.

'You have seen nothing, you are to say nothing. And the Diwan sends
these to the servant-people.' Then came twenty careful chinks, this
time into a clutching hand, and Chandni, hurrying back to the city,
laughed silently to herself. The idea of bribing the little sahib's
servants with his own rupees would please Dalel, and put him into a
good temper again; so if this plan matured, her future would ripen with
it. As she passed the sleeping camp she paused, wondering in which tent
lay the mem who had succeeded so easily where she had failed. The
lights were out in all save two, and the double row of glistening white
roofs struck even her insensibility with a savage recognition of
undeserved peace and security. They were no better than she; no better
than those shadowy crouching figures of the village bad-characters set
out here and there to keep watch and ward, on the principle of setting
a thief to catch a thief; a plan which at least secures a deserving
criminal should thefts occur. For it was in the East that the strange
hybrid between altruism and egotism which we call a scape-goat was
invented by mankind.




                              CHAPTER VII


One of the lights Chandni saw came from Lewis Gordon's tent. He was
hard at work, not altogether from sheer industry. Sleep with him--oddly
enough in one claiming such serenity of temperament--had to be
approached discreetly, and for many days past a disturbing current of
thought had required the dam of good solid official business before he
could trust himself safely to the waters of Lethe. He had not been
constantly in his cousin's company for six weeks without learning to
appreciate her infinite charm. She was emphatically a woman to ensure a
husband's success as well as her own. A man would never have to
consider enemies with her at his side, whereas with many others--Rose
Tweedie for instance--it might be necessary to fight your wife's
battles as well as your own. This comparison of the two arose from no
conceit on his part in imagining that any choice lay with him. Simply,
he could not avoid comparing the only two women in his daily
surroundings. At the same time he was fully aware that Gwen would marry
him if he asked her, and the question which had at first assailed him
in the hall at Rajpore, recurred again and again, disturbing him
seriously by alternate attraction and repulsion. He had seen too much
of fascinating wifehood to care for possessing a specimen himself, yet
Gwen would marry him because she considered it would further their
mutual interests; and that, surely, was a more reliable foundation for
a permanent contract than a girlish affection. Quite as pleasant, too,
as the hail-fellow-well-met liking, which seemed to be Rose Tweedie's
notion of love. George Keene and she were like a couple of boys
together. The remembrance jarred, though he went on working with a
smile at the thought of her eager readiness to take up the glove on all
occasions.

Rose, meanwhile, lay awake next door frowning over the same readiness,
and then frowning at her own frowns, since what was it to her if
Lewis Gordon were nice or nasty? He himself did not care what she
thought, and would end by marrying his cousin, though in his heart of
hearts----

Rose sat up in bed angrily. What did she know or care of Lewis Gordon's
heart? _Dieu merci!_ Gwen Boynton was welcome to it, but she should not
drag George Keene captive as she seemed welcome to do. George was too
good to hang round a pretty woman, like Lewis----

This was intolerable. To escape the tyranny of thought she rose,
slipped on her white dressing-gown, lit the lamp she had extinguished,
and sat down to read a stiff book till she felt sleepy. The process was
not a long one, for she was really fatigued, and ten minutes saw her
turning down the lamp once more.

What happened next she scarcely knew; only this--a glare of light--a
feeble crash. Then fire in her eyes, her face, her hands--fire at her
feet, licking along the thin carpet, soaking up the folds of her filmy
dress. The bed lay close at hand; she was on it in a second, wrapping
the blankets round her, and beating out the runnels of flame, with
eyes, brain, and body absorbed in the immediate personal danger. When
that was over, and she looked up, she sprang to her feet on the bed
with a cry. The fire was everywhere, creeping up the sides of the tent,
filling it with suffocating smoke. She wound her trailing skirts round
her and made a dive for the first outlet--for her only chance of
escape! The thick wadded curtain swinging aside let in a wind, making
the smouldering cotton flame; but the next instant she was outside,
constrained to pause, wondering if by chance it was nothing but a bad
dream. For the camp lay serene and peaceful in the moonlight; not a
sound, not a sign, even from her own tent. She stood positively
irresolute, staring back at what she had left. Was it a dream? Then,
suddenly a faint drift of smoke rose through a crevice in the cloth.

'Mr. Gordon!--Mr. Gordon!' She burst through the thick, guided by the
light in his tent to the nearest help. 'Your knife--quick! my tent is
on fire! Quick, or the whole camp will catch!'

The blood was flowing from a cut over her forehead, one arm showed bare
through scorched muslin, the draperies caught round her were singed and
blackened, the stamp and smell of fire was on her from head to foot.
Lewis, starting to his feet, stared at her.

'Oh, quick! please, quick! Your pen-knife--anything! Cut down the
tents--Mr. Fitzgerald said it was the only----'

He had grasped the position ere she could finish, snatched up a
hunting-knife and was out; she, with a pen-knife, close at his heels.

'Good God! how the wind has risen,' he muttered, as they ran. 'No, not
mine!--The mess-tent first; the wind is that way.'

As they flew past her tent, the scene seemed peaceful as ever; but ere
the guy-ropes of the next were reached, a swirl of smoke and flame,
prisoned until then by the outer fly of canvas, swept straight up into
the sky in the first force of its escape; then bent silently to the
breeze. So silently!--not a roar, not a crackle--just a pyramid of fire
splitting the taut canvas into long shreds, which the wind flung in
pennants of flame on the mess-tent as those two hacked silently at the
ropes. There was no time for words; no time for thought. A quiver
came to the solid-looking pile, a shimmer in the moonlight. Another
rope--another--then a sudden sway, a crash of glass and china from
within. Down! but with a creeping trail of fire within its folds!

There was no lack of helpers by this time. Knives, hatchets were at
work right and left upon the ropes lest the message of fire should find
the tents taut. Colonel Tweedie was shouting confused orders in front.
Dan Fitzgerald, after a quick inquiry if all were safely out, was back
in the rear row, where the danger grew with delay. The din was
deafening, yet the flames made no noise; it was the dark humanity
yelling, as it capered over the big tent, treading out the curling
snakes of fire. Seen against the glare of a burning pyramid behind, the
figures showed like the demons in a mediaeval Judgment beating the lost
souls down to the worm which dieth not.

Rose, standing to rest, now that abler arms were at work, felt a
hurried touch on her shoulder, and turned to see Lewis Gordon holding
out an ulster which he had fetched from his tent.

'Put it on,' he said unceremoniously, 'or you'll catch cold.'

She flushed with surprise, then, as she complied, realising for the
first time the havoc fire had made in her dress, continued to blush
with an odd feeling of resentment.

'Where is Mrs. Boynton?' she asked quickly, to cover her confusion. 'I
suppose you--I mean, she is safe, of course?'

'Of course. I haven't seen her though; but I heard your father calling
to her. She must be with him. I'll see.'

'Mrs. Boynton? God bless my soul, isn't she with Rose?' cried Colonel
Tweedie, who was still shouting excited orders to the crowd of coolies.
'She answered me and her tent is down. She must be out.'

'Mrs. Boynton! Has any one seen Mrs. Boynton?' Gordon's cry ran down
the line without response.

'Gwen!--Gwen! the fools must have cut the thing down on top of her!' He
had dashed up to the mass of ropes and canvas lying without beginning
or end, in hopeless chaos. 'Gwen! Gwen!--are you there?'

A muffled cry was audible now in the hush of the workers.

'Not stunned, that's one thing,' he muttered to himself before shouting
encouragement. Rose was at his elbow and caught his whisper.

'The sparks, for God's sake, Miss Tweedie! I trust you. If the tent
smoulders she may suffocate before we--Coming, Gwen, coming directly!'

But no obstacle against eager help was ever more successful than that
tortuous heap of heavy canvas, full of blind folds and entangled ropes,
stayed fore and aft, and still fastened beyond possibility of removal
to the bamboo-strengthened sides and the yet uncut guys. The seekers
dived into the folds again and again to find themselves meshed; while
Rose, with a sickening fear at her heart lest she should miss one,
watched the sparks and shreds drifting by in clouds settling here,
there, everywhere, and needing swift command to the little band of
helpers. 'Quick, quick!--yonder by the corner. Another there! Stamp it
out--quick! Well done!'

'What is it? what is it?' A new voice rose above the turmoil as Dan
Fitzgerald came running from the rear grasping the truth as he ran.
'No, no?' he panted. 'No use, Gordon--too long. Get to the guys, for
God's sake--the thickest--half a dozen men. Colonel, the right corner,
please, sir; Gordon, the left; Smith, round to the back. They are not
cut there, and see that the pegs hold--they _must_ hold. Miss Tweedie,
put a man to each stay as the front rises. I want the doorway--the door
_must_ show. Brothers,' he continued in Hindustani to the men who were
fast falling into place, 'we have to raise the tent again. _Remember,
the tent rises at the word!_ Gordon, are you ready? All ready?----

He paused, gave a rapid glance at the sparks, and lowered his voice.
'It has to be done sharp, Colonel, or----' Again he hesitated between
fear of letting the prisoner know her imminent danger, and fear of not
enforcing the necessity for speed. Rose understood, and racked by
anxiety as she was, felt a thrill of recognition at Dan's quick thought
which, even in such a moment, enabled him to remember that, as Mrs.
Boynton knew but little Hindustani, he could continue in that language.
'The tent is certain to catch fire, but it may be smouldering now; so
we must risk it. Remember that I _must_ get in and out before the
canvas yields, or---- So be sharp. Gordon! you give the word!'

There was an instant's silence, broken by a voice. Then a shout, a
heave, and Rose straining at a rope as she never strained before, felt,
rather than saw, something rise, pause, sink; rise again fluttering,
swaying.

'Higher! higher!' shouted Dan, standing close in, ready for a dive at
the door. 'All together, Gordon. Shah-bash, brothers! My God! it's
caught already!'

A blot of shadow near her showed the coming doorway, and, half clear as
it was, she saw Dan dash into it with the cry, which was echoed from
outside as a little runnel of fire quivered up the half-stretched
canvas.

'Stand fast! stand fast!' shouted Gordon at the guy. 'Run in, half of
you, to the bamboos; they may hold longer than the stays.'

Rose was at one in a moment and clung to it, seeing nothing, thinking
of nothing, but that irregular square of shadow. When would he come
through it again? The tangles within! how would he thread them? For the
pole having slipped from its supporting pegs had slid along the ground
and would not rise more than half-way; so the inner fly-sides must be
hanging in a maze--a maze of smouldering canvas. Horrible! a burning
pall! Ah! would he never come?

Suddenly came another cry, as a great sheet of fire ran up the right
ridge and the men at the rope fell backwards under the slackened strain
of the parting canvas; yet still the corners held. But for how long!
Oh! would he never come out?

'Mr. Fitzgerald! Mr. Fitzgerald! be quick, oh please be quick.'

It was a foolish, aimless little cry, yet somehow it raised a new idea
in her mind. What if he had lost his way in that hideous tangle? She
was at the blot of shadow in an instant calling again and again. Too
late! surely too late, for the bamboo lintel to which she clung so
frantically swayed. Not down yet--yes! down, and she with it, half
kneeling still. She heard a cry from Lewis bidding the others run in on
the fire and stamp it out; but as she staggered to her feet still
holding on to the lintel something else staggered out beside her.

'All right,' gasped Dan, before the great shout of relief rose up
drowning his voice. When it had passed and they crowded about him, he
had set Gwen's feet on the ground and drawn the folds of blanket from
her face, though his arm was still round her as she clung to him,
scarcely believing in her safety.

'Only frightened--half suffocated,' he went on, struggling to get back
his breath. 'Couldn't some one bring her a glass of water--don't move
yet--they will bring it to you here. It is all over--except the
shouting.'

Rose standing aside, giddy with sudden relief, could hardly believe it
could be over. Yet the coolies were rubbing themselves and laughing
over their sprawl in the dust when the tent collapsed, and the tent
itself was blazing away unheeded on the ground. Yes! it was over, and
so quickly that George Keene, roused by the crash of the messroom-tent,
came too late for anything save sympathy. He gave that to the full; not
unnecessarily, for in truth the condition of the camp was pitiable.
Lewis Gordon's tent, being the only one to windward of the original
outbreak, was left standing; the rest were either smouldering in ashes
or severely damaged beyond the possibility of re-pitching without
repair, while the extent of other injuries must remain unknown till
dawn brought light, and time allowed the fires to die out undisturbed;
for any letting in of air while the wind remained so high might cause a
fresh blaze.

Colonel Tweedie, looking a perfect wreck in his striped flannel suit,
fussed about uncertain and querulous, while George and Dalel Beg, who
had arrived from the palace, competed for the honour of putting up the
ladies during the remainder of the night; Dalel, minus the least
vestige of European attire, being re-inforced after a time by Khush-hal
Beg, breathless but dignified, bearing the Diwan's urgent prayer to be
allowed the honour of helping a beneficent Government in its hour of
need.

Dan with an impatient frown on his face waited for decision till his
patience failed. Then he buttoned-holed Lewis--who amid all the wild
costumes looked almost ridiculously prim in his dress suit--and
expounded his views vehemently, the result being that the Chief
concluded in favour of the palace. If, as was possible, they might be
forced into halting for several days, the old pile would hold them all,
and a regiment besides. So, after a time, odd little square dhoolies,
smelling strongly of rose-attar, came for the two ladies, and in them,
duly veiled from public gaze, they were hurried along, much to their
amusement. The gentlemen after a raid on Lewis Gordon's wardrobe,
following suit, all except the under-secretary, who, coming last, found
nothing available save a white waistcoat and a pair of jack boots, in
which additions to a pyjama sleeping-suit he looked so absurd that the
others sat and roared at him, as men will do at trifles when still
under the influence of relief and excitement, until George carried him
off to his bungalow, promising to return him next morning clothed and
in his right mind. Thus the night ended in comedy for all save Mrs.
Boynton. To her, clothes were anything but a triviality, and as she lay
among silk quilts and hard roly-poly bolsters in the little strip of a
room to which she and Rose were taken, pending the preparation of a
state suite upstairs, she mourned sincerely over the probable fate of
her wardrobe. Had it remained in the leather trunks escape might have
been possible, but, knowing they were to halt for a day at least, she
made the ayah hang up all the dresses round the tent. Poor Gwen seemed
to see them, like Bluebeard's wives in a row, getting rid of their
creases, and the thought of under-garments which might be uninjured
gave her no consolation.

Rose was more calm, remembering that her riding-habit had, as usual,
been moved in order to be brushed, and would most likely be produced
next morning. Besides, she was worn out by the excitement, and forgot
even the smart of a large scorch on her arm in the memory of that five
minutes during which she had waited for Dan to come out of the fiery
maze. Despite her boasted nerves, the stress and strain of it all came
back again and again, making her set her teeth and clench her hands.
Yet Gwen, who had so narrowly escaped a dreadful death, was grumbling
over the loss of her dresses. Rose, lying in the dark listening to the
plaintive regrets, felt scornfully superior, not knowing that her
companion was deliberately trying to forget, to ignore, a like
memory--the memory of her own feelings when Dan fought his way to her
at last. If that sort of thing went on he would end by marrying her in
spite of her wiser self; and then they would both be miserable. She was
not a romantic fool, and yet--a very real resentment rose up against
him as she remembered her own confidence, her own content. She felt
vaguely as if he had taken advantage of her fear, and that something
must be done to prevent a recurrence of this weakness on her part. If
she could only pay back the money he had paid for her, matters would be
easier to manage. As it was, even Lewis, with his easy-going estimate
of women, would not stand the knowledge of her indebtedness to another
man, so something must be done, something must be changed. That, oddly
enough, was the underlying grievance which found expression in petulant
assertions that Fate was doubly hard in making her fair; had she been
dark like Rose, the part of Eastern Princess she would have to play
until another consignment of civilised dresses arrived from Rajpore
would have been fun. As it was, she would look a perfect fright.

She did not, however. Had she not been aware of this fact ere she made
her appearance next morning in the long flowing robes and veil of a
Delhi lady, she must have gathered it from the looks of her companions.
But she had appraised herself in one of the big mirrors in the suite of
state apartments halfway up the stairs, and decided that she would wear
a similar costume at the very next fancy ball.

This in itself was sufficient to chase any save immediate care from a
mind like hers. In addition, even a stronger character would have found
it difficult to avoid falling in with the reckless merriment which had
seized on all the other actors in the past night's incident. Partly
from relief at its comic ending, partly because the charm of absolute
novelty, the zest of the unexpected, enhanced the pleasure of extremely
comfortable quarters--for Lewis in his capacity of personal _aide_ had
decided against the dark state suite of apartments on the second storey
in favour of the roof above, with its slender balconies, long arcades,
and cool central summer-house open on all sides to the air. Here, high
above the sand swirls, safe from the sun, they would be far better off
than in tents during the growing heat of the days Gwen, leaning against
a clustered marble pillar, looking down on the red-brown slant of
windowless wall spreading like a fort to the paved courtyard below,
said it was like living on a slice of wedding-cake. A solid chunk
below, above a sugar filigree; whereat George, delighted, assured her
that the whole palace itself viewed from afar had always reminded him
of the same thing. Filigree or no filigree, she said it was charming,
and the central hall of the twelve-doored summer-house was a marvel of
decoration; fast falling to decay no doubt, yet losing no beauty in the
process, since the floriated white tracery overlaying the background of
splintered looking-glass was so intricate that the eye could scarcely
follow the pattern sufficiently to appreciate a flaw. Seated there in
coolest shadow you could see through the inner arches to the long slips
of vaulted rooms on all four sides; through them again to the blue sky
set in its rim of level plain, save to the north where the view was
blocked by the Diwan's tower rising a dozen feet or more from the
terraced roof, with which it was connected by a flight of steps barred
by a locked iron _grille_. Thus the roof lay secure from all intrusion
except from the courtyard, whence an outside stair, clinging to the
bare wall, gave access to the state rooms below, and thence, still
slanting upwards, to the lowest terrace of roof. Rose, leaning over a
balcony looking sheer down to where the servants, like ants, were
running to and fro over the preparations for breakfast, declared she
would use one of the four little corner-rooms of the summer-house as
her bedroom. All it needed was a curtain at the inner arch, when it
would be infinitely preferable to those dreadful rooms downstairs all
hung with glass chandeliers and silvered balls, which made her inclined
to hang herself in sympathy. In the hopes rather, suggested Lewis, of
improving the style of the decoration; a remark which brought the
usual frown to the girl's face. In truth, Rose Tweedie in her trim
riding-habit did not suit her surroundings half so well as Gwen Boynton
in her trailing tinsel-decked robes. On the other hand, Colonel Tweedie
would have done better in not yielding to the temptation of playing
'Sultan' to Mrs. Boynton's 'Light of the Harem'; for native costume
does not suit an elderly Englishman. But the opportunity had been too
strong for him.

'My dear father,' said Rose helplessly, when she first caught sight of
her parent in a khim-khab coat and baggy trousers. She might have said
more, had not Mrs. Boynton's grave compliment on his appearance sent
the girl away impatiently to lean over the balcony once more, and
wonder if they were ever going to bring breakfast.

To her, when he appeared, went Dan Fitzgerald, without even a look at
the others.

'Thanks, Miss Tweedie,' he said in a low tone. 'I hadn't time to say it
last night. I _had_ lost myself, and your voice---- However, it can be
only "_thank you_," and you have that.'

Rose, with a smile, let his hand linger in hers for a second as their
eyes met; honest, friendly eyes.

And George Keene also passed straight to her.

'Better! That is all right. By Jove, you were bad, when I found you
outside the fuss when it was all over. You would have fainted, if it
hadn't been for the whisky and water--which, by the way, I stole from
Gordon's flask----'

'You didn't tell him?' interrupted Rose quickly.

'Not I! I knew you wanted it kept dark about the scorch. It's better, I
hope? Why, you have curled your hair over the cut on your forehead.
What a dodge!'

His young face was overflowing with a sort of pride in her pluck, when
Mrs. Boynton came up. She was in a mood which craved attention, and
some of her slaves had passed her by to give Rose the first word.

'What are you two discussing so eagerly?' she began. 'Good-morning, Mr.
Keene. How delightfully commonplace you look in exactly the proper
breakfast costume for a young Englishman!'

George blushed. He would have given worlds to say that she looked
anything but commonplace, but was too young to venture on it. But he
looked the sentiment, and Gwen smiled bewilderingly back at him. She
was made that way, and could not help it.

'Isn't it quaint up here?' she went on, leaning over the balustrade and
looking, as Rose had been doing, at the servants filing up the steps
with silver dishes of sausages and bacon, and all the accessories of an
orthodox English breakfast, regardless of the feelings of their
pig-loathing hosts. 'I declare, I have fallen in love with everything.'

'Yourself included, I hope,' added Lewis, joining the group; or, to put
it politely, you have fallen in love with everything, and everything
has fallen in love with you. And no wonder. The fact is, Gwen, that you
do suit your present environment to perfection. I should not have
believed the thing possible--but so it is.'

As he sat on the coping with his back to the landscape, he bent forward
looking at her critically--'No!' he went on; 'I should not have thought
it possible, but you look the part.'

'It must be awful, though, to be a native,' remarked George fervently.
His eyes were on Colonel Tweedie as he spoke. That conspicuous failure
was, however, only partly responsible for his opinion. In a more or
less crude form the childish hymn of gratitude for having been born in
order to go to a public school survives wholesomely amongst young
Englishmen.

'I don't know,' dissented Gordon languidly. 'A civilised conscience is
a frightful interference with the liberty of the subject. Personally, I
object to the native views of comfort, pleasure, and all that. But I
can imagine some very good fellows preferring them. They are not nearly
such a strain on the nervous system. For instance, Gwen, were you
really the Shah-zadi you look, there would have been no necessity for
sending back those brocades over which I found you weeping half an hour
ago. You would have appropriated them without demur. Wouldn't she,
sir?'

The Colonel gave his little preparatory cough, and looked grave.

'It wasn't a brocade, Colonel Tweedie,' protested Gwen. 'It was simply
the most lovely piece of old-gold satin in the world. It stood up of
itself, and yet was absolutely invertebrate in its folds. Perfect! The
same on both sides too. I had half a mind to be double-faced myself,
and take it when Mr. Gordon's back was turned.'

'Why didn't you?' retorted the latter cynically. 'You are the only one
of us who would not be criminally responsible for the action. Isn't
that so, sir?' He was mischievously amused by his chief's evident
dislike to the subject.

'Should I be responsible?' asked Rose, surprised.

'Your father would be, for your action. Wouldn't you, sir?'

This was too much even for reticent dignity.

'I--er--don't--I mean, doubtless; but--er--it is not--er--a subject
which comes within the range of practical politics.'

'I should hope not,' cried Rose. 'My dear dad! fancy your being
responsible for my actions. It isn't fair!' Her face of aggrieved
decision made the others laugh.

'Perhaps it isn't, Miss Tweedie,' remarked Lewis gravely; but I can
assure you that we officials are all responsible for our female
relations in the first degree. A merciful Government has, however,
drawn the line at cousins. So Mrs. Boynton could only lose her own
pension, if she were found out.'

Gwen made a _moue_ of derision.

'That is not much to risk. I wish I had known this before. Lewis! do
you think you could prevail on them to give me another chance with the
satin?'

'What on earth is delaying the breakfast?' fussed Colonel Tweedie,
moving off. He hated _persiflage_, especially between his guest and his
secretary.

'Coming, sir, coming,' said George, leaning over to look; 'there is a
regular procession of silver dishes filing up Jacob's ladder.'

'Oh dem silver dishes,' hummed Rose gaily, leaning over to look, too.
'How funny it is, isn't it?'

'Funny!' echoed Dan, 'it is simply appalling.'

Perhaps the sudden sense of the utter incongruousness of it all
accounted for the silence which followed, as they stood on the balcony,
which clung like a swallow's nest to the bare walls. Below them, beyond
the courtyard, lay the shadowy arcades of the bazaar and the great pile
of the Mori gate. Beyond that again the bricks and sand-heaps of
Hodinuggur, with the village creeping up to be crowned by the grass
palisades where the potter sat at work.

'Talking of bribes, said Dan absently, after the pause, 'I've often
wondered how a fellow feels when he has been informed that her gracious
Majesty has no further need of his services. They seldom go beyond that
nowadays, but that must be bad enough.'

'Very much so, if the bribe has been insufficient, assented Lewis,

'Mr. Gordon! how can you?' began Rose, pausing, however, at the sight
of his satisfied smile.

'You should adopt the sun with the motto "Emergo" as your crest, Miss
Tweedie. It would suit both your thoughts and deeds,' he replied
teasingly.

'Don't mind him,' put in Dan; 'he always was weak in his grammar, and
doesn't know that rise must be the correct present tense of Rose.'

'But, really,' persisted Lewis, when the laugh ended; 'if a man _had_
taken a bribe, the first thought to one of his _genre_ would naturally
be if the game was worth the candle. If he _hadn't_--why, dismissal
from the public service is not always misfortune. There is the
disgrace, of course, but, personally, I have never been able to
understand the sentiment of the thing; it appears to me strained. Half
your world, as a rule, dislikes you; it believes you capable of
murdering your grandmother at any moment. Yet the fact doesn't distress
you. It is inevitable that some people should think ill of you. So why
should you care when they invent a definite crime for you to commit? It
doesn't affect your friends.'

'Well, I don't know,' said George Keene sturdily. 'That's all very
philosophical, but I believe I should shoot myself.'

'No! you wouldn't, old chap; unless you wished people to consider you
guilty.'

'This conversation is becoming gruesome,' put in Mrs. Boynton; 'let us
change it; though Lewis is right, for Government service seems to me a
doubtful blessing----'

'But an assured income,' interrupted Dan, with a laugh.

Lewis Gordon turned on him quite hotly. 'I like your saying that,
Fitzgerald--you of all people in the world. Why, man alive! if I had
your power I would chuck tomorrow, and die contractor, engineer,
K.C.I.E.' and the richest man in India!'

Gwen Boynton looked up in quick interest. 'Really! do you mean that
_really_, Lewis?'

'I won't swear to the K.C.S.I.' or the superlative, but Fitzgerald
knows perfectly that I always say he has mistaken his line of life. We
want hacks. People to obey orders, not to give them.' As he spoke he
glanced meaningly at Colonel Tweedie walking about fussily, and then at
his friend's face.

Dan swung himself from the balustrade where he had been perched. 'Some
one must give orders, and I mean to stick on for my promotion. It must
come next year. So that is settled. Are you not coming to breakfast,
Mrs. Boynton?' She met his smile without response as she turned away.

'Dear me! the others have gone in already, and I was so hungry. But one
doesn't often get the chance, Mr. Fitzgerald, of considering an old
friend in a new character. It was quite absorbing--for the time.'

So the balcony was left to the sunlight, and some one who had been
watching it from an archway in the bazaar, withdrew to the shadow where
she rolled the little pellets of opium in her soft palms and prepared
for her midday sleep. The burning of the tents had been a real piece of
luck, the mem--that was she no doubt in the native dress--would be in
the palace for two or three days, and women were women whether fair or
dark. This one, too, looked of the right sort. Chandni's dreams that
day were of a time when she would have the upper hand in Hodinuggur and
become virtuous, for it paid to be virtuous under the present
Government. Dalel should start a women's hospital. Then the Sirkar
would give him the water every year, and the necessity for scheming
would disappear. In the meantime they must not be niggardly. That did
not pay with women, since, if they were of the sort to take bribes,
they were of the sort not easily satisfied.




                             CHAPTER VIII


'Come and see our mad potter before you go home, Miss Tweedie,' pleaded
George Keene, 'he really is one of the shows, isn't he, Fitzgerald?'

They had been doing the sights of Hodinuggur as an afternoon's
amusement; tennis in a riding-habit having no attractions for Rose.
Mrs. Boynton, however, on the plea of being a zenana lady, had elected
to remain on the roof, Colonel Tweedie keeping her company until the
time came for his return visit of state to the Diwan on his tower.
Lewis might have made the same choice had he been given it; but he was
not. So he had preferred loafing round the ruins to toiling after
problematical black buck with the sporting party, and made a pleasant
companion, as even Rose admitted; being ready with information on most
points, and between the references talking affably with Dan regarding
the respective merit of Schultze _versus_ brown powder; thus leaving
the younger couple to themselves. So his change of manner stood out
with unusual distinctness as Rose turned to him for consent to George
Keene's invitation.

'As you please, Miss Tweedie; we are your slaves. A mad potter sounds
cheerful; he is the man, I suppose, who made that jolly little pot
Keene sacrificed to my cousin's greed this morning. When you are as old
as I am, my dear fellow, you will really keep the pretty things out of
the sight of ladies. I always do, nowadays. There was a little woman at
Peshawur, I remember--she had blue eyes--who wheedled----'

'Mrs. Boynton was most welcome to the Ayodhya pot,' blurted out George
hastily.

'_Cela va sans dire!_ It is just because we love to give the pretty
things to the pretty creatures that it becomes unwise to let the pretty
creatures see the pretty things.'

'Then it is your fault, to begin with,' interrupted Rose hotly.

'Exactly so. I'm sure, Miss Tweedie, you have heard me say a dozen
times that we men are to blame for all the weaknesses of women. They
are simply the outcome of our likes and dislikes; and they will remain
so until there is a perpetual leap-year.'

'For heaven's sake, Keene,' said Dan, laughing, 'lead the way to the
potter's or there will be murder done on the King's Highway! Don't mind
him, Miss Rose! He "only says it to annoy because he knows it teases."
He doesn't really believe anything of the kind.'

Lewis, his eye-glass more aggressive than ever, murmured something
under his breath about the inevitable courses of nature, as Rose, with
her head held very high, followed George Keene into the potter's yard.

It was a scene strangely at variance with the party entering it.
Indeed, old Fuzl Elahi, who had never before set eyes on an
Englishwoman, would have started from his work had not George detained
him with reassuring words:

'He tells his yarns best when he is at the wheel,' he explained as he
dragged forward a low string stool for Rose. 'And I want you to hear an
awfully queer one called "The Wrestlers." You know enough of the
language to understand him at any rate.'

'Miss Tweedie is a better scholar than most of us,' remarked Lewis
Gordon curtly from the seat he had found beside Dan on a great log of
wood; one of those logs so often to be seen in such courtyards--relics,
perhaps, of some ineffectual intention of repair long since forgotten.
This one might, to all appearance, have fallen where it lay in those
bygone days of which the potter told tales, when the now treeless
desert had been a swampy jungle on the borders of an inland sea.

The afternoon sun, slanting over the grass palisades, played havoc with
the humanity it found gathered round the wheel by sending their shadows
distorted to long lengths across the yard, and tilting them at odd
angles against the irregular wall of the mud hut beyond. Altogether a
conglomerate pyramid of shadows, with the potter's high turban
dominating it as he sat silent, spinning his wheel. And as the clay
curved and hollowed beneath his moulding hand a puzzled look came to
the light eyes, which, usually so shifty, were now fixed with a sort of
fascination upon that strange figure in the riding-habit.

'It is not there,' he muttered uneasily, 'I cannot find a clew.'

George gave Rose the triumphant glance of a child displaying a
mechanical toy when it behaves as it ought to behave. The potter was
evidently in a mad mood, and might be trusted for a good performance.

'Now, Fuzl Elahi, we want "The Wrestlers," please. The Miss sahiba has
never heard it.'

'How could she?' broke in the old man sharply. 'She does not belong to
that old time. She is new. I cannot even tell the old tale if she sits
there in the listener's place. I shall forget, the old will be lost in
the new; as it is ever.'

'Change places with me, Miss Tweedie,' put in Lewis with a bored look.
'I am not regenerate out of the old Adam, am I, potter-ji?'

But as he rose the pliant hand went out in a gesture of denial. 'There
is room on the log for both, and crows roost with crows, pigeons with
pigeons. The big Huzoor can sit on the stool if he likes. I know him. I
have seen him many and many a time.'

'Only once, potter-ji,' protested Dan, as he and Rose changed places
and the wheel began to hum.

'The post is going from Logborough junction to St. Potter's burgh,'
murmured Lewis discontentedly. 'If we are going to play round games I
shall go home.'

'Do be quiet, Gordon!' put in George eagerly; 'he is just beginning,
and it really is worth hearing.

But Lewis was incorrigible. '_Proxime accessit_,' he went on, to Rose,
'what crime in your past incarnation is responsible for your being
bracketed with me in this?'

'Oh, do listen,' protested George again.

'Listen! Who could help listening to that infernal noise?--I beg your
pardon, Miss Tweedie, but it is infernal.'

It was startling, certainly. A shrill moan coming from the racing,
rocking, galloping wheel as the worker's body swayed to and fro like a
pendulum. It seemed to rouse a vague sense of unrest in the hearers, a
dim discomfort like the remembrance of past pain. Then suddenly the
story began in a high-pitched persistent voice, round which that
racing, galloping rush of the wheel seemed to circle, hurrying it,
pushing at it, every now and again sweeping it along recklessly.


      'It was a woman seeking something,
       _Over hill and dale, through night and day, she sought for
         something_.


       The wrestlers who own the world wrestled for her,
       On the palm of her right hand wrestling for her,
       "She is mine, she is mine," said one and the other,
       _While over hill and dale, through night and day, she sought
         for something_.


       "O flies? you tickle the palm of my hand,
       Be off and wrestle down in your world."
       So they brought flowers and grass as a carpet,
       Wrestling on as she sought for something--
       _Over hill and dale, through night and day, seeking for
         something_.


       "Your carpet is hot, be off, you flies."
       So they brought her trees and water for cooling,
       Wrestling on as she sought for something--
       _Over hill and dale, through night and day, seeking for
         something_.


       "The grass grows long with the water," she cried,
       "Be off, O flies, and tickle your world."
       So they brought her flocks to devour the grass,
       Wrestling on as she sought for something--
       _Over hill and dale, through day and night, seeking for
         something_.


       "They have trodden my palm as hard as a cake."
       So they caught up a plough and ploughed her hand,
       Wrestling on while she sought for something--
       _Over hill and dale, through day and night, seeking for
        something_.


       "You have furrowed my palm; it tickles and smarts."
       So they brought a weaver and wove her lint,
       Wrestling on while she sought for something--
       _Over hill and dale, through night and day, seeking for
         something_.


       "Foul play! Foul play! Look down and decide,"
       "Not I, poor flies, I must search for something."
       So they caught up a town to watch the game.
       "He is right! He is wrong!" cried old and young.
       "He is wrong! He is right!" And so war began.
       While they wrestled away and she sought for something,
       _Over hill and dale, through night and day, seeking for
         something_.


       "What a noise you make; I am tired of flies."
       So she swept them into a melon rind.
       "Be quiet, flies! lie still in the dark."
       She clapped her palm to the hole in the rind.
       "I'm tired of it all, I will go to sleep;
       When morning comes I will seek for something--
       _Over hill and dale, through night and day, I must seek for
         something_".


       She rested her head on her palm, and slept,
       Down in the valley close to the river;
       Slept to the tune of the buzzing flies,
       Wrestling and fighting about fair play.
       And while she slept the big Flood came,
       And the melon pillow floated away.


       And all within swarmed out to the sun--
       Grass, and herds, and ploughs, and looms.
       People fighting for none knows what.
       "I have made a new world," she said, with a laugh.
       "A brand-new world; and the flies have gone.
       But the palm of my right hand tickles still,
       May be it will cool when I find what I seek."
       So she left her new world down by the river,
       Left it alone and sought for something--
       _Over hill and dale, through night and day, seeking for
         something_.'


The galloping wheel, which had responded always to the mad hurry of the
recurring refrain, slackened slowly. Rose gave a sigh of relief, and
glanced at Lewis Gordon to see if he too had been oppressed by that
shrinking recognition of a stress, a strain, a desire, such as she had
never felt before; but he was leaning forward, his chin on his curved
hand, intent on listening, so she could not see his face.

'By the powers,' came Dan Fitzgerald's voice above the softening hum,
'the old chap has made an Ayodhya pot--the same shape, I mean.'

'He always does when he tells this story,' broke in George, quite
pleased with the success of his entertainment. 'I don't think he quite
knows why he does it, however. Sometimes he says the woman was looking
for one; sometimes that she always carries one in her left hand to
balance the world in her right. But he always takes the unbaked pot to
the ruins and buries it with two of those odd little ninepins, he calls
men and women, inside it. He is as mad as a hatter, you know.'

'Several hatters,' assented Gordon fervently, 'but it is an interesting
theory of creation.'

'Now don't,' protested Dan, sitting with his long legs crunched up on
the low stool close to the potter. 'It is too human for dissection
by the Folklore Society. But I'm surprised at one thing. The
wrestlers--they are persistent figures in Indian tales, Miss
Tweedie--are generally represented as giants. They are pigmies here.'

'The Huzoor is right and wrong,' replied the potter in answer to an
inquiry; 'the pailwans were neither pigmies nor giants. They were as
the Huzoor--two and a half haths round the chest--neither more nor
less.'

'That's a good shot,' remarked Dan in English, 'forty-five inches
according to my tailor. You have an accurate eye, potter-ji,' he added
in Hindustani, 'only half an inch out.'

'Not a hair's-breadth, Huzoor,' replied the old man mildly. 'The
measures of the pailwans is the measure of the Huzoor. I have it here;
my fathers used it, and I use it.'

He sought a moment in the little niche, hollowed, close to his right
hand, out of the hard soil forming the side of his sunken seat, and
drew from it a fine twisted cord of brown, red, and cream coloured
wool. It was divided into measures by small shells strung on the twist
and knotted into their places.

'Hullo!' cried Gordon eagerly, 'that must be hundreds of years old.
Those are sea-shells, and very rare. Simpson at the museum showed me
one in fossil the other day. I wonder how the dickens the old man got
hold of them?'

'Two and a half haths,' repeated Fuzl Elahi absently, 'the potter's
full measure for a man in the beginning and the end.' He leaned forward
rapidly as he spoke, passed the cord round Dan Fitzgerald's chest, and
drew the ends together. The curled spirals of the two shells lay half
an inch apart. 'So much for the garments,' he muttered. 'Yea! I knew
it. The measure of a true pailwan to a hair's breadth.

'And what am I, potter-ji?' asked George, laughing.

The puzzled look came back to the old man's face. 'The Huzoor may be a
pailwan too. Times have changed.'

'Rough on a fellow, rather!' exclaimed the boy, still laughing. 'Here,
Fitz! chuck me over the thing. Is that fair, Miss Tweedie?'

She laughed back into his bright face, as he pulled his hardest to make
the two second shells meet, then shook her head.

'Not on yourself, Mr. Keene. You are more of a hero than that, I should
say.'

The potter's eyes were on her, then back on George. 'Everything is
changed,' he muttered again, 'even the measure of the pots.'

'Then you measure them, do you?' asked Gordon, to whom George had
handed the cord, and who was now examining it minutely.

'Surely, Huzoor. The first one of each batch. Then the hand learns the
make.'

'Try what make you are, Gordon?' suggested Dan.

'Not I. Here, potter-ji, catch. Miss Tweedie and I, according to the
best authority, are abnormal; we are not ordinary pots, so I, for one,
decline to be measured by their standard. And now, if some of us are to
be in time for such trivialities as dinner, we ought to be going.'

The potter rose also and stepped out of his hole. Seen thus at full
length, he showed insignificant, his hairy, bandy, almost beast-like
legs, contrasting strangely with the mild high-featured face, with its
expression of puzzled anxiety, as he laid a deprecating hand on George
Keene's sleeve.

'Wants bucksheesh, I suppose,' murmured Lewis. 'I have some rupees
somewhere, if you want them, Keene.' But it was not money; it was only
leave to speak to the 'madr mihrban.'

'That's a nice name for you, Miss Rose,' said Dan softly--'Mother of
mercy--a name to be glad of.'

She blushed as she went forward a step, asking, 'What is it? what can I
do for you?'

He stooped to touch her feet with his supple hands ere replying.
'Huzoor! it is a little thing. Fuzl Elahi, potter of Hodinuggur, has a
daughter somewhere. Perhaps she has gone to the Huzoor's world; it is
new, I do not know it. If the "madr mihrban" were to see her, she might
tell her to come back--just once--only once. I would not keep her. But
now I have no answer when my father says: "Where is thy little
Azizan?"'

'Azizan!' echoed George quickly. But the old man seemed almost to have
forgotten his own request. He stood looking past the strangers, past
the village, past even the ruins, into the sunset sky.

'I will send her--if I see her,' said Rose gently, with tears in her
eyes; for George had told her the story of the lost daughter, and the
sudden, diffident appeal touched her. Yet the vast gulf between her and
the old man touched and oppressed her still more, as she left him
standing alone beside his wheel.

'Well!' said Lewis Gordon, when in silence they had reached the road
again. 'You may call that amusement, Keene, if you like; I don't. When
I get home, I shall have a sherry and bitters.'

'He _is_ rather a gruesome old chap,' admitted George cheerfully. 'I
felt a bit creepy myself the first time I heard that song--by the way,
Miss Tweedie, talking of creepiness, did I tell you about the Potter's
Thumb? I didn't! Oh,--that is really a grand tale.' He told it,
happily, as an excellent sequel to the show, while Dan, in one of his
best moods, piled on the imaginative agony about Hodinuggur generally,
until Lewis announced his intention of returning to the palace by the
longer way. He would be late, of course, but that was preferable to
having no appetite for dinner!

'By Jove! seven o'clock,' cried Dan, looking at his watch. 'And you and
I, George, have to get over to the bungalow. We must run for it.'

Rose watched them racing down the path, laughing and talking as they
ran, with a troubled look.

'Fine specimens, Miss Tweedie,' remarked Lewis after a pause. 'I don't
think you need fear their cracking in the fire.'

'I--I--' faltered Rose, taken aback by his comprehension.

'Am Scotch! That's sufficient excuse. I notice we seldom get rid of our
native superstition. Besides, it _was_ uncanny--the yard-measure and
the Potter's Thum

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/39985