'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 Diwân 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 Schultzeversusbrown 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 Ayôdhya 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 Elâhi, 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 Elâhi, 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.'
'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 Ayôdhya 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 pâilwans were neither pigmies nor giants. They were as the Huzoor--two and a half hâths 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 pailwâns 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 hâths,' repeated Fuzl Elâhi 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 pâilwan 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 pâilwan 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 'mâdr mihrbân.'
'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 Elâhi, 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 "mâdr mihrbân" 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 Azîzan?"'
'Azîzan!' 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.'
'Heisrather 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, itwasuncanny--the yard-measure and the Potter's Thumb, and that horse-leech of a woman, who was never satisfied. I felt it myself.'
She knew he was speaking down to her as a nervous woman; yet she did not resent it, because it was a distinct relief not to be taken seriously.
'I wish they had not been measured, for all that,' she persisted. 'You will own it was odd, won't you?'
'Not so odd as Dan himself! He has been cracked ever since I knew him. And Keene is one of the sterling sort, certain of success; besides, he measured himself! Now, before you go upstairs to dress, if your Scotch blood is still curdling, as mine is, have a half of sherry and bitters with me. Crows roost with crows, you remember.'
His friendliness beguiled her into playfulness.
'Crows indeed! then I've a better opinion of you than you have of me. I thought we were meant for the pigeons.'
'To bill and coo?'
If she could have boxed his ears, it would have relieved her feelings. As it was, she raced upstairs, in a fury, without vouchsafing one word of resentment, and paced up and down her tiny room with flaming cheeks. Could a girl be expected, for ever and aye, to be on the outlook for such openings? Of course Gwen Boynton would have laughed easily--would not have minded, perhaps; but then Gwen was charming--everything apparently that a woman ought to be!
Rose looked at herself in her dusty habit. She would have to go down to dinner in it, and challenge comparisons with Gwen in her silks and tinsel. Why should she? No one would care, no one would have a right to care if she did stay in her room with a headache. The next instant she was ashamed of the impulse. What did it matter?--they were welcome to their opinion. As for her, she would adopt no feminine excuse; she would leave those little devices to men's women. So she brushed her habit, and went out, with a heightened colour, to join the others.
Rose Tweedie's sneer against men's women lacked point, since it so happened that Mrs. Boynton, in the opposite corner-room of the pavilion, was, at the very moment, setting aside the temptation of pleading a headache as an excuse for not appearing at dinner. And she had more reason to seek quiet than the girl, though a new dress lay ready on the bed; for Gwen loved to dazzle her world, and had spent some of her leisure in instructing a native tailor how to run up a web of coarse native muslin bought in the bazaar into a very decent semblance of a fashionable garment. But the pleasure of the trick had gone out of it. Something had happened. Something incredible, yet, given the surroundings, natural enough. Something about which she must make up her mind. It seemed scarcely a minute ago since she had passed in swiftly to the solitude of her room in order to think. She, Gwen Boynton, in native dress, with a white scared face and something in her hand. Now she had to pass out of that room again as an Englishwoman, and the transition left her oddly undecided. Indeed, as she paused for a moment ere taking the plunge, with one hand on the embroidered draperies doing duty as a door, it seemed almost as if she were awaiting some command, some voice which would relieve her of responsibility. Then she smiled and passed on to meet the surprised admiration of her little world; for she had never looked better in her life, and she knew it. The creamy muslin suited her in its careless folds, her excitement showed itself becomingly in flushed cheeks and bright eyes, and the chorus of wonder at her cleverness made her gracious beyond compare. They had been away so long, she said, airily, that she had had to amuse herself somehow, and were there not miles of muslin to be bought in every bazaar, and many men to put stitches into it? Any one could have done it. Rose, listening with a certain contempt in her look, told herself that Gwen said truth; any one could have done it who thought it worth while to take so much trouble for the sake of personal effect; yet a regret rankled somewhere, mingling with the resentment which came as Gwen called attention, somewhat garishly, to more of her good works. Did they not admire the room? When Colonel Tweedie had gone off to the Diwân she had consoled herself by pulling about the furniture; and did not the Ayôdhya pot look sweet on the corner-stand she had improvised out of three bamboos, a brass platter, and a yellow silk scarf?
'You should have packed it away in your box at once,' remarked Lewis coolly. 'Keene may repent his good-nature, or some of us may steal it. The colour is admirable.' As he spoke he walked over to the stand as if for closer examination.
'Don't touch it, please,' cried Mrs. Boynton hastily. 'You--you will spoil my draperies.'
'A thousand pities, when they are so artistic,' put in Colonel Tweedie, glad of the opportunity. 'That is dinner, Mrs. Boynton. I've had it laid in the small pavilion so as to keep this as your drawing-room.'
'Thanks! but everything is delightful; simply fascinating! In spite of what Mr. Keene said this morning, I begin to wish I were a native.'
'For the sake of the satin?' asked Lewis, who was following close behind with Rose. Gwen flashed back a brilliant look at him.
'No! not the satin. That game would not be worth the candle.'
Apart from the question of satin, Mrs. Boynton had excuse for admiring themise en scène. The violet sky, spangled with stars, seemed made apparently but for one end--to hap and hold that terraced roof which was clearly outlined against it by the light streaming from the pavilions on to the fretted white marble balustrades. At the corners were shadowy cupolas, and there in the arched summer-house at the farther end, close upon the velvet darkness, was a table set with silver and glass, fruits and flowers. At one side, so as to divide the ladies equally, was Rose, in her habit, doing the duty of hostess with a little air of gravity and preoccupation; at the other, Gwen, in her soft clouds of muslin, keeping the men in a state of admiring gratification through their eyes and their ears. They gathered round her too, when, dinner being over, they adjourned to the balconies for coffee and cigars. It was deliciously cool; a faint breeze stirred Rose's hair as she sat a little apart from the others watching the twinkling lights go up and down the stair which formed the only tie between that world on the roof and that world in the courtyard below.
'We ought to go to bed early,' said Lewis, Coming to stand before her. 'You are half-asleep--no wonder, after last night!--and Gwen is what superstitious Scotch folk call "fey." Then, if we have to join that detestable hawking-party to-morrow morning, we shall have to get up at five.'
'You needn't go unless you like,' she replied curtly. 'Mrs. Boynton has cried off.'
'I am not Mrs. Boynton's personal assistant, Miss Tweedie; I happen to be your father's--so duty calls.' As he spoke he seated himself on the balustrade and leant forward, his elbows on his knees, to watch the group on the other side of the arcade.
'If I didn't know that Gwen despises that sort of thing,' he went on in dissatisfied tones, 'I should say she had rouged this evening. Her way of showing fatigue, I presume; though, of course, neither of you have the common-sense to confess you are tired. Women are all ascetics at heart; at least they believe in the virtue of martyrdom. They have different ways of showing it, that's all. Gwen spends her fatigue in dress-making and conversation to please, and you, I'll go bail, haven't even a proper bandage on that scorched arm----'
'Mr. Gordon!'
'Yes! I saw you imagined I was blind--suppose we say like to imagine it; but I really had my eye-glass, Miss Tweedie. Besides, it doesn't require microscopic sight to see some things.'
'What a profound remark!' interrupted Rose, to hide her pleased surprise at his unusual consideration. At the same moment Gwen's gay laugh rang out, soft yet clear. Either the sound or the speech annoyed the hearer on the balustrade, for he frowned as he slipped his dangling feet to the floor.
'As profound as I can make it this evening, for I'm not ashamed to confess myself dog-tired. Couldn't tell a crow from a pigeon; so I shall be off. Good-night, Miss Tweedie, I wish you would persuade Gwen to go to bed. It is easier to give good advice than to take it.'
Rose remained looking at the twinkling lights, and wondering if Lewis were really jealous of his cousin, till seeing the others go back to the central summer-house she followed suit.
'Tired!' echoed Gwen sharply, in reply to her information that Lewis Gordon had stolen away. 'Are we not all tired? I feel as if I had been up since the beginning of time seeking for something I could not find. My bed, perhaps. Good-night, Rose.'
They were an odd couple, as they bent to kiss each other in that mirrored room, where the oddness was reflected again and again in the myriad scraps of looking-glass on the walls. Each curved fragment giving and taking an eternity of Gwen's and Rose's bending to kiss each other.
'I am 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.'
'I am 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.'
The remembrance evoked by Gwen's chance words sent a little shiver through the girl; and with it came a sudden pulse of sympathy for the woman who, now that she saw her close, did indeed look haggard and worn.
'No wonder you are tired,' she said gently. 'Even I feel as if I could sleep for days.'
'But you are coming to hawk surely,' broke in George. 'Do, please! it won't be any fun without you.'
'Not a bit,' assented Dan. 'Gordon ordered your horse, I know, and told them to take you your tea at five punctually.'
'You must go, Rose,' put in Gwen with a shrug of her white shoulders. 'DianaChasseressemustn't disappoint her votaries. I'm glad my habit was burnt.'
She did not look it, and Rose, as she went off to her corner room wondered if Gwen could be jealous of her. The idea was absurd, but pleasing; and she fell asleep placidly over variations of the possibility.
But just over the way with that dark mirrored room between them, Gwen lay awake, with one hand thrust under the pillow where she could feel a tiny paper parcel. Should she keep it, or should she not? Should she say anything of the scene burnt in on her memory, or should she not? She seemed to see it as a spectator, not as the only actor in it. To see a woman in native dress in that room set round with eyes; the Ayôdhya pot in her hand, and in her tinsel-edged veil the jewels which had fallen from its false bottom. Jewels which if sold would buy her freedom, perhaps save her, and Dan too, from a great mistake. It was a chance. A chance most likely unknown to any one in the wide world save herself, for who would have knowingly sold a pot containing three huge pearls and an emerald for ten rupees? Nor was she bound to give more to the seller. Land was bought so, but if the mines were found afterwards, that was the buyer's good luck, even if he had guessed. Facts like these, accepted apparently by the honest and honourable, go far to give such as Gwen immoral support. No one could possibly know; she herself would not have known save for that chance slip, and the eyes made keen and eager through fear of some slight injury to the treasure.
It was a chance of escape from the danger which had come home to her sharply in the past twenty-four hours. The danger of yielding to her own weakness about Dan made clear by his actions; the new danger, suggested by his words, of her losing her hold on Lewis. Could the latter really be attracted by Rose? The events of the evening gave colour to the possibility. If so, there was no time to be lost. She must be free; free to do as she chose. No one would know. Nobody would dream of bribing one so powerless as she. And if the jewels had been put there knowingly, it was only her risk. No one else was responsible--Lewis had said so----
So she argued, coming round always to the same thought, till the first glint of dawn brought sleep, as it so often does to weary eyes. Perhaps in the thought that the sun will rise, the world go on, no matter what we do, or think, or say.
She slept so soundly that all the bustle of the hawking party failed to disturb her; and when that was over the long stretch of terraced roof lay empty of all sound or sign of life, save for the green parrots shrieking and swooping about the carven work. A pair of them had built in a loophole, whence the young ones kept up a simmering, bubbling noise, like a boiling tea-kettle; a comfortable homely sound out of keeping with the bare beauty of stone, and sunlight, and hard blue sky.
Down in the courtyard below, two badge wearers in scarlet and gold lounged on the stairs, barring the roof from intrusion, chatting to the passers-by, and discussing the news which had just been brought in by the camel which was crouching beside a pile of fodder in the centre of the yard, while its owner stretched his limbs, cramped with riding all night across the desert, in front of the cook-room. Halfway up the stairs on the landing leading to the state-rooms, Mrs. Boynton's ayah squatted, combining business with pleasure, by being within reach of a call and her forbidden hookah, at one and the same time. A bundle of letters lay beside her, intended as a peace-offering against the possible smell of smoke.
The sun climbed up silently, shifting the shadows on the silent roof. That was the only movement, until suddenly a figure in a white domino peered through thegrillewhich barred the flight of steps leading to the Diwân's tower. Then came the grate of a rusty key in a lock, and the figure flitted, silently as the shadows, to the summer-house, and paused in the mirror-room. Perhaps the transformation which Western taste and Mrs. Boynton's clever fingers had wrought in its adornment, was pleasing, perhaps the reverse. Theburka, however, is of all disguises the most complete, since it blots out form, colour, expression, even movement. The figure showed indeed like a white extinguisher in the centre of the room, until, with a swaying of ample folds it glided over to the corner stand where the Ayôdhya pot stood out from Gwen's artistic drapery. Then something slid out, still shrouded in white folds, from the extinguisher, raised the vase, shook it slightly, replaced it, and slid back again in a horrible invertebrate protoplasmic sort of movement, calculated to send a shiver through a spectator. But there was none. The thing had the whole roof to itself save for that fair-haired sleeper in the corner room who lay with one hand clasping a little packet hidden under her pillow. Her face was turned to the doorway in full view of those latticed eye-holes belonging to theburka, which after a time came to look in on her from the half-raised curtain, and let in with a shaft of sunshine, a vista of blue skies and marble balustrades with two red and green parrots pecking at each other. It may have been the light, more probably the disturbing effect the dim consciousness of other eyes fixed on our own has upon most people, which roused Gwen Boynton. But she opened hers suddenly and started up in bed, her heart throbbing violently, though the curtain had fallen and not a sound was to be heard.
'Comin', mem sahiba, comin',' came in immediate answer to her imperative call as the ayah, thrusting her hookah aside, snatched at the letters, and shook what smoke she could from her voluminous garments. A trifling delay, but enough to allow the thing up-stairs to flit round the summerhouse again; even to pause a second at thegrille.
'It makes too much noise. I will leave it open,' it muttered as it disappeared up the steps with the rusty key held in its formless clasp.
'Where were you?' asked Gwen, her heart still throbbing. 'And who was that who looked in on me from the door? There was some one: I'm sure there was some one.'
'Me, mem sahiba,' grinned the woman readily. 'Me, ayah. Look in several time. Mem always neendi par; sota! sota! like baba.[2]Ayah waitin' close to bring dâk. Many letters for mem sahiba.'
Mrs. Boynton looked at her doubtfully. It was not the ayah whom she had seen; of that she felt certain. On the other hand, if the woman really had been sitting outside it was more than probable the whole thing was a dream. No harm had come of it, anyhow; so five minutes after she was dividing her attention between early tea and a long epistle from an absent admirer. Gwen's victims were always excellent correspondents, perhaps because of that gracious indifference in which lay her great charm, since a letter had quite as good a chance as a man of whiling away her kindly, sympathetic leisure.
But when the ayah was brushing at the pretty hair Gwen's mind reverted to the question which had kept her awake. As so often happens--the learned say by unconscious cerebration--it appeared to have settled itself. Independently of Dan, or any secondary matter of that sort, money would be useful. Most useful, seeing she had just lost the best part of her wardrobe and had a season at Simla in immediate prospect. Now she came to think of it, Hodinuggur owed her some reparation for the loss it had inflicted upon her. Besides, it would be wiser to wait and see if the presence of jewels in the pot were suspected by any one or not. If the latter, it would clearly be flying in the face of a good Providence to mention her discovery. So, by the time she was ready to face her world, that world seemed quite simple and easy to face.
Chândni thought the same thing as she sat at the Diwân's feet in the big balconied room of the tower overlooking the canal, telling him in whispers of the success of her plan so far. The jewels were no longer in the pot. The mem must have them, for, as she had found out through a khitmutgâr, the mem had been alone during many hours, and had been making a mess in the room with trumpery platters and pots.
'She may send it back yet,' said the Diwân cautiously. 'Lo! I am old, and this I have learnt through long years: Trust not a woman not to change her mind till she be dead.'
The courtesan laughed. ''Tis as well for some men she is born so, father. But a night's thought is as death to a woman. Life is too short to give more to such things. And that night is over without a sign. Give her yet one more, an thou wilt; after that, say that Chândni hath dug the channel. 'Twill be thy task to turn the water into it.
Among those things which come by Nature and are not to be taught, may be reckoned a pretty seat on horseback. One may be a good rider without it, a poor one with it; but when grace and skill are combined a man certainly shows at his best on horseback. It was so with Lewis Gordon. He sat his lean little country-bred as if it belonged to him; not as the usual phrase runs, as if he were part of his horse. For that is a description which ignores the essence of the thing to be described; which is, surely, the mastery a man has over something which isnothimself. Part of his horse! The very words conjure up a man paralysed to the waist and jelly above, agonising over a cavalry seat.
If Lewis Gordon were grateful to Providence for anything, it was for making and keeping him a light weight, and thus rendering him independent of Australian or Arab mounts. The fourteen-hand pony which he had picked up--a mere bag of bones--at a native fair, had to be hard held when trotting alongside of Colonel Tweedie's big Waler, yet she had only cost him a tenth of the price. As she forged along, quivering with impatience, Bronzewing was a pretty sight, the sunlight shining red through her wide nostrils, and shifting in golden curves over the bronze muscles which were almost black in shadow. Rose Tweedie always admired it immensely, and, illogically enough, felt inclined to be more lenient on the rider. She told herself it was because he wore spectacles on horseback, and they were less offensive than the eyeglass, which permitted variations of method in his outlook. She did not even fall foul of his indifference when he dawdled about, a picture of aimless dejection, at the hawking party; in fact, she had a sneaking sympathy with his feelings. It was dreary work watching unfortunate grey partridges beaten up from one bush by coolies, only to be pounced on by a hawk ere it could reach the shelter of the next cover. She also shared his disgust at Dalel Beg, who, in top-boots, red coat, and doe-skins, took a keen interest in the gorging of young hawks on the entrails of the still struggling victims, and gave shrill 'yoicks' and 'gone a ways' at each fresh flutter. Khush-hâl Beg watching the sport from a bullock-cart on which he reclined among cushions was purely comical; his son purely offensive.
'I think,' remarked Lewis slowly, 'he is the worst specimen of civilisation I ever met; and I think this is the deadliest entertainment I ever was at. And both those facts mean something.'
Rose laughed, and suggested that it would have been different had they come across bustard. They, she had heard, were worth hawking. Her companion shook his head.
'I've seen it on the frontier at its best. You lose the essence of sport; that, I take it, lies in pitting your strength, or skill, or endurance against the quarry. In hawking you ride behind the skill; and as the country is easy, the whole thing resolves itself into the pace of your horse; in other words, what you paid for the beast.'
'Not always! I'd back Bronzewing against the field any day,' cried Rose impulsively.
He looked up with quite a flush of pleasure. 'Well! she should do her best to win the gloves for you, Miss Tweedie.'
The reply came as naturally as the remark which provoked it, but it made the girl feel suddenly shy and say hastily--
'She looks as if she wanted to be off now; how that partridge startled her!'
'Not a bit of it. She is only longing, as I am, for a hunt.'
'A hunt?'
'Yes! a partridge-hunt. Have you never seen one?' He gave a rapid glance round. 'There are too many bushes here, but Keene may know of some fairly-open country, with perhaps a thorn-hedge or two for you to jump--that is to say, if you have had enough of this festive scene.'
Five minutes after, George Keene, Dan Fitzgerald, Lewis Gordon, and she were sweeping along in line across low sand-hills in order to dip down into a harder plain among stretches of level, dotted sparsely with low caper-bushes, with here and there a patch of cultivation showing vividly green against its whitey-brown frame of desert, and here and there a bit of plough ready for the summer crop.
There is nothing more invigorating in the world than riding in line at a hand-gallop across such country in the freshness of early morning, especially when the party has gay hearts and light heads. Rose felt that it was worth all her purely feminine amusements put together, and, with a flush of enjoyment on her face, besieged Lewis Gordon with high-pitched questions as to what they were going to do; he calling back his answers, so that their voices rose above the rhythmical beating of the horses' hoofs.
'We are going without dog or coolie, gun or any lethal weapon whatever--as the code says--to ride down and capture the grey partridge orAmmoperdix bonhami! Have you seen it done, Fitzgerald?'
'Heard of it only. The pace must be good.'
'Racing speed; no less. Therein lies the fun.' He gave a quick glance at Rose's tackle, and frowned. 'You should have a stronger bit,' he began when she interrupted him.
'It is the same as yours.'
'Perhaps. But a lady can't ride like a man, especially in this sort of work. If I had noticed it before, I----'
'Nonsense! I always ride with a snaffle, and Shâhâd is as steady as a house.'
'That is no argument. In my opinion a lady should----'
The rest of the wrangle was spared to the company, for at that moment a partridge buzzed out of a bush at their feet, Bronzewing's equanimity gave way, and with a snort of eagerness she burst after it, Shâhzâd following suit; both beasts heading straight as a die after the quarry, heedless of their riders or their discussions.
'Give him his head, Miss Tweedie,' shouted Lewis, as he shot past. 'He has done it before and knows the game! Off we are!'
Off indeed, helter-skelter, behind the grey-brown buzz of wings showing against a blue sky.
'Ride it! Ride it! Keep an eye on it! I'll do back,' came Lewis Gordon's voice, boyishly excited, as, with hands down, he veered the mare a point or two by main force, until, as she caught sight of a heavier' clump of bushes comprehension came to the game little beast, and she headed straight for it.
'Where? Oh! Where?' cried Rose distractedly to Dan Fitzgerald, who was now racing beside her.
'Right ahead--there--don't you see?'
Just a brown speck against the blue sky still, but skimming faster and faster to meet the brown horizon. There still, no--yes--
Gone!
Rose gave a cry, which was echoed by an exclamation from Dan, as instinctively they reined up, feeling the chase was over. George, hurrying up from behind, where his pony had been playing the fool, found them staring disconsolately at the bushes.
'Lost it, I suppose,' said Lewis, as he rejoined them. 'It is always difficult to keep it in sight on the horizon. However, you have had a good burst, Miss Tweedie. See! we started there--a good mile back. Have you any idea how you got here?'
'None! I suppose I rode; but I saw nothing but a sort of big bumble-bee buzzing in front of me. Shâhzâd did the rest.'
'As I said, not for the first time, which confirms me in saying he is only a Gulf Arab, for partridge-hunting is a Persian sport. Only don't tell your father, please; he would never forgive me.'
As he turned in his saddle, resting one hand on the mare's quarters in order to speak to Rose, voice and face full of almost boyish enjoyment, the girl felt that this was a new development of his character, and that she liked it better than the old ones.
'Now, as we go along, I'll explain. That bird took us by surprise,' he went on eagerly. 'Four is an ideal number, though I've had rare fun riding partridge single-handed. Number one ought to make the pace, keeping both eyes on the bird. Number two keeps his on the going, so as to save Number one from coming to grief over rough country. Number three rides cautious, landmarks the flight, and is ready to turn if the bird breaks back--you can't when you are going full speed, unless the bird towers. Number four rides cunning, cuts off curves, and heads for likely covers. The whole aim being to press the partridge so hard that it has no time to settle in shelter, but, after skimming down to a bush, runs through it, and takes to wing again on the other side.'
'And gets away, I suppose,' muttered, George Keene, still out of temper. 'Don't see the fun of it.'
'Wait a bit,' retorted Lewis gaily. 'Now you must remember that therôleyou have to play depends on how the bird breaks. There is no time to settle. The nearest in must ride it, the rest choose their parts as best--steady, mare, steady!'
It was only a faint 'te-tetar--te-tetar,' in the far distance, but Bronzewing started, and even George's pony cocked its ears; while humanity went on breathlessly in line, the horses' feet at a walk giving out a hollow sound on the hard soil, the yellow sunshine casting hard shadows.
'Look out!' cautioned Lewis, in a whisper. 'There's a partridge running on ahead; by you, I think, Fitzgerald.'
'Don't see it?'
'Farther to the left. The mare sees it. We must trot a bit, or it won't rise fair. Steady, lass, steady!'
'I see it,' came in excited tones from George, 'by the big bush, Miss Tweedie.'
'That's another,' cautioned Lewis again. 'Take care and don't----'
Whirr, buzz! Whirr, buzz!
'Ride it! Ride it!'
The cry came from two quarters; but Shâhzâd was already extended, and Rose forgetful of everything save those brown wings low down against the horizon. She was closer on them this time, for she could see their skimming swoop as they neared a heavy clump of cover. Yet she felt she must lose them, as she had done before, when to her relief she saw Lewis shoot ahead.'
'All right,' he shouted, 'I'm on. Look out for yourself.'
There was a cut of his thong against thorns as he rose Bronzewing to a hedge which Rose had not seen. But she had scarcely steadied herself in the saddle from the half-considered leap in his wake before the partridge was down and up again at right-angles to its first flight; Lewis meanwhile bringing the mare round all he knew, and shouting, 'Ride it, Miss Tweedie! ride it.'
Shâhzâd, still steadied by the jump, was in hand, and, therefore, on the track in a second, snorting in mad hurry and excitement, and the bird was not quite so fast this time, or Rose was riding straighter, for she saw the last skim of the wings change to running feet as it touched the grey brown earth which tinted so perfectly with its plumage.
'Not there! not there!' came that warning voice from behind. 'It's run on. The next bush--put Shâhzâd over it.'
A leap, a scurry, a flutter, and the quarry was up again, heading in its hurry for an impossible open, backed by bare plough. Bronzewing being now alongside, Rose found leisure to glance round for the others.
'Gone after the second partridge,' said Lewis. 'I was afraid of it. There's a hedge twenty yards ahead, Miss Tweedie, I'll mark.'
They were over it, almost in the stride, and now the bird was below the horizon, a mere shadow of darker brown against the plough.
'I've lost it! I've lost it again!' The despairing cry came from Rose's very heart as she tugged vainly at Shâhzâd. When she succeeded in bringing him up, she saw that Lewis was slipping from the mare.
'AH right!' he cried cheerfully, dropping his white handkerchief on the ground, 'it's somewhere about! That's the place I marked; now for sharp eyes.'
Up and down the bare furrows he searched, followed by Bronzewing, her reins dangling. Up and down, with such patience, that Rose, gaining confidence, began to search also. Only, however, to lose hope, as minute after minute brought no result.
'I don't believe it's here,' she remarked at last; and with the words saw Lewis Gordon stoop to pick up something she had passed by, thinking it was a clod of earth.
'Your first partridge!' he said with a kindly laugh, as he placed the bird upon her lap. There it lay unhurt, wide-eyed and motionless as it had lain among the furrows.
'Why doesn't it fly away?' asked Rose, with a little catch in her breath, as she gently stroked the mottled back.
'It will, soon. At present it's winded. Give it five minutes, and we could ride it again; but we won't. It flew game, and I needn't ask if you enjoyed it.'
No need, certainly. The very horses panting, nose down in each other's faces, seemed discussing past pleasure.
'It is safe from kites now,' said Lewis. 'Throw it up, Miss Tweedie.'
The next instant a skimming flight had ended in a covert of thorns and Lewis was on his mare ready to start.
'It wouldn't head for the open again, I bet, he said, 'they get as 'cute as an old fox after a time. To your left, please, that rise yonder is Hodinuggur.'
'But we might ride again, surely? It would give the others time to come up, began Rose, fiercely bitten with the game.
'Best not. The ground here is bad going; all littered with bricks. And you could barely hold Shâhzâd that last time. A snaffle is hard work--for a lady.'
Rose refrained from open retort. Lewis had given her a morning's amusement, and she owed him something; for all that, she made a mental determination to ride partridge as often as she chose with a snaffle. His objection was only part of that wholesale depreciation--here a partridge buzzed out of a bush, and partly from impulse, partly from sheer opposition, she gave Shâhzâd the rein. A bit of bravado in which she reckoned without the excited horse. Ere she had gone fifty yards, she realised it had the bit between its teeth. What was worse, she saw that Lewis realised it also.
'Look out for bricks,' he called, spurring Bronzewing alongside for a moment, 'and don't try to follow when the bird breaks back, as it is sure to do, for cover.'
The words were still on his lips, when the partridge towered and turned. Shâhzâd, no novice at such tricks, pulled up short, nearly throwing Rose over his ears. Then, with a bound, he dashed off sideways, catching Bronzewing on the flank as she swerved, and throwing her rider's foot from the stirrup. The mare staggered, pulled herself together smartly, set her hoof on a loose brick, and came down heavily; while Rose, tugging vainly at her beast, went sailing away to the horizon, with the memory of that crashing fall seeming to paralyse her strength. When she did manage to turn, Bronzewing was on her feet; but her rider lay where he had fallen. The girl's heart stood still an instant in that utmost fear which will come first--was hedead? Yet, as she galloped back she told herself, fiercely, that it was impossible; people fell so often, and did not hurt themselves. But not, surely, to lie as he lay, with eyes wide open and one arm under him as if he had pitched head-foremost. Rose had never seen an accident before, and at first all her helpfulness seemed lost in a senseless desire to gather him up in her arms and hold him safe. Then the thought of her own foolishness came to her aid. He had been right! Women were no good!' A man would have known what to do, and as she thought these things, she searched, comically enough, in his pockets for a flask, as if unconsciously reverting to the first resource of the male animal; but she could find none, and there was no water. What was to be done, save to chafe his hands and call to him vainly, while a perfect agony of negation clamoured against her growing fear. He could not be dead! He was such a good rider. He must have fallen before and not been killed. Why should he be killed this time? He could not be killed on such a bright sunny morning--when they had been so happy--when he had been so kind. Ridiculous, trivial little thoughts, such as make up the sum of such scenes.
Finally she rose, resolved by her very despair. Water and help she must have. If no nearer than the palace, then to the palace she must go. Shâhzâd had taken advantage of liberty to seek a wheat field, but Bronzewing would carry her with the stirrup over. The mare, however, distrusting strangers, sidled off, still circling faithfully round her master. Then the girl's hopes and fears centred themselves on the immediate necessity for success. She coaxed, wheedled, cajoled, forgetting all else, till all of a sudden Bronzewing paused to whinny, and Rose, looking round instinctively, recognised the magnitude of her past despair in the light of her great relief as she saw Lewis Gordon, raised on one elbow, looking at her in a dazed sort of way. She was on her knees beside him in a minute, confessing the past fear she had so strenuously denied while it existed.
'I thought you were dead!' she cried. 'I thought you were dead.' She was trembling and shaking all over, quite visibly, and he gave an unsteady laugh.
'Thumped the back of my head; that's all. No!' a spasm of pain passed over his face as he sat up. 'My collarbone's gone. Well! it might have been worse. The ground is uncommonly hard.'
Worse indeed! Rose could not speak for a lump in her throat; but the loquacity of escape was upon him.
'Must have pitched on my shoulder, luckily. I don't in the least remember how it happened. We were partridging, I suppose; but my mind is an absolute blank. No wonder! my head is just splitting; but I can walk home all right.'
And when she proposed riding Bronzewing for help, he negatived it firmly on the ground that the mare wasn't broken in for a lady; a man never having such a strong hold on his individual quips and cranks as when he realises that he has been within an ace of losing them altogether; whence comes the proverbial captiousness of convalescents.
So she had to be content with giving him a hand up and walking beside him, feeling a sad trembling in the knees joined to a general sensation of having gone to pieces. He, on the contrary, talking and laughing in magnificent, manly fashion.
'You had better tell me how it happened,' he said, as they neared the palace. 'People make such a fuss, that it is as well to be prepared. Did you see me come to grief?'
Rose hesitated for a moment to own up; then she did it wholesale.
'You told me not to ride because of the snaffle, but I did. I lost control of Shâhzâd; he charged Bronzewing. She put her foot on a loose brick, and--and I'm very, very sorry.'
'Stupid little beast,' he said, looking round at the mare, who was following them like a dog. 'I expect she wants re-shoeing.'
The evasion was kindly meant; but she regretted it. It seemed somehow to set her aside. But this was her portion in all things, for with Lewis in his room, scientifically bandaged by Dan and nursed by his cousin, Rose's part resolved itself into doing audience for her father's fussing. He had a capacity for it at all times, but Fate had provided him with special reasons for it now. Another delay! and when it was absolutely necessary that he should hold a Canal Committee at Delhi early in the week, how was he to manage without his personal assistant? Then there were private reasons for annoyance which he did not confide to Rose, but which that clear-sighted young lady fully understood. If Lewis had to remain a few days longer at Hodinuggur, his cousin would remain also; in which case Dan Fitzgerald would stay to look after them. Now Dan, ever since the fire, had been in the Colonel's black books. He had, as it were, thrust himself forward and made himself conspicuous. Finally, any woman must feel gratitude to a man who had saved her life. It was all of a piece--all the result of disobedience to his superior wisdom. Why had Rose set fire to the camp? Had he not warned her a hundred times against sitting up to read? Why had she charged Lewis? Had he not begged her fifty times to ride in a more reserved and ladylike fashion?
Rose could only fall back on George for comfort, and he, for reasons of his own, was utterly unsympathetic. A broken collar-bone, he said, was nothing--except an awful nuisance to every one else. To tell truth, the only person in that up-stairs world who was satisfied at the new turn affairs had taken was Gwen Boynton. It suited her admirably in more ways than one. So she sat after lunch and talked with Colonel Tweedie in the balcony until his ill-humour vanished in a bland flood of conviction that this eminently charming woman really was full of sympathy for his difficulties, and thoroughly impressed with his responsible position. In fact, when she had apologised for returning to duty and her patient, he came and let loose his satisfaction upon his daughter. Nothing was more useful to a man having authority than the companionship of a really sensible woman of the world. It enabled you to do justice to yourself, to adopt the course you considered best without undue hesitation. Therefore he would start for Rajpore, as he had always intended to do, on the following day, taking Mr. Fitzgerald with him to supply Gordon's place. He knew something of the current work, and it would be a kindness, serving to show--er--that--er--there was really nothing against him at headquarters.
'That was very considerate of Mrs. Boynton,' interrupted Rose quickly. She saw the meaning of this manœuvre so far that it roused her resentment, even though, after all, it would be better for Dan than dangling about with a sore heart while Gwen nursed the sick man. Better for George also, since thepartie carréecould not well consist of three and a dummy. George should talk to her, and so be kept from dangling also.
Thus Dan himself was the only one to look blank at the proposal, and even he admitted its reasonableness when Mrs. Boynton pointed out the many advantages it would have. This was during thetête-à-tête, in a bell-shaped cupola, which she allowed him over their tea. To tell truth, Gwen always behaved with the strictest and most impartial justice to all who had claims upon her, and she would have felt herself unkind had she allowed poor dear Dan to go away feeling aggrieved. She was very sorry he had to go, or rather, to be strictly accurate, she was sorry that common-sense dictated that he should go. Had all things been consenting, there was no one in the wide world she would so gladly have had for a husband. Now, when a woman of Mrs. Boynton's type, which is at all times kindly disposed to lovers, has an idea of this sort firmly fixed in her mind, she can be very kind indeed, even in her dismissals. So Dan was perfectly happy after he had sat beside her, and given her a second cup of tea, and handed her the bread and butter, though he made wry faces over her lecture on the necessity for subordinating his opinions to Colonel Tweedie's.
'And, Dan,' she said, when thetête-à-têtehad lasted long enough, 'as you are going to Delhi, you might take a parcel for me to Manohar Lâl, the jeweller's. It is quite small, but you might just send it round--the shop is in the Chowk--by the bearer. I wouldn't trouble you, but it is a chance, as you are going that way. It won't bother you, will it?'
'Bother,' echoed Dan in the tones which men in his condition use on such occasions.
'Then, I'll give it you now. I was going to send it by post, so it is addressed, and all the instructions are inside; but it would be safer if you took it--as you happen to be going.'
She repeated the phrase as if to convince herself of its truth. Yet when, on returning with her commission, Dan seized the opportunity of taking the parcel to kiss the fingers which held it, she felt something of a traitor. Even though, in sending the jewels she had found to be appraised, she told herself she had no other intention beyond, if possible, getting enough money to repay the loan she had so unwisely taken. That was all; and this chance of sending to Delhi by a safe hand had decided her so far--no more.
'Good-bye, dear Dan,' she said; 'I always miss you so much when you go away.'
That night Chândni reported progress to the Diwân. The mem's ayah had let out that the big Huzoor, Fitzgerald sahib, was the greatest friend the mem had. She must be a regular bad one, if all tales were true. And the big sahib was going to Delhi, the most likely place in which jewels would be sold. She would write to her craft, who were good clients of the goldsmiths, and bid them keep a sharp look-out. It would at least do no harm.
'Thy father must have been the devil,' said Zubr-ul-Zamân admiringly; 'yet will I reward thee, as thou hast asked, if all goes well.
'Does not all go well?' laughed the woman. 'The fire, and the fall?'
'And the girl?'
'Oh, naught of the girl!--the lance-player hits not the peg first time. That part is done, that tune played, for good or evil. The bridegroom, they say, comes next week. 'Tis well; we want no evil eye to change the luck.'