CHAPTER I

Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by

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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.