The _diners a la russe_ on the roof had not passed unnoticed by the
world below. How could they? Over such strange doings curious tongues
must need wag, setting other curious eyes to peep and peer; especially
in the women's apartments, where life was so empty of novelty and where
a crowded squabbling glimpse, from some lattice, of arrival or
departure was all the inmates could hope for, beyond, of course, the
ceremonial visit which the English ladies paid to a circle of selected
wives.
But there, in company dresses and company manners, the chief women of
three generations had found it impossible to ask enough questions to
throw any light on the one absorbing phenomenon of utter shamelessness
in their visitors; and after Colonel Tweedie's departure disputes began
to run high in that rabbit-warren of dark rooms and darker passages,
centred round a bit of roof walled in to the semblance of a tank, which
lay to the right of the Diwan's tower.
The elder women, led by the old man's last remaining wife, a still
personable woman of forty, upheld the theory which has had so much to
do with British supremacy in the past; namely, that the sahib-logue,
being barely human, must not be judged by ordinary human standards. As
likely as not, their women were not women at all. The younger party,
however, consisting largely of Dalel Beg's many matrimonial ventures in
the forlorn hope of a son, declared that the true explanation lay the
other way; namely, in the excess of frail humanity. Both positions
being argued with that absolute want of reserve which is the natural
result of herding women together away from the necessity for modest
reticence which the presence of even their stranger sisters brings with
it. That lack of reserve in the mind by which nature compensates
herself for the seclusion of the body, and which makes those who have
real experience of the working of the zenana system put their finger on
it as the plague-spot of India; a plague-spot which all the women
doctors sent to bolster up the system by exotic and mistaken
benevolence will never cure.
And to the war of words, Azizan listened listlessly as she crouched for
hours beside that slit in the prison wall, whence on tip-toe she could
see the flag-stone before the mosque on which she had sat when he was
painting her picture. She had ceased to cry, ceased to do anything save
mope about in the dark with dull resentful eyes taking in the emptiness
and hopelessness of all things; even her desires going no further than
a vague wish that she could have seen the flag-stone where the sahib
had sat, instead of that dull, uninteresting, unconsecrated one. But in
that house of languid, listless, useless women her dejection might have
passed unnoticed save for the fact that old Zainub, the duenna, began
to be troubled with an old enemy--the rheumatism.
Up-stairs on the roof, the connection between Azizan's tears and
Zainub's sciatica would have seemed far-fetched, obscure; down-stairs,
however, it was self-evident, clear as daylight. Briefly, Aziz had the
evil eye, like her grandfather the potter, and she was using it, as her
mother had used it. Sixteen years before, after nursing that mother in
the damp dungeon, where useless cries could be deadened, Zainub had
nearly died of rheumatic fever. Not from the damp, of course; simply
from the evil eye. Nothing, in fact, had saved her life then, save a
promise to protect the baby. And now for the sake of money, she had
brought grief on the child, and unless that grief could be assuaged,
the result was certain; she would die. The pains were already upon her,
and a dozen times a day she cursed her own folly in helping Chandni;
Chandni who, when the ruse failed, had thrown her over with a paltry
fee. Yet old Zainub, even while she blamed herself, confessed that no
duenna could have foreseen such a coil about nothing; but then the
world was full of strange new wickedness. In the old time no girl in
her senses would have met the suggestion of carrying on the intrigue on
her own account as Azizan had done, with vehement denial and glowering,
unhappy eyes. The thought of them sent additional twinges through poor
old Zainub's bones. George Keene, who had taken up his quarters in the
state-rooms of the palace, so as to be near Lewis Gordon at night,
never dreamt how narrowly he escaped the invasion of an old beldame
beseeching him to remove a curse from her. He had for the time almost
forgotten the Azizan episode; even the surprise which the potter's
mention of his daughter's name had aroused he set aside for the
present. There would be time enough for inquiry when he was alone once
more; when the absorbing interest of the present had gone out of his
life.
So the tragedy down-stairs was completely hidden from those up-stairs.
It is so often in India. Occasionally we gain a glimpse behind the
veil; for instance, when the periodical scare as to the number of human
brains required to keep up British prestige seizes on some cantonment.
A scare which it may interest the 'Peace with Dishonour, party to know
is apt to follow on any lowering of the Lion's tail. Then there are two
simple syllables, known doubtless to many readers of this veracious
story as they are to the writer of it, which if uttered casually--say
in dinner-table conversation--will of a certainty lead to your servants
leaving your service without delay. These things sound unreal,
farcical, no doubt; so would George, as he handed their bread and
butter to the ladies up-stairs, have deemed the fear which prompted old
Zainub's wheedling words as she crouched by Azizan's bed plying her
with greasy sweetmeats.
'Eat some, my pigeon--a morsel, beloved! Why wilt not be comforted,
child? Say what is in thy heart, and if Zainub's old hands can compass
it, 'tis thine.
'I want nothing. Let me be,' muttered Azizan.
Zainub rocked herself to and fro, partly in despair, partly to allay a
sharper twinge of the enemy, and looked round dismally as if for some
inspiration of comfort. There was not much to suggest it in those bare
walls, inexpressibly squalid, dirty beyond belief; save the cemented
floor, which underwent a daily sprinkling from a skin water-bag, and a
daily lashing with a reed broom. There was a mark of the passage of
that skin bag up the narrow stairs in a cleaner streak along the grimy
walls, and a mark of that reed broom in the spatter-work dado of slush
round the room. The smoke of rushlights blackened the arched niches,
their oily dribblings seamed the once whitewashed walk below, and
centuries of cobwebs hung on the rough rafters. There was no furniture
of any sort or kind, excepting the low stool on which Zainub crouched,
and the string cot whereon the girl had flung herself recklessly. Not
even resting fairly, but half on, half off, each listless curve showing
her indifferent despair; her flimsy veil crushed into a pillow, her
unkempt yet braided hair showing she had not thought of it for days. No
uncommon sight in the zenana, when so and so's 'constitution is
disturbed,' as the phrase runs.
'Would it soothe thee to talk of it?' whined the old lady.
'No! no!' Aziz sat up in sudden anger. 'I hate him. I hate everybody.'
Then, her own confused emotion being strange and new to her, she sought
refuge with a whimper in her old sullenness.
'Ari! pretty one,' replied Zainub, relieved at something tangible.
'Thou art right to hate him. Yet grieve not, since he hath gained
naught of thee. Thou hast passed him by scornfully.'
On the face turned to the dirty wall something like a smile quivered.
'He hath the pot--the Ayodhya pot,' murmured Aziz half to herself. 'He
kept that--he liked that.' The duenna beat her shrivelled hands
together and laughed shrilly.
'Wah illah! he hath kept it, sure enough, but he will rue it. Look you!
I know not the ins and outs; yet will the pot bring him evil. Yea! even
though he hath given it to the mem up-stairs.'
Azizan was on her feet ere the words were finished, her eyes aflame,
her whole figure trembling with excitement.
'He hath given it away! Mai Zainub, is it truth? He hath given it to
the mems! Ah! how I hate them. It is mine! I will have it back. I
will--I will.'
She flung herself once more on the bed, almost choking with her
passionate cries, wild in her uncontrolled jealousy, while Zainub,
mystified and half impatient, deprecated the foolish, impossible
desire. Did she not want revenge? Well, the pot was to bring it about.
It would bring money to the treasury also, and before that
consideration what mere personal whim could stand? Finally, it was not
hers, but the Diwan's, who had a right to let the pot go as he chose.
Azizan's ultimatum came swiftly with a savage gleam in her light eyes.
'Then I will die; and others shall die, too.' The girl was no fool; she
could see through the secret of Zainub's docility by the light of many
a covert allusion of her companions to her strange eyes. Well, if the
power was hers she would use it, so give her back the Ayodhya pot or
take the chance. Zainub crept away disconsolate; even with her
life-long experience of the vagaries in which hysterical girls indulged
she demanded shrilly of High Heaven if there had ever been contrariety
equal to Azizan's. To set aside the possibility of revenge! Still she
must do her best, and if the mem had the Ayodhya pot in the palace
there was always a chance of being able to steal it. As a beginning she
spent some of Chandni's rupees on sweetmeats, and, hiding the tray
under her domino, set off to pay her respects to Mrs. Boynton's ayah.
'The _burka_ is certainly a most mysterious garment,' remarked Gwen, as
she lent over the balcony just as Zainub shuffled through the courtyard
on her errand. 'Did I ever mention the fright I had one morning? I woke
thinking that a pair of those latticed goggles were glaring at me; but
it was only Fuzli looking in to see if I was awake. Still it alarmed
me.'
'Women have a hard time of it,' said Lewis languidly from the arm-chair
at her side, where he was playing the part of interesting invalid after
four days of unwelcome fever. 'How I should hate to have nerves!'
'We are not a whole army of martyrs, however,' objected Rose swiftly.
'I, for one, decline to be credited with them.'
As she sat pouring out the tea with George Keene's help her face rather
belied her words. She looked fine-drawn and eager, her eyes bright, yet
tired. Gwen smiled confidentially at her companion.
'People in good times never have nerves, so you and Mr. Keene have no
excuse for them at present. By the way, you must have been successful
with the partridges today, for I assure you, Lewis, they were not in to
breakfast till past twelve.'
Not much in the words--much in the manner. It made Rose bring her cup
of tea to the balcony and stand looking with a satirical smile at the
pair seated there before she turned to George.
'We think Mr. Gordon is in a good time also! don't we, Mr. Keene? You
should break something too; Mrs. Boynton would be quite equal to
another patient.'
The crudeness, not to say rudeness, of her own words startled her into
adding hastily, 'For she is a good nurse; isn't she, Mr. Gordon?
'First-class for one,' he replied coolly; 'but I doubt her managing
three. Therefore, if Keene is going to break something, as you suggest,
it would be as well if, for a change, you took some care of yourself.
At present you look miserably ill.'
Rose flushed into health at once.
'I? Rubbish! If you have quite finished tea, Mr. Keene, let us go on
with that match at tennis.'
'There they go, supremely happy,' commented Gwen from her post of
vantage after a pause. 'I'm a shockingly bad chaperon, but that is your
fault, Lewis, for getting fever. Do you think _monsieur le pere_ will
be very angry?'
He shifted irritably. 'My dear Gwen, don't overdo it, for goodness
sake. I'm grateful; you know that quite well. But if you want me to
believe that Keene is in love with Miss Tweedie, I must decline to
agree. The lad is palpably in love with you; as we all are. As for
Miss Tweedie, I decline to have any opinion at all. Girls of her type
are beyond me. She looks ill, of course, but no woman can stand
half-a-dozen hours in the saddle before breakfast and half-a-dozen
singles before dinner, with, I suppose, half-a-dozen problems before
lunch and half-a-dozen books before bed. The thing's absurd, and as you
don't seem able to stop it, it is as well we are leaving Hodinuggur so
soon.'
His distinct loss of temper made Gwen change the subject outwardly, but
retain it inwardly as a justification of her tactics. They had been
very simple. A word to George of gratitude for his care of Rose, a
playful remark to the latter on her marked anxiety for the patient's
comfort had left the elder woman mistress of the situation. She was in
no hurry, however, to bring it to a crisis. Time enough for that when
they should nave returned to civilisation, and she had that letter from
the jewellers which might even now be waiting for a certain Mrs.
Arbuthnot at the post-office at Rajpore.
Perhaps she might not have found Rose so ready to acquiesce in plans
through which the young girl saw perfectly if they had not fallen in
with the latter's convenience. It was easier that Lewis Gordon should
believe her occupied with George, and better for the boy than dangling
after Gwen all day; _he_ was too good for that sort of thing. She told
herself this savagely, many times a day; even when, with a worldly
wisdom beyond her years, she was playing the part of elder sister and
confidant to the lad's ardent admiration. As for him, he was supremely
happy between the occupations of worshipping the most perfect woman in
the world and being companion to the jolliest girl he had ever known.
The day had been hot and sultry, unusually so for the time of year, and
as the four stood saying good-night to each other for the last time on
the roof the sheet lightning was shimmering in a faint haze low down on
the eastern horizon.
'Rain,' said Lewis Gordon in a low voice to Rose. 'Lucky for that dusty
dhoolie journey to-morrow evening. In the meantime, I hope it may cure
your headache.'
'I have no headache,' she replied coldly.
'I'm glad you did not say no head; that perjury could have been proved.
Good-night.'
He turned to his cousin and let his hand linger in hers affectionately,
'Don't be alarmed if the storm is a bad one.'
'Of course I shall be alarmed,' she answered gaily. 'Then you and
Mr. Keene will have no peace; for you don't suppose I intend to stay
on the roof in order to be struck by lightning. I shall turn you out
down-stairs at a moment's notice.
George with adoring eyes on his divinity suggested eagerly that if he
returned to the bungalow the ladies could move down at once. Gordon no
longer required any one at night, and it would be more comfortable.'
'Nonsense,' cried Rose impatiently. 'I don't believe it will rain.
Anyhow, I shall stay where I am, storm or no storm.'
'Nerves or no nerves,' parodied Lewis, 'Keene shall come into my room,
Gwen, and I will order his to be got ready for emergencies. Then, if
nature does convulse, you can seek shelter without disturbing us. Even
Miss Tweedie will allow the wisdom of that arrangement from a
masculine, and, therefore, selfish point of view.'
She did allow it, inwardly. The worst of Lewis Gordon was his knack of
being right in a way which forced her into disagreement. This
consciousness accentuated her obstinacy, and even when Mrs. Boynton,
pathetic and plaintive in a trailing white dressing-gown, sat on the
edge of the girl's bed beseeching her to let discretion be the better
part of valour, she would not yield. She was not going to give colour
to Mr. Gordon's caricature of womanhood. Besides, it was close
down-stairs. She had a headache, and liked the air. Finally, she was
not afraid of being left alone; Gwen could go down if she wished.
As she watched the little procession bearing pillows and blankets file
down the stairs, with the ayah in the rear, protesting that 'big storm
come kill missy baba for laugh old Fuzli,' she felt glad to be left
alone. Her head did ache; what is more, her pulses were bounding with a
touch of sun-fever. It would be gone by morning; yet Lewis, perhaps,
had been right also in saying that she had been exposing herself too
much. The inclination to rest her hot head on the cool marble
balustrade and sit there under the restful sky was strong, but with an
instinct of fight she set it aside almost fiercely, and after looping
back the curtains of the corner-room so as to let in what air there
was, lay down decorously. But not to sleep. A dreary disturbing round
of thought kept her awake, sending her back and back again to the same
point--the assertion that she had certainly been overdoing it. That was
the cause of her depression. Until suddenly, causelessly, her native
truth rebelled against the self-deception, and she sat up in the dark
pressing the palms of her hot hands together. What was the use of lying
to herself? Was it not better to confess frankly that with all his
faults Lewis Gordon interested her more than any one else in the world?
Perhaps it was love--yes! she cared for him as she cared for no one
else in the world, and was it not detestable to blush and deny the fact
instead of being straightforward? At any time this indictment of her
honesty would have been intolerable; now, with fever running riot in
her veins it forced her to exaggerated action. She had been behaving
like a romantic school-girl in a novel. In future there should be no
possibility of her denying the fact that she had wilfully, and without
due cause, fallen in love with a man who did not love her. Yes, fallen
in love! Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes shining when the light of
the candle she lit fell on them. As she passed quickly into the
mirror-room the thousand facets gave back her eagerness, her
determination, as she deliberately chose out Lewis Gordon's photograph
from a folding frame standing below the Ayodhya pot. She stood for a
moment looking at it, struggling with her pride, then she passed back
into her room again and thrust it under her pillow. That was an end of
all lies at any rate. After that she would never be able to deny the
truth. She gave an odd, almost happy little laugh as she crept into her
bed again, where, after a time, she fell asleep with one hand guarding
something under the pillow: just as Gwen had guarded something in her
corner-room a few nights before.
No doubt it was the growing coolness of the night which soothed the
girl; on the other hand, it may have been the testimony of a good
conscience not ashamed to confess facts. The lightning shimmered over
her sleeping face, and, as it shimmered, showed a black arch of cloud
looming from the east. By and by the wind rose, bringing with it the
fresh earthy smell of distant rain.
It was now between second and third jackal cry, that is to say, the
deadest hour in the Indian night, when even natives and dogs sleep. Yet
there were two figures stealing round the base of the Diwan's tower to
the piled ruins of the old wall which had fallen on the potter's house
long years before; fallen suddenly in the night, after just such a
storm as that now sweeping up with the wind.
'Ari, heart's core!' pleaded a cracked voice, 'sure the rain begins
even now, and God knows what the old stairs be like. 'Tis sixteen years
gone since they were used. Holy Fatma, what a flash! 'Tis no night for
women-folk to be out; be wise and leave it. To-morrow, perchance, when
they pack up the things, I may lay hands on it.'
'Be still, mai! What good to talk when 'tis settled? What didst say?
Straight up to the hole in the wall, three steps down to the ledge,
along that to the window slit in the Diwan's stair, so by them to the
gate; thou hast the key. No, 'tis open, thou sayest. Is not that right?
Lo, mai, 'tis easy.'
'In the old days; but the lattice parapet is gone, they say, and a
false step--O Aziz, be wise! Would God I had not told thee of it.'
A faint laugh echoed into the pitchy darkness. 'Thy aches and pains
would never have reached the pot otherwise, O mother!'
The hint was not lost on old Zainub. She stumbled on hastily until a
shimmer of lightning showed an opening half hidden by _debris_ in the
base of the tower into which she crept.
'See, here are the matches,' she whimpered, 'and witness, O Aziz! I
have done all, even to letting thee wear the old dress, since it
pleaseth thee, though wherefore, God knows----'
''Tis light and strong,' interrupted the girl hastily. 'Stay you here,
mother; I will be back ere long.'
A box of Swedish _taendstickors_ made for the British market with a
portrait of Mr. Pickwick on the cover, was an incongruous item in the
scene, yet one of them looked tragic enough as it sent a glow through
Azizan's brown fingers and showed a broken flight of steps.
'I will be back ere long,' she repeated at the first turn. Then the
light went with her into the very heart of the wall.
Zainub sat crouching in the dark, shivering and groaning. 'Ai! my
sins,' she muttered, hiding her face from a sudden flash of lightning,
'the pains of Jehannum are on me already. I perish of fear; the breath
leaves my body.' She rocked herself backwards and forwards ceaselessly,
moaning and muttering; a weird figure guarding the stair up which
Azizan was toiling by the light of other _taendstickors_. Beyond the
possibility of a half torpid snake, or a shower of loosened bricks from
above, there was as yet no danger, even to one so unused to effort as
the zenana girl. Thus she had time to think of what she was to do when
she reached the roof. For one thing, she had to steal the Ayodhya pot;
for the rest, she was not sure, but something ready for impulse lay
tucked away in the waist-folds of the old woollen dress. A glimmering
slit showing its arched top against a lighter darkness of sky brought
her back to the present. This must be the hole in the wall; and beyond
it lay a chasm of night. She lit another match and held it over the
gulf. The flame burned steadily, for the stair, in winding through the
wall of the tower, had brought her to leeward of the storm. Nothing
was to be seen save the blackness of clouds above, the blackness of God
knows what below. Then as she stood peering out into the darkness a
shiver of silent lightning revealed a silver plain far down beneath her
feet, and above, to the right, silver balconies and cupolas. That must
be the roof whither she was bound.
The expenditure of more matches disclosed the three steps downwards,
and at right angles a ledge along the wall ending in a buttress some
thirty feet off. That must be the support of the Diwan's stair. Both
steps and ledge had once been protected by a latticed parapet; now they
were edged by the blackness of the gulf. The ledge, however, seemed
perfect as ever, and the rest was, after all, mere fancy; especially at
night when you could not see. Should she risk it? The match she held
left indecision on her face as it flickered out. The storm, close at
hand, took breath as it were for the onslaught in a long pause of
intense, silent darkness. Then a sudden shimmer shot over the old
tower, spreading a silver mantle upon the slender figure of a girl
clinging to the wall. Darkness again; and then once more the same
sight. A girl with her face against the wall moving step by step
slowly, deliberately. Nearer and nearer each time to the buttress. Then
a little cry, too inarticulate for comprehension, rose on the still
air, and when the next shaft of light came it found nothing but the
bare wall. The figure was gone.
So much might have been seen by any watcher on the roof, but there was
none. It lay still, deserted. The very wind, stirring the folds of the
curtain Rose had looped aside, made no noise, and the light and the
dark played their game of hide and seek in silence. An odd game in the
mirror-room, and the arches on arches of shadow leading to it. Each
separate scrap of looking-glass would blaze out like a star, sending a
beam on the blue bowl of the Ayodhya pot, then dive into the dark
again, carrying a reflection of the scene with it in triumph. Miles of
shadowy arches, millions of blue bowls glowing amid countless stars;
thousands of looped curtains showing a girl asleep on a white bed.
After a while the stars carried a new sight; a girl in a strange dress
crouching by the bed. The lightning shimmered keenly over this group
several times, bringing into glittering relief something held by the
crouching figure, and something held close to a flushed cheek by the
sleeping girl. The one was a knife, the other a photograph of a young
man in an immaculate coat and an irreproachable tie. Different things,
indeed, yet the girls who held them differed little. They were both in
dreamland; for Azizan, as she crouched beside Rose, felt that she was
in a new world. The whiteness, the stillness, the solitude, guarding
the pure sleep of girlhood--the refinement, the peace, made her think
involuntarily of the dead laid out for their last rest. She gave a
quick little sigh; her hand relaxed its grasp, then tightened again, as
a flash showed the photograph clearly. It was a picture of some one. If
it was his picture, why then----
She struck a match softly and peered closer. No! She paused, taking
advantage of the light to look at the sleeper. Rose stirred.
'Who is it?' she murmured, in the low quick tones of those who talk in
their sleep.
The watcher's hand closed silently round the match extinguishing it.
'I am Azizan, Huzoor.'
The immediate answer had its effect. Rose nestled her head to the
pillow once more, and from the ensuing darkness her breathing came soft
and regular. Suddenly, with a crash the thunder rolled right overhead,
the wind hushed, the heavy drops of rain fell, each in a distinct plash
for a second, then merged into a hissing downpour on the hard roof.
Rose started up in bed, just as the quivering shaft of lightning blazed
through the mirror-room upon a girl in an odd dress, holding the
Ayodhya pot close to her breast. A girl with odd light eyes.
'I am Azizan, Huzoor.' The words seemed still in her ears, recalling a
confused memory of the potter and her own promise.
'Your father wants you, Azizan,' she said half in a dream, and the
sound of her own voice woke her thoroughly to darkness. Had she been
dreaming? The wind rising, now the storm had broken, swept rain-laden
through the open door, extinguishing the matches she struck hastily, so
that the first glimmering of her own candle was echoed by the ayah's
lantern as the latter came paddling over the streaming roof with
petticoats held high over her trousered knees, and shrill denunciations
of the missy-baba's obstinacy high above the storm. Rose Tweedie's
thoughts flew to Lewis Gordon's warning, and his wisdom reminded her of
her own foolishness. That was not a dream; and she blushed violently
over it as she thrust the photograph out of sight before her attendant
rolled the bedding into a bundle and staggered with it down-stairs. As
the girl followed ignominiously in the mackintosh and umbrella supplied
by that injured official, she told herself she must indeed have had
fever, to commit such a ridiculous piece of folly. Her ears tingled
over the very recollection of what had perhaps saved her life.
Meanwhile, the girl with the Ayodhya pot, whom Rose, in her absorbing
shame, had decided must have been a dream, was stumbling down the
broken stairs once more, her courage gone, her chaos of emotion reduced
to one heart-whole desire to reach Zainub in safety. How she had
crossed the ledge again she scarcely knew; she had dropped the
_taendstickors_ on the way, and, as she felt her way step by step in the
dark, she was sobbing like a frightened child. Half-way down a
displaced brick in the outside masonry allowed the lightning to glimmer
over a sort of landing, where she paused for breath. God and his
Prophet! What was that huddled up on the next step? She had to await
another flash ere she could decide; and in the interval her heart beat
with sickening, fearful curiosity.
'Mai Zainub! Mai Zainub!' Her cry of relief and content came swift as
the flash. There was no answer save renewed darkness, bringing
downright terror with it. Still that was a human form warm under her
touch.
'Mai Zainub! Mai Zainub!'
There was no flutter beneath the hand seeking the heart. Could she----?
Then came a blaze of light, and the familiar face all unfamiliar; the
fixed eyes wide open, the jaw fallen.
The next instant she was dashing down the stairs recklessly; down and
down, out into the open, over the _debris_; anywhere, so as to leave
that horror behind. The wind caught her, the rain blinded her, the
thunder crashed overhead, as she ran on blindly, till with a cry she
slipped on a loose brick and fell, stunned, against a mass of broken
masonry. So she lay, looking almost as dead as the poor old duenna
huddled up on that landing in the secret stair, where, with one final
twinge at her heart, the rheumatism had left her for ever.
An hour after, when the storm had passed, and a faint greyness told
that the dawn was at hand, a feeble light began to flicker about the
ruins: up and down, up and down, as if it sought for something. It was
Fuzl Elahi, the potter of Hodinuggur, looking for his dead daughter. He
had looked for her after every storm for sixteen years; and this time,
with the Miss sahib's promise to send her back lingering in his memory,
he sought in hope.
When the sun rose, three things were amissing from the palace at
Hodinuggur: the Ayodhya pot, Azizan, and the old duenna.
Up-stairs, while George, and Gwen, and Rose, all for private reasons of
their own, acquiesced, Lewis Gordon declared that some servant must
have broken the former in dusting the room, and, as usual, made away
with the pieces.
Down-stairs the same unanimity prevailed. Aziz and Zainub had their
reasons for running away. They would be found ere long, since no one
near at hand dare shelter them, and the old woman could not go far.
If the folk up-stairs had known of the disappearance down-stairs, they
might have connected the two losses, but they did not. So none of these
three things were traced, and no one cared very much: especially Gwen
Boynton. The pot might have reminded her of Hodinuggur, and now she was
leaving it there were some things she intended to forget. Besides, no
one now could ever say she had taken the jewels.