The angel Azrael had turned aside from other doors in Hodinuggur
besides that of the red-hot bungalow across the canal. Fuzl Elahi, the
potter, sat once more at his work, with the old calm on his face. The
wheel was back in the inner yard again, where the westering sun sent a
creeping shadow of the high wall almost to the edge of the spinning
circle. It spun so slowly that the eye could see the blue outline of a
pot upon the moulding pirn.
'It was a woman seeking something,
Over hill and dale, through night and day she sought for
something.
"Foul play! foul play! look down and decide."
"Not I----"'
The chant stopped in a start. There was a grip on one shoulder, a thin
brown hand over the other pointing accusingly at the wheel.
'Why didst lie to me?' panted a breathless voice, low yet hard. 'Why
didst say thou hadst sent it to her? Why? why?'
'I lied not, heart's delight.'
The slackening wheel, as his hands fell away from it, showed the
Ayodhya pot, as if in denial of his words; yet he repeated them gently,
looking back the while at the girl who had crept from the open door of
the hut behind him. 'I sent it; but it hath come back, as all things do
in Hodinuggur; as even thou didst, Azizan. Be not angry with thy
father. Lo, it is fate!'
She set his deprecating hand aside roughly.
'Let be, father--if father thou art. I tell thee 'tis the pot. Give it
me here. Yea; 'tis so, and thou hast put a false bottom of new clay to
it. Wherefore?'
The old man's forehead wrinkled in perplexity.
'I do it always. Let me finish the task, Aziz. Chandni, the courtesan,
will give money for it, as always; then thou shalt have violet sherbet
to allay the cough. Pity of me! how thin thou art!'
In truth the girl was emaciated to skin and bone: her small face seemed
all eyes; yet, though she swayed as she stood from sheer weakness,
there was energy and to spare in her grip on the Ayodhya pot.
'Chandni!' she echoed; then suddenly the fire died down, the tension of
her hold slackened. 'Lo, wherefore should I care if it be lies or
truth,' she muttered to herself; 'the old man is crazy, and 'tis the
Diwan's when all is said and done--not hers. Here, take it, poor soul.
I care not now, so I be left alone in peace.'
'Art not angry with thy father, Aziz?' he asked humbly; but there was
no answer. He watched her languid retreat to the hut almost fearfully.
'Lo, she forgets the things I have remembered, and I forget those she
remembers, he murmured, before he broke once more into his chant with a
quavering voice.
This forgetfulness of the girl's, showing itself so often, was a
perpetual wonder to the old man, who never for an instant doubted that
his dead daughter had indeed returned to him. 'Nay, but thou knowest
beloved!' he would remonstrate against her ignorance. 'Hast not played
in the Mori gate, and bought sweetmeats of old Bishno, perched on my
shoulder like any tame squirrel?'
'Mayhap, mayhap!' she would answer impatiently. 'I care not. There was
a Hindu girl, I remember, who did not weep as the others used to do.
Life was a dream, she said. We would forget it soon in another. Mayhap
'tis true and I have forgotten.'
It suited her to deceive the old man. When she had first realised the
position, she had been too weak to do more than wonder at it. Then, by
degrees, while she still lay helpless, the potter's talk, her own
recollections of old Zainub's hints, joined to the extraordinary
similarity in those extraordinary eyes, had given her a shrewd guess as
the truth. And with it came a fierce savage delight in her inheritance
of witchcraft. It meant revenge; revenge and safety. The potter deemed
her a ghost from another world; the village folk should think the same.
So she hid herself away in the dark hovel, spending the long hot days
in dreaming of a time when she could creep out on some moonlit night
and frighten the wits out of the world which had wronged her; for her
whole nature was jangled and out of tune. She hated everything and
everybody, herself included; at least so she told herself as she sat
idle, listless, brooding over revenge. It was not difficult for her to
avoid observation. To begin with, the village folk were afraid of the
potter's eyes at the best of times, and of late strange tales had been
told. Finally, Mai Jewun's longed-for son had been born with a distinct
thumb-mark, and had died. The only person, in fact, who could have
allayed these fears lay shrivelling into a mummy with the heat on the
old secret stairs; so Azizan might have wandered through the village
had she chosen without fear of anything save sending all the women into
hysterics, and making the men give themselves up as doomed to die. She
did not care to wander, however; she cared for nothing save to sit
crunched up at the lintel of the hovel door and stare into vacancy
until the dawn sent her back to the darkness within.
The potter found her so when he returned from taking the pot back to
the Mori gate late in the evening. The fading daylight struggled still
with the rising moon, making confused havoc among the shadows, and
giving an odd iridescence to the dust-laden air. From without came a
barking of dogs, an occasional cry, every now and again a group of
bleatings from the goat-pens. All the every-day commonplace sounds of
village life; and in the courtyard the same lack of outward novelty.
Only an old man with his pugree off eating his supper of millet cakes
and water beside a sick girl.
'Ari, beloved, cough not so!' came his tender voice. 'Lo! I will go but
now for the sherbet. Dittu was away when I passed his shop. And see, I
will seek out the sahib ere he leaves to-morrow and ask for more
medicine. It did thee good.'
The girl's breath came faster.
'Leaves? Wherefore?'
'He hath been ill, dear heart, so Chandni says. He goes to the mem
sahiba in the hills.'
Azizan's hand clutched the old man's arm. 'And the pot! what of the
pot?'
He shook his head. 'Maybe it was for her. I know not. Cough not so,
beloved. See, I will fetch the sherbet.' He bent over her, as he rose,
in gentle pleading. 'Go not from me when I am away, Aziz. Lo! I will be
back ere long.'
She gave a short laugh, and sank back, still breathless from her fit of
coughing.
'Go! whither should I go? God knows!' The old man sighed as he turned
away, to look back more than once at the listless, dejected figure. So
it remained for an instant after his had disappeared through the outer
yard; then, as if galvanised, it rose suddenly, and the thin arms were
flung out passionately.
'She shall not have it. Chandni shall not give it to her. She shall
not, she shall not.'
Five minutes after, trembling half with weakness, half from sheer
hurry, Azizan was on her way through the village wrapped in a white
sheet snatched from the hut. What she was going to do she scarcely
knew, just as she scarcely knew whither she was going. Though within a
stone's-throw of her birthplace, the path down which she stumbled was
as unfamiliar to her feet as the tempest of emotion was to her mind. A
fever of excitement, anger, mistrust of everything and everybody surged
through her veins. The road was silent, deserted; but even had it been
thronged, the girl would not have hesitated. Amid all the confusion,
but one thing was certain: Chandni must tell the truth; she must be
found and made to tell the truth. But where? Yonder was the Mori gate;
she had seen that before through the lattice, and that, at any rate,
was a landmark. She would go there first and see. As she came within
ear-shot of the tunnelled causeway, a woman's voice rang out in shrill
laughter from the dark recesses to the right. Her first instinct was to
pause; then second-thought made her keep straight on her way as if to
pass through, till at the farther end of the causeway she turned
suddenly to the left and sank down behind a plinth. It was as if a
shadow had disappeared. A minute to regain her breath, and then she
crept farther into the darkness, where, unless some belated gossipers
should choose that side of the arch, she was secure. From over the way
a clash of anklets and a low full voice, contrasting strangely with
those high trills of laughter assured her that she had come straight
upon her quarry. The rest was patience, till, sooner or later, the
woman would be left alone. Sooner or later the laugh must cease; sooner
or later even wickedness must tire and turn to sleep. So the girl sat
crouched into herself in the curiously impassive attitude of her race,
her thin arms round the thin knees whereon her small chin rested. Not a
very startling sight outwardly; though, to describe what lay within is
wellnigh an impossible task with an audience of Western ears; for
Azizan's knowledge would be to such ears incompatible with her
ignorance, her jealousy and passion with her patience. Such an audience
must remember an upbringing foreign to all their experience, and
imagine her, still as a statue, though the blood raced like liquid fire
in her limbs and throbbed like sledge-hammers in her temples. The moon,
sinking slowly, sent a slanting yellow light through the dust-haze,
visible beyond the arched causeway; the village dogs ceased one by one
the nightly challenge to their fellows; yet, still the laugh went on.
Would wickedness never tire? The wonder, and her own heart-beats lulled
the girl to a drowsier patience. She woke to silence, and, standing up,
strained eyes and ears into the shadows. Not a sound. She stole softly
across the causeway, slipped into the recesses at the right, and
listened again. A low breathing from one corner made her feel a way
towards it, and her touch, light as a breeze, hovered over a figure on
the ground wrapped from head to foot in a sheet like a corpse; yet she
knew it could scarcely be Chandni, for she would not choose so airless
a spot. But there must be rooms above, and a roof above that, and they
were worth a trial before going on to the bazaar. Slowly, for she knew
nothing of where she was, Azizan groped her way to some winding stairs,
thence to a suite of low chambers, empty of all save the pigeons
rustling and cooing at her step in the dark. Upwards again till, at a
turn, an archway gave on a terraced roof not six feet square; and
there, lying on a string cot, which, from its narrow resting-place,
seemed suspended in mid-air, she saw the soft curves of a woman's
figure outlined against the moon-lit dust-haze beyond. It was not a
place for a sleep-walker's slumbers; not a place even for a restless
one; but Chandni slept the sleep of the unjust, which, nine times out
of ten, is sounder than that of the just. Her conscience never troubled
her; and in addition she belonged to a race apart from the customs and
creeds of the people. A race born to the profession of pandars and
prostitutes, openly, shamelessly.
So, not being afraid, like other women-folk, of sleeping in the
moonlight with face uncovered, she lay carelessly as she had thrown
herself down, her tinsel-set veil turned aside by one arm thrust under
her head, the other stretched almost straight into the gulf of dusty
air, which glittered faintly like the ghost of a sunbeam. Beneath its
filmy net covering the bold sweep of her bosom rose and fell softly,
with its faded burden of the past day's jasmine chaplets. They gave out
a last breath of perfume as Azizan's thin brown fingers closed round
the sleeper's throat.
'If thou stirrest,' whispered the girl to the startled eyes as they
opened, 'I kill. Feel!'
Only a prick above the heart, but joined to that scorching, stifling
grip, it was sufficient to send the coming shriek back from Chandni's
lips. She lay terror-stricken, staring up at the wild light eyes which,
catching the moon rays as they dipped to the horizon, seemed to glow
with a pale fire. This was no ghost! it was something worse than that;
something that meant more than mere fright.
'Why didst send the Ayodhya pot to her? Why? Give it me back!'
Chandni slackened all over in sudden relief. If she could have laughed
with that hand on her throat the shrill sound would no doubt have risen
on the hot air. So that was all? Nothing but jealousy! Of all things in
the world the easiest to rouse--or to allay--by lies, and she had
plenty of those at her command. So many, that poor Azizan, after a
time, wondered sullenly how she came to be sitting amicably on the
string cot beside the woman whom she had meant to coerce.
'Poor little chicken,' said the courtesan in contemptuous consolation.
'So thou wouldst have killed me, thy best friend? One who seeks to
destroy the mem! 'Twill be the ruin of her, look you, and then he will
have none of her. That is their way. She will not get him; so pine no
more, child. Lo! I will teach thee how to have lovers and to spare.'
'I want no lovers,' muttered the girl angrily. 'If 'tis to harm her,
and thou hast sworn to that, I care not. And thou hast sworn to let me
be also. That is enough.'
As she rose, folding her white veil round her, Chandni felt sorely
tempted to give the little push which must have overset the weak
balance, and sent Azizan to certain death below. But the thought that,
if looks said the truth, fate would do the work for her ere long
without scandal, stayed her hand. Besides, the knowledge that the girl
was alive and intent on revenge might be of use in dealing with the
palace-folk, if they showed themselves traitorous to her claims. So,
when she had watched Azizan go stumbling down the stairs, Chandni
rolled over lazily to meet the midnight wind which was springing up,
and shortly afterwards fell like a child, into dreamless slumber, long
before Aziz, who had sunk down on a step of the silent causeway, hoping
to regain strength for the homeward journey, felt equal to the task. A
deadly despondency had replaced her excitement; yet beneath this again
lay a dull resentment against fate. If she had understood, if she had
known, as Chandni seemed to know, the ways and thoughts of these white
people, she might have done better. She had meant no harm--no harm in
her world at least--for she was not bad. He might, as Chandni said,
turn away from the mem for being wicked, but he would never have
had cause to turn from her, if she had only known. She never would
have done anything to displease him--never have done, or said or
looked---- The sting of shameful memory drove her from her
resting-place to stumble on recklessly in the direction of a twinkling
light upon the mound. That must be the potter's house and he must be
watching for her; there she would at least find shelter. But it was not
the house; it was the potter himself seeking for her among the ruins.
His face, by the light of the cresset he carried, showed haggard, and
its anxiety soothed her, even while it sent a new pain to her heart. He
was unhappy at losing her, and she? O God! how her own heart ached!
Must it always be so when those you loved were lost? Then would _he_
feel so if he had to turn away from the mem? Would it send that pain
into _his_ heart?
The question was insistent, imperative, as, scarcely listening to the
old man's deprecating delight she followed him back to the darkness of
the hut. Even there it haunted her. Through the hot night, through the
long hot day as she lay huddled up out of sight. 'Would he care? And if
he did care, would she be glad or sorry for his pain?'
The moon and the setting sun were disputing possession of the world
again, when George lay on a lounge chair in the verandah of the red-hot
bungalow. The air was fresher, if not cooler there, and the factotum
within was disturbing the foundations of the round world in attempting
to pack his master's things; among them Azizan's picture, and a parcel
which had been sent from the palace addressed to Mrs. Boynton.
Something, it was said, she had asked the vakeel at Rajpore to get for
her. The lad, though still weak, was joyous to the heart's core in the
knowledge that another hour would see him on his way to spend his
holiday in the society of the most perfect woman he had ever seen. That
was how he viewed his world. Gwen was in full focus; the rest of
humanity out of it; even poor Dan, who was at that moment riding
his hardest across the desert in order to take over charge of the
sub-division at its outermost limit, and so give the boy every possible
second of his leave. Not a very just estimate of relative values, but a
very usual one when Narcissus is absorbed with the reflection of
himself.
'Salaam Aliakoom,' came a breathless voice behind him. He turned to see
Azizan, who had sunk as if exhausted on the verandah steps. He stared
at her silent with surprise, in which a certain shamefaced annoyance
was mingled. He had no desire to be reminded of her existence at
present, and even if, as he had felt inclined to suspect, there was
some mystery about her, he could do no good by inquiring now, on the
very eve of his departure.
'I have come for the pot, Huzoor,' she began without preamble. 'They
took it from me. Lo! I was poor, and the poor have no voice. Justice!
Justice!'
'Took it from you?' echoed George, his annoyance increasing at this
plunge into the past. 'Do you mean by force?' She nodded. 'But,' he
went on, 'you sold it. I gave the money to your mother when she came
here--on the night the tents were burnt.'
'My mother died before that, Huzoor. It was not my mother who came, but
a bad one from the palace. It is true that I never sold it, never got
the money; and now I want the pot back again. It brings luck. I will
not sell it.'
'But why didn't you come at once and tell me?' asked George angrily.
'Then I might have done something: now----'
She interrupted him eagerly.
'Your slave has been ill; as the Huzoor may perchance notice.' Her
wistful tone made George look at her more closely.
'Very ill I should say,' he assented shortly. 'You are not fit to come
so far. Why did you? Why didn't you send some one else?'
'I thought the Huzoor would not believe unless he saw me,' she answered
after a pause. 'I heard the Huzoor was going away to-day, and I wanted
the pot. Surely he will give it back! The protector of the poor has so
many things; his slave has but this one thing.'
Her face was outlined against the white pillar beside which she sat,
and with all the languor of sickness on it still showed strong in its
entreaty. Something in it struck George with regret, even amid the
pressing desire to kick somebody which her words had roused in him.
'Give it back,' he echoed savagely. 'Of course I would, if I could; but
I can't. It was stolen----'
'It has been found again, Huzoor.'
'Perhaps; but I haven't found it. I'm very sorry, my good girl, but I
haven't got it.'
'The Huzoor mistakes. He has it. It is in the parcel that came from the
palace. They took it from me again to send it back to the mem.'
George stared at her, unable to believe his ears.
'Took it again then you were the thief--is that it?'
There was a slight pause ere she replied. 'The Huzoor always speaks the
truth. I stole it--but it was mine.'
George gave a low whistle; then a sudden grimness came to his face.
'And you say it is in that parcel they sent addressed---- By Jove, if
it is,' he added in English as he rose hastily. A minute after, when he
returned from within, his face was still more grim.
'Here! take it,' he said, thrusting the blue curves of the Ayodhya pot
at her, as if in haste to be rid of it--and her. 'When I get back I'll
inquire, and if what you say is true----' He paused, reduced in his
anger to thinking incoherently of Dalel Beg and horsewhips. How dare he
send it to her, mixing her up, as it were, in such a discreditable
affair? 'Well,' he continued, looking impatiently at the girl, 'that's
all, I suppose. You don't want anything more, do you?' The attitude in
which she was sitting reminded him perforce of the sunshine glowing on
the blue-tiled mosque and of the sidling pigeons--of a past, in short,
of which he did not care to be reminded, and a hardness crept over his
face.
'That is all,' she replied, rising to go. 'But the Huzoor should not be
angry. The pot belonged to this slave.'
'Angry?' he echoed, with a sort of lofty consideration. 'Why should I
be angry with you? Every one has a right to their own surely. Now you
have got it, go home and get stronger, my child. Salaam, Azizan!'
'Salaam Alaikoom, Huzoor.'
He took up his cigar again, relieved to find it alight; for he felt
that he needed soothing. On his return, Dalel must be brought to book
and smashed; meanwhile he was not sorry that the cursed pot had finally
passed into the hands of its rightful owner, for it had a knack of
appearing and disappearing in a way which annoyed his common-sense.
Now, he need never see it or its owner again. One palpable reason for
the latter probability made him give a compassionate glance after the
thin, small face where consumption had set its mark indubitably, and
which he had seen for the last time.
No! not the last. She too was pausing to look back from the gateless
gateway, guiltless of a fence on either side, which served no purpose
save arbitrarily, uselessly, to divide one portion of a dusty road from
another. So he saw her outlined against the shadows which softened the
havoc sickness had wrought in her young face; a graceful figure, seen
as he had painted her against the purple mound of Hodinuggur, with the
pot clasped to her breast.
Yes! when Mrs. Boynton saw the picture she would be pleased; that is to
say, if he showed it to her at all. The thought absorbed him, and when
he looked up the shadows were empty.