Azizan was waiting for darkness, like many another woman in India;
waiting for the veil of night to destroy the veil of man's contriving.
Not so much because she dreaded to show her face in the daylight, but
because it suited her to keep up the mystery of her appearance.
Waiting, however, for the last time; since once her work of warning was
done there need be no more concealment, no more playing like a cat over
a mouse with the palace folk. Once that was done, she meant to forget
caution and kill some of them; for she felt that her own death was
nigh, and revenge would sweeten the end of life. As she sat, her back
against the wall, her knees drawn up to her chin, Azizan had no very
distinct plans for that revenge, save that the Ayodhya pot which she
had taken from its hiding-place in the stair of the old tower and kept
in her bosom must be her chief aid. With its secret bribe of jewels, it
would prove to the sahib that there was truth in the tale she had
gathered during her nightly wanderings as a ghost about Hodinuggur.
When that was done, she would be free in some of those nightly
wanderings to kill the Diwan or his son, the man who killed her mother.
Perhaps she might be able to kill both, and yet have some strength left
for Chandni--Chandni who had told her so many lies. For there was a
fire now in Azizan's light eyes, which quite accounted for the
consideration which the courtesan had shown the girl when, more than
once, Chandni had awakened to find them looking at her. Of course, by
and by a stop must be put to this masquerading through the village, but
at present it would be unsafe, when so much depended on good luck, and
thus Azizan had hitherto been unmolested. Indeed, Chandni herself had
taken malicious pleasure in countenancing current tales of the return
of the potter's dead daughter; and once when Khush-hal Beg, during his
son's absence, had deemed it well to single her out for favour, she had
sent the hoary old sinner back to his swinging cradle like a quaking
jelly from abject fear of what he might meet by the way. Still it was
only when she was on the roof with the old Diwan that she ventured to
speak in whispers of a time when this mad girl should be taught her own
impotence for good or evil.
So in the meantime, the freedom from interruption, and the dread which
the mere thought of her existence roused in the simple village folk,
conspired to increase Azizan's faith in her own supernatural power, and
as she sat in the growing dusk no doubt of her own success assailed
her; for the little sahib had returned--during the night. At least so
said the old man, who, with all his craziness, was to be trusted.
Therefore, in less than an hour, he would know all, since the day was
dying down quickly; smothered in a hot haze-like smoke. There was not a
shadow anywhere; only a dull darkness growing momentarily as the dull
darkness had grown upon her mind day by day. For all that she had the
power; the potter might mould the clay, the palace folk might plot and
plan, but she, the woman with the evil eye, was stronger than they!
'Aziz! Oh! thou art there still, Heaven be praised!' The cry roused her
from a sort of dream to find the old man beside her, breathless as from
running, his mild face, seen dimly in the darkness, full of piteous
entreaty. 'Go not from me this night, oh Heart's-joy! Leave me not
again in the storm!'
'The storm! What storm, poor fool!' she asked indifferently.
He laid his trembling hand on her arm. 'Listen! Thou canst hear the
noise of many waters. They came before, so the fathers sang, and made a
new world. Down yonder at the palace, where thou goest, 'twill run like
the race of a river, and the stones of the old wall where thou liest
will be crumbling into it. Go not there to-night, oh, Light of mine
Eyes! It is safe here on the heights.'
'There is no water,' she answered, with a short laugh, 'there will be
none; save in the canal. The sahib will see to that now he hath
returned.'
'How can he see when he is dead----'
'Dead,' she echoed. 'Bah! thou liest! He is not dead. There is no
water, and there is no death----'
She broke off suddenly, silenced by his look as he stood with one hand
raised as if listening. In the breathless air a strange whispering
reached her ear, and like an arrow from a bow, she flew to the gap in
the palisade, whence she could see the dip between the ruins and the
canal bank, and beyond that silver streak again to the bungalow dotted
down upon the level plain.
'_Dohai! Dohai!_'
The Great Cry--the blind human cry of her race for justice burst from
her instinctively. The next moment found her bare-faced in the open on
her way to prove if the old man spoke truth in death also.
'Azizan! go not! Leave not the House of Safety! It is the Flood of the
Most High! Go not, oh! go not!'
His unavailing plea came back to him unanswered from the night which
had fallen suddenly, as the dust from below sprang electrically up to
meet the dust above and hide everything from sight. But through the
thick veil that rush of water rose louder and louder as the girl sped
on her way. It was true what the old man had said, and she had seen it.
There was a river by the old palace. Was the other thing true also? Was
the sahib dead? Had they killed him? The darkness lightened a little as
she ran over the bridge so that she could see a great swirl of yellow
water shooting past the piers not three inches below the keystone of
the arch. Lower down it had found the open sluice-gates, hurled them
from their foundations and carried them with it as it burst through the
embankment weakened by the new-made cuttings of the villagers, and had
raced in a mad river to fling itself against the mound of Hodinuggur,
tearing down yard after yard of crumbling sand as it turned abruptly
from the collision, to try conclusions by a flank movement. Azizan saw
none of this; nothing but the dim white arches where she had waited
once before.
'Sahib! Sahib!'
No answer, and in her eagerness she crouched down at the closed door,
tapping softly.
'Sahib! Sahib!'
There was only a quarter-inch planking between them, that was all, for
they had left him as he fell till some other white-face should come to
accept the responsibility of interference. Yet it did the work as
effectually as all the barriers of custom and culture which had divided
them in life.
'Sahib! Sahib!'
Could it be true? It must be true that he was dead; otherwise he would
surely hear her cry!
'Sahib! Sahib!'
As she crouched she might have put out her hand and taken his, but for
that trivial quarter-inch of wood between them; but he did not hear.
Because he was dead? Perhaps, yet even in life he had not heard, he had
not known. The light in the potter's yard, lit by her passionate love
and care, had only served to arouse his contempt. Better darkness, he
had thought, than such a light as that.
'Sahib! Sahib!'
At last she rose and stumbled across to the servants' quarters, seeking
the certainty which she must gain somehow. A light glimmered behind the
grass palisades, sacred to her namesake's modesty, and from within came
the eager yet subdued tones of gossiping women. Azizan crept close, and
crouching in on herself held her breath to listen.
'Lo! I content myself with goodwill towards all men,' came the widow's
voice self-complacently. 'Yet, O Motiya! wife of Ganesha the groom, I
make bold to aver that this is no more or less than a judgment on----'
'What! Dost think it to be really the Flood of Destruction?' broke in
Motiya, whimpering.
'_Ai fool!_ Who cares for the water? It flows south, not north; so we
are safe. No! 'tis the sahib's death. Mayhap 'twill teach other folks'
relations not to be in such a hurry to thrust themselves into other
folks' service against the custom----'
'But----'
'_Ai teri!_ wouldest deny my right--the widow's right? _Ai! mere adme_,
thy sahib is dead, and there is none to see justice done and employ thy
relations! _Ai! mere dil murgya! murgya!_'
As the renewed sense of her wrongs rose in the familiar wail, the women
from within joined in it dutifully. Without, the girl, with her hands
clenched and her wild eyes straining into the shadows, seemed to be
caught and carried away by it also, and her shrill voice echoed theirs
instinctively.
'_Ai! mere sahib murgya. Ai! mere dil murgya! murgya!_'
The women, scared to death at the unexpected aid, stopped suddenly, and
the young voice rose alone.
'_Ai! mere dil murgya! murgya!_'
The sound of her own wailing brought home to her the truth, rousing her
passion, her grief, her anger, to madness; and in one swift desire for
revenge she turned and ran.
'_Mere sahib murgya!_'
The wail echoed over the wild swirl of the flood-water as she crossed
the bridge once more. It was trembling now before its doom as the water
rose inch by inch. And could that be rain? that large warm drop upon
her hand, so large that it ran down between her fingers? Another on her
upturned face, blinding her. If those were raindrops, and many of them
came, it might, indeed, be the deluge of the Most High. And if it were?
Had not the end of all things come to her already? Yet as she ran she
looked curiously into the sky. Not a cloud was visible; only an even
haze of grey vapour, through which now and again a great drop splashed
down upon her, warm and soft.
'_Ai! mere sahib! mere sahib!_'
No more than a sob now; yet even that she hushed as the Mori gate
showed black before her. Should it be Chandni? No, not yet; but for
Dalel and the hopes of him, the woman would have cared nothing for
water or no water. So she passed on through the causeway. One or two
villagers, hurrying, like her, through the darkness, talking in scared
whispers of the strange flood, fell back from her path terrified. A
knot of men in the bazaar huddled aside as she slipped by like a
shadow; even in the courtyard of the palace the watchmen, gathered
round one pipe for the comfort of companionship in such uncanny times,
gave no more than an uneasy glance at the half-seen figure which they
did not care to challenge.
Should it be Khush-hal Beg in his swinging cradle? He had betrayed her
mother, and the knife she carried was long enough to reach through the
fat to his heart, long enough to do the mischief, when held in reckless
hands, even if aid came to the unwieldy body. No! it should not be
Khush-hal either. Let him wait a while since he had done little to harm
the sahib. The true quarry lay higher in the old man up yonder in his
nest like a bird of prey; seeing all things with his keen old eyes,
plotting and planning with his wise old brain. But for him, the others
had not been; but for him the sahib would have been alive, and now he
was dead. Each step of the stairs as she laboured up them seemed to
need that cry of 'dead! dead!' to help her on her way; and they left
her breathless on the first platform of the roof, where those huge
drops of rain were falling in audible thuds upon the hard plaster.
Faster and faster. This was not rain. Something must have given way in
the sky, and, as the old man had said, it was '_Tofhan Ehlai_.' So much
the better for her purpose. In the arcades on either side faint figures
glimmering white in the shadows showed where some of the servants were
sheltering. So much the better, also, since she might find the old man
alone; not that she cared for that either, save in its greater
assurance of success. He would not be in the pavilions at this time,
but in the room to the north end of the tower, of which she had heard
the women speak. The room with the big jutting balcony whence you could
see north, east, and west, everything except Hodinuggur itself.
By this time the raindrops, falling faster and faster, had become a
sheet of water streaming down straight with such curious force that she
staggered under it. A little sun-baked fireplace against which she
stumbled dissolved to sheer mud ere she had recovered her balance, and
a loosened brick on the last step upwards rolled down, beaten from its
place ere her foot touched it. It was the Great Flood indeed, though
every moment the sky grew lighter and she could now see her way
clearly.
'_Mere sahib murgya! murgya!_'
She kept the wild fire glowing in heart and eyes by the murmur, until
through an open door she saw what she sought--an old man seated at a
chess-table, still as a statue. With a cry she darted forward,
snatching at the knife in her girdle, then paused abruptly. Where was
the hurry? he could not move. So with a half laugh of exultation she
turned back deliberately to bolt the door--a strong door, as befitted
one giving on the favourite sleeping-place of despotism. It would need
time to force an entry there; more time than she would need to do her
work. Meanwhile she must look at this arbiter of her fate ever since
she was born--this tyrant whom she had never seen. What! was that all?
that wreck of a man, with his head upon his breast? but as she came
nearer, the light, such as it was, from the wide-arched balcony, aided
by a cresset smoking in a niche, showed her something of the youth in
his eyes. Perhaps it showed him something of the age in hers, for the
Diwan paused in his first haughty challenge, then began again.
'Hast come to frighten me, as thou frightenest the villagers, oh!
Azizan, daughter of the potter's daughter?' he asked coldly. He was
defenceless, and he knew it, save for craft of the brain.
'Nay! I have come to kill thee, Zubr-ul-Zaman, Diwan of Hodinuggur,'
she replied; 'to kill thee as thou hast killed the sahib.'
A sound which might have been a laugh reached her as she took a step
nearer, brandishing the knife; perhaps it was that which made her pause
again in her turn; for laughter was hardly what she expected.
'I did not kill the sahib, fool. He killed himself for love of the mem
sahib: the fair mem who took the Ayodhya pot.'
The girl fell back the step she had taken, and the hand bearing the
knife went up to her forehead in a gesture matching her sharp cry of
pain. The truth struck home; yet she caught at denial desperately.
'Thou liest! She did not take it. I took it once--twice. I have the
pearls--the Hodinuggur pearls. I--I--not she.'
One of those curious spasms of life came to the wreck of a man, as it
turned to look at the girl more closely.
'So! Thou also hast brains. 'Tis the woman's _yog_[6] nowadays. My son,
and my son's son, have none. Thou shouldst have been my granddaughter,
Azizan, had I but known. Thou mayest be now.'
His granddaughter! Of course! she had suspected so all her life, had
known it to be so for months, yet she had never realised the fact till
now; and an odd, inexplicable sense of kindred rose up in her against
her will.
'I shall kill thee, no matter who thou art,' she cried quickly.
'Wherefore? What harm have I done to thee, Azizan? 'Twould have suited
me better had the sahib fancied thy face. Thou hadst thy chance.'
Something in her shrank back abashed before the naked truth of the old
man's words. She had had her chance, according to her world, and she
had failed. She had failed utterly; and yet---- Something else in her,
strange, incomprehensible, clamoured against the verdict, and the
deadly weariness, the passionate apathy she had so often felt before
came over her. The knife dropped to her side, and half mechanically she
looked out through the arches of the balcony to where the red-brick
bungalow should stand. There was nothing to be seen but sheets of water
streaming from above, while from below came a rush and a roar. Suddenly
as she listened came another sound; a _pit-pat pat-pit_ on the floor in
half a dozen places. The rain had conquered the thick-domed roof.
'It is "_Tofhan Elahi_," she said, and even as she spoke a babel of
voices rose at the closed door.
'Open! open! The river saps the foundation. _Ari bhai!_ is he dead,
that he hath no fear? Beat it down!--Oh, Diwan sahib!--Oh! servant,
who hath closed the door?--Open! open!--Nay! without a smith 'tis
hopeless--And I tarry not!--Listen! there goes more of the wall--Open,
fools! open!'
Amid the roar and rush, the vain blows and shouting, the old man's eyes
were on Azizan's, not so much in appeal as in command. He could not
move and his faded voice would never reach through the clamour, so his
only safety lay in her obedience. But she shook her head, then crouched
down--as if to wait till they should once more be alone--in her
favourite attitude, her back against the wall, her knees drawn up to
her chin, the knife still clasped in her hand ready for use. A louder
roar came from without, a rattle as of bricks, mingled with cries of
caution and alarm. Then gradually the blows and voices dwindled away
from the ceaseless clamour of the rain and the intermittent rumblings
of falling masonry, as the smallest crack widened beneath the pressure
to a breach until, bit by bit, the solid walls seemed to melt away.
'Why didst thou not open the door, fool?' The words in the greater
silence were just audible to the girl.
'Because I did not choose.'
Again the odd sound like a laugh came from that bent figure.
'The woman's reason. Why didst thou not choose, Azizan?'
There was no anger, scarcely a trace of anxiety even, in his tone. He
was no novice to the ways of women, and the girl's face told him that
his chance of life was almost gone. What must be must, and death came
to all; to the mad fool in her turn. The sombre fire of her eyes met
his sullenly; but she made no answer, save to lay the knife down
quietly on the sill of the arch against which she leant. The steel rang
clear upon the hard red sandstone.
The old Diwan's wrinkled hand hovered for a moment over the pieces on
the board, then fell back upon his knees. So they sat staring at each
other silently in the bow of the balcony. There was nothing more to be
said. She had chosen; why, she knew not. And as the clamour of the rain
and the rush of the river rose higher and higher, Zubr-ul-Zaman's head
sank upon his breast with the old formula--
'Queen's mate; the game is done.'
The woman's reason, or unreason, had conquered the Strength of the
World. But that was no new thing to the Diwan's wisdom.
But to the people outside in the open, huddling together under the
pitiless downpour for safety's sake, it was more or less of an
amusement to wonder how long the old tower would hold out against the
mad stream sapping at its foundations. Not long; for already the ruined
wall had gone, disclosing a portion of the secret stair, where Zainub,
the old duenna, lay parched up almost to a mummy. A hideous sight, no
doubt, had there been light enough to see it; but there was not, and
the refugees upon the higher ground could discern nothing but the block
of the old tower and the swirling water below. A faint light came from
the balcony of the room where the Diwan was known to be; and, as they
watched it, people speculated how the door came to be fastened. Perhaps
it had swung-to, perhaps---- Well, he must be dead, or would soon be
dead, since rescue was impossible; and, after all, he had lived his
time. Khush-hal had been saved from his swinging cradle, and then there
was Dalel away up at Simla. Rulers enough for a poor country-side, if
God spared it from the Great Flood; and if not, why then the old man
was at least better off than they, exposed as they were to the
elements. Far better; both he and the outcasts in their straw huts,
which would hurt no one even if they fell. So the first in the land was
as the last, and the last first. '_Sobhan ullah!_'
As the rain slackened the night grew darker, until even the block of
the tower ceased to show against the sky, and the little company of
watchers could only hear the thunder of its fall.
'God rest him,' muttered a peasant, muffled into a formless bundle in
his blanket. 'He was a hard master, and the new one may be harder
still. There will be a good crop anyway.'
And down on the very edge of the boiling stream, when the rain ceased,
a light went twinkling up and down, up and down. It was the potter
looking for his dead daughter as the _debris_ of the old wall, beneath
which she had been buried sixteen years before, crumbled away bit by
bit before the furious stream.