_Longing for the Unseen as never one
Longed, passionate, for Seen; remembering none
From dawning to the setting of the sun
Save Secret Things unheard, unseen, unwon
No man shall know, till this world's life is done_.
--Sa'adi.
"I would have sent for thee," said Atma softly, "but there was none to
send. The whole town was away at the festival--so I stayed." She
sighed almost fiercely in her regret at having been let and hindered,
though her eyes were tender, as she gazed down on little Zarifa who
lay in the Wayfarer's arms. It was bare dawn, and, in the shadow of
the wall one could but just see the perfect outline of the sleeping
face that nestled close to his pallid mask.
"She fails fast, methinks," added the woman in a lower tone.
"Aye! she fails--at last," echoed the man's voice. As if to give them
both the lie, the whispered words brought a sudden smile to Zarifa's
face. Her eyes opened full of swift desire, her whole deformed body
pressed closer to the breast on which it lay, and there was
unmistakable appeal in the soft curved cheeks, the curved waiting
lips. The Wayfarer answered it instantly and laid his to hers.
The kiss was long; his mask came up from it with a certain repulsion
of expression, at once tender and cruel.
"Yea, it is true! She nears womanhood, and what hath she to do with
its blessing, or with its curse," he muttered, looking at the face,
which, satisfied, had sunk to sleep once more, a smile still hovering
over it; then he laid the misshapen bundle of humanity he held--so
small, so helpless, so apart from everything save limited life--on the
string bed, whence he had taken it, and covered it gently with the
quilt; for the air of dawn was chill.
Atma stood looking down on the beautiful face, feeling a hot anger
rise in her heart against all mankind.
"Thou didst never love her mother, or thou wouldst not speak so," she
said scornfully.
The Wayfarer, who at the parapet was watching the slow growth of dawn,
turned on her swiftly. "Not love her, woman?" he echoed passionately,
fiercely. "That God knows! It is her father that I hate--it is for him
I wait!"
"Her father? Art _thou_ not then----?" began the Charan in surprise,
but the _rebeck_ player had recovered his calm monotony of manner.
"Her father truly," he said, "since of Love I brought her into the
world, of Love I care for her, of Love I give her Love."
As he spoke his fingers were busy about his neck, and Atma seeing him
stoop over the sleeper, saw also that he left something in the ghostly
half-seen folds of the white quilt.
"What is't?" she asked curiously, stooping also, conscious of a
certain unreality in what had passed, in what was passing. She had
sate up all night beside Zarifa, unable to leave her, unable to get a
message sent to summon any one; and so, unable to hear what was
happening, when so much might happen.
The nervous tension of that night of waiting, of watching had been
great; yet she had forgotten it when in the false dawn the Wayfarer
had suddenly appeared. Since then she had been absorbed, as he was, in
the child--this child of Love!
Ye Gods! What was it that exhaled roses? The whole air was full of
their scent--her very eyes seemed to see them, crowning the sleeping
head, hiding the scant contour of the deformed body: and to her,
ignorant in a way, yet from her birth familiar with mystical thoughts,
credulous of all mystical things, the sudden inrush of unreality
brought small surprise but quick curiosity, and she caught
imperatively at the Wayfarer's hand.
"Who art thou, Lord!" she asked simply. "In the name of this Rose of
Love tell this slave."
The man drew back from her touch resentfully; his face grew more
human, less deathlike, and Atma watching it wondered at the change in
it, and asked herself, if this were indeed the poor musician who
played for the chance hearers of the bazaars.
"Thou hast spoken a compelling word, sister," he said, "so thou
shalt be told. But guard the secret if thou lovest--any! I am
Payandar--whether king or hind matters little. Mayhap I am both, since
I am Love incarnate and Hate incarnate. That is Spiritual Love which
knows not Sex, and Earthly Love which lives by it. And I--doubtless
thou hast heard the tale, told as a legend--I loved one who was to be
my wife. But she whom I held sacred, my brother, of wanton wickedness,
dishonoured. Yonder child is his--so the Earthly Love that is in me
still, despite the Rose Garden of the wilderness, waits till the
measure of his iniquity shall be full. It will not be long."
He stretched his hand out menacingly, and turned to go.
"Thy brother?" she echoed, "who----"
He stopped her with a sudden wild gesture.
"Ask not that, fool!" he cried passionately. "Lo! thou art very woman,
cleaving to the detail, seeing naught of the spirit. Thou canst not
even see that I have lied? I tell thee she _is_ my child--the child of
the sins which I, Tarkhan, inherited even as he did--the child of many
sins that are in me, even as they are in him."
He stooped over the sleeper and kissed her on the forehead.
"Master!" said Atma tremulously as she saw him cross to the door.
"Must thou go? I have waited long--and now----"
"There comes one who will bring thee news, and I will be back ere
long," he answered, and even as he spoke a voice full of importance,
breathless with hurry, came from the stairs.
"Mistress Atma! Mistress, I say. God send she be not out, or, if
mischief come of it, I will be double damned for double treason."
The next instant old Deena the drumbanger, his drum hitched to his
back like a huge hump, hustled the departing musician at the door and
flung himself blubbering at Atma's feet.
"Lo! chaste pillar of virtue! said I not ever ill service was as the
feeding of snakes--one never knows but when one has to turn on them
rather than that they should turn on thee," he began tumultuously,
"but I have come! Yea! old Deena hath to remember his soul and if
mistress Siyah Yamin----"
"Siyah Yamin! What of her," queried Atma sharply even as she added,
"Speak, lower, fool! Thou wilt disturb the child."
Deena made a grimace of apology, pursed his face up, looked at the
sleeper, shook his head with elaborate regret, and then hitching his
drum round to equalise his balance, squatted with his elbows resting
on it, ready for a calm whispered recital of what he had come prepared
to tell.
"There is no need to begin at the beginning," he said tentatively and
was rewarded by Atma's curt "Tell all, slave! I have been held here by
the child all night and know nothing."
"Thank God for ignorance!" ejaculated the old gossip piously, and went
on to recount the events of the past night.
Atma listened quietly. She started and clasped her hands tighter when
she heard how the King and Prince Salim had exchanged turbans, but her
long night's vigil had brought so many visions of what Birbal's wit
might compass that she scarcely felt surprised. The story of the
bursting of the reservoir and, the miraculous escape of the father and
son, however, told as it was from the outside (for old Deena naturally
knew nothing of the extraordinary import of the incident he was
describing) roused her instant alarm.
"Prate not about their bareheadedness!" she broke in on his tale of
how the two had stood before the multitude shorn of honourable
headgear but mighty in monarchy--"the turbans man! the turbans! what
of them?"
Deena's wicked old eyes lost their sparkle, his tone grew peevish.
"Lo! mistress! wouldst spoil the picture. Doubtless they drowned. Who
thinks of turbans when----"
Atma was on her feet. "Bide thou here! I must go," she said hurriedly.
She felt she could no longer stand inaction. All this had came
about--if, indeed, it had come about "Yea! I must go to Siyah Yamin,"
she repeated blindly.
Old Deena laid a detaining hand on her red skirt. "Not there!
mistress! Not there. Lo! thou hast not heard what I come to tell. Thou
didst bid me begin at the beginning and I began; but 'tis not only
scorpions' tails that end in a sting, and this one hath venom in it I
swear. If thou hadst heard--Nay listen! mistress! 'Twas Meean Khodadad
and Mirza Ibrahim who came raging to Siyah Yamin's half an hour agone.
I had gone back thither after the show was over to have speech with
Yasmeen and the hussy was virtuous and would not let me in. So,
standing there I heard----"
"What?" asked Atma fiercely, "Canst not speak without twists and
turns?"
"Lo! Mistress! let my tongue follow my brain as the potter's donkey
follows muddy breeches thinking them his master," replied Deena
mildly. "I am at the very prick o' the point. They swore vengeance on
thee for what I know not, protesting that thou and thou only couldst
be the cause; and then they swore at Siyah Yamin for telling thee; but
gingerly, for look you Siyala is not one to threaten lightly--but she
said--doubtless with that smile which makes a body feel like a camel
without legs----"
"What said she, fool?" interrupted Atma exasperated.
"That without the seeing of thee she could not tell; whereupon they
said that if they saw thee----"
Atma caught up a white cloth and wrapped it round her. "Stay thou
here!" she said imperatively, "the child sleeps and I will be back in
half an hour."
She was well down the stairs ere Deena ceased to call feebly! "Not so!
oh mistress most chaste, not so!" and resigning himself to
circumstances closed the door, hasping it lightly by the bottom hook
and chain, then sate down beside the sleeping child.
"Even as a Peri," he murmured to himself as he looked at the face
showing more clearly now in the coming light. "Truly God knows His own
work--yet is there no mortal sense in sending such a countenance of
beauty with no body to match it fit for hugging."
So he dozed off into the sleep which pure vice had taught him to take
in snatches.
Meanwhile Atma hurrying through the still deserted alleys felt her
mind too much in a tumult for concentration; thus, as she almost ran
past the high unarched doorways, the blank walls shutting out all
things, the constant burr of the unseen hand-mills busy over their
daily task of grinding flour came to join the unceasing burr of
thought that whirled in her brain. Doubt as to her own wisdom had
assailed her the night long, and now with this uncertitude concerning
the fate of the diamond, she felt she could have killed herself for
the part she had played in its theft. Why had she played it? Why? Why?
The futility of fighting against Fate came home to her, as from a
closed courtyard rose shrilly the voice of a woman chanting the song
of the Grinding Stone and the Grounden Wheat:
Red Sandstone and red-husked wheat
Whirl in your dancing, part and meet
My right hand is your master,
What if the stone be rushed?
What if the grain be crushed?
Men and women must eat,
The cry of the child be hushed.
Whirl faster and faster,
God's right hand is our master!
What though Love mates with Lust,
Though Just yield to Unjust,
What care the Stone and the Wheat,
For men and women must eat,
The cry of the child be hushed,
So Dust grind Dust!
Dust grind dust! She smote her hands together and sped on. She could
at least challenge these men for the truth, and tell them that they
lied. She had told no tales!
And as she made her breathless way toward Satanstown, Mirza Ibrahim
and Meean Khodadad were making their way back from it. They had gained
nothing from Siyah Yamin save biting words and contemptuous gibes. She
had done her part and there would be time to hold her fool when it was
proved that Atma had betrayed her. For herself, she did not believe
it; and in so saying she for once spoke her real thought. She knew,
briefly, that treachery was out of the question with her sister of the
veil.
But the two men held, manlike, to what was on the surface.
"Fret not, Khodadad," said Mirza Ibrahim with a sinister smile, as
they passed out from the courtesan's house, "there is no hurry to
settle scores with the madwoman. I, being Chamberlain, claim her as
the King's woman, and then----"
"Then may I go shares with thee, or take thy leavings!" muttered
Khodadad fiercely. "That may be thy revenge; but I am Tarkhan."
"Tarkhan or no, it grows too light for us now, Meean Sahib, so fare
thee well for the time," remarked Ibrahim significantly. And in truth
the sky was beginning to show pearly over the pile of the city.
"Tarkhans need no darkness for their deeds," retorted Khodadad
recklessly. His temper, as ever, had overmastered him, he was
literally beside himself with rage and disappointment. These two
confederates were fools! What man could succeed, bound hand and foot
by chicken-hearted cowards like Ibrahim, and the rest of them? But
he--aye! he would take revenge, dawn though it was! for he was
Tarkhan, accredited to evil deeds.
"To Siyah Yamin's Paradise," he said flinging himself into the
palanquin which followed behind him. The madwoman lived in the same
tenement. So much he knew, and the rest would come; if he had luck. If
not there was no harm done. Pure devilry possessed him; he could not
rest without some attempt at retaliation.
And so old Deena woke from his snatched snooze at whispering voices
outside, followed by a steady calculated shouldering of the door, a
slip of the ill-hasped chain, and the sudden consequent sprawl of half
a dozen stalwart Abyssinians on to the roof.
"Back slaves!" said Khodadad, his voice low and hoarse with passion
that leapt up with the chance of satisfaction. "And close the door
behind you."
Old Deena scrambled to his feet. "My lord! my lord!" he expostulated,
every atom of virtue in him rising up scandalised at the intrusion,
all the more so perhaps, because of his loose life. "This roof is the
abode of chastity."
"Fool!" said the Tarkhan seizing him easily by the throat. "The
woman--where is she? Speak low or I strangle thee."
"She--is--not here," gasped the old man--"Mercy lord! mercy!"
"Not here!--thou liest!"
Still holding Deena fast pinned against the wall Khodadad's eyes
flashed round the roof. There were no shadows now; the morning light
clear and fresh filled every corner.
"Ye gods! and devils!"
The words came low, almost soft, with the sudden inrush of admiration,
as Khodadad's hands fell away from the old man's throat, and he took
one step toward the bed.
"My lord! My lord!" cried Deena starting forward. "She is ill, she is
a child--she is----"
He staggered back from the blow dealt him recklessly.
"She is beautiful--that is enough!" came with a chuckling laugh.
"Wake, my houri! Wake up my peri of Paradise."
There was a faint scream, the mere cry, as it were, of a wounded bird.
"Nay beauty! thou shalt kiss me! What! Scent of roses and no love?
Pah! how the perfume gets into my brain. Never but once before--but
this is no time for the past! Nay! struggle not. Such beauty needs no
veiling."
The little murmuring wail died to silence, and the half jibing voice
was silent also. So, horror-struck, Khodadad stood for one instant
before the deformity he had unshrouded. Then with a curse he turned
and fled.
Deena, still dazed with the blow, crept over to the bed and covered
crippledom again.
"Little one," he crooned, "there is no fear--he will not come back."
But there was no answer, and he leant swiftly to listen for a breath.
"Little one! Little one!" he cried. He could hear none, and as he
stooped his wrinkled face puckering into tears, a voice behind him
said quietly: "She is dead! Lo! it was time."
Deena turned to see the _rebeck_ player who closing the door softly,
came to stand beside the bed.
"Dead! Dead!" blubbered the old sinner. "Yea! Yea! it is so--his
kisses killed her--only his kisses."
"Whose?"
The question echoed and re-echoed over the roof instinct with a sudden
new fire, a sudden authority, and it reduced Deena to snivelling
submission.
"Only a kiss lord, only a kiss; but Meean Khodadad----"
He paused struck dumb by the expression on the Wayfarer's face. Grief,
horror, exultation showed on it, and over all a great awe as of one
who sees a mystery.
"Khodadad! Oh! Thou most Mighty! Khodadad! It is the end."