_Wash white the pages! In no book
Love's rule is written. Wherefore look
Not in my words for Flattery; nor dare
To claim me as thy rightful share.
Traced on my brow is Love--Fate wrote it there_.
--Hafiz.
The gongs striking eleven roused her. She stood up and looked about
her, feeling lost, forlorn; and lo! she was in a world of stars. For
it was the Night of the Dead, and every little hovel, every house, and
homestead, and palace in the town behind her, glittered with the small
lamps set to illuminate the feasts that are laid out for wandering
spirits. And as she looked out over the unseen levels of the tank, the
stars were there also, twinkling farther and farther away to the
horizon in every hamlet and village. For an instant the inner vision
of the soul was hers, and she saw, as it were a map stretched before
her, the wide plain of India receding on and on into the darkness of
the night, all sown with such stars in constellations.
And every star was the memory of some dear face; every star was set
for some loved wandering soul!
She felt like a disembodied spirit herself as she looked down at her
feet, remembering the little decorous platter in which she had hidden
the diamond. Should she go back to the Beneficent Ladies and tell them
what had happened? No! She had done her part toward them; she had
given the gem they had given her into the jeweller's own hand as she
had promised; so that was the end.
But it was not the True Luck; thus her duty, so far as she herself was
concerned, still remained. She must try and find it, and if she failed
there was always the death-dagger; for she must be true, though she
was a woman.
"True! Aye! as true as it befits womanhood to be."
Who had said that?
Siyala?
Then in a second she knew, and turning swiftly on her heel ran toward
the town. Siyal! Siyala was the thief! She had the King's Luck. Ye
gods! had it come to this. Her sister of the veil, the little dainty,
delicate, perfumed piece of femininity which she had borne with, nay,
had almost loved as a half-forgotten part of herself--she, and she
only, was preventing her, Atma, the representative of Charans, from
playing her man's part in Charanship. An uttermost loathing of
herself, as woman, came to the mind that had been educated to believe
in her womanhood as nothingness, the while she hurried through the
full bazaars toward Satanstown. She almost had to fight her way
through one portion where the crowd filled every inch of the roadway
past Khodadad's house. He was lying in state there with all the royal
insignia of a Tarkhan about him. That had not saved his corpse,
however, from quick searching by the hands of the city police (for
treasonable papers was the excuse) but now that Birbal had come and
gone unsatisfied, the professional wailers were once more skirling
away their mercenary grief, and through the wide arches of the upper
floor the swaying heads of the hired priests could be seen as they
chanted their orisons for the dead.
"Who is't?" she asked, faint curiosity rising in her as she passed.
"Khodadad, Tarkhan. Hast not heard?" answered someone. "They found him
dead at dawn, the blood pouring from his veins, and the white horse
from which he had fallen by his side."
"Aye! but thou forgettest neighbour!" said another eager voice "his
hands were tied and----"
"God send his soul to the nethermost hell for treachery," broke in
Atma on the gossiping, as she fought her way on.
"Ari, sister! Have a care," protested the crowd. "Thou hittest like a
man, and will hurt."
But she was gone ere the sentence ended in a broad laugh, and a rough
jest on him who had such a termagant to wife.
Old Deena caught sight of her as she came breathlessly along the
balconied lane. There were lights and to spare here, but Siyah Yamin's
house stood a dark block amongst its radiant neighbours.
"Thou art too late, mistress most chaste," he called, "the singing
bird is fled."
"Whither?" she gasped.
He shook his wicked old head and leered with his wicked old eye.
"No-whither so far as this world knows. A many have been after her,
even my Lord Birbal, without success. She left for the desert to my
Lord Khodadad's devil's feast last evening and hath not returned. Now
he is dead, and she hath disappeared! Belike the white horse carried
her off too; or belike," he spoke in a lower voice, "the desert was
but fair doubling ground for pursuit."
Atma stared at him uncomprehending.
"But I need her," she muttered.
A hard metallic laugh rang from a neighbouring balcony.
"No woman needs woman!" came a coarse jeering voice. "But such a
strapping wench could mayhap play a man's part. Play it, sister, and
God go with you."
Atma turned and fled from the burst of wild laughter that followed on
the sally. There was nothing left now for her, truly, but the man's
part. She must find the death-dagger of her race, and die as they had
died.
But not for honour; for dishonour!
By the time she reached the winding tenement stair which led upward to
her roof she had grown calm, and her mind, set loose from the urgency
of the present, had begun to wander amid past scenes. Yea! yonder were
the steps leading down to the cellar where the Wayfarer had lain
asleep, half dead in dreams, with Zarifa's face upon his bosom. A
strange man indeed! What was it he had said about Love? Her hand
sought her throat involuntarily and finding the quaint green stone
clasped it.
Roses! Roses! Roses! Their scent bewildered her!
Then in a second she saw all, she understood all. Aye! she, the woman
in her, had loved the King and she had been ashamed of it. But
this--this was different. This was the mortal following the immortal!
She was going to death as to a funeral prye, to find herself sexless,
beyond the flames.
She stumbled on and on, up and up, every atom of herself forgotten
save the deathless desire for Unity which lies behind sex, until,
suddenly, some unfamiliarity beneath her feet made her pause.
Had she come too far? She stopped in the mirk darkness to feel the
step on which she stood, so, groping felt the wall.
A nail. And something had caught on it. What?
A tiny scrap of fringe. And that was scent--not bewildering scent of
roses; but bewildering scent of musk and ambergris--the essences of
Satanstown!
Siyah Yamin's paradise!
The thought leaped to her brain; a second or so afterward she stood at
the secret door. It was ajar.
But this time the darkness of the roof showed like a black shadow
against the diffused radiance from the town below.
"Siyala" she cried, but there was no answer. She moved forward a step;
then, bethinking herself, turned back, locked the door and thrust the
key in her bosom. If anyone were there, they would have to meet her
face to face.
So, her eyes becoming accustomed to that outside radiance, that
central shadow, she half-felt her way down the broad path from the
door toward the place where, when last she had seen it, silken
curtains had still hung, and the remains of feasting had still lain
rotting--rotting surely, slowly by day and night.
But there was nothing now. Even the dead roses had disappeared and her
feet as she walked sank softly in the carpet of sand and dust that
covered all things. Was that a darker shadow flitting back as she
advanced? She turned swiftly, heard an ineffectual rattle of the lock,
and the next instant, in her haste, her outstretched hands pinned a
slight figure to the door.
"Lo! Ato," came a petulant voice, "thou art rough as any man! I am
here if thou needst me, so take thy big hands from my frail body and
let me light a light. 'Twas thy step--manlike again--made me
extinguish mine, for fear."
A spark from the tinder box showed small hands shaking; and the
following light, a second too soon, found traces of sharp terror
behind the mocking smile on Siyah Yamin's face. She was dressed as she
had been before in man's clothes, but this time they seemed to sit ill
on her shrinking figure; yet she strove hard for boldness.
"Well! what is't, Ato?" she went on recklessly as if trying to put off
time. "Somewhat of the King I will go bail--the King thou dost not
love! ha! ha!" Her jeering laugh roused a muffled echo from the low,
empty walls.
"Yea, I love the King as woman loves man," replied Atma gravely. "What
of that. It is illusion. It will pass."
Siyah Yamin gave a little soft shuddering sigh.
"Come!" she said sharply, "we cannot talk so. Come! widow! follow thy
lover, Sher Khan." She sprang forward light in hand, and her slender
figure fled forward leaving darkness behind her; darkness through
which her light song echoed.
What says philosophy
Love's an illusion!
Silly delusion!
Give me your lips
Take mine! Such sips
Prove Love felicity.
Wisdom is wearisome
Closer, my dearie, come
Let us find Unity--
"Peace Siyal!" said Atma, sternly interrupting the ribald verses.
"Peace? oh yea! let there be peace between us." laughed the courtesan,
as she sank down on the dusty step of the dais, and put the light
beside her. But her wide eyes belied her light words.
Fear sate behind their glitter, watching wickedly; and every
subtle sense sought for some means of escape, some method of
cajolery. "Wherefore not," she rattled on. "Lo! I give you in his
Monkey-Majesty! He is not a man after my heart. Yet, I would not his
enemies got the better of him, as they will do. What! hast not heard?
He challenged them this day to write failure across a promise of his,
or change across his mind. From dawn to dawn it was. And see you, Ato"
the hurried palpitating voice steadied, as the wild search for some
false trail happened upon one. "Thou art the King's Charan and must
warn him! They have sent poison out to the paralysed profligate at
Shakin-garh--he will be burnt at dawn and with him the girl whose
_ram-rucki_ the King wears. There is small time to lose, Ato--I know
it, I tell thee--I heard it from their lips--go thou, then, with
warning."
She leant forward; her face full of guileful, beguileful beauty, close
to the grave level brows that met in a steady frown.
"Aye! I will go, Siyal--but not without the King's Luck. Give it me.
Thou hast it in thy bosom--thy hand has hovered there. Give it me, I
say." She essayed to grip those fluttering fingers but Siyah Yamin was
on her feet in a second, and stood back, swaying unsteadily, one hand
clasped to her heart.
"I--lo! it is not true. 'Tis something here that hurts"--she beat her
breast sharply. "Be not so rough, Ato! Thou wert always rough as a
man. Lo! in the old days it was I, little Siyala who was to marry Atma
Singh, and now--now--Sher Khan." she paused, tore off her dandified
turban, and let the great plaits and coils of her hair fall loose.
"See I am woman again, and thou--thou art man! And, Ato, hist! Knowest
thou why I came back here to-night?--would I had never come. It was to
find the broken pieces of the glass goblet I broke." Her small face
melted almost to tears, the babyish lips trembled over the words.
"Yea! Yea! it is true. I came for them!--I was going away--for
ever--and I remembered. Lo! Ato, a woman always remembers her first
lover, even if she be courtezan. Yea! thou wilt remember the King, so
have pity! What! dost not believe? Lo! I was looking when thou camest,
and frightened me into putting out the light. See here if I lie." With
her right hand she tore something out of her bosom and shifting it
swiftly to her left held it out. It was a curved fragment of the
blown-glass goblet which had fallen with a crash upon a rosebush,
whose red wine of Shiraz had trickled thirstily to the rose's root.
Twined upon it in golden tracery lay part of its legend--
Take the cup of Life with laughing lip,
Forget the bleeding heart within.
She caught at the words hysterically. "So have I taken Life, Ato, as
all women should; I have drunken heart's blood. Ato! touch me not! or
before God I---- What dost seek, madwoman?
"The King's Luck, harlot! Thou hast it in thy bosom. Give it me,
or----"
They were locked in each other's arms, but Atma Devi was a second too
late, for Siyah Yamin had drawn something besides a broken glass-sherd
from her bosom, and her right hand with a flash of steel in it rose
high, then fell on the Charan's broad breast. Atma staggered under the
blow, but the poniard blade crashing on the collar bone turned aside
upward and cleft the muscles of the neck harmlessly. She had the
weapon wrested from the small hand in a second, and her voice,
breathless from exertion yet steady, went on relentlessly.
"Thou hast it, Siyal! Thou didst steal it and betray--all men! Best
give it to me--or--or I shall have to kill thee--sister of the veil."
But Siyah Yamin was true to her womanhood, and every atom of her
fought for full possession as she struggled madly.
"It--it is mine." she gasped. "No one shall have it--I claim--I am the
woman and I will have----"
Suddenly there was silence. Resistance melted out of Atma Devi's arms;
her insistent hand, still seeking, found what it sought. She gave a
sharp cry of joy and relaxed her hold.
But the dainty figure her insistence had supported, doubled up limply
and fell in a huddled heap upon the ground.
She sank beside it on her knees. She would have killed it, as she had
said. Aye, killed it remorselessly! but surely she had not----
"Siyal? Siyala? Sister?"
But she called in vain. The very glare of hatred and fear was dying
from the eyes over which the impenetrable veil of death was creeping.
She watched them for a second or two, then closed them, and stood up.
She was not frightened nor remorseful at what had happened. Vaguely
she felt relieved. It was womanhood which had died there on the roof
in the Paradise of Lust. Now that she had time to think, she saw it
all. It was so simple. Siyala, beset by the desire of possession, had
ordered the false gem maker to make two false stones, and palming them
off on the conspirators had kept the real one, trusting to her luck
that the one supposed to be the true gem would never again fall into
the hands of the jeweller. But it had. The exchange of turbans had
brought discovery close at hand, so she had meant to fly; and
doubtless for once had spoken truly, when she said she had returned
during the night to gather up the broken fragments of her first cup of
joy.
So, quietly, methodically, Atma straightened out the huddled figure
that had held the _deva-dasi_, sister of the veil, daughter of the
Gods, covering it decorously with the tinselled muslin scarf Sher Khan
had worn in gay mockery of his sex. So it was pure Womanhood that lay
there with face upturned to the dark. Then taking the light, Atma
searched under the rose-bushes for the broken cup. She found the bowl
intact save for the one curved splinter Siyala had gathered up. The
stem, too, jarred and chipped, would still stand upright; so, making a
little pile of dust she set them together beside the dead woman's
hand, and left her lying there in the shadow, with the diffused light
from the Lamps of the Dead below making a far-away halo to that
central darkness.
Closing, and locking the door, she flung the key through a narrow
loophole in the stairway, through which that same radiance of the Dead
could be seen faintly; so passed down to her own door.
There was much to be done. The diamond, however, being so far safe,
her first care must be to warn the King that the little coward of the
_ram-rucki_ was in imminent danger. For this she must make her way to
the palace.
She made it quicker than she had thought for, since, as she unlocked
her door, figures started out on her from the darkness below, and she
felt what the Beneficent Ladies called an "all-over dress," being
respectfully yet firmly pulled over her.
"By the King's command, bibi," said the oily voice of a eunuch. "Thou
hast been appointed of his household, and the Lord Chamberlain hath
ordered us----"
She made no effort at escape, knowing herself helpless, but she could
defend herself.
"The Lord Chamberlain, being here himself," she interrupted at a
venture--and a faint stirring as if those around her turned to look at
someone told her that her surmise was correct--"can take me prisoner
if he choose; but let him remember that the King desires my presence
as Charan at the Great Durbar. So let him treat me ill at his peril."
Mirza Ibrahim who had, indeed, come to see his orders executed, said
nothing; but he inwardly swore that the jade should repent her
defiance. There were endless possibilities for a Lord Chamberlain once
the wild-cat were fairly housed within reach.
Atma meanwhile in her screened dhooli felt herself going palaceward
contentedly enough. So far was good. But how to get her message
conveyed to the King.
Yet conveyed it must be, and before long; for the soft radiance of the
Lamps of the Dead had begun to die down. The wandering spirits had had
their feasting; they must be in their graves by dawn.
Could she escape? Could she by good luck see a friend? bribe one of
the bearers?
But time slipped by without opportunity and she found herself lodged
at last in a very handsome apartment consisting of a room and beyond
that a slip of roof with a latticed cupola before any chance had come
of accomplishing her desire.
"Nay! no more! I need nothing more. I will call if so be," she said to
the servants who fawned about her. "Go! I tell thee."
She must think, she must devise some plan. The room was well
appointed; even a long pen-box with a quaint pot of glazy ink stood by
a low stool, so she could write. Meanwhile she must have a few minutes
in the open. The musk of the tented dhooli had almost been too much
for her.
So, out on the roof of this cupola's bastion or turret, half way down
the palace wall, she leant, her arms on the parapet, and looked
downward and upward. Above, to one side, was the palace; but which
part of it? Below her was one of the wide eaves so characteristic of
Indian architecture, and it ran, after skirting the turret octagonally
along the walls, into the darkness. There was foothold for one with a
strong head, doubtless; but what then?
As she thought a sound of whirring ropes met her ear, and something
dark slid down the wall from far above her.
The preacher's dhooli! Then the King's balcony was somewhere above
her! Could she? How far did the eave run. It would need ten yards at
least. And could she start the equipoise if once she got a hold on the
ropes?
Stay! She would only have to signal.