"Only the dust of the rose remains for the perfume-seller."
He paused almost before the bit of treasured wisdom was ended. There
was a sound of wheels; of a galloping horse's feet.
Some one was coming back to the garden. The next instant, through the
open door, he saw two figures running; an Englishman, an English girl
in a pink dress. The man's arm was round her as he ran; he looked back
fearfully, then seemed to whisper something in her ear, and she gave
answer back.
"What was it?" they said to each other. Hushmut knew by instinct.
He was thinking of the roof of the palace pleasure-house, of the
winding stair that led to it, down which it would at least be possible
to fling a foe, before the end came; and She was thinking of the
marble plinth below, where, when that end came, a woman might find
safety from men's hands in death.
So they came on through the growing shadows.
Hushmut shuffled to the door and watched the figures calmly,
indifferently, as they neared him; for the way to the winding stair
lay up the steps which rose just beyond the low door of his distillery
in the plinth.
Perhaps the dusk hid him from those two; perhaps even in broad
daylight they would not, in their fierce desire to reach not safety
but resistance, have seen him.
They did not, anyhow; but as they passed the door the girl's muslin
flounce caught hard on its lintel hasp, and as in frantic haste she
stooped to rip it free, the scent of those rose-leaves Hushmut had
given her, still lingering in the ruffles at her breast, seemed to
pass straight back into those same rose-leaves in his own.
That was all, nothing more. But it brought back his last words to her:
"May He who knows the secret of the rose protect the bride."
Strange!
The same instant his long-fingered brown hand was on her white one as
she tugged at her dress.
"This way, _Huzoor!_" he cried in a loud voice, for the man to hear.
"There is a secret passage here; it leads to safety."
Safety! That word, better than resistance, not to the man himself, but
as sole guardian to the girl, arrested him in a second, tempted him.
He looked, hesitated, then dragged his charge on--dragged her from
anything with a dark skin to it.
But her white one touching this dark one, found something in it to
give confidence; or perhaps that fragrance of the flower from His
still which "He sends to many blossoms," had passed from Hushmut's
breast to hers, as hers had to Hushmut's. He knows, who knows the
secret of the perfume of the rose.