* * * * *
Did I wake with the cry? Or did I only open my eyes to see a glimmer of
dawn paling the sky, the birds shifting in the branches, the old man
seated bolt upright in his penwiper?
"That was the first passenger, _Huzoor_," he said quietly. "The boat
has come. It is time your honour conferred dignity on ill manners by
joining it."
"But the footstep! the princess! you were telling me just now--"
"What does a sweeper know of princesses, my lord? The Presence slept,
and doubtless he dreamed dreams. The tobacco--"
He paused. "Well," said I, curiously.
"_Huzoor!_ this slave steeps his tobacco in the sleep-compeller. It
gives great contentment."
I looked down at my pipe. It was but half smoked through. Was this
really the explanation?
"But the echo?" I protested. "I heard it but now."
"Of a truth there is an echo. That is not a dream. For the rest it is
well. The time has passed swiftly, the _Huzoor_ is rested, his servant
has returned, the boat has come--all in contentment. The Shelter of the
World can proceed on his journey in peace, and return in peace."
"Unless the Footstep of Death overtakes me meanwhile," said I, but half
satisfied.
"_Huzoor!_ It never overtakes the just. Death and the righteous look at
each other in the face as friends. When the Footstep comes I will go to
meet it, and so will you. Hark! the demon screeches. Peace go with you,
my lord."
About a year after this the daily police reports brought me the news
that my friend the old _fakeer_ had been found dead in the water-cut.
An unusually heavy flood had undermined the banks and loosened the
bridge; it must have fallen while the old man was on it, for his body
was jammed against the plank which had stuck across the channel a
little way down the stream. He had kept his word and gone to meet the
Footstep. A certain unsatisfied curiosity, which had never quite left
me since that night in the rains, made me accompany the doctor when, as
in duty bound, he went to the dead-house to examine the body. The
smiling mask was unchanged, but the eyes were open, and looked somehow
less empty dead than in the almost terrible clearness of life. The
right hand was fast clenched over something.
"Only a crushed magnolia blossom," said the doctor, gently unclasping
the dead fingers. "Poor beggar! it must have been floating in the
water--there's a tree up the cut; I've often smelt it from the road.
Drowning men--you know the rest."
Did I? The coincidence was, to say the least of it, curious. It became
more curious still when, three weeks afterwards, the unrecognisable
body of a man was found half buried in the silt left in the alluvial
basin by the subsiding floods--a man of more than middle age, whose
right hand was clenched tight, over nothing.
So the question remains. Did I dream that night, or did the Footstep of
Death bring revenge when it came over the bridge at last? I have never
been able to decide; and the only thing which remains sure is the
figure of the old _fakeer_ with blind eyes, looking out on the
uncertain mirage of the river and waiting in godliness and
contentment,--for what?