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Caravans By Night
A ROMANCE OF INDIA
BY HARRY HERVEY
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Made in the United States of America
Copyright, 1922, by
THE CENTURY CO.
PRINTED IN U. S. A.
"... Weave me a tale of Romance
and Adventure--weave it on the loom of
Asia; fine threads in the shuttle ...
that we who only read may feel the glare
and glamour of those spicy, sweating
cities; may feel the sheer spell of the stars
and the far spaces at dusk ..."
THIS WORD-TAPESTRY IS WOVEN FOR
MY MOTHER
CONTENTS
I THE EDGE OF THE RIPPLE
II DELHI
III A PIECE OF CORAL
IV HOUSE OF THE SWAYING COBRA
V INTERLUDE
VI HSIEN SGAM
VII THE VERMILION ROOM
VIII "BEYOND THE MOON"
IX FEVER
X CARAVAN
XI CITY OF THE FALCON
XII LHAKANG-GOMPA
XIII FALCON'S NEST
XIV GYANGTSE
CARAVANS BY NIGHT
CHAPTER I
THE EDGE OF THE RIPPLE
If you go to the Great Bazaar, which lies west of the Old Palace at
Indore, you will see him sitting upon a cushion in his alcove-like shop,
a very magnificent figure in flowing robes and gold-edged turban.
You will find him busy, whether you visit the bazaar in mid-morning or
in the afternoon; or even after sunset, when lamps embroider the
lacework of lanes and alleys.
He is an amiable fellow and he will talk for hours--of silks, of jewels
(for in those luxuries he deals), or still more eloquently of Peshawar,
where the blue peaks of the Hindu Kush let their lips caress the sky as
though it were the cheek of some siren. But mention the barbarian with
corn-colored hair, or the blue-eyed Punjabi, and he will suddenly become
as uncommunicative as the tongueless _fakir_ who sits before the Anna
Chuttra and mutely pleads for alms.
For once, at a time not long past, a mysterious hand reached out of
nowhere and touched him with two equally as mysterious fingers. The
barbarian with corn-colored hair was one finger, the blue-eyed Punjabi
the other. And as swiftly, as inexplicably, as it came, this hand
withdrew--but not without leaving its mark upon the memory of Muhafiz
Ali, merchant and loyal servant of the Raj.
For ten years before that day when he felt the first impelling wave of
intrigue his shop was a haunt for tourists and wealthy residents; for
ten years he divided his days between salaaming to customers, cooking
his meals over a cow-dung fire in the rear, and staring across the
roadway with visible contempt at his despised rival, Venekiah, the
Brahmin. For all those years Muhafiz Ali had hated Venekiah as only a
Mussulman can hate one who wears the trident of Vishnu painted on his
forehead. But of late there was another sore that festered deep in his
heart and hour by hour fed his rancor with poison. His one son had dared
the horrors of an unknown sea (oh, a thousand times larger than Back
Bay, Bombay, the only water Muhafiz Ali can offer by way of comparison)
on a troop-ship, and in a strange country, where monstrous metal things
howled destruction and death, the parts of his only-born were buried--by
Christian hands and in a Christian grave!... While Venekiah's son, who
never stirred from the bazaar when the sounds of India responding to the
Sirkar's call rumbled from Kabul down to the Gulf of Manaar, lived and
walked the streets to talk Swaraj and curse the Sirkar and everything
bred of the Sirkar!
Muhafiz Ali came from the North, from Peshawar, and the sultry,
throbbing heat of Central India dried up the life in his veins. He
longed for the sight of his brother-hillmen swaggering through the
Bokhara Bazaar, at Peshawar; for the smell of camels (perfume to a
Peshawari) clinging to the chilly dusk. He hoped some day to have enough
rupees to board one of those terrifying, though thoroughly convenient,
iron demons that he frequently saw panting in the railway station and
ride back to Peshawar, where he would dwell for the rest of his earthly
days in a house with a garden and an azure-necked peacock that strutted
and shrilled like an angry Rajput.
Meanwhile, to this end he sat daily in his shop, not shrieking at
prospective customers with "Please buy my nicklass!" like that offspring
of the sewer across the way, but waiting with the dignity befitting a
son of the Prophet for those who came to buy. And many came. For the
fame of his silks (bales from Bokhara frail as spun moonlight and the
raw sheeny stuff from Samarkand) had spread through the Residency and
haunted every Memsahib and Ladyship who once allowed herself to be
enticed into his felt-floored treasure-room.
But his fame lay not only in silks. In formidable chests in the inner
room were many necklaces and ornaments--stones precious and
semi-precious, and even paste. He was a lapidary and had once served in
the establishment of a great jeweller in Delhi. It required but a single
glance for him to find the matrix in falsely beautiful gems, or to
appraise any sort of stone from diamonds down to chalcedony. Even his
Highness the Maharajah had heard of his skill in cutting and setting
jewels, and on two occasions had given him commissions.
On this particular day when the mysterious hand was very close, and
Destiny had placed a chalk-mark upon a certain young woman and an
officer of the empire, his hatred for Venekiah swelled to such
proportions that it included every one; it quivered against the walls of
his being, hot as the Indian sun that throughout the noonday blazed
above the sweltering bazaar. Nor did his rage cool when, toward sundown,
lilac shadows lounged in the street and a hundred-hued swarm jostled by.
The cause of his anger was a Sulaimaneh ring, which he wore at all
times. Now it is an established fact in the social orbit in which
Muhafiz Ali revolved that these onyx stones will repel devils;
therefore, to lose such a talisman is to invite misfortune. And Muhafiz
Ali had lost his Sulaimaneh ring. Furthermore, he suspected that his
enemy, Venekiah, had stolen it from his finger while he slept--although
for a Brahmin to touch a Mussulman is to defile himself. Yet he felt
that that heap of offal, to speak in the vernacular of the bazaars,
would suffer contamination to see him at the mercy of devils.
So he sat and glared, and swore all manner of Moslem oaths under his
beard, and stopped hating only long enough to look toward the kindling
west beyond which Mecca lay, and prostrate himself on a rug for evening
prayer.
As he lifted his eyes they encountered a Sahib with corn-colored hair
and beard; a Sahib who stood not a yard away; who fanned himself with a
pith-helmet, and looked upon the Mussulman's religious performances with
a slightly cynical smile.
He was handsome, as these white unbelievers go, observed Muhafiz Ali.
The eyes smiled with the assurance of one who knows a lot and is aware
of his wisdom. Rather reckless eyes. His skin was tanned and the light
hair and beard (beard because the word "Van Dyke" is not in Muhafiz
Ali's vocabulary) made it more pronounced. White linens completed the
picture.
Muhafiz Ali, his rage dissolving, salaamed.
"You're Muhafiz Ali, the lapidary?"
The Mussulman detected in his speech a flaw that suggested he was not an
English Sahib; probably American, or from one of those numerous
countries behind the sunset, of which he had heard little and knew less.
"Not only a jeweller, Sahib," he returned, for he spoke English
fluently, "but a dealer in silks, rugs--"
But the man brushed past him and entered the inner room. Muhafiz Ali
rose and clattered after him in his loose Mohammedan slippers.
"Do you have jade?" asked the sahib.
For answer Muhafiz Ali lifted the lid of a brass-bound chest and drew
forth a tray of necklaces--lustrous, creamy-green jade from Mirzapore.
"Not that kind," said the sahib, with a gesture (and had Muhafiz Ali
known the meaning of the word, "Gallic" he would have applied it to that
quick wave of the hand); "the clear sort."
Whereupon the Mussulman separated a string of genuine _fei tsui_ from
several necklaces in another tray. The stones glowed deep parrot-green.
"Ah!" This from the white man. "Do you have pearls, too--imitation
pearls?"
Muhafiz Ali, somewhat disappointed, produced a necklace of his finest
false pearls, and the sahib examined it with the air of one who knew the
difference between the nacreous sea-jewel and blown spheres of _essence
d' Orient_.
"Are you alone?" was his next question.
"Alone?" echoed Muhafiz Ali. "Alas, O worthy lordship, my son, my
only--"
"No, no!"--with that quick gesture and a significant look toward the
rear door. "I mean, is there any one in the back of the shop?"
"Nay, Sahib!"
A germ of suspicion took birth in Muhafiz Ali's brain. What did this
foreigner want?
"You have done work for his Highness the Maharajah, I understand," said
the sahib, his eyes glittering like black chalcedony. "You re-set
several necklaces, and ... you made a copy of the Pearl Scarf ... for,
well, for state purposes--didn't you?"
Muhafiz Ali answered in the affirmative, still suspicious. The sahib
glanced over his shoulder into the swiftly gathering dusk.
"Could you make another copy, using stones like this?"
For some inexplicable reason Muhafiz Ali felt frightened. The eyes that
looked so incisively into his did not match the young face. He had seen
the same expression, only more intense, in the eyes of a mad _mollah_.
"Could you?" pressed the sahib, "or, rather, _would_ you? For an extra
gift of thirty rupees?"
Thirty rupees! Muhafiz Ali's commercial instincts led him into
planning.... But the Pearl Scarf. Why did he want a copy? The germ of
suspicion grew and multiplied.
"Nay, Sahib!" he answered, his better judgment outbalancing the desire
for money. "I do not remember how."
"That's a pretty lie," interposed the man, with a laugh--a laugh that
carried a cold undercurrent and made Muhafiz Ali shudder, inwardly. "You
know the exact number of pearls in the scarf and how they are arranged;
nine strands; with eighteen pearls in the neck-piece-clasp, each having
a carat diamond inset in it. Come now--I will raise the extra amount to
thirty-five rupees."
Thirty-five! The Mussulman's imagination took wings. He saw himself
coming into what was to him fabulous wealth.
"The pattern is intricate, Sahib," he said doubtfully.
"I'll risk it." Again that laugh.
Muhafiz Ali felt vaguely nervous. "I will have to think it over, Sahib,"
he announced.
What did he want with a copy of the Pearl Scarf? That query threaded
back and forth across his thoughts.
"I am in the service of the Raj," the man confided quietly, as though
answering the native's thoughts--confided a shade too darkly. "The Raj
wants a copy of it--oh, for reasons...."
Ah! Muhafiz Ali understood now. The Raj! This handsome sahib was of that
invisible army that comes and goes so mysteriously from Afghanistan to
Ceylon.
"It is, O fountain of wisdom," he declared, with a sly wink, "as though
I stepped from the dark into the light of the sun!" He motioned toward
the door, through which Venekiah, seated across the way, could be seen.
"I shall be as mute as the six-armed she-devil that yonder louse
worships!"
There was a humorous gleam in the white man's eyes.
"Excellent! Make your price and come to me at the dak bungalow at eight
o'clock to-night. Bring a few necklaces for effect. I will be on the
veranda. My name is Leroux Sahib."
He tossed several rupees upon one of the chests, and turned and went
out.
Muhafiz Ali, reflecting that Allah looked with favor upon him, gathered
up the coins. And this, after he had lost the Sulaimaneh ring! Pah!
Ill-fortune, indeed! He scoffed.
He was so pleased that, a few minutes later, when a blue-eyed Punjabi
inquired the price of a string of _ferozees_, he did not haggle over it
but sacrificed the necklace for exactly what it was worth.
"Eight o'clock," he repeated to himself. And his own price. He was a
loyal servant of the Raj, yes; but that did not in any way affect his
intention to charge the Raj well for his services.
He looked toward the shop of Venekiah.
"Brahmin dog!" he hissed in his beard. "Breeder of whelps!"
And he spat eloquently.
2
Night wove its shuttle across the sky, beading the dusk with stars. The
Southern Cross lay mirrored in the Sarasvati and the Khan, and in the
lake at Sukhnewas; it pulsed above the gardens of Lal Bagh, above
Sharifa Street and those other narrow highways that vein the Holkar's
capital; it peered down inquisitively into the gloom of the Great Bazaar
as Muhafiz Ali, having finished a meal of curry and rice, quitted his
shop and hurried toward the dak bungalow.
That this Leroux Sahib had commissioned him to copy a jewel-pattern of
the Maharajah's regalia no longer presaged evil in his mind. Nor did he
seek an explanation. True, it mystified him. But there were some things
one should not know. And, to him, the secrets of the Government were
numbered among these. The Raj had banished the old order of things, for
no more did princes sit in golden howdahs upon caparisoned state
elephants; nor did they indulge, as of old, in the venerable pastime of
pigsticking; they rode in automobiles and played a game on horseback
with an absurd ball....
Muhafiz Ali had ceased long ago to wonder at the baffling mechanism of
the Government, and satisfied himself with the assurance that Allah did
not intend he should understand.
So Raj meant Riddle.
* * * * *
When he reached the dak bungalow he found Leroux Sahib sitting upon the
veranda. The white man led him inside.
"Well?"--this with a gleam of the black eyes.
"I will do it, O cherisher of the poor."
"The price?" The Mussulman named an outrageous figure--and held his
breath. The man inquired:
"How long will it take?"
"Seven days; perhaps less."
The sahib frowned, tugged at his yellow beard.
"I must have it in five days."
"Impossible, O Burra Sahib!" A pause. "Unless--of course--"
A smile. "Not another rupee do you get, you old brigand!" he declared
good humoredly. "And five days, I say. Settled? Thirty-five rupees extra
when it is done, half the price in advance."
He drew from his pocket a wallet and counted out a number of Government
of India notes.
"Remember, this is to be quiet," he cautioned. "I will call now and then
to see how you are coming on."
* * * * *
As Muhafiz Ali made his way back to the bazaar, he congratulated himself
upon getting so easily the price he had set upon the work, and regretted
that he had not inflated it a little more. However, he was well pleased
with the day's business. He paused once on the homeward journey to place
a four-anna bit in the bowl of an emaciated, ash-painted _fakir_ who sat
before the alms-house, and arrived at his shop in a state of excellent
spirits.
He made a light and opened the chest in which he kept his necklaces. The
instant he saw the top tray he detected a flaw. Unlike most merchants,
he was very careful in the arrangement of his necklaces; in one tray
were agates, in another blue sapphires; thus with all his beads.
And a string of creamy-luster Mirzapore jade lay in the tray with the
clear, deep-green _fei tsui_.
A cold suspicion uncoiled in his brain. He stood motionless. This could
mean but one thing: some one had entered his shop while he was away. He
quickly counted the necklaces. None were missing. Nor did a hasty
inventory of the lower tray show that anything had been removed. The
other chests were under the protection of European padlocks.
Who had entered his shop, and why? Nothing had been stolen. The door was
locked.... But the rear! Ah! The court! Why had he not thought to
barricade that also against thieves? But had a thief disturbed the
beads? A thief would have taken them. After all, was not it possible
that he had placed the necklaces in the wrong tray? Possible, but not
probable. No, he was certain a hand other than his own had dropped the
jade from Mirzapore in with the _fei tsui_ stones.
Yet, he told himself, he had not been robbed. So why be uneasy? But he
could not rid himself of the uncanny suspicion that devil-business was
afoot. He would feel more secure had he not lost the Sulaimaneh ring.
Upon an impulse he went to the door and peered into the street. The shop
of Venekiah, the Brahmin, was dark. From a nautch-house close by came
the muffled throbbing of tom-toms--a restless pulse of the night. A man
in a Punjabi head-dress lounged under a rheumy incandescent further
along the dim street.
Muhafiz Ali turned back, gravely troubled. He locked the door.
Of a certainty devil-business was afoot.
3
A film of dust wavered over the bazaar and introduced a drowsy golden
effect into the mid-afternoon atmosphere. Few human beings ventured
forth in the glare. A half-naked _bhisti_ splashed water over the dusty
roadway; at one corner a street-juggler sat with a torpid python coiled
in his lap.
Muhafiz Ali, absorbed in utter languor, squatted upon a brocade of light
and shadow woven by the sunlight that filtered through the dust-laden
leaves of a tree outside his doorway and watched a green-bronze lizard
drowsing upon the flagstones. The slumberous atmosphere of the bazaar,
the mingled odors of fruit, fish and cologne, held no portent of the
thunderbolt that very shortly was to jar Muhafiz Ali out of his peaceful
sphere.
Five days had passed since he visited Leroux Sahib at the dak bungalow.
The copy of the Pearl Scarf was finished; it lay in a chest in the inner
room. He had despatched the son of Khurrum Lal, the fruit vender, with a
_chit_ to the sahib telling him this, and the sahib had answered that he
could call after nightfall.
Muhafiz Ali felt singularly relieved. For the past few days the
Mohammedan equivalent of the sword of Damocles had hung over his head.
The white man had called several times, and on each occasion the sight
of him reassured Muhafiz Ali, but after his departure the native
invariably relapsed into a state of nervous anticipation.
Now it was done. To-night the sahib would call and he, Muhafiz Ali,
would settle back into an untroubled existence--many rupees the better.
He felt peace upon him already. So he sat in the doorway of his shop and
contemplated the green-bronze lizard, and breathed, almost with relish,
the mingled odors of fruit and fish and cologne.
Muhafiz Ali had in him the makings of a psychic. He anticipated
happenings with amazing accuracy. Therefore, when a shadow fell upon the
roadway in front of him and he looked up to see Mohammed Khan, the money
lender, he felt a pall descend upon him. Mohammed Khan, bearded and
turbaned to exaggeration, frequently came to indulge in bazaar gossip.
With a word of greeting, he sank upon the doorstep beside his
brother-Mussulman.
He had startling news this day. Sadar Singh, who belonged to the Indian
Escort of the Agent, had come to pay the fifteen rupees he owed him, and
Sadar Singh, who never lied, had that very morning heard the Residency
Surgeon talking with the Commissioner Sahib. The substance of their
conversation was that there had been a robbery at the palace. The vaults
had been looted of the state treasures. The famous Peacock Turban was
stolen.... And _the Pearl Scarf_.
Muhafiz Ali's brain did not function normally for some time after this
announcement. He felt frightened--nauseated.
The Pearl Scarf stolen. Suppose the copy was found in his possession,
and the police, who had strange ways, connected him with the robbery?
The house in Peshawar dwindled; he saw the jail looming before him. He
was innocent, but how could he explain?
He remembered vividly the incident of the jade necklace. Could it be
that Venekiah, that mountain of corruption, had spied upon him?... O
Allah, Allah, he wailed in silence, it was written that his lot should
be misfortune from the moment he lost the Sulaimaneh ring!
Inwardly, he writhed while Mohammed Khan talked on. He was in no mood
for more gossip, but Mohammed Khan stayed--stayed until late afternoon
when little spirals of dust began to rise from the street, when clouds
materialized out of nowhere and blotted out the sun.
After Mohammed Khan took his leave, Muhafiz Ali tried to reason with
himself. The sahib had said the scarf was for the Raj, and was not that
assurance enough? No. And he strove to press behind the veil and find an
explanation for the affair; but his Kismet decreed that he should be a
pawn, and he dug at the mystery in vain.
A dark sky, threatening rain, hastened the dusk; and when, one by one,
lights appeared in the street, like yellow sentinels, Muhafiz Ali
uttered a sigh of relief and rose and entered the shop. A moment later
he heard a soft patter and inhaled the fresh, cool smell of rain upon
dusty air.
"Please buy my nicklass!" shrilled Venekiah's voice, and he looked over
his shoulder to see a Memsahib clatter by on horseback.
Behind her walked a man in a Punjabi head-dress, swinging along at a
leisurely gait despite the rain.
4
The usual heavy downpour following a break in the monsoon drenched the
bazaar. It came with a high wind, and doors strained at their locks and
windows rattled as legions of rain rode through the streets. The torrent
rumbled upon tin roofs and roofs of corrugated iron; reduced the dust in
alleys to mud; lashed the thirsty, sun-scorched trees.
Muhafiz Ali sat on a cushion in the inner room of his shop with a copy
of the Koran open in his lap, more intent upon the eerie sounds than the
book. Frequently his eyes left the pages and sought the door as gusts of
wind smote its panels, and when sudden draughts made the lamp-flame
flicker and sent the shadows shuddering over the walls, a chill dread
spread through him. Not until that accursed thing of imitations had been
taken away would he feel safe. Surely the devils were hard besetting him
for losing the Sulaimaneh ring!
The door shook--as though impatient with the lock and hinges that held
it. Outside, the storm wrung wails and groans from the bazaar. Again the
door rattled, furiously.
Muhafiz Ali set aside the book, rose and crossed the room. He unlocked
the door. A spray was blown into his face. No one was there. Rain poured
over the street-lamps in gauzy, iridescent ribbons; it wove spumy lace
upon the black roadway and trailed, fuming, into the gutters.
He shut the door and locked it. He had taken no more than two steps
before a pounding brought him to a halt. He stood there for a moment,
tense; then turned and pressed his lips to the crack of the door.
"Leroux Sahib?"
Faintly, from out the chaos of sounds, came--"Yes."
He turned the key. The door opened violently and slammed behind the
drenched figure of the yellow-bearded sahib. Water dripped from his
helmet; streams of moisture trickled down his rain-cape and gathered in
pools upon the floor.
"Allah be praised!" Muhafiz Ali murmured fervently.
Leroux Sahib flung aside his cape, and the native saw that he carried a
flat package under one arm. The white man shook the water from his
helmet and mopped his face with a khaki handkerchief.
"Mother of God! What a night!" he exclaimed, smiling grimly. Then: "Is
it ready?"
Muhafiz Ali hastily opened one of his chests and removed several trays.
The sahib joined him. His eyes shone feverishly as the Mussulman drew
forth a thing that tinkled musically. Strands of nacreous spheres
reflected a soft radiance from the lamp; luster of cream-colored satin.
The imitation diamonds that inset the clasp burned like star-splinters.
Leroux Sahib swore under his breath and chuckled; swore in a tongue
Muhafiz Ali did not understand.
"What a joke! What a colossal joke! And they think it is for them....
_Bon Dieu!_"
The door rattled; the lamp-flame rippled threateningly.
"I shall place it in a tin box, Sahib," Muhafiz Ali said, for the sooner
the thing was gone the sooner he would feel at ease. "See, a box no
larger than the one you carry."
He moved the lid. Pearls rattled coolly. Meanwhile, the sahib counted
out several banknotes.
"Count them," he instructed as Muhafiz Ali handed him the tin box,
wrapped and tied.
The Mussulman obeyed. The door shook again. A sudden burst of wind
almost carried the notes out of his hand. The lamp gasped. A slam
followed.
Muhafiz Ali looked up quickly to behold a strange tableau--a tableau
that for the while suspended all thoughts from his brain and drew from
his limbs the power to move.
A man had entered--a blue-eyed Punjabi. The face was vaguely familiar,
and Muhafiz Ali's memory groped.... A string of _ferozees_.... The
Punjabi stood with his shoulders pressed against the door, his feet
planted wide apart. His soaked garments clung to his body; his turban
dripped water into his eyes. But that did not quench the fire in them.
How they burned! Blue sapphires! In his hand he held a thing that
glittered like an evil eye.
Leroux Sahib had swung about. His feet, too, were planted well apart, as
though he were steadying himself for an impact. The muscles of his
throat stood out like white cords in the shadow of his beard. There was
a hard gleam in his eyes; more than ever they resembled black
chalcedony.
Afterward, Muhafiz Ali never quite remembered how it all happened. At
the time he was too stupefied to observe details. The blue-eyed Punjabi
laughed. It was a challenge. Leroux Sahib, suddenly smiling, answered
it; lunged toward the lamp. The ring of shattered glass--and darkness
wiped out the scene. Followed the thudding jar of muscle and bone
against yielding flesh; swift, staccato breathing. The door was flung
wide. Muhafiz Ali, crouching in a corner, saw a figure faintly
silhouetted in the door-frame, an amorphous shadow upon the paler
darkness of the street. It vanished. Another figure lurched out after
it, and was swallowed by the storm.
Energy flashed into the Mussulman. He ran to the door. The incandescent
lamps gleamed through a crystal curtain of rain. The street was
deserted. For a moment he stood there, shivering. Then he shut the door;
locked it; lay weakly against the panels. When he had recovered, he
groped his way to where he knew a lantern hung. He lighted it, and a
mellow radiance played upon bits of broken glass.
He rapidly counted the banknotes. Satisfied, he returned to the door and
pressed his ear to the crack. Only the slush and drench of rain. He
shivered again.
Whither had they gone, this Leroux Sahib and the blue-eyed Punjabi?
Their eyes! Black chalcedony and blue sapphires! The Punjabi had a
pistol.... Over imitation pearls! Strange were the ways of these white
barbarians, stranger still the ways of the Raj. On the morrow would the
police come and ask him all manner of confusing questions? Or had the
hurricane spent itself? Was this the last he would ever see of the
yellow-haired Sahib or the Punjabi?
He turned back, looking half abstractedly upon the gleaming particles of
glass. He shivered for the third time. Devil-business!
* * * * *
And so the gods, having no further use for Muhafiz Ali, merchant and
loyal servant of the Raj, left him to wonder at the source of these
ripples that had touched him; left him to grope behind the drop that had
suddenly fallen upon this bewildering interlude; left him to dream of
the house in Peshawar and the azure-necked peacock that strutted and
shrilled like an angry Rajput.