Before my Spring I garnered Autumn’s gain,
Out of her time my field was white with grain,
The year gave up her secrets to my woe.
Forced and deflowered each sick season lay,
In mystery of increase and decay;
I saw the sunset ere men saw the day,
Who am too wise in that I should not know.
_Bitter Waters._
I
“But if it be a girl?”
“Lord of my life, it cannot be. I have prayed for so many nights, and
sent gifts to Sheikh Badl’s shrine so often, that I know God will give
us a son—a man-child that shall grow into a man. Think of this and be
glad. My mother shall be his mother till I can take him again, and the
mullah of the Pattan mosque shall cast his nativity—God send he be born
in an auspicious hour!—and then, and then thou wilt never weary of me,
thy slave.”
“Since when hast thou been a slave, my queen?”
“Since the beginning—till this mercy came to me. How could I be sure of
thy love when I knew that I had been bought with silver?”
“Nay, that was the dowry. I paid it to thy mother.”
“And she has buried it, and sits upon it all day long like a hen. What
talk is yours of dower! I was bought as though I had been a Lucknow
dancing-girl instead of a child.”
“Art thou sorry for the sale?”
“I have sorrowed; but to-day I am glad. Thou wilt never cease to love me
now?—answer, my king.”
“Never—never. No.”
“Not even though the _mem-log_—the white women of thy own blood—love
thee? And remember, I have watched them driving in the evening; they are
very fair.”
“I have seen fire-balloons by the hundred. I have seen the moon,
and—then I saw no more fire-balloons.”
Ameera clapped her hands and laughed. “Very good talk,” she said. Then
with an assumption of great stateliness, “It is enough. Thou hast my
permission to depart,—if thou wilt.”
The man did not move. He was sitting on a low red-lacquered couch in a
room furnished only with a blue and white floor-cloth, some rugs, and a
very complete collection of native cushions. At his feet sat a woman of
sixteen, and she was all but all the world in his eyes. By every rule
and law she should have been otherwise, for he was an Englishman, and
she a Mussulman’s daughter bought two years before from her mother, who,
being left without money, would have sold Ameera shrieking to the Prince
of Darkness if the price had been sufficient.
It was a contract entered into with a light heart; but even before the
girl had reached her bloom she came to fill the greater portion of John
Holden’s life. For her, and the withered hag her mother, he had taken a
little house overlooking the great red-walled city, and found,—when the
marigolds had sprung up by the well in the courtyard and Ameera had
established herself according to her own ideas of comfort, and her
mother had ceased grumbling at the inadequacy of the cooking-places, the
distance from the daily market, and at matters of housekeeping in
general,—that the house was to him his home. Any one could enter his
bachelor’s bungalow by day or night, and the life that he led there was
an unlovely one. In the house in the city his feet only could pass
beyond the outer courtyard to the women’s rooms; and when the big wooden
gate was bolted behind him he was king in his own territory, with Ameera
for queen. And there was going to be added to this kingdom a third
person whose arrival Holden felt inclined to resent. It interfered with
his perfect happiness. It disarranged the orderly peace of the house
that was his own. But Ameera was wild with delight at the thought of it,
and her mother not less so. The love of a man, and particularly a white
man, was at the best an inconstant affair, but it might, both women
argued, be held fast by a baby’s hands. “And then,” Ameera would always
say, “then he will never care for the white _mem-log_. I hate them all—I
hate them all.”
“He will go back to his own people in time,” said the mother; “but by
the blessing of God that time is yet afar off.”
Holden sat silent on the couch thinking of the future, and his thoughts
were not pleasant. The drawbacks of a double life are manifold. The
Government, with singular care, had ordered him out of the station for a
fortnight on special duty in the place of a man who was watching by the
bedside of a sick wife. The verbal notification of the transfer had been
edged by a cheerful remark that Holden ought to think himself lucky in
being a bachelor and a free man. He came to break the news to Ameera.
“It is not good,” she said slowly, “but it is not all bad. There is my
mother here, and no harm will come to me—unless indeed I die of pure
joy. Go thou to thy work and think no troublesome thoughts. When the
days are done I believe ... nay, I am sure. And—and then I shall lay
_him_ in thy arms, and thou wilt love me for ever. The train goes
to-night, at midnight is it not? Go now, and do not let thy heart be
heavy by cause of me. But thou wilt not delay in returning? Thou wilt
not stay on the road to talk to the bold white _mem-log_. Come back to
me swiftly, my life.”
As he left the courtyard to reach his horse that was tethered to the
gate-post, Holden spoke to the white-haired old watchman who guarded the
house, and bade him under certain contingencies despatch the filled-up
telegraph-form that Holden gave him. It was all that could be done, and
with the sensations of a man who has attended his own funeral Holden
went away by the night mail to his exile. Every hour of the day he
dreaded the arrival of the telegram, and every hour of the night he
pictured to himself the death of Ameera. In consequence his work for the
State was not of first-rate quality, nor was his temper towards his
colleagues of the most amiable. The fortnight ended without a sign from
his home, and, torn to pieces by his anxieties, Holden returned to be
swallowed up for two precious hours by a dinner at the club, wherein he
heard, as a man hears in a swoon, voices telling him how execrably he
had performed the other man’s duties, and how he had endeared himself to
all his associates. Then he fled on horseback through the night with his
heart in his mouth. There was no answer at first to his blows on the
gate, and he had just wheeled his horse round to kick it in when Pir
Khan appeared with a lantern and held his stirrup.
“Has aught occurred?” said Holden.
“The news does not come from my mouth, Protector of the Poor, but——” He
held out his shaking hand as befitted the bearer of good news who is
entitled to a reward.
Holden hurried through the courtyard. A light burned in the upper room.
His horse neighed in the gateway, and he heard a shrill little wail that
sent all the blood into the apple of his throat. It was a new voice, but
it did not prove that Ameera was alive.
“Who is there?” he called up the narrow brick staircase.
There was a cry of delight from Ameera, and then the voice of the
mother, tremulous with old age and pride—“We be two women
and—the—man—thy—son.”
On the threshold of the room Holden stepped on a naked dagger, that was
laid there to avert ill-luck, and it broke at the hilt under his
impatient heel.
“God is great!” cooed Ameera in the half-light. “Thou hast taken his
misfortunes on thy head.”
“Ay, but how is it with thee, life of my life? Old woman, how is it with
her?”
“She has forgotten her sufferings for joy that the child is born. There
is no harm; but speak softly,” said the mother.
“It only needed thy presence to make me all well,” said Ameera. “My
king, thou hast been very long away. What gifts hast thou for me? Ah,
ah! It is I that bring gifts this time. Look, my life, look. Was there
ever such a babe? Nay, I am too weak even to clear my arm from him.”
“Rest then, and do not talk. I am here, _bachari_ [little woman].”
“Well said, for there is a bond and a heel-rope [_peecharee_] between us
now that nothing can break. Look—canst thou see in this light? He is
without spot or blemish. Never was such a man-child. _Ya illah!_ he
shall be a pundit—no, a trooper of the Queen. And, my life, dost thou
love me as well as ever, though I am faint and sick and worn? Answer
truly.”
“Yea. I love as I have loved, with all my soul. Lie still, pearl, and
rest.”
“Then do not go. Sit by my side here—so. Mother, the lord of this house
needs a cushion. Bring it.” There was an almost imperceptible movement
on the part of the new life that lay in the hollow of Ameera’s arm.
“Aho!” she said, her voice breaking with love. “The babe is a champion
from his birth. He is kicking me in the side with mighty kicks. Was
there ever such a babe? And he is ours to us—thine and mine. Put thy
hand on his head, but carefully, for he is very young, and men are
unskilled in such matters.”
Very cautiously Holden touched with the tips of his fingers the downy
head.
“He is of the faith,” said Ameera; “for lying here in the night-watches
I whispered the call to prayer and the profession of faith into his
ears. And it is most marvellous that he was born upon a Friday, as I was
born. Be careful of him, my life; but he can almost grip with his
hands.”
Holden found one helpless little hand that closed feebly on his finger.
And the clutch ran through his body till it settled about his heart.
Till then his sole thought had been for Ameera. He began to realise that
there was some one else in the world, but he could not feel that it was
a veritable son with a soul. He sat down to think, and Ameera dozed
lightly.
“Get hence, Sahib,” said her mother under her breath. “It is not good
that she should find you here on waking. She must be still.”
“I go,” said Holden submissively. “Here be rupees. See that my _baba_
gets fat and finds all that he needs.”
The chink of the silver roused Ameera. “I am his mother, and no
hireling,” she said weakly. “Shall I look to him more or less for the
sake of money? Mother, give it back. I have born my lord a son.”
The deep sleep of weakness came upon her almost before the sentence was
completed. Holden went down to the courtyard very softly with his heart
at ease. Pir Khan, the old watchman, was chuckling with delight. “This
house is now complete,” he said, and without further comment thrust into
Holden’s hands the hilt of a sabre worn many years ago when he, Pir
Khan, served the Queen in the police. The bleat of a tethered goat came
from the well-kerb.
“There be two,” said Pir Khan, “two goats of the best. I bought them,
and they cost much money; and since there is no birth-party assembled
their flesh will be all mine. Strike craftily, Sahib! ’Tis an
ill-balanced sabre at the best. Wait till they raise their heads from
cropping the marigolds.”
“And why?” said Holden, bewildered.
“For the birth-sacrifice. What else? Otherwise the child being unguarded
from fate may die. The Protector of the Poor knows the fitting words to
be said.”
Holden had learned them once with little thought that he would ever
speak them in earnest. The touch of the cold sabre-hilt in his palm
turned suddenly to the clinging grip of the child up-stairs—the child
that was his own son—and a dread of loss filled him.
“Strike!” said Pir Khan. “Never life came into the world but life was
paid for it. See, the goats have raised their heads. Now! With a drawing
cut!”
Hardly knowing what he did Holden cut twice as he muttered the Mahomedan
prayer that runs: “Almighty! In place of this my son I offer life for
life, blood for blood, head for head, bone for bone, hair for hair, skin
for skin.” The waiting horse snorted and bounded in his pickets at the
smell of the raw blood that spurted over Holden’s riding-boots.
“Well smitten!” said Pir Khan, wiping the sabre. “A swordsman was lost
in thee. Go with a light heart, Heaven-born. I am thy servant, and the
servant of thy son. May the Presence live a thousand years and ... the
flesh of the goats is all mine?” Pir Khan drew back richer by a month’s
pay. Holden swung himself into the saddle and rode off through the
low-hanging wood-smoke of the evening. He was full of riotous
exultation, alternating with a vast vague tenderness directed towards no
particular object, that made him choke as he bent over the neck of his
uneasy horse. “I never felt like this in my life,” he thought. “I’ll go
to the club and pull myself together.”
A game of pool was beginning, and the room was full of men. Holden
entered, eager to get to the light and the company of his fellows,
singing at the top of his voice—
In Baltimore a-walking, a lady I did meet!
“Did you?” said the club-secretary from his corner. “Did she happen to
tell you that your boots were wringing wet? Great goodness, man, it’s
blood!”
“Bosh!” said Holden, picking his cue from the rack. “May I cut in? It’s
dew. I’ve been riding through high crops. My faith! my boots are in a
mess though!
“And if it be a girl she shall wear a wedding-ring,
And if it be a boy he shall fight for his king,
With his dirk, and his cap, and his little jacket blue,
He shall walk the quarter-deck—”
“Yellow on blue—green next player,” said the marker monotonously.
“‘He shall walk the quarter-deck,’—Am I green, marker? ‘He shall walk
the quarter-deck,’—eh! that’s a bad shot,—‘As his daddy used to do!’”
“I don’t see that you have anything to crow about,” said a zealous
junior civilian acidly. “The Government is not exactly pleased with your
work when you relieved Sanders.”
“Does that mean a wigging from headquarters?” said Holden with an
abstracted smile. “I think I can stand it.”
The talk beat up round the ever-fresh subject of each man’s work, and
steadied Holden till it was time to go to his dark empty bungalow, where
his butler received him as one who knew all his affairs. Holden remained
awake for the greater part of the night, and his dreams were pleasant
ones.