CHAPTER IV.
IN THE VILLAGE.
The winter rains had come and gone, leaving a legacy of gold behindthem. Promise of future gold in the emerald sea of young wheat,guerdon of present gold in the mustard blossom curving on the green,like the crests of waves curving upon a wind-swept northern sea. Farand near, wide as the eye could reach, there was nothing to be seensave this--a waving sea of green wheat crested by yellow mustard. Butin the center, whence the eye looked, stood a human ant-hill; for thecongeries of mud alleys, mud walls, mud roofs, forming the village,looked from a little distance like nothing else. Viewed broadly, too,it was simply Earth made plastic by the Form-bringer, Water, hardenedagain by the Sun-fire. The triple elements combined into a shell forlaboring life. Like most villages in Northern India this one stoodhigh on its own ruins, girt round by shallow glistening tanks whichwere at once its cradle and its grave. From them the mud for the firstand last house had been dug, to them the periodical rains of Augustwashed back the village bit by bit.
There was scarcely a sign of life in the sky-encircled plain. Scarcelya tree, scarcely a landmark. Nothing far or near to show that aughtlay beyond the pale horizon. The crisp, cold air of a mid-January dawnheld scarcely a sound, for the village was still asleep. Here andthere, maybe, someone was stirring; but with that deliberate calmwhich comes to those who by virtue of early rising have the world tothemselves. Here and there, too, in the high stone inclosures servingat once as a protection to the village and a cattlefold, some goat,impatient to be roaming, bleated querulously; but these sights andsounds only seemed to increase the stillness, the silence surroundingthem. It is a scene which to most civilized eyes is oppressive in itsself-centered isolation, its air of remoteness. The isolation of acommunity, self-supporting, self-sufficing, the remoteness of a placewhich cares not if, indeed, there be a world beyond its boundaries.And this one, type of many alike in most things--above all, insteadfast self-absorption--shall be left nameless. We are in thevillage, that is enough.
Suddenly an odd, clamorous wail rang from among the green corn,and a band of gray cranes which had been standing knee-deep inthe wheat rose awkwardly and headed, arrow-shaped, for the greatNujjufgurhjheel which they wotted of below the horizon: in thisdisplaying a wider outlook than the villagers who toiled and sleptwithin sight of those fields, while the birds left them at dawn forthe sedgy stretches of another world.
At the sound a man, who had been crouching half-asleep against a mudwall, rose to his feet and peered drowsily over the fields. Something,he knew, must have startled the gray cranes; and he was the villagewatchman. As his father had been before him, as his son, please God,would be after him. He carried a short spear hung with jingles as hisbadge of office, and he leaned upon it lazily as he looked out intothe gray dawn. Then he wrapped his blanket closer round him, andwalked leisurely to meet the solitary figure coming toward him,threading its way by an invisible path through the dew-hung sea ofwheat.
"_Ari_, brother," he called mildly when he reached earshot, "is itwell?"
"It is well," came the answer. So he waited, leaning on his spear,until the newcomer stood beside him, his bare legs glistening and thefolds of his drooping blanket frosted with the dew. In one hand he,also, held a watchman's spear; in the other one of those unleavenedcakes, round and flat like a pancake, which form the daily bread alikeof rich and poor. This he held out, saying briefly:
"For the elders. From the South to the North. From the East to theWest."
"Wherefore?" The brief reply held vague curiosity; no more. The cakehad already changed hands, unchallenged.
"God knows. It came to us from Goloowallah with the message as I gaveit. Thy folk will pass it on?"
"Likely; when the day's work is done. How go the crops thy way? Here,as thou seest, 'tis God's dew on God's grain."
"With us also. There will be marriages galore this May."
"Ay! if this bring naught." The speaker nodded toward the cake whichnow lay on the ground between them, for they had inevitably squatteddown to take alternate pulls at a pipe. "What can it bring?"
"God knows," replied the host in his turn. So the two, with that finalreference in their minds, sat looking dully at the _chupatti_ as if itwere some strange wild fowl. Sat silently, as men will do over a pipe,till a clinking of anklets and a chatter of feminine voices came roundthe corner, and the foremost woman of the troop on their way to thetank drew her veil close swiftly at sight of a stranger. Yet her voicecame as swiftly. "What news, brother? What news?"
"None for thee, Mother Kirpo," answered the resident watchman tartly."'Tis for the elders."
The titterings and tossings of veiled heads at this snub to the worstgossip in the village, ended in an expectant pause as a very oldwoman, with a fine-cut face which had long since forsworn concealment,stepped up to the watchmen, and squatting down beside them, raised thecake in her wrinkled hands.
"From the North to the South or the South to the North. From the Eastto the West or the West to the East. Which?" she asked, nodding herold head.
"Sure it was so, mother," replied the stranger, surprised. "Dost knowaught?"
"Know?" she echoed; "I know 'tis an old tale--an old tale."
"What is an old tale, mother?" asked the women eagerly, as, emboldenedby the presence of the village spey-wife, they crowded round, eyingthe cake curiously.
She gave a scornful laugh, let the _chupatti_ drop, and, rising to herfeet, passed on to the tank. It suited her profession to bemysterious, and she knew no more than this, that once, or at mosttwice in her long life, such a token had come peacefully into thevillage, and passed out of it as peacefully with its message.
"Mai Dhunnoo knows something, for sure," commented a deep-bosomedmother of sons as the troop followed their "chaperone's" lead, closerserried than before, full of whispering surmise. "The gods send itmean not smallpox. I will give curds and sugar to thee, Mata jee, eachFriday for a year! I swear it for safety to the boys."
"He slipped in a puddle and cried 'Hail to the Ganges,'" retorted herneighbor, an ill-looking woman blind of one eye. She had been therichest heiress in the village, and was in consequence the wife of thehandsomest young man in it; a childless wife into the bargain. "Boysdo not fill the world, Veru; not even thine! Their welfare will notset tokens a-going. It needs some real misfortune for that."
"Then thy life is safe for sure," began the other hotly, when apeacemaker intervened.
"Wrangle not, sisters! All are naked when their clothes are gone;and the warning may be for us all. Mayhap the Toorks are coming oncemore--Mai Dhunnoo said 'twas an old tale. God send we be not all reftfrom our husbands."
"That would I never be," protested the heiress, provoking uproarioustitterings among some girls.
"No such luck for poor Ramo," whispered one. "And she sonless too!"
"He shaved for the heat, and then the hail fell on his bald pate,"quoted the prettiest callously. "Serve him right, say I. He, at least,had two eyes."
The burst of laughter following this sally made the peacemaker, who,as the wife of the headman, had authority, turn in rebuke. 'Twas nolaughing matter to Jatnis, as they were, who did so much of the fieldwork, that a token, maybe of ill, should come to the village when theharvest promised so well. The revenue had to be paid, smallpox or nosmallpox, Toork or no Toork. And was not one of the Huzoors in campalready giving an eye to the look of the crops, and the other to theshooting of wild things? Could they not hear the sound of his gun forthemselves if they listened instead of chattering? And truly enough,in the pause which came to mirth, there echoed from the pale northernhorizon, beyond which lay the big jheels, a shot or two, faint andfar; for all that dealing death to some of God's creatures. And theselisteners dealt death to none; their faith forbade it.
"Think you they will come our way and kill our deer as they did once?"asked a slender slip of a girl anxiously. Her tame fawn had latelytaken to joining the wild ones when they came at daw
n to feed upon thewheat.
"God knows," replied one beside her. "They will come if they like, andkill if they like. Are they not the masters?"
So the final reference was in the women's minds also, as, while themuddy water strained slowly into their pots through a filtering cornerof their veils, they raised their eyes curiously, doubtfully, to thehorizon which held the master. It had held him always. To the north orto the south, the east or the west. Mohammedan, Mahratta, Christian.But always coming over the far horizon and slaying something. In olddays husbands, brothers, fathers. Nowadays the herds of deer which thesacredness of life allowed to have their full of the wheat unchecked,or the peacocks who spread their tails, securely vainglorious, on theheaps of corn upon the threshing floors.
So the unleavened cake stayed in the village all day long, and whenthe slant shadows brought leisure, the headman's wife baked two cakes,one for the north the other for the west, and Dittu the old watchman,and the embryo watchman his son, set off with them to the next villagewest and north, since that was the old custom. So much must be donebecause their fathers had done it; for the rest, who could tell?
Nevertheless, as the messengers passed through the village streetwhere the women sat spinning, many paused to look after them, with avague relief that the unknown, unsought, had gone out of their life.Then the moon rose peacefully, and one by one the sights and sounds ofthat life ceased. The latest of all was the hum of a mill in one ofthe poorest houses, and a snatch of a harvest-song in murmuringaccompaniment:
"When the sickle meets the corn, From their meeting joy is born; When the sickle smites the wheat, Care is conquered, sorrow beat."
"Have a care, sister, have a care!" came that rebuking voice from theheadman's house close by. "Wouldst bring ill-luck on us all, thatgrinding but millet thou singest the song of wheat?"
And thereinafter there was no song at all, and sleep settled on allthings peacefully. The token had come and gone, leaving the mud shelland the laboring life within it as it had been before. Curiouslyimpassive, impassively curious. There was one more portent in the sky,one more mist on the dim horizon. That was all.
So through the dew-hung fields the mysterious message sped west andsouth.
Sent by whom? And wherefore?
The question was being asked by the masters in desultory fashion asthey sat round a bonfire, which blazed in the center of the Resident'scamp, on the banks of the great jheel. It was a shooting camp, astanding camp, lavish in comfort. The white tents were rangedsymmetrically on three sides of a square, and, in the moonlight, shonealmost as brightly as the long levels of water stretching away on thefourth side to the sedgy brakes and isolated palms of the snipemarshes. Behind rose a heavy mass of burnished foliage, and in frontof the big mess-tent the English flag drooped from its mast in thestill night air. Nearer the jheel again the bonfire flashed andcrackled, sending a column of smoke and sparks into the star-set sky.The ground about it was spread with carpets and Persian rugs, andhere, in luxurious armchairs, the comfortably-tired sportsmen werelounging after dinner, some of them in mess uniform, some in civilianblack, but all in decorous dress; for not only was the Brigadierpresent, but also a small sprinkling of ladies wrapped in fur cloaksabove their evening fineries. Briefly, a company more suitable to thefoyer of a theater than this barbaric bonfire. But the whole camp,with its endless luxury, stood out in keen contrast with the sordidsavagery of a wretched hamlet which lay half-hidden behind the trees.
The contrast struck Jim Douglas, who for that evening only, happenedto be the Resident's guest; for, having been on the jheel in a verydifferent sort of camp when the Resident had invaded his solitude, theusual invitation to dine had followed as a matter of course; as itwould have followed to any white face with pretensions to beconsidered a gentleman's. He had accepted it, because, every now andagain, a desire "to chuck" as he expressed it, and go back to theordinary life of his class came over him. This mood had been on himpersistently ever since the Yama and Indra incident, so that, for thetime being, he had dismissed his scoundrels and given up spying indisgust. He had, he told himself, wasted his time, and the militarymagnate was justified in politely dispensing with his furtherservices. There was, in truth, no need for them so far as he couldsee. There was plenty of talk, plenty of discontent, but nothing more.And even that anyone could observe and gauge; for there was nomystery, no concealment. The whole affair was invertebrate utterly,except every now and again when you came upon the track of theMoulvie of Fyzabad. It was conceivable that the aspect might change,but for the present he was sick of the whole thing, ambition and all.Horse-dealing was better. So he had established himself in a smallhouse in Duryagunj, started a stable, and then taken a holiday in ashooting _pal_ among the jheels and jungles, where in his younger dayshe had spent so much of his time.
Thus, after eating a first-class dinner, he was smoking a first-classcigar, and, being a stranger to everyone there, thinking his ownthoughts, when the Resident's voice came from the other side of thefire which, with its dancing flame-light distorting every feature inmyriad variation, disguised rather than revealed the faces seen by it.
"You have bagged one or two in your district, haven't you, Ford?"
"What, sir? Bustard?" inquired the Collector of the next district, whohad come over his border for a day or two's shoot, and who had beenengrossed in sporting talk with his neighbor. There was a laugh fromthe other side of the fire.
"No! these _chupatties_. The Brigadier was asking me if they were asnumerous as they are further south, and Fraser, here, said none hadcome into the Delhi district as yet."
"One came to-day into the hamlet behind the tents," said Jim Douglasquietly. "I met the man bringing it. A watchman from over the borderin Mr. Ford's district."
Half a dozen faces turned to the voice which spoke so confidently, andthen asked in whispers who the man was? But there was nothing in thewhispered replies to warrant that tone of imparting information toothers, and a man in black clothes seemed to resent it, for heappealed to the Resident rather fulsomely.
"It will be in the reports to-morrow, no doubt, sir. For myself Iattach no importance to it. The custom is an old one. I rememberobserving it in Muttra when smallpox was bad. But I should like tohave your opinion. You ought to know if anyone does."
The compliment was no idle flattery. None had a better right to itthan Sir Theophilus Metcalfe, whose illustrious name had been a powerin Delhi for two generations, and whose uncle had been one of India'smost distinguished statesmen. So there was a hush for his reply.
"I can't say," he answered deliberately. "Personally I doubt thedissatisfaction ever coming to a head. There is a good deal, ofcourse, but of late, so it has seemed to me, it is quieting down.People are getting tired of fermenting. As for the causes of thedisaffection it is patent. We can't, simply, do the work we are doingwithout making enemies of those whose vested interests we have todestroy. We may have gone ahead a little too fast; but that is anotherquestion. As for the army, I've no right to speak of it, but it seemsto me it has been allowed to get out of hand, out of touch. It willneed care to bring it into discipline, but I don't anticipate trouble.Its mixed character is our safeguard. It would be hard for even a goodleader to hit on a general grievance which would touch both the armyand the civil population, Hindoos and Mohammedans--and as a matter offact they have no leader at all."
"Have you ever come across the Moulvie of Fyzabad, sir?" remarked JimDouglas again. "If I had the power I would shoot him like a mad dog.But for the rest I quite agree."
Here a stir behind them distracted both his attention and theattention of those who were listening to this authoritative voice withbated breath.
"Is that the post? Oh, how delightful!" chorused the ladies, and morethan one added plaintively, "I wonder if the English mail is in."
"Let's bet on it. Sir Theophilus to hold the stakes," cried a youngfellow who had been yawning through the discussion. But the subjectwas too
serious for such light handling, to judge by the eager faceswhich crowded round, while the red-coated _chuprassies_ poured thecontents of the bags into a heap on the carpet at their master's feet.There is always a suspense about that moment of search among thebundles of official correspondence, the files, the cases which fill upthe camp mail, for the thin packet of private letters which is theonly tie between you and the world; but when hopes of home news issuperadded, the breath is apt to come faster. And so a scene, trivialin itself, points an inexorable finger to the broad fact underlyingall our Indian administration, that we are strangers and exiles.
"Not in!" announced the Resident, studiously cheerful. "But there areheaps of letters for everybody. Did the mem-sahib come in thecarriage, Gamu?" he added as he sorted out the owners.
"Huzoor!" replied the head orderly, who was also his master'sfactotum, thrusting the remainder back in the bags. "And the Majorsahib also. According to order, refreshments are being offered."
"Glad Erlton could come," remarked a voice to its neighbor. "We wantanother good shot badly."
"And Mrs. Gissing is awfully good company too," assented the neighbor.Jim Douglas, who was sitting on the other side, looked up quickly. Thejuxtaposition of the names surprised him after what he had seen, orthought he had seen at Christmas time.
"Is that Mrs. Gissing from Lucknow?" he asked.
"I believe so. She is a stranger here. Seems awfully jolly, but thewomen don't like her. Do you know anything of her?"
Jim Douglas hesitated. He could have easily satisfied the earevidently agog for scandal; but what, after all, did he know of her?What did he know of his own experience? It seemed to him as if shestood there, defiantly dignified, asking him the question, herchina-blue eyes flashing, the childish face set and stern.
"Personally I know little," he replied, "but that little is very muchto her credit."
As he relapsed into silence and smoke he felt that she had once morewalked boldly into his consciousness and claimed recognition. She hadforced him to acknowledge something in her which corresponded withsomething in him. Something unexpected. If Kate Erlton's eyes withtheir cold glint in them had flashed like that, he would not havewondered; but they had not. They had done just the reverse. They hadsoftened; they had only looked heroic. Underneath the glint which hadsent him on a wild-goose chase had lain that commonplace indefinablewomanhood, sweet enough, but a bit sickly, which could be in anywoman's eyes if you fancied yourself in love with her. It had lain inthe eyes belonging to the golden curl, in poor little Zora's eyes,might conceivably lie in half a dozen others.
"By George!" came an eager voice from the group of men who werereading their letters by the light of a lamp held for the purpose by asilent bronze image of a man in uniform. "I have some news here whichwill interest you, sir. There has been a row at Dum-Dum about the newEnfield cartridges."
"Eh! what's that?" asked the Brigadier, looking up from his owncorrespondence. "Nothing serious, I hope."
"Not yet, but it seems curious by the light of what we were discussing,and what Mr.--er--Capt----"
"Douglas," suggested the owner of the name, who at the first words hadsat up to listen intently. His face had a certain anticipation in it;almost an eagerness.
"Thanks. It's a letter from the musketry depot. Shall I read it, sir?"
The Brigadier nodded, one or two men looked up to listen, but mostwent on with their letters or discussed the chances of slaughter forthe morrow.
"There is a most unpleasant feeling abroad respecting these newcartridges, which came to light a day or two ago in consequence of ahigh-caste sepoy refusing to let a lower caste workman drink out ofhis cup. The man retorted that as the cartridges being made in theArsenal were smeared with pig's grease and cow's fat there would soonbe no caste left in the army. The sepoy complained, and it came outthat this idea is already widely spread. Wright denied the fact flatlyat first, but found out that large quantities of beef-tallow _had_been indented for by the Ordnance. And that, of course, made the menthink he had lied about it. Bontein, the chief, has wisely suggestedaltering the drill, since the men say they will not bite thecartridges. If they do, their relations won't eat with them when theygo home on leave. You see, with this new rifle it is not reallynecessary to bite the cartridge at all, so it would be a quite naturalalteration, and get us out of the difficulty without giving in. Thesuggestion has been forwarded, and if it could be settled sharp wouldsmother the business; but what with duffers and----" The reader brokeoff, and a faint smile showed even on the Brigadier's face as theformer skipped hurriedly to find something safer--"Old GeneralHearsey, who knows the natives like a book, says there is trouble init. He declares that the Moulvie of Fyzabad--whoever that may be----"
The faces looked at Jim Douglas curiously, but he was too eager tonotice it.
"Is at the bottom of the _chupatties_ we hear are being sent roundup-country; but that he is in league also with the Brahmins inCalcutta--especially the priests at Kali's shrine--over _suttee_ andwidow remarriage and all that. However, all I know is that bothHindoos and Mohammedans in my classes are in a blue funk about thecartridges, and swear even their wives won't live with them if theytouch them."
"The common grievance," said Jim Douglas, in the silence that ensued."It alters the whole aspect of affairs."
"Prepare to receive cavalry?" yawned the man who had suggested bettingon the chance of the home-mail. What was the use of a week's leave onthe best snipe jheel about, if it was to be spent in talking shop?
"No!" cried the man in black, not unwilling to change the subject ofwhich he had not yet official cognizance. "Prepare to receive ladies.There is Mrs. Gissing, looking as fresh as paint!"
She looked fresh, indeed, as she came forward; her curly hair, roughwhen fashionable heads were smooth, glistening in the firelight, thefluffy swansdown on her long coat framing her childish face softly.Behind her, heavy, handsome, came Major Erlton with the half-sheepishair men assume when they are following a woman's lead.
"Here I am at last, Sir Theophilus," she began, in a gay artificialvoice as she passed Jim Douglas, who stood up, pushing his chair asideto give more room. "I'm so glad Major Erlton managed to get leave. I'msuch a coward! I should have died of fright all by myself in thatlong, lonely----"
"Keep still!" interrupted a peremptory voice behind her, as a pair ofswift unceremonious arms seized her round the waist, and by sheerforce dragged her back a step, then held her tight-clasped tosomething that beat fast despite the calm tone. "Kill that snake,someone! There, right at her feet! It isn't a branch. I saw it move.Don't stir, Mrs. Gissing, it's all right."
It might be, but the heart she felt beat hard; and the one beneath hishand gave a bound and then seemed to stand still, as the sticks andstaves, hastily caught up, smote furiously on her very dress, so closedid certain death lie to her. There was a faint scent of lavenderabout that dress, about her curly hair, which Jim Douglas neverforgot; just as he never forgot the passionate admiration which madehis hands relax to an infinite tenderness, when she uttered no cry, nosound; when there was no need to hold her, so still did she stand, soabsolutely in unison with the defiance of Fate which kept him steadyas a rock. Surely no one in all his life, he thought, had ever stoodso close to him, yet so far off!
"God bless my soul! My dear lady, what an escape!" The hurriedfaltering exclamation from a bystander heralded the holding up of along limp rope of a thing hanging helplessly over a stick. It was thesignal for a perfect babel. Many had seen the brute, but had thoughtit a branch, others had similar experiences of drowsy snakes scorchedout of winter quarters in some hollow log, and all crowded round Mrs.Gissing, loud in praise of her coolness. Only she turned quickly tosee who had held her; and found Major Erlton.
"The brute hasn't touched you, has he?" he began huskily, then brokeinto almost a sob of relief, "My God! what an escape!"
She glanced at him with the faint distaste which any expression ofstrong emotion showed toward her by a man always provoked, and gaveo
ne of her high irrelevant laughs.
"Is it? I may die a worse death. But I want _him_--where is he?"
"Slipped away from your gratitude, I expect," said the Collector. "ButI'll betray him. It was the man who knew about the _chupatties_, SirTheophilus; I don't know his name."
"Douglas," said the host. "He is in camp a mile or two down the jheel.I expect he has gone back. He seemed a nice fellow."
Mrs. Gissing made a _moue_. "I would not have been so grateful as allthat! I would only have said 'Bravo' to him."
Her own phrase seemed to startle her, she broke off with a suddenwistful look in her wide blue eyes.
"My dear Mrs. Gissing, have a glass of wine; you must indeed," fussedthe Brigadier. But the little lady set the suggestion aside.
"Douglas!" she repeated. "I wonder where he comes from? Does anyoneknow a Douglas?"
"James Sholto Douglas," corrected the host. "It's a good name."
"And I knew a good fellow of that name once; but he went under," saidan older man.
"About what?" Alice Gissing's eyes challenged the speaker, who stoodclose to her.
"About a woman, my dear lady."
"Poor dear! Erlton, you must fetch him over to see me to-morrowmorning." She said it with infinite verve, and her hearers laughed.
"Him!" retorted someone. "How do you know it's the same man?"
She nodded her head gayly. "I've a fancy it is. And I am bound to benice to him anyhow."
She had not the chance, however. Major Erlton, riding over beforebreakfast to catch him, found nothing but the square-shaped furrowsurrounding a dry vacant spot which shows where a tent has been.
For Jim Douglas was already on his way back to Delhi, on his way backto more than Delhi if he succeeded in carrying out a plan which hadsuggested itself to him when he heard of General Hearsey's belief thatthe priests conducting the agitation against widow remarriage and theabolition of _suttee_ were leagued with the Mohammedan revival. Tara,the would-be saint, was still in Delhi. He had not sought her outbefore, being in truth angry with the woman's duplicity, and notwanting to run the risk of her chattering about him. Now, as he hadsaid, the whole position was changed. He had no common hold upon her,and might through her get some useful hints as to the leading men inthe movement. She must have seen them when the miracle took place atBenares. The thought made him smile rather savagely. Decidedly shewould not care to defy his tongue; from saint to sinner would be toogreat a fall.
So at dusk that very evening he was back in his mendicant's disguise,begging at a doorway in one of the oldest parts of Delhi. Aninsignificant doorway in an insignificant alley. But there was a fadedwreath of yellow marigolds over the architrave, a deeper hollow in thestone threshold; sure signs, both, that something to attractworshiping feet lay within. Yet at first sight the court into whichyou entered, after a brief passage barred by blank wall, was much asother courts. It was set round with high irregular houses, perfectrabbit-warrens of tiny rooms, slips of roof, and stairs; allconglomerate, yet distinct. Some reached from within, some fromwithout, some from neighboring roofs, and some, Heaven knows how!possibly by wings, after the fashion of the purple pigeons cooing andsidling on the purple brick cornices. In one corner, however, stood ahuge _peepul-tree_, and partly shaded by this, partly attached to anarcaded building of two stories, was a small, squalid-looking, blackstone Hindoo temple. It was not more than ten feet square, triplyrecessed at each corner, and with a pointed spire continuing therecesses of the base. A sort of hollow monolith raised on a plinth ofthree steps. In its dark windowless sanctuary, open to the outsideworld by a tingle arch, stood a polished black stone, resting on apolished black stone cup, like a large acorn. For this was the oldestShivala in Delhi, and in the rabbit-warrens surrounding this survivalof Baal worship lived and lodged _yogis_, beggars, saints, half theinsanity and sacerdotalism of Delhi. It was not a place into which toventure rashly. So Jim Douglas sat at the gate begging while theclashings and brayings and drumings echoed out into the alley. For theseven fold circling of the Lamps was going on, and if Tara did notpass to this evening service from outside, she most likely livedwithin; that she lodged near the temple he knew.
So as he sat waiting, watching, the light faded, the faint smell ofincense grew fainter, the stream of worshipers coming to take theholy water in which the god had been washed slackened. Then by twosand threes the Brahmins and _yogis_--the Dean and Chapter, as itwere--passed out clinking half-pennies, and carrying the offertory inkind, tied up in handkerchiefs.
The service was over, and Tara must therefore live in a lodgingreached from within. And now, when the coast was clearing, he mightstill have opportunity of tracing her. So he rose and walked inboldly, disappointed to find the courtyard was almost empty already.There were only a few stragglers, mostly women, and they in the whiteshroud of widows; but even in the gloom and shadow he could see thetall figure he sought was not among them, and he was about to slipaway when, following their looks, he caught sight of another figurecrouching on the topmost step of the plinth, right in front of thesanctuary door, so that it stood faintly outlined against the glimmerof the single cresset, which, raised on the heap of half-dead flowerswithin, showed them and nothing more--nothing but the shadows.
He drew back hastily into the empty arcade, and waited for the widows'lingering bare feet--scarcely heard even on those echoing stones--topass out and leave him and Tara alone. For it was Tara. That he knewthough her face was turned from him.
The feet lingered on, making him fear lest some of the mendicants whomust lodge in these arcades should return, after almsgiving time, andfind him there. And as they lingered he thought how he had best makehimself known to the devotee, the saint. It must be somethingdramatic, something to tie her tongue at once, something to bring hometo her his hold upon her. The locket! He slipped it from his neck andstood ready. Then, as the last flutter of white disappeared, hestepped noiselessly across the court.
And so, suddenly, between the rapt face and the dim light on which itseyes were fixed, hung a dangling gold oval, and the Englishman,bending over the woman's shoulder from behind, could see the amazeflash to the face. And his other hand was ready with the clutch ofcommand, his tongue with a swift threat; but she was too quick forhim. She was round at his feet in an instant, clasping them.
"Master! Master!"
Jim Douglas recoiled from that touch once more; but with a half-shamedsurprise, regret, almost remorse. He had meant to threaten this woman,and now----
She was up again, eager, excited. "Quick! The Huzoor is not safe here.They may return any moment. Quick! Quick! Huzoor, follow me."
And as, blindly, he obeyed, passing rapidly through a low doorway andso up a dark staircase, he slipped the locket back to its place with asort of groan. Here was another woman to be reckoned with, and thoughthe discovery suited his purpose, and though he knew himself to be assafe as her woman's wit could make him, he wondered irritably if therewas anything in the world into which this eternal question of sex didnot intrude. And then, suddenly, he seemed to feel Alice Gissing'sheart beat beneath his hand; there had been no womanhood in thattouch.
So he passed on. And next morning he was on his way southward. Tarahad told him what he wanted to know.