Chapter III (1)

"And see that thou cleanest them well; they may be wanted ere long."

There was jeering malice in words, tone, and manner as Parbutti handed over the tarnished silver ornaments; but Durga took them without a word--that aggressive silence of hers seeming, as it always did, to defy the ceaseless clang of the copper which, as usual, filled the sunlit courtyard. And yet to a woman less restrained than she here was an occasion for bitter outcry. The ornaments had been hers in those past days of honoured wifehood; now they were Parbutti's to wear, or to give, as she chose. But what did that matter? what did anything matter if only Gopâl could be kept content--if only Gopâl could be kept to his promise? Two months of patience, two months of growing anxiety had told against Durga-dei's good looks according to native standards, though to Western eyes the face had gained more than it had lost. There was no indifference in it now. That had given place to an eagerness almost painful in its intensity; and Parbutti, as she watched the widow begin her task, smiled to herself at the certainty of its being well performed; for Durga displayed a vast anxiety to please nowadays--a most convenient state of affairs for the household generally. Parbutti smiled again, thinking what Durga would say when she knew the truth--that the ornaments were to go in the wedding baskets of the virgin bride who was to be the reward of Gopâl's treachery.

"They will need tamarinds to give them back their whiteness," thought Durga, looking at the silver with experienced eyes. This interest in the drudgery and detail of her life was not a conscious effort on her part; of late a sort of dull comfort had come to her in the knowledge that already, in a thousand ways, she was standing between the household and that disregard of old ways which to her meant disgrace, if not disaster. And so it was with a certain pride in her work that, while Parbutti was sleeping, she watched the tamarind pulp boiling away in the copper vessel over the fire, until her critical eye told her that its office was over, and that the ornaments boiling in it would need no silversmith's aid to enhance their lustre. With a certain pride, also, in her own carefulness, she let the pulp stay on the fire till it had regained its original consistency, and then set it aside in the storeroom against future use. Parbutti would not have thought of such economy. Parbutti, in a reckless modern fashion, would have thrown the pulp away, and bought more when next she wanted some. The thought cheered her as, still with the same careful conservatism, she went on to some other process, approved by old tradition, for the due cleansing of tarnished silver. It was no light matter, that keeping of the household ornaments as if they were fresh from the goldsmith's hands; for did it not redound to the credit of the hearth? When she had worn them, none could have told they were not newly-made out of new rupees; but Parbutti thought only of wearing them in a becoming manner.

Well! this time she should acknowledge that there was some good in having Durga in the house.

There was something infinitely pathetic in the slow workings of this woman's mind, as she sat busy over the ornaments--something infinitely pathetic in the pride with which, after the two or three days of treatment prescribed, she showed them white and glistening to her rival.

"Ay!--they are as new--_Mai_ Râdha will deem them so at any rate," said Parbutti, with studied carelessness. The time had come for revenge. Gopâl's passion for pleasure had been aroused, he would allow nothing now to stand in the way of this projected marriage, and so--and so there was no harm in springing the mine upon Durga. There is nothing in heaven or earth so cruel as a jealous woman even when her nature is kindly, and Parbutti's was not.

"_Mai_ Râdha! What hath she to do with them?" The quick anxiety of the widow's tone was as balm to the other's ears.

"What a mother hath to do with her daughter's trousseau for sure," she answered lightly. "I meant to tell thee ere this, but Gopâl would not have it, and 'tis true that widows are ill meddlers with marriage. He weds the girl next month by my consent. The house needs a child."

So far Durga had stood staring at her enemy incredulously. Now she flung out her arms in sudden passion, letting the widow's shrouding veil fall from her figure recklessly.

"'Tis a lie--an infamous lie! The house needs no stranger's child. Thou knowest it! Yea, thou hast known it, and this is thy revenge. But it shall not be. Gopâl shall speak! Gopâl, I say! Gopâl!"

Parbutti's hands gripped her rival's as in a vice despite her struggles.

"So! is it that? And thou wouldst lay the burden of thy shame on Gopâl, base walker of the bazaars, betrayer of thy dead lord! On Gopâl who weds a virgin; let us see what he saith. Gopâl! I say, Gopâl!"

It almost seemed as if their clamour must have pierced that of the coppersmith's shop, for the latter ceased suddenly in the slow chiming of five o'clock. Instinctively the women fell away from each other, feeling that the crisis had come. Another minute would bring the man to answer for himself. So they stood waiting for the well-known figure on the threshold.

"Gopâl!"

He recoiled from the sight of them, coward to the backbone.

And Parbutti knew it--knew the man with whom she had to deal a thousand times better than Durga knew him; so her shrill voice came first, allowing no compromise, no shilly-shallying. Durga had claimed him as the father of her child. Was it true? for in that case there was no need to bring a bride to the house, nor indeed under such circumstances would _Mai_ Râdha ever consent to her daughter's marriage. Let him take his choice without delay.

And Durga, still gauging him by the measure of her own nature, claimed the truth also. Between the two Gopâl stood irresolute, divided between fear and desire.

"'Tis thy choice, O husband!" came Parbutti's shrill voice; "the widow or the bride, thou canst not have both."

He knew it perfectly. It was one or the other, and a sudden fierce dislike leapt up against poor Durga.

"It is a lie," he muttered, his eyes upon the ground; "I have naught to do with her, naught."

Durga fell back as if she had been struck, but Parbutti's laugh of triumph failed before the sombre fire of those big blazing eyes. For an instant it seemed as if the former would give herself up to vehement upbraiding; then suddenly she passed into the silence of the outer court without a word, and crouched down in her favourite attitude beside the smouldering fires. She felt sick and faint with horror, shame, incredulity. In all her known world of custom and conduct she seemed to find no foothold on which to recover her balance. He had denied her, he had denied the hearth. Her tense fingers hung rigidly without clasp or grip on anything, just as her mind seemed to have lost hold on all her beliefs, all her knowledge.

In a dim, half-dazed way she knew what would happen. By and by, when opportunity occurred, Gopâl would creep out, as he had crept out many a time before, and seek to soothe her. There need be no scandal, no open turning into the streets, if she would promise to make no fuss. Perhaps, once the marriage were accomplished he might even be induced to acknowledge the child. And at this thought something that was not shame, nor anger, nor horror, but sheer animal jealousy, leapt up within her; for she had learnt to care, as women do learn, even when they know that he for whom they care is not worth it.

So Parbutti and this new woman were to have him, and she--

When the brain is quick its owner may suffer more from the very variety and complexity it gives to grief; but the grief for all that is less absorbing. Durga was so lost in hers that she scarcely noticed Parbutti coming in after a time to see about the supper. There was no call on her for help this evening, no blame because the fires were slack and nothing ready. To tell truth, even Parbutti did not care to drive the stunned look from Durga's face, lest it should be replaced by seven devils; so she was left alone. Yet even so, something made her start, and for a second her hand moved as if she were about to thrust it out in a gesture of dismay; then it sank back listlessly. The impulse had come and gone--the housewifely impulse of warning to the younger woman that tamarind pulp which had been kept for days in a copper vessel was not likely to be a wholesome ingredient in a man's supper. After all, what did it matter to her? Surely Parbutti should know such things without being told them; if not, what right had she to be house-mother, ousting those who did? A curiously petty spite against her simmered up in Durga-dei's mind, and like the bubbles on boiling water served for a time to break up the surface of her hot anger against Gopâl. What! was she to save Parbutti from the consequences of her own ignorance and negligence? There was no more than that in Durga's mind as she watched the cooking; no more than that, and a dumb conviction that somehow the future must be changed, utterly changed. It could not be as the past had been; so much was certain. Yet as she sat, thinking not at all, something must have been juggling with her brain, for Parbutti's first words, when an hour or so afterwards she came bustling back into the outer court, found their reply ready on Durga's lips.

"He is not well," she fussed. "Durga! thou art more learned in simples than most. What shall I give to stay the burning in his throat and keep the sickness from him? God send it be not the great sickness; but 'tis in the city they say." The widow stood up mechanically, and her right hand sought once more the crevices of the wall against which she was leaning.

"I know not. Give him tamarind water an thou likest. 'Tis not my work, but thine."

Revenge had sprung full-fledged from her slow brain in familiar face and welcome form. And it would not be her doing, but Parbutti's! A sort of sensual delight in the idea surged through her, making her add--as if to, give an edge to the sword of fate--"yet if the sickness be about 'twere well to have more skill than mine. I would not have it said I killed him!"

Once more the spite against the woman overbore all other feelings for the time. That, and a dull recognition of the fact that if Gopâl died he would be beyond the reach of them all--that it would benefit no one; save that in good sooth the child would be fatherless instead of--and then, suddenly, those black eyes of hers blazed up fiercely. Yes! that was the only possible end; as well now, when opportunity offered a beginning, as later.

"Ay! give him tamarind water--'tis best for such as he."

Not a shadow of regret came to her as she watched Parbutti follow her advice. It was as if since all time this thing had been ordained, as if aught else were beyond her control. The curious calm with which the Oriental regards death, even for himself, does not count for nothing in such situations as this. We of the West, who reckon the measure of guilt without it, judge harshly, even while we judge equitably. Durga-dei did not think out the question at all. Chance gave her quick opportunity, and she took it. Yet as the night wore on, bringing a succession of gossiping neighbours, she became restless, asking herself if the native doctor, summoned from the _sahib-logue's_ hospital beyond the walls, to satisfy that curious streak of education in the sick man's mind, said sooth in declaring it to be a case of cholera? or whether the wise woman sent by _Mai_ Râdha was right in hinting at the evil eye? Was it, briefly, God's judgment, or man's? The uncertainty oppressed her.

So the dawn breaking over that unseen, unknown world beyond the house of the coppersmith found three haggard faces within it. Found the same thought in each heart: was it to be death, or death in life for one, or for all? yet each awaited the answer with a strange indifference.

"Yes! 'tis the great sickness; he grows blue and cold already," said the neighbours in frank wisdom as they looked in. The air was cooler then with the sudden freshness which seems to come with the sun's first rays; a thin blue smoke began to rise over the awakening city; the sparrows sat preening themselves on the tops of the walls; the loose slippers of the visitors, as they shuffled over the empty courtyards, had whispering, gossiping tongues of their own, which seemed to echo the ominous cackle of the wearers as they left those three faces to their task of waiting. One turned passively to the brightening sky from the low string bed; the other two bent on the ground as passively. A vessel full of tamarind water stood by the sick man, but he had scarcely touched it. Perhaps after all it was the great sickness. Durga scarcely knew whether she were glad or sorry at the thought.

So the sun climbed up until, with one clear distinct "_tam-burr-urr-ur-r_," the daily clamour of the shop began. Maybe the master would not die, maybe he would; either way work must be done, and no one had said the workers nay--as yet.

"Gopâl is still alive," commented the neighbours cheerfully as they listened; "they will stop, likely, when they hear the death wail, and 'tis as well for him to end as he began with the ring of the metal in his ears."

The water-clock from the stairs where Gopâl used to sit chimed noon. The heavens were as brass. A perfect blaze of light beat down on the courtyard and those three faces. But one of them waited no longer, though it still gazed passively into the pale sky from the ground where it lay. And Parbutti, the new-made widow, glared in terrified hatred at the face of that other widow who stood looking down at the dead man.

Then suddenly the death wail rose loud and clear in a woman's voice.

"_Naked he came, naked has gone. This empty dwelling-place belongs neither to you nor to me_."

The clangour ceased, ending in a faint vibration like a dying breath.

"Listen!" said the policeman watching the waterclock; "there is death in the coppersmith's house. I heard he was ill of the sickness. God save him--he hath no son."

FAIZULLAH.

He was beating his wife--an occupation which annihilates time, dissolves the crust of culture, and reduces humanity in both hemispheres to a state of original sin. It is therefore immaterial what Faizullah and Haiyat Bibi did or said during the actual chastisement, for they behaved themselves as any other couple in the same circumstances would have done, that is to say, after the manner of two animals--one injured in his feelings, the other in her body.

She screamed vociferously, but for all that took her punishment with methodical endurance; indeed, there was a distinct air of duty on both sides which went far towards disguising the actual violence. Finally he let her drop, decisively but gently, in one of the dark corners of the low windowless room, and laid aside the bamboo in another. From a third crept an older woman, silent, but sympathetic, carrying a _lotah_ full of water with which she administered comfort to the crushed victim. Faizullah Khan watched the gradual subsidence of his wife's sobs with evident satisfaction.

"Hast had enough for this time, O Haiyat?" he asked mildly. "Or shall I catch thee peeping through the door at the men-folk again like a cat after a mouse? True, 'tis the way thou caughtest me for a husband, Light of mine Eyes; but I will have none of it with other men. Or rather, thou shalt pay for the pleasure. Ay! every time, surely as the farmer pays the usurer for having a good crop. And if there be more than peeping, then I will kill thee. Think not to escape as a mere noseless one; some may care to keep a maimed wife, secure that none will seek her; but not I, Faizullah Khan, Belooch of Birokzai. Did I not marry thee, O Haiyat, Marrow of my Bones, because of thy fair face? Then what good wouldst thou be to me without a nose? Therefore be wise, my heart, or I shall have to kill thee some day."

"The _sahibs_ will hang thee in pigskin if thou dost," whimpered the woman vindictively. "Yea, I would die gladly to see thee swing like the wild beast thou art!"

The sense of coercion was evidently passing away, nor were there wanting signs that ere long tears would be dried at the flame of wrath fast kindling in Haiyat's big black eyes. Faizullah, standing at the open door, through which the yellow sunshine streamed in a broad bar of light, looked across the mud roof of the lower story, past the sandy stretches and broken rocky distance to where a low line of serrated blue mountains blocked the horizon. They were the Takt-i-Suleiman, and beyond their peaks and passes lay Beloochistan.

"There are no _sahibs_ yonder," he said, stretching his right hand towards the hills; "no one to come between a man and his right of faithful wife. God knows I am ready for my father's house again; 'tis only thy beauty, Skin of my Soul! Core of my Heart! that keeps me dawdling here a stranger in the house of mine ancient enemies. Why wilt thou not come with me to the mountains, O Haiyat?"

"I am not a wild beast as thou art," she retorted, still with speech checked by sobs. "I will stay here and get thee swung, for the _sahib-logues_ worship a woman away over the black water and do her bidding. They will fill thy mouth with dirt, and burn thy body, and curse thy soul to the nether--"

"Nay! innermost Apple of mine Eye! do I not worship thee? And art thou not a Belooch also by race, though thy people have dug the grave of their courage with the plough, and tethered their freedom beside their bullocks? They were not always dirt-eaters, mean-spirited, big-bellied--"

"_Hai! Hai!_" That was the beginning of the storm. What followed drove big Faizullah into the court below, where the voices of the two women ceased to be articulate; for it is one thing to beat the wife of your bosom in order to correct a trifling indiscretion, another to deny her and her attendant the right of subsequent abuse. So he smoked his pipe placidly, and amused himself with polishing his well-beloved sword which he kept in defiance of the Arms Act.

The poorer women of the village nodded at each other as the shrill clamour, floating over the high encircling wall, reached the well where they came to draw water.

"The stranger hath big hands," chuckled one; "yet are they smaller than Haiyat's eye. That comes of being a widow so long."

"There will be murder some day, mark my words!" muttered an old hag with a toothless leer. "What else canst thou expect from a Belooch of Birokzai? _Peace! Peace!_ that is what our men say nowadays. In my time, if a man of his race had laid a finger on a woman of ours, there would have been flames over the border, and blood enough to quench them afterwards. But they are afraid of the _sahibs_ and the pigskin; not so Faizullah; he is of the old sort, knowing how to keep his wife."

"He will not keep her for all that, _mai_," sneered a strapping girl, who by the handsome water-vessels she carried showed herself to be a servant in one of the richer houses. "We shall get her back some day, despite her father-in-law's wickedness in letting her marry a good-for-nothing soldier, just because of keeping a hold on her jewels."

"Hold on their honour, O thou false tongue!" shrilled another of the group. "The daughter of thy house would have brought shame on ours. She needed a fierce one to keep her straight."

"After the man--woman, thy house gave her first, O depraved tongue that tasteth not the truth. Had thy people sent her back, our house would have kept her safe enough."

"And her jewels doubtless--"

So the war of words, begun on the top story of Faizullah's house, found its way into the narrow village street, and thence into many a mud-walled courtyard where the women set down the pots of water and rested themselves in wrangling. It even went further, for in not a few of them, when the men came back from their day's work in the fields, the subject of Haiyat Bibi's peeping eyes and covetous jewels gave rise to slow, deliberate conversation over the evening pipe. Faizullah was right to beat her, of course; on that point all were agreed. The rest was open to argument, and had been so any time these last two years, ever since the bold Belooch of Birokzai, on his way home from short service in a frontier regiment, had halted in his retreat at the sight of a pair of big black eyes behind the chink of a door. Long before that, however, the question as to whether those jewels of Haiyat Bibi's were to come back with her in search of a new bridegroom among her own relations, or to remain with her in her late husband's family, had greatly exercised the minds of this little village, which lay, as it were, safely tucked away between the sheets of sand in the bed of the Indus and the soft pillow-like curves of the rising ground. It was given to be excited over trifles, this far-away, peaceful-looking cluster of mud huts; for beneath the newly acquired placidity of the peasant which its inhabitants presented on the surface, the lawlessness of the border bravo remained ready for any emergency. On the whole, however, it afforded a beautiful example of the civilising effects of agriculture, and as such figured in many reports having as their object the glorification of British rule. Consequently it was watched with jealous eyes by the district and police officials, who felt their sheet-anchor of reference would be gone did any serious crime occur to throw discredit on the converted community. Despite this constant care, the village might have been situated in the moon for all the authorities knew of the pretty intrigues, the hopes and fears, which formed the mainspring of its life. Even the ordinary human interests of its inhabitants were all too low in tone and insignificant to secure alien sympathy. So Haiyat Bibi's peeping eyes and her Delhi-made jewels were disturbing elements unknown to those who signed the monthly criminal reports with placid self-satisfaction at their own success in securing virtue. Even when, egged on by the family, her best-looking male cousin made bids for possession of both these charms in various underhand ways, the consequent employment of Faizullah Khan's marital discipline did not resound so far as the _hâkm's_ ears.

Therefore it was an unpleasant surprise when, some six weeks after the original homily against peeping, the significant red envelope which proclaims the shedding of blood found its way into the Deputy Commissioner's mail-bag, and brought the news of Haiyat Bibi's murder by her husband, and his subsequent flight to the hills. Furthermore, it was reported by the sergeant of police, whose very writing showed signs of trepidation, that the whole village was in an uproar, and he himself quite unable to cope with the situation. As luck would have it, some eighty miles of desert and alluvial land lay between the excited village and the fountains of law and order; for when the red envelope arrived, the responsible officials were in camp at the other end of the district. Nearly a week passed ere they could arrive on the scene, and by that time the villagers had sworn to renew a blood-feud which in past days had thriven bravely between their clan and that of the murderer. They were, in fact, on the point of turning their ploughshares into swords--an example which is dangerously contagious among the border tribes. Owing, therefore, to the necessity of persuading the people to trust the far-reaching arm of the law for revenge, instead of seeking it for themselves, the actual murder itself dropped into comparative insignificance. Indeed, the details of the crime were meagre in the extreme, though the evidence of previous jealousy on the husband's part, even to the point of grievous hurt, was copious. Nor did the family of the murdered woman's late husband hesitate to accuse her blood-relations of a deliberate attempt to seduce her from the path of virtue, in order to bring about a poisoning of the bold Faizullah, and a subsequent transference of her affection, and her jewels, to a more suitable husband. Inquiry, indeed, opened up such a vista of conflicting rascality, that the district-officer was fain to draw a decent veil over it by accepting the result, namely, that on a certain specified night, between certain specified hours, Faizullah Khan, not content with having beaten his wife to the verge of death during the day, had stealthily completed his devilish work, dragged the corpse of his victim a mile or two from the village, stripped it of ornament, and left it to be devoured by jackals and hyenas. In support of which statements, gruesome remains, found, it was said, some days after the woman's disappearance, were produced and sworn to vociferously by all. Relics of this sort are apt to be somewhat indefinite; this objection, however, was met by the subsequent discovery of portions of Haiyat Bibi's clothing, and a golden ear-ring which the murderer had evidently dropped in his flight. The latter whetted the desire for revenge to a point, for, as the district-officer sorrowfully admitted to himself, the old-fashioned wrath at injury to their women, so conspicuous among these border clans, was now freely intermixed with that greed of gold which civilisation brings in its wake. Finally, since nothing else could be done, a reward of two thousand rupees was put upon the capture of one Faizullah Khan, Belooch of Birokzai, accused of murdering his wife and stealing her jewels, value twelve hundred rupees. In addition, vague promises were made that on the next punitive expedition into the mountains an eye would be kept on the escaped criminal's particular village, and some indemnity exacted. There the matter rested peacefully, and so, on the whole, did the village, though the friction between the blood-relations of the murdered woman and her connections by marriage remained a fruitful source of petty disturbance.

"There is something odd about that case," remarked a new magistrate when some fresh complaint of quarrel came in for settlement. "It is always more satisfactory to have a real, _whole_ body; but when there is neither corpse nor criminal it is useless depending on facts at all." The police officer, however, declared, that having personally conducted the inquiry no mistake in either facts or conclusions was possible.

Eighteen months passed by and early spring was melting the snows on that great rampart of hills which, properly guarded, would make the rich plains of India impregnable to a western foe. The border land was astir, its officials busy, for the long-talked-of punitive expedition was about to thread its way through the peaks and passes, bearing the rod which teaches respect, and perhaps fidelity. On the outermost skirts of British territory the district-officer sat in front of his tent writing a rose-coloured report on the progress of education. It was long overdue owing to the pressure of martial preparations, so he was in a hurry and superlatives came fast.

"A Belooch from beyond the border is seeking the Presence with insistence," pleaded a deferential myrmidon.

"Let him come," was the prompt reply; and the pen, laid aside, rolled over, blotting the last sentence. What matter? Reports have various values, and the Belooch might bring information that would make force more forcible.

An old soldier, by the look of him, tall and well set up, with merry brown eyes and a determined face. He brought himself to the salute gravely. "May the life of the Presence be prolonged and may his gracious ears bear with a question. Is it true that the armies of the Lord of the Universe march against the village of one Faizullah of Birokzai?"

"The armies of the Kaiser-i-Hind march against all thieves and murderers, no matter who they are."

"The words of the Presence are just altogether. Yet may the Protector of the Poor bear with this dust-like one. Is it true that he who brings Faizullah captive will receive two thousand rupees reward?"

"It is true."

"_Wah illah!_ The purse of the great Queen is big if the long tongue of the Presence wags in it so freely. The sum is great."

"The crime is great. He murdered his wife; besides, he stole twelve hundred rupees' worth of jewels."

The smile of contempt which had crept into the listener's face at the first part of the sentence gave place to a frown at the sequel. "The Presence says it; shall it not be true?" he remarked with deference after a pause. "Nevertheless the sum exceeds the purchase. Does not the price of the calf buy the cow also?[24] There is no wisdom in a bad bargain."

The Deputy Commissioner looked at the new comer sharply. "Doubtless; yet none have given the man up, though all know we will keep our threat of burning the village next month."

The sudden clenching of the slender, nervous hands and quick inflation of the nostrils convinced the Englishman that there was an envoy prepared with concessions, but asking for some in return.

"The Presence hath said it, shall it not be true?" came the urbane reply. "Yet we Beloochees do not give up our friends readily. Still Faizullah is no friend of mine, so for twelve hundred rupees I will bring him to the Presence, _dead or alive_, if his honour pleases."

The Deputy Commissioner stared. "But the reward is two thousand; why do you ask less?"

"The price of the calf is the price of the cow, _Huzoor!_ I lack but one thing, and the sum is enough for the purchase. Am I a pig of _baniah_ to fill my stomach with rupees I cannot digest? Nevertheless the task is hard, and those who go near violence may suffer violence. What good then would the money be to me if I were dead?"

Like many of his race, he had a curiously round mellow voice that seemed to linger over the slow, stately periods as he went on deliberately. "Surely God will reward the Presence for his patience! But a man's son is as himself. And I have a son, _Huzoor_, a babe in his mother's arms--may the Lord bring him safe to man's estate! If the great Purveyor of Justice would cause a writing to be made, setting forth that my son is as myself, and my earnings as his earnings--nay, surely the Presence will have the best bliss of Paradise reserved for it specially! And if the munificent Keeper of the Purse of Kings would cause the twelve hundred rupees to be set apart from this day in the hands of some notable banker--not that this slave doubts, but the Presence knows the guile of all women, and that all men are born of women, and therefore guileful. It knows also that without the hope of money naught but the stars in heaven will move; and if I say, 'Lo, I will give, when I have it,' who will listen? But if I say, 'Lo! there it is safe, do my bidding and take it,' 'tis a different matter. If, therefore, the Presence will do this, his slave will bring Faizullah, Belooch of Birokzai, to him _alive or dead_, and there will be no need to burn the village."

"And the jewels?"

Once more the frown came quick. "If I bring Faizullah to the Halls of Justice alive, surely the mightiness of the Presence will make him speak. If I bring him dead, can this slave follow him and find speech in the silence of the grave? Say! is it a bargain? Yes or no?"

The anxious brevity of the last question showed the sincerity of the man more than all his measured words, and after some further parley, the conditions were arranged. That is to say, the sum of twelve hundred rupees was forthwith to be paid into the hands of a responsible third party, and the informer was to bring Faizullah to the Deputy Commissioner dead or alive, before reprisals had been taken on the village, when, even if he lost his life in the capture, the reward was to be paid to his heirs and assigns. He positively refused to give either name or designation, asserting with the measure of sound common sense which characterised all his utterances, firstly, that no one would know if he gave a false one; secondly, that if he failed to keep his promise he would prefer to remain in oblivion; thirdly, that if he did succeed in bringing Faizullah to book, the Presence would be sure to recognise his servant and slave. Thus he departed as he came, a nameless stranger.

Three days after an excited crowd rode pell-mell into the magistrate's compound. "_Huzoor!_ we have found him! we have found him!" rose a dozen voices, as the more influential men of the party crushed into the office room.

"Who?"

"Faizullah the Belooch! Faizullah the murderer! The reward is ours, praise be to God and to your honour's opulence. _Wah_, the glad day! _Wah_, the great day!"

"_Salaam alaikoum_, Friend of the Poor Man!" came an urbane voice from their midst. "The dust-like slave of the Presence hath kept his word. Behold! I bring to you Faizullah Khan, Belooch of Birokzai, alive, not dead."

A sudden hush fell on the jostling crew as the prisoner raised his fettered hands in grave obeisance, and then solemnly, vigorously, spat to right and left ere he began: "Snakes gorged to impotence by their own greed! Bullocks with but one set of eyes to seven stomachs! Listen! whilst I recount the tale of your infamies to the ear of this wise judge. _Huzoor!_ I am Faizullah, husband of the virtuous Haiyat, mother of my son, dwelling content in the house of my father. Yea! it is true. For her jewels' sake, her father-in-law bound me by promises, when he found me caught in the meshes. So for her sake I stayed in a strange land, and the fields and the jewels were as his. Then the old man yonder, her uncle, wroth at the marriage, set his son to beguile her; so I beat her till she had no heart to be beguiled. For all that they would not cease from evil ways. Therefore said I to her father-in-law: 'Let me go, for surely if I stay thy daughter-in-law will have to die some day, and then her blood-kin will claim all. Let me go in peace with the Core of my Heart; but keep thou the jewels, for I have no need of them.' So in the night, he consenting, I crept away with her in my arms, for she had eaten her full of the bamboo that day, and could not walk. The Presence knows what came next--how they called me murderer and thief, her blood-kin claiming the land, her father-in-law denying that he had the jewels--and I nursing her to health in the mountains! _Huzoor!_ the _sahib-logues_ are like eagles. They look at the Sun of Justice and see not the maggots it breeds in carrion like these men. Yet what cared I, away in the hills, what men called me here, save that my house wept for her jewels, and I knew not how to get them; for the reward was heavy and oaths are cheap in your land. Then came word that the armies of the Lord of the Universe were to march on this slave's village, and I said, 'What is life to me? I will try and speak them fair.' The Presence knows what came next. When the paper concerning the twelve hundred rupees had been writ, I knew that my house would have her rights anyhow, even if the eyes of the Just Judge were blinded by false oaths, or that I came dead into the Presence. So I said by message to the carrion: 'Dispute no longer among yourselves. Let me buy the jewels at the price ye have put on them. Let one take the money and the other the land, or half-and-half. Only give me the jewels, and say in the Court of Justice,--"Lo! we were mistaken! Faizullah hath not killed his wife. He nursed her back to life, and she hath a right to the jewels and her son after her. But the land is ours by agreement."' And to this they said 'Yea' guilefully. But when I went to the village, trusting them not at all, they seized me and brought me hither for the reward, not knowing that the Presence had deigned to cast his gracious eye on this poor man before, and that the reward was for me, or my son. It is spoken. Let the Presence decide!"

Nothing is more surprising than the rapidity with which a got-up case breaks down when once the judge is seen to have an inkling of the truth. _Suave qui peut_ is then the motto; especially when nothing more is to be gained from consistency. Haiyat's relations professed themselves both astonished and overjoyed at her return to life, and before the inquiry was over had arranged for the discovery of the jewels, which were found carefully hidden away in the house of Haiyat Bibi's female attendant, who had died of cholera the year before, an ingenious incident productive of injured innocence to all the living.

"It has not emptied the purse of the great Queen after all," said Faizullah with a broad smile, as he stood beside the Deputy Commissioner on the crest of a hill, and pointed to a terraced village on the opposite side of the valley. "Nor hath the house of the poor suffered; for the dwelling of this slave will not burn."

The jewels were in a bundle under his arm, and he was taking leave of the expedition he had accompanied so far. He turned to go, then suddenly saluted in military fashion. "If this dust-like one might give freedom to his tongue for a space, the wisdom of experience might reach the ear of those above it. Yea, of a surety the patience of the Presence is beyond praise! _Huzoor!_ if the reward writ in the police stations had been for me, alive or dead, peace would have been beyond my fate, for the great mind of the Protector of the Poor will perceive that a man hath no power against false oaths when once his own tongue is stilled by death; and that even the justice of kings avails little when the case has been decided already. Let this memory remain with the _sahibs_, 'Peace bringeth Plenty, and Plenty bringeth Power.' So it comes that false oaths are easy under the rule of the Presence."

That was his farewell.

The snow still lay low, but the orchards were ablaze with blossom as, next morning, the little force led by white faces straggled peacefully along the cobbled ledges of the steep village lane. On either side strips of garden ground, where the heart-shaped leaves of the sweet yam pushed from the brown soil, led up to the low houses, backed by peach and almond trees and festooned by withered gourds. On the steps leading to a high-perched dwelling overhanging the lane, stood Faizullah Khan with a sturdy youngster in his arms. The Deputy Commissioner happening to come last and alone, stopped to look at the child with kindly eyes. As he did so a door above was set ajar, and through the chink he caught a glimpse of a singularly beautiful pair of black eyes, and a flash of jewels.

"It is my house, _Huzoor_," said Faizullah with rather a sheepish grin. "I gave her leave to peep this time."

THE FOOTSTEP OF DEATH.

Godliness is great riches if a man be content with what he hath.

These words invariably carry me back in the spirit to a certain avenue of _shesham_ trees I knew in India; an avenue six miles long, leading through barren sandy levels to the river which divided civilisation from the frontier wilds; an avenue like the aisle of a great cathedral with tall straight trunks for columns, and ribbed branches sweeping up into a vaulted roof set with starry glints of sunshine among the green fret-work of the leaves. Many a time as I walked my horse over its chequered pavement of shade and shine I have looked out sideways on the yellow glare of noon beyond in grateful remembrance of the man who,--Heaven knows when!--planted this refuge for unborn generations of travellers. Not a bad monument to leave behind one among forgetful humanity.

The avenue itself, for all its contenting shade, had nothing to do with the text which brings it to memory--that co-ordination being due to an old _fakeer_ who sat at the river end, where, without even a warning brake, the aisle ended in a dazzling glare of sand-bank. This sudden change no doubt accounted for the fact that on emerging from the shade I always seemed to see a faint, half-hearted mirage of the still unseen river beyond. An elusive mirage, distinct in the first surprise of its discovery, vanishing when the attention sought for it. Altogether a disturbing phenomenon, refusing to be verified; for the only man who could have spoken positively on the subject was the old _fakeer_, and he was stone-blind. His face gave evidence of the cause in the curious puffiness and want of expression which confluent small-pox often leaves behind it. In this case it had played a sorrier jest with the human face divine than usual, by placing a fat bloated mask wearing a perpetual smirk of content on the top of a mere anatomy of a body. The result was odd. For the rest a very ordinary _fakeer_, cleaner than most by reason of the reed broom at his side, which proclaimed him a member of the sweeper, or lowest, caste; in other words, one of those who at least gain from their degradation the possibility of living cleanly without the aid of others. There are many striking points about our Indian Empire; none perhaps more so, and yet less considered, than the disabilities which caste brings in its train--the impossibility, for instance, of having your floor swept unless Providence provides a man made on purpose. My _fakeer_, however, was of those to whom cleanliness and not godliness is the reason of existence.

That was why his appeal for alms, while it took a religious turn as was necessary, displayed also a truly catholic toleration. It consisted of a single monotonous cry: "In the name of your own Saint,"--or, as it might be translated, "In the name of your own God." It thrilled me oddly every time I heard it by its contented acquiescence in the fact that the scavenger's god was not a name wherewith to conjure charity. What then? The passer-by could give in the name of his particular deity and let the minor prophets go.

The plan seemed successful, for the wooden bowl, placed within the clean-swept ring bordered by its edging of dust or mud, wherein he sat winter and summer, was never empty, and his cry, if monotonous, was cheerful. Not ten yards from his station beneath the last tree, the road ended in a deep cutting, through which a low-level bed of water flowed to irrigate a basin of alluvial land to the south; but a track, made passable for carts by tiger-grass laid athwart the yielding sand, skirted the cut to reach a ford higher up. A stiff bit for the straining bullocks, so all save the drivers took the short cut by the plank serving as a footbridge. It served also as a warning to the blind _fakeer_, without which many a possible contributor to the bowl might have passed unheard and unsolicited over the soft sand. As it was, the first creak of the plank provoked his cry.

It was not, however, till I had passed the old man many times in my frequent journeyings across the river that I noticed two peculiarities in his method. He never begged of me or any other European who chanced that way, nor of those coming from the city to the river. The latter might be partly set down to the fact that from his position he could not hear their footsteps on the bridge till after they had passed; but the former seemed unaccountable; and one day when the red-funnelled steam ferry-boat, which set its surroundings so utterly at defiance, was late, I questioned him on the subject.

"You lose custom, surely, by seeking the shade?" I began. "If you were at the other side of the cut you would catch those who come from the city. They are the richest."

As he turned his closed eyes towards me with a grave obeisance which did not match the jaunty content of his mask, he looked--sitting in the centre of his swept circle--ludicrously like one of those penwipers young ladies make for charity bazaars.

"The Presence mistakes," he replied. "Those who come from the town have empty wallets. 'Tis those who come from the wilderness who give."

"But you never beg of me, whether I go or come. Why is that?"

"I take no money, _Huzoor_; it is of no use to me. The _sahibs_ carry no food with them; not even tobacco, only cheroots."

The evident regret in the latter half of his sentence amused me. "'Tis you who mistake, _fakeer-ji_," I replied, taking out my pouch. "I am of those who smoke pipes. And now tell me why you refuse money; most of your kind are not so self-denying."

"That is easy to explain. Some cannot eat what is given; with me it is the other way. As my lord knows, we dust-like ones eat most things your God has made. But we cannot eat money, perhaps because He did not make it--so the _padres_ say."

"Ah! you are learned; but you can always buy."

"Begging is easier. See! my bowl is full, and the munificent offering of the Presence is enough for two pipes. What more do I want?"

Viewed from his standpoint the question was a hard one to answer. The sun warmed him, the leaves sheltered him, the passers-by nourished him, all apparently to his utmost satisfaction. I felt instinctively that the state of his mind was the only refuge for the upholders of civilisation and a high standard of comfort. So I asked him what he thought about all day long. His reply brought total eclipse to all my lights.

"_Huzoor!_" he said gravely, "I meditate on the Beauty of Holiness."

It was then that the text already quoted became indissolubly mixed up with the spreading _shesham_ branches, the glare beyond, and that life-sized penwiper in the foreground. I whistled the refrain of a music-hall song and pretended to light my pipe. "How long have you been here?" I asked, after a time, during which he sat still as a graven image with his closed eyes towards the uncertain mirage of the river.

"'Tis nigh on thirty years, my lord, since I have been waiting."

"Waiting for what?"

"For the Footstep of Death--hark!" he paused suddenly, and a tremor came to his closed eyelids as he gave the cry: "In the name of your God!"

The next instant a faint creak told me that the first passenger from the newly-arrived ferry-boat had set foot on the bridge. "You have quick ears, _fakeer-ji_," I remarked.

"I live on footsteps, my lord."

"And when the Footstep of Death comes, you will die of one, I presume!"

He turned his face towards me quickly; it gave me quite a shock to find a pair of clear, light-brown eyes looking at, or rather beyond, me. From his constantly closed lids I had imagined that--as is so often the case in small-pox--the organs of sight were hopelessly diseased or altogether destroyed; indeed I had been grateful for the concealment of a defect out of which many beggars would have made capital. But these eyes were apparently as perfect as my own, and extraordinarily clear and bright--so clear that it seemed to me as if they did not even hold a shadow of the world around them. The surprise made me forget my first question in another.

"_Huzoor!_" he replied, "I am quite blind. The Light came from the sky one day and removed the Light I had before. It was a bad thunder-storm, _Huzoor_; at least, being the last this slave saw, he deems it bad. But it is time the Great Judge took his exalted presence to yonder snorting demon of a boat, for it is ill-mannered, waiting for none. God knows wherefore it should hurry so. The river remains always, and sooner or later the screeching thing sticks on a sand-bank."

"True enough," I replied, laughing. "Well, _salaam, fakeer-ji_."

"_Salaam_, Shelter of the World. May the God of gods elevate your honour to the post of Lieutenant-Governor without delay."

After this I often stopped to say a few words to the old man and give him a pipeful of tobacco. For the ferry-boat fulfilled his prophecy of its future to a nicety, by acquiring intimate acquaintance with every shallow in the river--a habit fatal to punctuality. It was an odd sight lying out, so trim and smart, in the wastes of sand and water. Red funnels standing up from among Beloochees and their camels, bullocks scarred by the plough, _zenana_-women huddled in helpless white heaps, wild frontiersmen squatted on the saddle-bags with which a sham orientalism has filled our London drawing-rooms. Here and there a dejected half-caste or a specimen of young India brimful of _The Spectator_. Over all, on the bridge, Captain Ram Baksh struggling with a double nature, represented on the one side by his nautical pea-coat, on the other by his baggy native trousers. "Ease her! stop her! hard astern! full speed ahead!" All the shibboleths, even to the monotonous "_ba-la-mar-do_" (by the mark two) of the leadsman forr'ards. Then, suddenly, overboard goes science and with it a score of lascars and passengers, who, knee-deep in the ruddy stream, set their backs lazily against the side, and the steam ferry-boat _Pioneer_, built at Barrow-in-Furness with all the latest improvements, sidles off her sand-bank in the good old legitimate way sanctioned by centuries of river usage. To return, however, to _fakeer-ji_. I found him as full of trite piety as a copy-book, and yet, for all that, the fragments of his history, with which he interlarded these common-places, seemed to me well worth consideration. Imagine a man born of a long line of those who have swept the way for princes--who have, as it were, prepared God's earth for over-refined footsteps. That, briefly, had been _fakeer-ji's_ inheritance before he began to wait for the Footstep of Death. Whatever it may do to the imagination of others, the position appealed to mine strongly, the more so because, while speaking freely enough about the family of decayed kings to whom he and his forebears had belonged, and of the ruined palace they still possessed in the oldest part of the city, he was singularly reticent as to the cause which had turned him into a religious beggar. For the rest he waited in godliness and contentment (or so he assured me) for the Footstep of Death.

The phrase grew to be quite a catch-word between us. "Not come yet, _fakeer-ji?_" I would call as I trotted past after a few days' absence.

"_Huzoor!_ I am still waiting. It will come some time."