III.
"One and one make two--oo--oo,
Two and two make four--or--or."
"That is enough, my daughters," said Fâtma, royally. "Miream and Anna will play with Mohammed Ali; Janet and Kareem will take Ahmad Hassan for a walk down the alley and back again. The rest of you will sit still and think how good you are going to be to-morrow."
The little, large-eyed, gentle mites, ranged solemnly behind a row of ink-pots, primers, and writing-boards, did as they were bid decorously--for the organization of Mussamat Fâtma's school was excellent, its discipline first class. The cleanliness, too, of its primers, its pens, and its writing-boards was quite abnormal. Not because of abnormal neatness, but because none of these things were ever used. They were there because that was part of the game of school, and Fâtma's school was emphatically a school with the learning left out. To be sure, the pupils chanted their letters, and asserted the gospel that one and one make two all the world over; but, after that, education went down the by-path of learning how to sit still and do as you were bid. Yet somehow the wee girlies liked it well, and their busy mothers liked it better still. In that crowded quarter of evil repute it was something to have a crêche, where for a few hours the little ones with a tempting jewel or two were safe from the avarice of any passer-by. And then Fâtma's pupils gave no trouble at home. So the school throve, and though educationally, of course, it was a miserable sham, it gave great satisfaction to all concerned; Fâtma finding sufficient payment in the general good-will of her neighbours, and the constant relays of nurse-maids she secured. She had plenty of time now for the golden stars; and since Lâlu, the cripple's grandmother, had died, Fâtma not only got full price for the work she did for him, but earned something besides by cooking his bread and doing his marketing when she did her own. An excellent plan, said the neighbours, since Mussumat Fâtma, aged fourteen, was as sedate as a great-grandmother, and poor Lâlu, for all his kind face and clever hands, was not to be reckoned as a possible husband for any one. The only thing over which the women shook their heads was this lack of a husband for the girl, who, though she was a little crooked perhaps, with hauling those big children up and down stairs, had not, like Lâlu, lost her right to be married. What excuse could that rascal Peru offer to his conscience for his neglect of the natural guardian's first duty? He, and Chundoo, and Hoshiaribi flaunting away in the Badâmi bazar, were no better than pigs of infidels. It would serve them right if Fâtma were to appeal modestly to the elders, and let herself go to a husband for the beggarly five dumris the law demands. Then Peru would have to support his boys, and would not even get compensation in the price of the bride. But Fâtma herself scouted the idea. She had seen enough of husbands, and would never marry. She had her babies and her school; and then there was always Lâlu, who was as wise as any saint, and as good as any father to the boys. She used to leave them in his charge when she did her marketing; for this was after hours, when her little school-maidens had gone home. And as for Hassan Ahmad, the yellow-legged baby of two years past, if ever he went a-missing, Fâtma knew she would find him cuddled up among Lâlu's helpless legs, watching the gold thread loop itself into dainty patterns very different from her coarse, crooked stars, and listening contentedly to Lâlu's musical voice intoning some versicle of the Koran. He knew as many as a Moulvi, she used to say proudly; for all that she repulsed with scorn his suggestion that she should teach some to her pupils.
"Ai tobak, Mian Lâl Khan! Dost forget mine is 'primary girls' school'? It is not a 'missen' or an 'indigenous school.' We do not teach such things. Only letters and tables, and such like."
She did not care to confess that she herself knew none of the versicles which even the poorest girl ought to know.
"Well, well, perhaps thou art right, Mussumat Fâtma," he replied. "All learning is good." As he sat at his work he used often to pause and listen with a smile to the chorus of children's voices, insisting on the fact that one and one make two. After all, it did not differ much from the creed he had somehow extracted from the sonorous Arabic phrases which were so constantly on his lips. What was, was; what would be, would be.
Meanwhile life was brighter for him because of Fâtma and the baby, Hassan Ahmad cuddling close to him, and the children's chorus echoing up the stairs. It was easier for Fâtma also. When she had closed the door at ten o'clock one night, nearly two years ago, and counted out the money in order to buy a "Maw," she had thought of nothing but the immediate morrow. Now, when she barred it, she closed it deliberately against all interference. Peru, at first, had come prowling round to see how matters went, and Hoshiaribi had sent inquiries from the Badami bazar. Fâtma had given both a cool reception. She was quite happy, quite content. The babies did not belong to those budzarts; they belonged to her. So, by degrees, they had left her to her own devices, and for the last year she had seen or heard nothing of them.
It was a stifling afternoon in August. The dry heat which had baked into the bricks with the June sun, had boiled out of them again with the scanty rain of July into a sort of sodden vapour, like the hot breath of some evil creature. The alley smelled horribly. Even the inhabitants spat as they emerged from the dark drain of a tenement stair, which all the sweeping in the world could not keep clean. The very water spilled on it, as the woman carried the chatties full to their rooms, seemed to dissolve the dirt and give it greater freedom. When those on the ground-floor sprinkled the entry for the sake of coolness, the stench rose to the roof. And in and out the highways and byways of the city cholera played pranks with the people--here to-day, gone tomorrow; biding its time, till on some steamy, dull morning folk would wake to find it in earnest.
"The sickness was at Haiyatun's yesterday," Râjjun would say to Fâjjan; "it took the cousin who came from Umritsur. The police were burning clothes and sulphur as I went by this morning. It is tyranny when the Lord is over all."
"Yea, and they carried Mai Jeswant's man to the hospital, and the doctors never left him, but he died all the same. Look you, 'tis God's will."
And the two women grinding at the mill ground on. The one might be taken and the other left before the day was out, but the meal was wanted for the survivors' supper. People all over the world die silently from pluck, or pride, or piety; but not all of them die as these do, casting no shadow of blame either on the heaven above or on the earth beneath. One has to go to civilized lands, and to a people who profess a faith which proclaims its triumph over the grave, before we find the fear of infection producing a selfish panic.
Fâtma, having attended the Central school during an epidemic, had views on sanitary subjects and the procedure due to the dignity of a primary school. She fumigated her maidens solemnly with sulphur, she had covers to the water-pots, and confiscated melon-rinds with the utmost rigour. This proved a vast amusement to the squatting circle.
"Ari, Muallama!" would come a little pipe. "Juntu hath a bit of pumpkin in her veil; I saw it."
Then would ensue a sort of hunt the slipper, beset for each with delicious tremors, lest, after all, the contraband morsel should be found in your possession; until some one, seized by shyness or sudden virtue, would give it up to be burned.
Fâtma, on a sultry August afternoon, had just been playing the part of grand inquisitor over a gnawed fragment of cucumber, when a big heavy-browed woman pushed her way unceremoniously into the room, and sat down on the bed with an air of possession. It was Chundoo. Fâtma had last seen her gossiping on the palazzo steps, and something told the girl the visit boded no good. Her heart gave a throb, her usual courage seemed to leave her.
"So this is thy school," began her sister-in-law. "Lord, what a farce! But that is over. I have come for thee because thy wedding is settled at last. The dates will be brought to-morrow, so thou hadst as well return with me to-night. 'Twill save trouble."
The studiously careless tone of undoubted authority had its effect. There was nothing incredible in it. Marriage in Fâtma's world meant coercion. She had seen most of her contemporaries handed over to a husband without even a pretence of consulting their wishes.
"I--I--want no husband," she faltered, utterly taken aback.
Chundoo laughed--a nasty laugh.
"Wah illah! So girls say ever. 'Tis pretty behaviour, and thou hast said it. The thing is settled."
"By Peru?" asked the girl, quickly.
"By Peru; who else? Look you, the scoundrel is in jail. Nay, why shouldst start? It was his appointed end, and serve him right, wasting my substance to a shadow. He robbed a peasant in the serai, treating him with liquor, after 'Englis fassen.' Well, he is there for two years, and hath repented him of the evil and bethought him of his duty. So I have found thee a husband--honourable, if somewhat old. But thou, God knows, art a grandmother, so that matters not. And he can afford to pay for a young wife, and keep her in plenty. So send these brats away, and the woman I have downstairs will take them to Hoshiaribi. Their father being in jail, they are her charge, not mine. Come, chicken, there is no time to lose."
She laid her hand on the girl's arm as Fâtma stood stupidly staring at her. The touch seemed to make her realize the situation, for she darted with a cry to where her babies sat in the charge of the first class.
Perhaps the little nurses, gazing with that stolid, wide-eyed dislike at the strange woman who spoke so roughly to their teacher, thought that the latter sought their protection. They gave it anyhow. In a second, Chundoo was surrounded by a mob of twenty mites, full of shrill cries and ineffectual beatings of tiny hands--ineffectual, till the tiniest, giving way to the natural Eve, slipped down and deliberately bit the enemy in the calf. Chundoo, yelling with pain, slapped right and left. Fâtma, her fear gone before this attack on her pupils, flew to the rescue. Such a scene had not been enacted within those walls for two years. Before five minutes passed even the stairs were blocked by infuriated mothers.
When Chundoo had been dragged off the Kôtwal, followed by half the matrons in the alley, Fâtma sat down, dazed and dry-eyed, between her two charges. That bite had saved her; she would not have to go that evening, perhaps not even to-morrow. But afterwards? Girls had to be married, and Peru could marry her to any one he chose. Even the neighbours, when they heard about the husband, would side against her. And it would be of no use to beg mercy of Peru in jail. That was the very reason why they had thought of marrying her. The money would be useful to keep Chundoo comfortable, and yet she would not be bothered with the boys, as she would have been had Peru been free. Now Hoshiaribi, their mother, must keep them, but Chundoo would get the dowry. What did it matter who got it, if she must marry?--and if Peru said she must, she must. There was no help; even the neighbours would side against her.
A rapping on the floor above reminded her that she had forgotten Lâlu's dinner. Poor Lâlu! Who would look after him when she was gone? Drearily and still dry-eyed, she hitched the two-year-old on her hip, and with a pile of dough-cakes and pease porridge in her hand toiled up the stair behind Hassan Ahmad, who climbed the high brick steps on all-fours, slowly, methodically.
It was almost dark in the room above, and Lâlu's voice came kindly from a shadowy corner.
"Trouble no further, Mussumat Fâtma. I was loath to knock, yet knew thou wouldst be vexed to forget. Set the food down--so. Sure thou hast enough to-day without my service."
She gave way to tears then, and crouched down on the floor suddenly, an image of forlorn, crushing grief.
"O Lâlu, Lâlu! Peru is going to marry me, and what will become of my school? And what will become of my babies? And what will become of you, O Lâlu?"
Hassan Ahmad had toddled over to the cripple's helpless knee, and Mohammed Ali, half asleep, buried his head on the girl's thin breast. There was no sound in the room save her sobbing, and a passing rustle as if something in the shadows had tried to move and sank back to the old position again. After a time the response came feebly:
"Ai, my sister, cry not. Marriage is good. It is the Lord's will, and Peru hath the right."
Perhaps for the first time the cripple hesitated in his creed. To say sooth, it seemed odd to put Peru on the Lord's side.
"Yes, he hath the right. Therefore I cry, Lâlu. Is there nothing to be done, Lâlu? Canst thou not help at all?"
Lâlu, in the shadows, looked down at his dexterous hands, then covered his face with them. They were good for nothing else. A girl must marry where she was bidden, and even had the rest of him been as face and hands, there would have been nothing to be done, nothing to be said. What chance had a cripple, a girl, and two babies, against the will of the Lord represented by law backed up by principalities and powers, by custom and chief courts, by wisdom and civilization?
"Cry not, my sister, cry not. Marriage is honourable in all."
So by degrees Fâtma's sobs ceased before the inevitable.
"Come, Hassan Ahmad," she cried; "it grows late. 'Tis time for sleep."
"He sleeps already," replied the voice from the shadows; "'twere pity to wake him, sister."
"I will carry Mohammed Ali first and then come back." Her old decision and motherliness showed even through her utter dejection.
Lâlu gathered the boy closer and half mechanically hummed the chorus he had so often heard Fâtma use as a lullaby. Yes, one and one made two, and two and two made four. But only if God willed it so; not otherwise.
"Stoop down, little mother, and I will lift the boy to thee," he said, when Fâtma, feeling her way through the dark, paused as her fingers touched Lâlu's knee. She felt his fine hands linger as he drew them from the burden he laid in her arms--linger almost caressingly.
"One and one, and two and two, are what He chooses to make them. Remember that, my sister."
"Not so, Lâlu. In school they are ever the same. The big teacher said so. One and one is two all the world over."
He sighed, sitting crouched up in the dark; then he called after her, "Peace go with thee, Mussumat Fâtma."
"And peace be thine, Lâlu," echoed back from the stairs.
The next morning the whole alley was being censed. A group of policemen were standing round a bonfire of beds and clothes over which the flames licked blue and clear as the brimstone was scattered on it.
Fâtma's room was empty, so was Lâlu's. So were several others in the high pestilential tenements of the quarter. The cholera had grown tired of playing at school. It had taken arithmetic and education and creeds and customs all into its own hands and settled the problem its own way. Two and two were not four, but none; and only Chundoo called Heaven to witness that she had been defrauded of the remuneration justly due to those who possess a marriageable female relation. The rest of the neighbours said it was God's will.
[IN A CITRON GARDEN.]
This is a very idle tale--only the record of five minutes in a citron garden. Not a terraced patch set like a puzzle with toy trees, such as one sees on the Riviera, but a vast scented shade, unpruned by greed of gain, where sweet limes, mandarins, shaddocks, and blood-oranges blended flower and fruit and leaf into one all-sufficing shelter from the sun. There are many such gardens in India, lingering round the ruined palaces or tombs of bygone kings. This particular one hid in its perfumed heart a white marble mausoleum, where the red and green parrots inlaid themselves like mosaic among the tracery. For they are decorative birds, and, being untrammelled by prejudice regarding the position of their heads, lend themselves to many a graceful, topsy-turvy pattern. Girding the garden was a wall twenty feet high, bastioned like a fort, but, despite its thickness, crumbling here and there from sheer old age; invisible, too, for all its height from within, by reason of the tall thickets of wild lemon on its inner edge. Four broad alleys, sentinelled by broken fountains, converged to the mausoleum, high above a marble reservoir where the water still lingered, hiding its stagnation beneath a carpet of lotus-leaves. From these, again, narrower paths mapped the garden into squares, each concealed by the dense foliage from the next. It was a maze of shadowy ways edged by little runnels of water and bordered by roses and jasmine, with here and there a huge white dræcena usurping the path. Day and night the water ran clear and cool, to flood each square in turn, till it showed a shining lake, wherein the roof of fruit and blossom lay reflected as in a mirror.
A Garden of Eden; like it, tenanted by a woman and a snake; famous, also, for its forbidden fruit.
Nowhere did shaddocks grow so regardless of possible danger to the world. The green-gold globes weighed the branches to the ground; the massive flowers burdened the air with perfume. For all their solid, somewhat stolid look, they are fragile flowers. Gather a spray as gently as you can, and only the buds remain; the perfect flower has fallen. So, in a citron garden it is well to purge the soul from "karma" or desire, in order to reach the "nirvana" of content in which--so say the Buddhists--lies the full perfection of possession.
Naraini, the gardener's granddaughter, had different views. She stood, at the beginning of the five minutes, beneath a citron-tree. One dimpled brown hand held the branch above her, and, as she swayed her body to and fro leisurely, the flowers dropped into her stretched veil. She was not unlike a citron-blossom herself. Like them, arrayed boldly in saffron and white; like them, looking the world in the face with calm consciousness that she was worth a look in return. Finally, her world was theirs--that is to say, these few acres of scented shade. As yet Naraini knew no other, though the next day she was to leave it and her childhood in order to follow the unknown bridegroom to whom she had been married for twelve years.
The incessant throbbing of a tom-tom, the occasional blare of a horrible horn in the ruined arcade which was all that remained of a royal rest-house, proclaimed that the marriage festivities were even now going on beyond the crumbling walls. From all this Naraini being necessarily excluded, she had spent the morning in receiving the female visitors with simulated tears, in order to impress them with her admirable culture; thereinafter relapsing, with them, to shrill-voiced feminine chatter until the heat of noon stilled even the women's tongues. Then, driven by an odd unrest, she had slipped away to the cool alleys she knew so well; even there busying herself with preparations, since the flowers she gathered would be needed to strew the bridal bed. It was no new task. Every year an old distiller came, in blossom-time, to set up his still beside the well. Then, in the dewy dawns, she and the old grandmother beat down the blossoms, and when sunset brought respite from the heat Naraini used to watch while the flowers were crushed into the pan, and luted down with clay as if into a grave. And a grave it was to beauty. The first time she saw the yellow mash which was left after the sweetness had trickled into the odd assortment of bottles the old distiller brought with him, she had cried bitterly. But a whole bottle of orange-flower water as her very own had been consoling, and the fact that the label proclaimed her treasure to be "Genuine, Old, Unsweetened Gin" did not disturb her ignorance.
Every year afterwards the old man had given her another bottle, and as she had always chosen a fresh label, she had quite an assortment of them in the shed which served her as a play-room. And now, being nearly sixteen, she was about to leave other things besides that row of bottles labelled "Encore," "Dry Monopole," "Heidsiecker," and "Chloric Ether Bitters!"
She was not alarmed. She had taken a peep at her future husband that morning and satisfied herself that he had the requisite number of eyes, legs, and arms. For the rest, men were kind to pretty girls, and she knew herself to be a very pretty girl. It is hard to convey any impression of the girl's state of mind to English ears, simply because marriage had never been presented to her as an occasion for personal choice. She had been happy hitherto; the possession of a husband ought to increase that happiness, if Fate sent her a pleasant mother-in-law. The man himself was a trifle, since men were always kind to pretty girls. That, formulated so plainly as to rob it of all offence, was Naraini's first and last argument for content.
As she stood swaying in the shadow, some one came down the alley. She recognized him at once. It was the bridegroom; and the demon of mischief, which enters into Eastern girlhood as causelessly as it does into Western, suggested that she had him at an advantage. He had not seen her since she was three years old--could not possibly recognize her. Besides, what brought him there? An intolerable curiosity, mingled with a pleasant conviction, made her stand her ground. Perhaps she knew that the spot occupied by her was the only one visible from the roof of the arcade, and drew her own conclusions. Perhaps she did not. It was true nevertheless, and the bridegroom, having caught a glimpse of something attractive, had taken advantage of the general sleepiness to climb over the ruined wall for a closer view; for he was of those who are very kind indeed to pretty faces. He, it must be remembered, had caught no consolatory glimpse of his bride. People told him she was beautiful, but that was always said: but here was undoubted good looks; so, despite his wedding-day on the morrow, he slipped into the citron garden intent on a lark. No more refined word expresses his mood so clearly.
Naraini, however, neither shrieked nor giggled at the sight of a stranger. She simply drew her veil closer, and went on gathering citron-blossoms. He paused, uncertain of everything save her entrancing grace. Was she only a servant, or did he run risks in venturing closer? Naraini, meanwhile, behind her veil, gurgled with soft laughter, pleased at being able to test the value of her beauty on the man she meant to rule by it. So they stood--she in the shadow at one end of the alley, he in the shadow at the other; between them the scented path bordered by the runnels of water slipping by to bring a deluge to some portion of that little world. Some might have called it a pretty scene, instinct with the joy of youth; others might have turned their heads away, praying to be delivered from the world, the flesh, and the devil. Naraini thought of nothing save her own laughter.
The garden seemed asleep save for those two, as, with the cruelty of a chase waking in him, as in a cat stalking a mouse, the cruelty of success waking in her as in a snake charming a bird, the distance between them lessened.
Suddenly, with a burst of high, childish laughter, the veil full of citron-blossoms was flung in his face, and Naraini was off down the alleys, while he, with anger added to admiration, was after her.
The walls echoed to the soft thud of their flying feet--down one path, up another, round by the tomb, scaring the parrots to a screaming wheel. Confident in her superior knowledge, she paused on the topmost step, ere scudding across the causeway, to fling back a handful of flowers lingering in a fold. He set his teeth hard. If she tried short cuts, so could he; and he was round the next square so fast, that she gave a little shriek and dived into the thickest part of the garden, whither the water was flowing, and where the beasts and birds and creeping things innumerable found a cool, damp refuge. His blood was up--the jade must be caught and kissed, if only in revenge! The flutter of her saffron skirt at the opposite side of a square made him try strategy. He crept into the thickest undergrowth and waited.
Something else waited, not a footfall off, but he did not see it. His eyes were on that saffron flutter, pausing, advancing, retreating, pausing again. Naraini had lost the bearings of her pursuer, and, like a child playing "I spy," was on the alert for a surprise.
Suddenly came a cry as she caught sight of him, a shout as he bounded out; both lost in a yell arresting her flight and his, as if it had turned them to stone. He stood with the wide nostrils and fixed eyes of ghastly fear, clinging for support to the branch above him, whence the flowers fell pattering to the ground. On his ankle two spots of blood, bright against the brown skin. Across the path a big, black rope of a thing, curving swiftly to the roses beyond.
"Snake! snake!"
Her cry echoed his, as she ran back to him; but he struck at her with clenched hand.
"Go, woman--she-devil! Thou hast killed me. Curse thee! oh, curse thee for beguiling me! It has bitten me. Holy Gunga, I am dead! and I was the bridegroom. 'Tis thy fault. I was the bridegroom." He had sunk to the ground clasping his ankle, and rocked himself backward and forward, moaning and shuddering in impotent fear. Naraini stood by him. There was no hope: the big, black rope of a thing did its work well; yet, even so, anger was her first thought.
"It was a lie! 'Tis not my fault! Why didst come? Why didst follow? And if thou art the bridegroom, was not I the bride?" Then something leaped to memory. She threw her hands above her head and beat them wildly in passionate despair and horror.
"He is dead! he is dead! And I am the bride."
The words rang through the garden, and pierced even his grovelling fear. As he turned to fly, he clutched at her skirts, and dragged himself to her fiercely.
"The bride? Then the widow! my widow! Thou hast killed me, but thou canst not escape me. A widow! a widow! a widow!"
His face was terrible in its fear, its regret, its revenge. She fought against him desperately, but his hands held fast, shifting to her waist, till he forced her down to the dust beside him, where she crouched silent, like a young animal terrified into acquiescence.
"Thou shalt see me die--'tis thy fault--thou shalt see me die!" he muttered again and again.
So they sat side by side in the grip of death, his head on her bosom, his hands bruising her wrists, his eyes, full of despair and regret, on her face.
The sun-flecks shifted over them, the citron-flowers fell upon them as the afternoon breeze stirred the branches. And even when the swift poison loosed his clasp, Naraini was still a prisoner to the dead body, lying with its face of desire and disgust hidden in her lap.
She was a widow. The citron-blossom had fallen.
That night there was weeping and wailing instead of feasting in the garden; and at dawn the women put bowls of sweetened milk into the scented thickets to propitiate the holy snake, lest, having chosen one victim, it might seek a pair. Perhaps, as far as happiness goes, it might as well have claimed Naraini also.
After a time, to be sure, life went on as before. The old distiller came, and Naraini shook the blossoms for him into her widow's shroud. The sweetness of them was no less sweet as it trickled into the old gin and champagne bottles, but Naraini got no share of it. What have widows to do with the perfumes of life?
This is an idle tale of a five minutes' tragedy--perhaps none the less of a tragedy because it is true.
[NUR JEHAN.]
Long ago--so runs the story--in the days of King Akbar,
'Mid the pearly--tinted splendours of the Paradise Bazar,[[12]]
Young Jehangir, boyish--hearted, playing idly with his dove,
Lost his fav'rite, lost his boyhood, lost his heart, and found his love.
By a fretted marble fountain, set in broidery of flowers,
Sat a girl, half child, half maiden, dreaming o'er the future hours,
Wond'ring simply, yet half guessing, what the harem women mean
When they call her fair, and whisper, "You are born to be a queen."
Curving her small palms like petals, for a store of glistening spray,
Gazing in the sunny water, where her rippling shadow lay,
Lips that ripen fast for kisses, slender form of budding grace,
Hair that frames with ebon softness a clear, oval, ivory face.
Arched and fringed with velvet blackness, from their shady depths her eyes
Shine as summer lightning flashes in the dusky evening skies.
Mihr un-nissa (queen of women), so they call the little maid
Dreaming by the marble fountain where but yesterday she played.
Heavy-sweet the creamy blossoms gem the burnished orange-groves;
Through their bloom comes Prince Jehangir, on his wrist two fluttering doves.
"Hold my birds, child!" cries the stripling, "I am tired of their play"--
Thrusts them in her hand unwilling; careless saunters on his way.
Culling posies as he wanders from the flowers sweet and rare,
Heedless that the fairest blossom, 'mid the blaze of blossom there,
Is the little dreaming maiden, by the fountain-side at rest,
With the onyx-eyed, bright-plumaged birds of love upon her breast.
Flowers fade, and perfume passes; nothing pleases long to-day;
Back towards his feathered favourites soon the prince's footsteps stray.
Dreaming still sits Mihr-un-nissa, but within her listless hold
Only one fair struggling captive does the boy, surprised, behold.
"Only one?" he queried sharply. "Sire," she falters, "one has flown."
"Stupid! how?" The maiden flushes at the proud, imperious tone.
"So, my lord!" she says, defiant, with a scornful smile, and straight
From her unclasped hands the other, circling, flies to join his mate.
Startled by her quick reprisal, wrath is lost in blank surprise;
Silent stands the heir of Akbar, gazing with awakening eyes
On the small, rebellious figure, with its slender arms outspread,
Rising resolute before him 'gainst the sky of sunset red.
Heavy-sweet the creamy blossom gems the gloomy orange-tree,
Where the happy doves are cooing o'er their new-found liberty.
Slowly dies the flush of anger, as the flush of evening dies;
Slowly grow his eyes to brightness, as the stars in evening skies.
"So, my lord!" So Love had flitted from the listless hold of Fate,
And the heart of young Jehangir, like the dove, had found its mate.
[SHURFU THE ZAILDAR][[13]]
Then you'll give me a character, won't you? and say I'm a first-class zaildâr.
Not a man of them's done half so much as old Shurfu to please the Sirkâr.
Why, I've brought you full forty "suspected ones"; that isn't bad as a haul.
Look you! forty "suspected ones" present, and gone bail myself for them all.
And a word, sahib--for your ear alone--if you'd like me to bring a few more,
Just to make a round fifty on paper, and show that the work's to the fore--
Bismillah! they never shall say, while old Shurfu is one of the crew,
That his district sahib's schedules were shaky for want of a budmâsh[[14]] or two.
And what do I think of the system? Why, just what the Presence may choose;
But a good cattle-thief nowadays must look after his p's and his q's.
There are many more folk to be squared, and the hire of the bail to be paid;
But it makes the lads three times as careful, and raises the style of a raid.
Still the game, as a game, is no more; for your reign has been death to all sport.
E'en a cattle-thief thinks like a banker, and scarcely gives honour a thought.
'Tis mere money grub--pennies and farthings. What I in my youth you have heard
Was a noted--O fie on the Presence! It shouldn't believe such a word.
There are twenty-three schools in my circle; I pay all the Government fees!
I've made a canal and a garden! I've planted some thousands of trees!
I've headed the lists and subscriptions! I've tried queer new crops on my land!
Not a village of mine owns a dung-heap! My mares are all Government brand!
Not a hobby his district sahib's ridden, but Shurfu has ridden it too;
Though the number of sahibs has been awful, and every one's hobby was new.
Well, I don't mind a glass, since there's nobody nigh; you won't tell, I'll engage.
True! the Prophet forbids; but he didn't know brandy, and wasn't my age.
When a man turns of eighty, there ain't many sins he has strength to commit,
So his day-book can stand a few trifles. Aye, wine wakes the mem'ry a bit.
As for Fuzla, we've all heard of Fuzla--the best cattle-thief in Punjâb--
Pooh! you don't mean to say he ne'er met with a match on this side of Chenâb?
I could tell you a story--well, half a glass more--but I'd best hold my tongue.
So Mian Fuzla had never his match! come, that's good! Why, when we were both young--
What the deuce am I saying? Jehannam be mine, but I cannot keep still!
I'll tell how I swam the Chenâb in full flood! Yes, by Allah! I will.
Mian Fuzla had squared th' police on his side of the stream, as one can
With good luck; but my cowards were cautious, and hadn't the pluck of a man;
So Mian Fuzla got up in the bottle and sent me a message to say
He had fifty-three head of my cattle, and when would I take them away?
Now the waters were out, so the boast was scarce fair; but I took up the glove,
And with Môkhun and Dittu to help, that same night crossed the river above
While they thought all secure; but it wasn't! So dawn found us stealing along
With a herd of a hundred she buffaloes, all of them lusty and strong.
Well, we made for the river, through tamarisk jungle and tussocks of grass,
And narrow-pathed tangle of jhau that would scarce let a buffalo pass,
With our thoughts on the footsteps behind, till the first level streak of the light
Brought us down to the stream; and, by God! it had risen ten feet in the night!
'Twas a broad, yellow plain, shining far in the rays of the sun as it rose,
And a cold wind swept over the flood that came hurrying down from the snows
With a swift, silent current in eddying swirls--not a sound, not a dash
Save a sudden, dull thud, as the bank, undermined, tumbled in with a splash.
Then we looked at each other in silence; the looks of the others said "No."
But I thought of that challenge of Fuzla's, and made up my mind I would go,
Though I knew that the odds were against me; so, bidding the cowards turn back,
With a few of the beasts on their traces and try hard to deaden the track--
For 'twas time, it was time that I wanted--I drove the rest down to the brink,
But the brutes wouldn't take to the water; they loved life too well not to shrink.
So I took a young calf from its mother--'twas cruel, but what did I reck?
And butchered the brute with my hanger, and fastened my pug round its neck,
Then I dragged it right into the water, and buoyed it up well round the throat
With a bundle of grasses and reeds that would keep the dead body afloat.
I thought of that challenge of Fuzla's; then turned and struck out like a man,
While the mother leaped after her young one, and all the rest followed the van.
The flood swept me down like a leaf, and the calf swept me farther down still,
But I knew 'twas a life or death struggle, and breasted the stream with a will;
While the hope I could lead the beasts on, till 'twas safer before than behind,
And the fear lest Mian Fuzla should win, were the only two thoughts in my mind.
It was half a yard forward to half a mile downward, yet still I made way,
While behind, in a long single file, the black heads of the buffaloes lay,
Till I knew we had reached the big stream, and that now there was no going back;
Then I gave one faint shout, and I cast off the dead calf, and let myself slack.
So we drifted, and drifted, and drifted. I strove to recover my breath,
But a numbness came over my heart, and I knew I was drifting to death,
As the big, heavy beasts were swept past by the terrible force of the stream,
And the whole world seemed slipping away, as I swam on alone in a dream.
Then I wondered how Fuzla would take it, and how many miles I had come;
Or guessed what the people would say when days passed and I never came home--
Till it came to me, as in a dream, that the current was setting in shore;
And after that, sahib, it is strange I could never recall any more.
Only this I can tell you: we measured it after, from starting to end,
And the distance was over ten miles by the straight, without counting the bend.
So Mian Fuzla was beat; and sent me a pugri with knots which his women had tied,
And the song of the "Crossing of Shurfu" is known through the whole countryside.
Wâh! illâh! How my tongue has been wagging, and I the zaildâr! But in sooth
'Tis dull work for old Shurfu compared to the merry, mad days of his youth.
Ji salaam! And whatever you want, send for Shurfu the zaildâr; and, sahib,
You'll remember that Fuzla once met with his match on this side of Chenâb!