Coventry stood for a moment to steady his senses. The syce crawled from the trap, rubbing his leg, calling encouragement to the prostrate pony, blaming some omen of evil he had observed in the stables only that morning. It was evident, even in the uncertain light, that the trap was badly damaged; both shafts were broken, and Coventry realised that he would drive no farther that night.
By now a small crowd had collected, men and youths chiefly of the Babu persuasion, wearing muslin shawls and embroidered pork-pie caps. They gazed with relish at the spectacle of a white man in a rather undignified quandary, and none of them offered to help while sahib and syce busied themselves with the pony.
Attracted by the little commotion, a woman emerged on to a balcony above, and stood looking down on the group. From the room behind her someone brought out a lamp and held it aloft, so that the woman's face became suddenly visible to those in the street below.
Coventry looked up involuntarily, and his attention was held, riveted, for, though not young, the woman was fair, most strangely fair, in her native dress and tinselled veil; and even the paint that was thick on her eyes and cheeks could not conceal her unusual beauty. Coventry guessed, with a sick conviction, that this was "the woman in the bazaar," the woman of whom he had heard.
Appalled by the certainty, he still peered upward, fascinated yet repelled; and softly the woman laughed--not only laughed, but threw something down that landed, lightly, at his feet. A hoarse murmur of comment went up from the onlookers; one of them, a weedy youth, picked the object up and tendered it to the sahib, exclaiming with insolent politeness: "Thou art favoured, heaven-born."
It was a bunch of crudely artificial violets, drenched with heavy scent that mingled with other odours of the suffocating night. Coventry recoiled as though the sham flowers, with their sickly perfume, had been a deadly reptile. Then he stepped forward, menace in his bearing, and the officious youth, with his companions, shrank, close-packed, from the wrath of the Englishman; only to be scattered by the noisy progress down the narrow street of a clumsy, scarlet-hooded vehicle on four wheels, drawn by a pair of powerful white bullocks. It was a wonderful conveyance, gold-braided, tasselled, lacquered, and the trappings of the animals were gay, and sown with bells. It drew up beneath the balcony on which, a moment ago, the woman had leaned and laughed. Now she had re-entered the lighted room behind her, and the venetian doors were closed.
"That is the rath [A] of Babu Chandra Das," remarked a bystander in a loud voice, for the crowd had collected again. "To-night he goes South, and the woman goes with him, for is he not rich? See, she comes forth."
[ [A] Bullock-carriage.
The worm-eaten door of the house was pulled half open from within, and an old and ugly native female staggered out bearing an armful of bundles. This, being unexpected, raised a laugh among the youths. During the little scene Coventry had stood by, feeling half-dazed, sickened with the sight and the scent of the violets, oppressed with a vague dread that burdened his body and spirit. He made an effort to turn to the syce and the pony that waited with drooping head and trailing harness; but something held him, kept him, as though his feet were weighted, till she came out--the woman he had seen on the balcony--and as she climbed into the red-hooded carriage her veil fell back, and the moonlight gleamed on her hair. It was then that full recognition struck at George Coventry's heart like the stab of a knife. The woman in the bazaar, who lived in the street of the dancers and such-like, who now drove away in the rath of Babu Chandra Das, was Rafella, his wife of the years that were over and dead.
His impulse was to run madly, blindly, after her, but horror paralysed his limbs, and he saw, as in an evil dream, the red hood with the swaying curtains disappear into the shadows.