An ineffectual murmur came from the dust.
"May pigs devour my thighs."
The dust had evidently got into the speaker's mouth, for the words became more and more inaudible, as the stern young teacher went on:
"My heart rot carrion wise,
My liver be eaten with flies,
My lights blown up with sighs,
Myself, my son, and all that I prize
Burn in a fire that never dies
If ever I open my lips to say
The things I have heard and have seen to-day."
"So!" said Mihr-un-nissa when the formula was over, "that's done. And as for thee?" she passed quickly to Âtma Devi, who, half stunned by the swift mastery with which the girl had taken the whole business out of her hands, still stood leaning blankly against the blank wall and looked her curiously in the eyes. "Why wouldst thou not tell? And wherefore didst thou steal the diamond?"
Then as she stood childishly curious, comprehension came to her and she smiled half-contemptuously half-mysteriously.
"So, thou also lookest a slave," she said, "poor slave!"
But as she and Fâtima went whisperingly down the stairs, the faint clatter of their loose slippers mingling like castanets amid the soft swishing of silk, the jingling of jewels, she paused to listen to a bird-like voice singing:
Love dost live in the red rose garden?
Love dost grow from a red rose root?
Dost set thy springe with th' boughs that harden
Or twine it soft with the young green shoot?
Love! dost thou lurk in the red rose-bud?
Love! is thy throne in the rose-heart's crown?
Love! does the perfume of red rose flood
In on the soul till the senses drown?
Nay!