She smote her hands together again impotently as she ran, this time toward the roof which she had left too long. That feeling of neglected duty strangely enough, overmastered all others. She must go back to her immediate charge. Once there she would have time to think what she must do to find out the truth. For she must find it even if she had to go to the King himself tell him all and then repay herself for treachery by the death dagger.
But what she found awaiting her on the roof drove these thoughts from her mind for a time; only for a time--that Time which meant nothing to one brought up as she had been, in a philosophy which counts the past, the present, the future as one. For in India there is no hurry about anything; the wisdom of Isaiah is in every mouth, "He that believeth shall not make haste."
Yet as she joined in the woman's wailing over Zarîfa--for the news of death spreads quickly, and the neighbours troop in as to a festival--a dull wonder lay at the back of her brain, a vague resentment at her own ignorance.
In truth the resentment was scarcely justifiable, since many others concerned in the incident were feeling the same dull surprise.
The conspirators first of all, who found themselves once more deprived of their point d'appui. And Khodadâd the arch-plotter was strangely silent, strangely lacking in suggestion. As the day wore on, indeed he withdrew petulantly from all conclave, and taking Mirza Ibrahîm with him, plunged into pleasure at Satanstown. For something in that scent of roses on the roof, something in the look of that face sleeping so peacefully upon the pillow, had roused memory; and memory in her long slumber had somehow, from some subliminal consciousness in that unknown ego of which Khodadâd Tarkhân was the outward and visible sign, associated herself with regret. He told himself, lightly, that it was the shock of seeing deformity where he had expected beauty, which had unnerved him; but it was not that. It was the ineffaceable memory of Beauty itself.
Then in the Palace where Umm Kulsum and Aunt Rosebody had sate in the little balcony outside the latter's private room all the morning, unable to feel joy over the merciful escape of the Most High and their scapegrace darling because of the probable loss of the turban with its talisman; yet unable to feel sufficient grief over the latter because of bubbling gladness over the Brotherhood between those two dear ones (a Brotherhood that nothing must disturb, not even self-seeking confession of sin) on to all this had followed a dull wonder as to what was to be done next. For after noonday prayers were over had come a despatch by hand from my Lord Birbal, Chief Constable of the Kingdom returning in due course of etiquette to the givers, the turban they had supposed lost. And what is more, when their anxious fingers had privilege to pry, there was the talisman also, safe and sound.
The shock of relief kept them both silent awhile; then Aunt Rosebody cracked all her knuckles vehemently.
"So goes care!" she cried, adding piously, "truly we might have trusted God! His club makes no noise, and what's in the pot comes on the plate."
Then her face clouded. "But what is to be done next Ummu?" she asked feebly. Umm Kulsum shook her head.
"We might give it back to the woman."