"Peace? oh yea! let there be peace between us." laughed the courtesan, as she sank down on the dusty step of the dais, and put the light beside her. But her wide eyes belied her light words.
Fear sate behind their glitter, watching wickedly; and every subtle sense sought for some means of escape, some method of cajolery. "Wherefore not," she rattled on. "Lo! I give you in his Monkey-Majesty! He is not a man after my heart. Yet, I would not his enemies got the better of him, as they will do. What! hast not heard? He challenged them this day to write failure across a promise of his, or change across his mind. From dawn to dawn it was. And see you, Âto" the hurried palpitating voice steadied, as the wild search for some false trail happened upon one. "Thou art the King's Châran and must warn him! They have sent poison out to the paralysed profligate at Shâkin-garh--he will be burnt at dawn and with him the girl whose râm-rucki the King wears. There is small time to lose, Âto--I know it, I tell thee--I heard it from their lips--go thou, then, with warning."
She leant forward; her face full of guileful, beguileful beauty, close to the grave level brows that met in a steady frown.
"Aye! I will go, Siyâl--but not without the King's Luck. Give it me. Thou hast it in thy bosom--thy hand has hovered there. Give it me, I say." She essayed to grip those fluttering fingers but Siyah Yamin was on her feet in a second, and stood back, swaying unsteadily, one hand clasped to her heart.
"I--lo! it is not true. 'Tis something here that hurts"--she beat her breast sharply. "Be not so rough, Âto! Thou wert always rough as a man. Lo! in the old days it was I, little Siyâla who was to marry Âtma Singh, and now--now--Sher Khân." she paused, tore off her dandified turban, and let the great plaits and coils of her hair fall loose. "See I am woman again, and thou--thou art man! And, Âto, hist! Knowest thou why I came back here to-night?--would I had never come. It was to find the broken pieces of the glass goblet I broke." Her small face melted almost to tears, the babyish lips trembled over the words. "Yea! Yea! it is true. I came for them!--I was going away--for ever--and I remembered. Lo! Âto, a woman always remembers her first lover, even if she be courtezan. Yea! thou wilt remember the King, so have pity! What! dost not believe? Lo! I was looking when thou camest, and frightened me into putting out the light. See here if I lie." With her right hand she tore something out of her bosom and shifting it swiftly to her left held it out. It was a curved fragment of the blown-glass goblet which had fallen with a crash upon a rosebush, whose red wine of Shirâz had trickled thirstily to the rose's root.
Twined upon it in golden tracery lay part of its legend--
Take the cup of Life with laughing lip,
Forget the bleeding heart within.
She caught at the words hysterically. "So have I taken Life, Âto, as all women should; I have drunken heart's blood. Âto! touch me not! or before God I---- What dost seek, madwoman?
"The King's Luck, harlot! Thou hast it in thy bosom. Give it me, or----"
They were locked in each other's arms, but Âtma Devi was a second too late, for Siyah Yamin had drawn something besides a broken glass-sherd from her bosom, and her right hand with a flash of steel in it rose high, then fell on the Châran's broad breast. Âtma staggered under the blow, but the poniard blade crashing on the collar bone turned aside upward and cleft the muscles of the neck harmlessly. She had the weapon wrested from the small hand in a second, and her voice, breathless from exertion yet steady, went on relentlessly.