But then Shâhbâsh was bucklered against bitter thoughts by an ingenious theory accounting for his own ill looks. A fairy, he held, had fallen in love with him as a babe, when (as might be augured from his name, which meant 'Well done! Bravo!') he must have been possessed of extraordinary beauty. Her jealous determination to keep his perfections to herself had attained its object in roundabout fashion, by preventing the eyes of others seeing him as he really was. Hence the distortion lay with them.
"I would thine eyes were as sharp for the future as they are for the present," he said, thoughtfully, leaning on his adze-like shovel.
"'Twere better they were sharp enough to see through dust," she answered, smiling broadly into the grave at her feet. "So thou didst not find it after all, Shâhbâsh."
"Not a cowrie, not a dumri! And I swear 'tis into the tenth dozen of graves I have dug--with texts of the holy Koran pouring from me the while without stint. Good sound texts, hard as melted solder on a body's teeth. And to no good, except to pave a blessed bed for another sinner. For they pay worse and worse, mai Suttu. When old Feroz Shah buried his son, last week, he left but a rupee's worth of clothes on the corpse for perquisite. Look you! If I take not the very winding-sheet which decency would leave e'en to the dead, thou and the holy saint yonder will starve--to say naught of servant Shâhbâsh, who needs muscle to sow men in this hard soil."
He let his shovel fall on the hard ground to show how it echoed to the clang.
Suttu laughed. "If dead men do not pay, there are the dates still. They will ripen ere long."
"Aye, but how long can they be kept? If the saint dies without speaking, the others will find their tongues. A woman needs gold--or a man. Thou wilt have neither unless thou wilt give up the religious vow and marry the Kâzi's son. He is willing."
Suttu laughed.
"So are others that be not pock-marked and one eye to boot."
"Tobah! And thou virtuous and a widow! Lo, he is a man, and beauty is not safe for us. Was not I, Shâhbâsh, the handsomest--"