The secret of the perfume of the rose?"
As the song ended, a head showed above the tufted bushes. It was rather a fine head; bare of covering, its long grizzled hair parted in the middle lying in a smooth outward curve on the high narrow forehead, then sweeping in an equal inside curve between the ear and throat. So much, no more, was to be seen above the roses, save, for a moment, a long-fingered, delicate brown hand hiding the face in its salaam.
"Who the shaitan are you?" asked the young man fiercely in Hindustani.
The head and hand met in a second salaam, then the face showed; rather a fine face, preternaturally grave, but with a cunning comprehension in its gravity.
"I am Hushmut the essence-maker, Huzoor," was the reply. "I belong to the garden, and, being hidden from the noble people in my occupation of plucking roses for my still, I sang to let them know."
The young Englishman gave a half-embarrassed laugh.
"What does he say?" asked the girl. She had only been two months in India, and these had been spent in falling in love.
"He thought we might like to know he was there, that's all--a joke, isn't it?" answered her lover. She smiled, and so holding each other's hands boldly they stood facing that head above the roses.
It nodded cheerfully.
"The Huzoors are doubtless about-to-marry persons," came the voice. "It is not always so, even with the Huzoors. But this being different, if they require essences for the bridal let them come to Hushmut. Rose, jasmine, orange, sandal, lemon grass. I make them all in their season. Yea, even 'wylet'[[4]] which the memi love. It is not really banafsha, Huzoor; they grow not in the plains. I make it from the babul blossom, and none could tell the difference. Mayhap there is none, since He who makes the perfume of the flowers in His still, may send the same to many blossoms, as I send my essences to many lovers; even the noble people!"