There was distinct raillery in the last words, and the young Englishman's smile vanished.
"We people hold not with essences," he said curtly; adding to the girl, "Come, dear, I think we really ought to go back, your father will be wanting to go home--he has a lot of work, I know--"
A shuffle in the bushes made the lovers pause, a curious shuffle such as a wounded bird makes in its efforts to escape.
"If the most noble will tarry, this slave will at least make the luck-offering to the bride," came the voice again, and to point its meaning the delicate brown hand held up a circular shallow basket heaped with rose-petals. Heaped so lightly, that the hand held it level, and it seemed to glide on the top of the bushes, heralding the grizzled head which slid after it with a faintly undulating movement.
The cause of this became clear when the limit of the roses was reached.
Hushmut the essence-maker must have been a cripple from birth. The loose blue cloth, such as gardeners wear knotted round their loins like a petticoat, hid, however, all deformity, even when he clambered up the marble edge of the old water-way, and shuffled with sidelong jerks along the path to the pink muslin flounces.
The wearer's eyes grew soft suddenly. The mystery of such births came home to the woman who was so soon to be a wife, perhaps a mother.
She gave him a mother's look anyhow; the look of almost passionate pity a woman gives to a child's deformity.
Perhaps he saw it. Anyhow he paused; then, with his bold black eyes twinkling, held out the basket.
"A handful, Huzoor, for luck!" he cried.