Until a day came--after not many days--when with a face sad from the sight of bitter grief that he could understand, the sense of his absolute helplessness before the mystery of this man's nature made the doctor feel inclined to throw pity to the winds and fall back on sheer common sense. After all the man was a murderer; and if he had been fond of the child--what then? Such criminals were often men of strong affections.
Yet once again, the sight of the submissive, salaaming figure, the sound of the wistful yet calm voice made him answer as usual. The child was better. The hanging would doubtless come ere long.
For once, however, Bisrâm did not accept the reply as final.
"The Huzoor means that it will not come today?" he asked quietly.
The doctor raised his eyebrows. "To-day? What made you think of to-day? Certainly not. There's no chance of it."
But he was wrong. Two hours afterwards the gaol overseer sent for him in a hurry, because Bisrâm had completed his sacrifice by strangling himself in his cell with his waistcloth. What else could he do, seeing that it was the last day of the year during which the propitiation of a sacrifice kept Kâli ma from revenge?
"Poor devil!" said the doctor, as he stood up after his useless examination. "I'm glad now I didn't tell him the child was dead."
[THE HALL OF AUDIENCE]
"This, gentlemen and respected sirs," said the blatant specimen of new India whom my friend Robbins had insisted on having as a guide to a ruined Rajput town, "is Hall of Common Audience, in more colloquial phrase, Court of Justice, built two, ought, six before Christ B.C. by Great Asoka, mighty monarch of then united Hindustan, full of Manu wisdoms, and sacred Veda occultations--"
Then I gave in. "For God's sake, Robbins," I said, "take away that fool or I shall kill him. A man who be-plasters even the Deity with university degrees is intolerable here."