"Nay, brothers," interrupted a third hastily in a lower voice, "mayhap she is one of the saintly women, and----"
A laugh checked the speech. "So much the better. What doth a saint here?"
Some one had barred the doorway with thrust-out arm, and half a dozen others with jeering faces lounged against the wall crying languidly, "Unveil, unveil." But Yâsmin's arms clasped close. "I will go," she panted. "I will go with her. She,--she is my mother."
Chambelé's titter rang high and shrill. "Wâh! That is a tale! See you, friends; her mother hath been dead five years. Enough of this, little fool! Thou hast made thy choice already; there is no place for thee yonder with the saints."
"She hath her mother's," cried Fakr-un-nissa, freeing herself from Yâsmin's hold with new strength, born of the girl's words. "Lo, she speaks truth, my sister! I stand in her mother's shoes. Let her go in peace, and she shall have them surely."
Something in the urbane polish of her speech awoke memory in the men, and one, older than the rest, said with a frown, "Yea, 'tis enough, Chambelé; let the woman go, and the child also if she wish it. She will come back another day if she be of this sort; if not, there are others."
"But not without a ransom," interrupted one with an evil face and evil eyes which had seen enough of Yâsmin's figure beneath the veil to think her presence gave unwonted piquancy to the business.
"Yea, a ransom, a ransom for coming here, and spoiling pleasure! Let the saint pay the price of the sinner; unveil! unveil!" cried half a dozen jeering voices.
The sunshine without streamed through the arches in broad bands upon the floor, but Fakr-un-nissa's tall muffled figure stood in shadow by the door. A fighting quail was calling boastfully from a shrouded cage over the way; the cries of the noisy bazaar floated up to the balcony, a harmonious background to Chambelé's noisier laugh. Then, suddenly, came a step forward into the sunlight, and the heavy white veil fell in billowy curves like a cloud about Fakr-un-nissa's feet. For the first time in her life Glory-of-Woman stood unsheltered from the gaze of men's eyes. And those eyes saw something worth seeing, despite her fifty and odd years: a woman beautiful in her age, graceful as ever in the sweeping white draperies of the graceful Delhi dress; but a woman forgetful utterly of the womanhood, even of the motherhood in her, as with one swift outspreading of the arms she broke into the opening lines of the Mursiâh, that dirge of martyred virtue which is as closely interwoven with all that is best in the life of a Mussulman as "Hark, the herald angels sing!" is with the Christian's tender memories of home; a dirge sacred to the day and the hour; a dirge forgotten by this new world. Fakr-un-nissa remembered nothing else. Many and many a time listless indifferent hearts had responded to the fervour of her declamation; women's hearts, it is true, and that was a woman's derisive laugh! But above it rose a man's swift curse commanding silence for all save that skilful voice; and not silence only--for that was a sigh! So the cadences rang truer and stronger out into the sunlight making the passers-by pause to listen.
"An Assemblage at Chambelé's house!" sneered some one. "That is a sinner's ransom indeed."