I had seen Bannerman wear it a hundred times, but I had never seen the inscription engraved inside.
"Thy lips, oh! beloved Life, are nectar."
It was a quotation from the Krishna or Prem Sâgar!
[A TOURIST TICKET][[30]]
"Dost forget, brother, that it is the Fast?" said Raheem, as with gentle, determined hand he pushed the leaf-cup of sweets further from the board on which his tools lay. There were not many of them, though the inlaid work upon the sandal-wood comb he was making showed delicate as lace. It suited the delicate hands employed upon it; in a way also it suited the delicate brain behind the high narrow forehead, which had a look of ill-health about the temples, where the thick, coarse, black hair was also delicately streaked with silver; sure sign, in a land where grayness is long deferred, of a troubled body or mind. Raheem had barely touched middle age; in his case the trouble seemed to be in both body and mind, to judge by his hollow eyes and the expression in them as they rested on a younger man, who sat, as a visitor, on the plinth of the combmaker's shop. His feet were in the gutter, and his handsome head was nodding gaily to various acquaintances in the steady stream of passers-by; for the odd little shop was wedged into the outer angle of a sharp bend in the narrow bazaar, so that as Raheem sat working at his scented combs he could see both ways--could see all the world, coming and going, from dawn till dark.
Hoshyar laughed, nodding his handsome head once more: "Yea! I forgot that thou dost fast for both of us, and pray for both of us. Mayhap in the end, brother, thou mayest have to go to Paradise for both of us, despite all thy pains."
The busy hand ceased to work in a gesture of negation. "Say not such things, Hoshyar. We go together, or go not at all. Thou knowest that was my promise to the dead."
Hoshyar ate another comfit before replying with a shrug of the shoulders: "'Twas not on stamped paper, though, and promises are naught nowadays without it. 'Tis bad policy to be over-pious, brother. As all know, the saint's beard goes in relics, and to tell truth, I would be better pleased to leave Paradise to those who wish for it. The world suits me. I was not born to be religious, as thou wert."
The comb-maker looked at him with a sort of perplexed patience. "God knows His own work," he said in a low voice. "The Potter makes; the World fills. I remember when thou first wentest to school, Hoshyar, how thou didst weep because it prevented thee from prayer-time. And at the festivals,--dost remember, brother, thou hadst a little coat of brocade? Mother cut it from our father's old one she cherished so----"
"Old tales, old tales!" interrupted Hoshyar, rising with another shrug of his shoulders. "If thou hadst wished me to continue in them, why didst send me to school to learn new ones? Why didst not make me a comb-carver instead of a clerk? Then might I have saved money, as thou hast, gone on the great pilgrimage, as thou hast, and worn a green turban like thine to show it, as thou dost----"