This was not all malice and uncharitableness on the usurer's part; for it must be remembered that, if we know very little of Indian social life, the natives know still less of ours; the result being, on both sides, the explanation of strange phenomena by our own familiar experience; and this is not, as a rule, a safe guide in conditions of which we know nothing.
Afzul gave a guttural snort, startling but expressive. "She married Raby! Truly it is said 'The journeyings of fools are best not made.' And Marsden sahib--long life to him!--was her lover! Inshallah! she might have found a worse."
"Before the worms got him," chuckled Shunker; "and then his money was worth another fine man. That is woman's way, white or black."
"Raby sahib's mem," repeated Afzul meditatively. "There thou speakest truth, O Shunker. He is with her now." The memory of those two, standing together hand in hand, came to him and he nodded his head approvingly, for the thought that Belle's allegiance might return to its original object commended itself to his mind; his view of the subject not being occidental.
"Who is with her now?" asked Shunker with a stare.
"Marsden sahib. Hast not heard he hath come back to life?"
The usurer's eyes almost started from his head. "Come back!" he shrieked. "He is not dead! Oh holy Lukshmi! what offerings to thy shrine! Why, the shaitan will lose the money; he will have to give up the business; and I--oh Gunesh-ji! I am revenged, I am revenged!" He lay back on his bed gasping, gurgling, choking with spiteful laughter and real passionate delight.
The Pathan scowled. His knowledge of English law was limited, and he objected to laughter at Marsden sahib's expense. "If he gave it to the mem for what he got, as thou sayest, Shunker, Marsden sahib will never ask it back. He will take the woman instead; that is but fair."
"Thou dost not understand their crooked ways," gasped Shunker; "and 'tis waste of time to explain. So Marsden sahib is alive again; that is news indeed! Hurri Gunga! I must go down to Saudaghur and felicitate the shaitan on his friend's return. He! he! on his friend's return!"
Afzul felt the longing of the frontiersman to stick a knife in a fat Hindu stomach, but he refrained. The blue envelope was going to be a heavier responsibility than he had thought for, and till that was settled he must not wander into by-ways. No matter how the pig-faced idolater had lied in other things, it was true, about the mem and the Major, he had seen that with his own eyes. Had Dick sahib been her lover too? And what did both those brave ones see in such a poor, thin creature? Truly the ways of the sahib-logue were past finding out. Nevertheless he would seek out the old Khân, and see what he said. Shunker might be lying, all except that about the mem-sahib and the Major; that was true.