"Faiz-Ahmed found freedom at dawn," said one between her yawns. "He was long in the throes. The bibis made a great wailing, so I could not even sleep since then. There are no sons, see you, and no money now the old man's annuity is gone."
"Loh, sister!" retorted another, "thou speakest as if death were a morsel of news to let dissolve on the tongue. There be plenty such soppets in Delhi, and if I know aught of wounds there will be another at nightfall. My mistress wastes time in the pounding of simples, and I waste time in waiting for them till my turn comes at the shop; for if it be not gangrened, I have no eyes." The speaker jerked her pot to her shoulder deftly and passed down the alley.
"Juntu is wise in such matters," said a worn-looking woman with sad eyes; "I must get her to glance at my man's cut. 'Tis right to my mind--he will put naught but water to it, after some foreign fashion--but who can tell these times?"
"Save that none pass their day, sister. Death will come of the Great Sickness, or the wound, as it chooses," put in a half-starved soul who had to carry a baby besides her pot. "The cholera rages in our alley. 'Tis the smell. None sweep the streets or flush the gutters now."
"Ari, Fukra!" cried a fierce virago, "thou art a traitor at heart! She bewails the pig-eating infidels who gave her man five rupees a month to bring water to the drains. Ai teri! If they saved one life from good cholera, have they not reft a hundred in exchange from widows and orphans? Oo-ai-ie-ee!"
Her howling wail, like a jackal's, was caught up whimperingly by the others; and so they passed on with their water pots, to spread through the city the tale of Faiz-Ahmed's freedom, Juntu's suspicions of gangrene, and Kartina the butcher's big wife's retort. And, in the evening, folk gathered at the gates, and talked over it all again as the funerals passed out; old Faiz-Ahmed, in his new gold shoes, looking better as a corpse, tied up in tinsel, than as a martyr, so the spectators agreed. Whereat his family had their glow of pride also.
Then, when the show was over, the crowd dispersed to pay visits of condolence, and raise the wailing vox humana in every alley.
Greatly to Jim Douglas' relief, for there was another voice difficult to keep quiet when the cool evenings came, and all Kate's replies in Hindustani would not beguile Sonny's tongue from English. He was the quaintest mother's darling now, in a little tinsel cap fringed with brown silk tassels hiding that dreadful gangway, anklets, and bracelets on his bare corn-colored limbs, the ruddy color showing through the dye on his cheeks, his palms all henna-stained, his eyes blackened with kohl, and a variety of little tinsel and brocaded cootees ending far above his dimpled knees. There were little muslin and net ones too, cunningly streaked with silver and gold, for Tara was reckless over the boy. She insisted, too, on a great black smudge on his forehead to keep away the evil eye; and Soma, coming now with the greatest regularity, brought odd little coral and grass necklets such as Rajpoot bairns ought to wear; while Tiddu, the child's great favorite, had a new toy every day for the little Huzoor. Paper whirligigs, cotton-wool bears on a stick, mud parrots, and such like, whereat Sonny would lisp, "Thâ bath, Tiddu." Though sometimes he would go over to Kate and ask appealingly, "Miffis Erlton! What has a-come of my polly?"
Then she, startled into realities by the words, would catch him up in her arms, and look around as if for protection to Jim Douglas, who, having overdone himself in the struggle with Tiddu, had felt it wiser to defer further action for a day or two. The more so because Tiddu had promised to help him to the uttermost if he would only be reasonable and leave times and seasons to one who had ten times the choice that he had.
So he would smile back at Kate and say, "It's all right, Mrs. Erlton. At least as right as it can be. The lot of them are devoted to the child."