"The mouse began to gnaw the rope. The rope began to bend the ox. The ox began----" hummed the prince irreverently.
Newâsi stamped her foot. "But it is true, scoffer! There is a festival of it to-day in some idol temple--may it be defiled! The widow would have burned, after sinful custom, but was prevented by the Huzoors. And rightly. Yet, God knows--seeing the poor soul had to burn sometime through being an idolater--they might have let her burn with her love----"
Abool laughed softly. "And yet thou wilt have naught of Hafiz--Hafiz the love-lorn! Verily, Newâsi, thou art true woman."
She ignored the interruption. "So being hindered she went to Benares, and there this fire fell on her through prayer, and burned hands and feet----"
"But not her face," cried Prince Abool, thrumming the muted strings and making them sound like a tom-tom. "I'll wager my best pigeon, not her face, if she be a good-looking wench! And since fire follows on other things besides prayer, she was a fool not to get it, like me, through pleasure instead. To burn a virgin! What a dreary tale! Look not so shocked, Newâsi! a man must enjoy these presents, when folk around him waste half the time in dreaming of a future--of something better to come--as thou dost----" He paused, and a soft eager ring came to his voice. "If thou couldst only forget all that--forget who I might be in the years to come--forget what thou wouldst have been had my respected uncle not preferred peace to pleasure--for it never came to pass, remember, it never came to pass--then we two, you and I----" He paused again, perhaps at the sudden shrinking in her eyes, and gave a restless laugh. "As 'tis, the present must suffice," he added lightly, "and even so thou dost mourn for what I might be if the grace of God took me unawares. Thou hast caught the dreaming trick, mayhap, from the Prince of Dreamers yonder."
He moved over to the outer parapet and waved his hand toward Hussan Askuri's house. Then his vagrant attention turned swiftly to something which he could see in a peep of bazaar visible from this new point of view.
"Three, four, five trays of sweetstuffs! and one of milk and butter," he cried eagerly, "and by my corn-merchant's bill--which I must pay soon or starve--the carriers are palace folk! Is there, by chance, a marriage in the clan? Why didst not tell me before, Newâsi? then I could have gone as musician and earned a few rupees."
He gave a flourish of his bow, so drawing forth a lugubrious wail from the long-necked fiddle.
"No marriage that I wot of," she replied, smiling fondly over his heedless gayety. "The trays will be going to the Pir-sahib's house. They have gone every Thursday these few weeks past, ever since the Queen took ill on hearing the answer about the heirship. She vowed it then every week, so that the holy man's prayer might bring success to our cousin of Persia in this war. God save the very dust of it from the winds of misfortune so long as dust and wind exist," she added piously.
Prince Abool-Bukr turned round on her sharply with anxiety in his face.