"For the elders. From the South to the North. From the East to the West."
"Wherefore?" The brief reply held vague curiosity; no more. The cake had already changed hands, unchallenged.
"God knows. It came to us from Goloowallah with the message as I gave it. Thy folk will pass it on?"
"Likely; when the day's work is done. How go the crops thy way? Here, as thou seest, 'tis God's dew on God's grain."
"With us also. There will be marriages galore this May."
"Ay! if this bring naught." The speaker nodded toward the cake which now lay on the ground between them, for they had inevitably squatted down to take alternate pulls at a pipe. "What can it bring?"
"God knows," replied the host in his turn. So the two, with that final reference in their minds, sat looking dully at the chupatti as if it were some strange wild fowl. Sat silently, as men will do over a pipe, till a clinking of anklets and a chatter of feminine voices came round the corner, and the foremost woman of the troop on their way to the tank drew her veil close swiftly at sight of a stranger. Yet her voice came as swiftly. "What news, brother? What news?"
"None for thee, Mother Kirpo," answered the resident watchman tartly. "'Tis for the elders."
The titterings and tossings of veiled heads at this snub to the worst gossip in the village, ended in an expectant pause as a very old woman, with a fine-cut face which had long since forsworn concealment, stepped up to the watchmen, and squatting down beside them, raised the cake in her wrinkled hands.
"From the North to the South or the South to the North. From the East to the West or the West to the East. Which?" she asked, nodding her old head.