One--two--three--four--five--six--seven--eight--nine--ten--eleven!
The clasp of a snake is cold, but the clasp of death is colder; and coldest of all, the warm clinging clasp of a rose, holding him tighter and tighter when the knife flashed out of the dark. "Let me go," he shrieked in his terror, but the thorns of the rose held fast, the warm blood staining her bosom as she waited for death in her turn. Then lights and an uproar, and, lo! instead of the stranger the Rani's own lover was dead.
Dead! who grieves when a snake is dead?
Men are glad that its power has fled.
They laugh in their sleeve.
Yet was there crying and shouting, and noise bringing warning to all, reaching the moon in the heavens, the sun in its rising,--hastening its flight from the east, to its home in the arms of the west. Is not that the course of the sun? Leaving the cast with a smile; leaving the rose and the nightingale? Yea! 'tis the course of the sun.
Hai, for the Rose, the Singing-Rose!
Hai, for the nightingale.
Yet who kills his own pleasure? Who kills the bulbul in the rose? No! they cut its wings, they prison it, they bid it sing; sing with a blood-stained heart when the sun shines on other roses. So it sang, waiting always for the kiss which never came. Pillar of Justice, from the land of the western sun, say! did the Rose deserve the kiss which never came? Hath she not waited long enough for the promised kiss?
The song ceased as abruptly as it began, and Smith-Jones, distinctly disappointed at its want of historical value, thanked the old lady politely. It appeared to him confused and bewildering; nevertheless part of it might be twisted into some semblance of a myth. The sun was frequently mentioned, and the chiming of the hours pointed conclusively to the swallowing up of darkness by light, and vice-versâ. And--by Jove, that must be Dittu returning with the horse!
It was; Dittu, the horse, a bundle of green wheat, and a very broad grin--all of which common objects relieved Smith-Jones, who, to say sooth, felt out of his element lying on his back and being fanned by an old mummy. In his more collected mood it struck him as undignified. He blushed a little, rose hastily, and prepared to mount his horse and depart at once. With this intention, proceeding to rummage in his pockets for a rupee, which with a courteously intended grunt he tendered to the old woman. She might have been a graven image for all the notice she took of him or his coin. The hand holding the fan rested on her lap, her eyes were half-closed.
"The Presence wastes time. He had better give the bucksheesh to me," remarked Dittu, grinning again. "The old mother is nigh stone-deaf and blind. She sits so all day, never saying a word save her prayers. She is a real pious one. Hai, Hai, what misfortune! The stirrup of the Protector of the Poor is broken. God send the iron may be lying in the sand where the base-born beast fell!"
Smith-Jones's puzzled, perturbed look, as he watched Dittu on his knees searching for the missing stirrup-iron, may have been due to anxiety lest he should have to walk six miles into camp. On the other hand, he may have been wondering if the fall had seriously injured his brain; anyhow there was an unusual air of doubt about him when Dittu's grin and the iron came out of the sand together with the remark that, if the Presence would sit down and wait a while, he, Dittu, had some string with which a splice of the broken strap could be made in a minute or two. Meanwhile, as the Presence no longer required the pillow, he would e'en cover up the old mother again with the veil he had taken from her. It was more decent like; and she was a decent old creature, despite the fancy she had to wear those gay garments of her youth. So the white veil was wound about the faded finery, leaving nothing visible but the waxen face with its half-closed eyes.